Day 480: The Ribos Operation Part 1

Around five hundred days ago, I was quietly figuring out how this journey would take place. I'd created spreadsheets that would tell me when I would be watching each episode, casually thought of what I would write for certain episodes when I came to them, and created a set of rules to keep me on track for this odyssey. One such rule was simple: no skipping ahead. I am not allowed, aside from brand new episodes and under special circumstances, to skip ahead and watch an episode until it comes around on the blog. With that rule in mind, in late 2013, as the blog was about to begin, I watched the last Doctor Who story I would watch before the blog would begin: The Ribos Operation.

This is, to be perfectly blunt, one of my all time favourite Doctor Who stories. It's a a story built on a fantastic idea: the guardians of chaos and order are at war and the White Guardian, in charge of order, has employed the Doctor to seek out The Key To Time, an all powerful object that can control the entire Universe. But we choose not to focus on that completely this story. Instead, we look at a simple tale of an intergalactic con-man trying to trick the powerful Graff Vynda-K on the planet Ribos. You could view this as a disappointment, but that would ignore the very simple fact that this story is relentlessly fun. Every other line is a joke, and when it isn't a joke, it's being played so well by the actors that you just want to spend more time with them. From the Doctor's new assistant, Romana, who for the first time is someone better than the Doctor in terms of intelligence, but lacking the Doctor's experience, to Garron and Unstoffe, one being a larger than life con-man, the other his constantly put-upon assistant, every single character in this story is one that I enjoy, making me want to truly live in this world and meet these characters. And we've barely begun with this fantastic and beautiful story.