Day 620: The Caves of Androzani Part 2

Sharaz Jek is one of the best characters in Doctor Who, ever. Everything about the character draws you towards him, as we learn more about this character and get drawn ever closer into his life.

For a start, it must be mentioned that his costume, as designed by Andrew Rose, is amazingly eye-catching. The mask is beautifully designed with an intriguing black and white design, hinting at the morally complex nature of the character by the way in which the colours interact with each other, never allowing one colour to fully take control of any particular segment of the mask. It's eye catching, and certainly makes up for the fact that, by having the mask, we are deprived of the full performance of Christopher Gable.

And yet, without the benefit of having full facial expressions, Gable creates a character that is instantly memorable. Through use of voice, movement, body posture, and his eyes, Gable creates a thoroughly interesting character. He can go from being a creepy creature who lusts after Peri to a more confident king, who controls all the spectrox on Androzani Minor (spectrox is highly sought after by much of the universe) and is fully in control of his situation, before turning into a frightening monster of a man, shouting suddenly and moving with more threat and violence than before, making him a truly menacing figure. All of these layers give the character depth, and make you want to continue watching the performance, as we need to see where the character will go, not least because he's also got a degree of magnetism in all of these personas, never letting you take your eyes off him completely.

But that's perhaps because of his story. He used to work with Morgus as a young, successful and handsome scientist, until Morgus betrayed him and left him for dead. Jek survived, but all of his natural beauty had been taken away from him. He therefore swore revenge on Morgus, taking control of the spectrox and only saying that he will accept surrender when Morgus is dead. It's a tragic story, but it reveals the inner madness of his character, that he seeks revenge because he has lost his beauty, and that his two purposes in life are to find beauty and kill Morgus. And yet, we're still drawn to him, and so we need to keep watching The Caves of Androzani to see how this character develops.