Mindbomb

Gallifrey #3.4

Released: July 2006

Listened: 4/8/21

It’s election time on Gallifrey. (Which apparently hasn’t happened in a long time, as each outgoing president normally names their successor, which sounds like a lovely system.) Romana, Darkel, and Matthias are all in the running...except oops, Romana’s been arrested on a charge of High Treason and spends the rest of the episode in a cell. Never mind that Darkel actually committed treason; she’s the Inquisitor, so it doesn’t count. In addition to being the Worst Ever, Darkel adds Stupid to the list, as she’s rather easily manipulated by Matthias into making basic political mistakes. At least, until she fakes an assassination attempt and gains sympathy, but forgets to have the “assassin” silenced afterwards, because Stupid. Narvin finally makes it clear to everybody that he’s on Romana’s side, but Matthias’ motives are still unknown until the very end. Leela once again doesn’t have much to do except try to spy on people, mostly unsuccessfully, because she’s blind and has to rely on a noisy robot dog for help. And what about all those aliens who were about to declare war? They’re not mentioned, so I guess they’re politely waiting for the result of the election before doing anything. There’s a twist that I won’t spoil, but suffice it to say that the election is finally settled, although not the way anyone expected, and Darkel’s story is finished. I really don’t care for what they did to her character throughout this series, and I may decide to believe that she’s not the Inquisitor from the Trial, who was generally impartial, if somewhat inclined to snap.