Comedy and Horror in Gallifrey

posted January 23rd 2023

I recently had the great joy of participating in the In All But Name Zine, where I wrote an essay I've had in my head for ages about Gallifrey series 1-3 being really damn funny and how that impacts the whole vibe of the series in a way they've never quite achieved since. I'll let what I wrote speak for itself here, but I also - as is so often the way when working to a wordcount - ran out of space so had to cut out a whole segment about Horror of Society, so I have produced that here as bonus content for my own amusement.

As with the show from which it was born, Gallifrey is a spin-off that has been through many phases in the twenty years it has existed. Something that has always struck me about the first three series, though, is how funny the episodes are in a way that is distinct from any series that follows. This is one of the questions that triggered this essay - why is it that series 1-3 of Gallifrey have a cutting humour that seems to vanish after that? Partly, I think, it’s that the genre of the series shifts from high concept SF political thriller to SF action antics after series 4. Once the main cast leave the Prime Gallifrey, it no longer zeroes in on the specific workings of the Gallifreyan political engine, and therefore moves along more quickly, allowing us less time to focus on the horrors unfolding in the plot. I will only be looking at series 1-3 here, as the humour created in them is unique, I think because it puts its story under a microscope, allowing us time to linger on the devious schemes and horrific fallout of the actions of politicians.

Though I would hesitate to specifically categorise Gallifrey under the Horror genre, it is a fact that SF and Horror are genres that are closely bound together as children of the Gothic. Though I could spend my entire word count picking apart the ways the Gothic, SF, and Horror are intertwined, I will instead quickly outline the strands which will inform my thinking about the relationship between comedy and horror in SF. In his excellent book Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, Brian Attebery discusses the way SF grew from the Gothic, and says that ‘writers typically use the Gothic to tell a story of female curiosity punished, of male rebellion taken beyond all limits, and of a final descent into bodily horror: blood, gore, and dissolution.’1 This is certainly something that can be seen as as Pandora’s scheming and ambition leads to Romana’s downfall, the bloody civil war, and the collapse of Gallifreyan society.

With Horror and SF, the link between them is clear, as there is a logic to understanding that ‘much science fiction [...] is really a species of horror, substituting supernatural forces with futuristic technologies’ 2 Arguably, this is something that Gallifrey blends with its ghostly force of Pandora and the biological components of the Matrix. On top of that, the horror is often undercut with moments of humour, often in the form of characters making a quip, or through Time Lord non-reaction being in sharp contrast to Leela’s - and the audience’s - shock. Carroll suggests that it is this inversion of expectation that links Horror and Comedy, that despite appearing to be unlinked concepts, they are both designed to create a heightened reaction.3

For my purposes, I will look at two different ways that Gallifrey invokes Horror and the ways it exploits comedy to heighten various situations. Horror of the body is perhaps the most obvious way to approach Horror in Gallifrey, with Cardinal Wynter and his disfigurements as one of the most visceral scenes in the show. Secondily, I will look at Horror of the mind, which is particularly pertinent to Romana, whose psychological torments cannot be understated. However, the Time Lord mind is a vast and interesting place, and in Gallifrey their psychology gets manipulated and possessed in ways that is not only terrifying to them, but horrific to Leela.

The Horror of the Body

Let us begin with a scene that is gory, brutal, and unflinchingly Horrific - Wynter’s self-mutilation at the hands of the Pandora entity. Though it is hard to argue that anything about this scene is funny, there is a level of irony at work that certainly contributes to the visceral nature of the injury. On first listen, it slowly dawns on you that Wynter is the ‘Broken Man’ and we are watching the inevitablilty of his death, something which feels brutal and chilling.

However, on subsequent listens, it is clearer than ever how flippant the Time Lords are to everything around them. Not only this, but when contrasted with Leela’s humanity and care for the Broken Man, there is something bitterly funny about how incongrous the viewpoints are. For instance, the way Romana treats the death is to brush it off completely:

ROMANA: Ah. Leela. How is your dead body?
LEELA: It is not my body, but K9 is trying to identify it from an artron figment.
ROMANA: (laughs) You mean he’s using his imagination? Well that’s a first.

while Braxiatel seems almost squeamish about the whole affair:

LEELA: He was burned, his hands were... pulverized. His wrists were still dripping blood as if his hands were freshly crushed-
BRAXIATEL: A simple ‘yes I’m sure’ would have sufficed.

The fact that Leela is being so sincere about the death while the Time Lords around her are acting like is is an inconvienence or annoyance really serves to heighten our own reaction to it. Because we, like Leela, are supposed to react with sorrow for Wynter, the callous detachment of Romana and Brax creates an atmosphetre that is so incongruous to expectation that it becomes funny when Brax recoils in disgust, or Wynter calls Leela’s mourning a ‘peculiar notion’.

Indeed, Wynter’s reaction to what will be his own corpse seems callous on first listen, but is almost agonising on relisten. He has little to no interest in the man who suffered, but is more concerned with security threats and his own position. As the Time Lords are wont to do, he dehumanises the Broken Man and sees him more as a piece in the political game rather than an actual person. This dehumanisation is seen again and again in Gallifrey - not only for the Broken Man, but for anyone seen as too ‘other’ from a Time Lord. In the Broken Man’s case, though, the reaction is especially shocking knowing he was once a Time Lord. ‘ How’s that for living forever?” Andred asks bitterly about the husk of Wynter’s body, and the irony of the remark is enough to make you chuckle.

Though Wynter’s injury is the most extensive, he is far from the only Time Lord to be greviously injured. Narvin getting hurt, however, is more often presented less seriously than a case such as Wynter’s. He is often among the first make quips about the danger of situations, and saying things like ‘if we’re all going to die, we might as well do it in peace’ is funny because of the sheer lack of sincerity he shows in the face of peril.

He also makes this remark about the Broken Man situation:

We have an unidentified dying Time Lord infected with an undiagnosed pathogen who arrived on Davidia in a TARDIS that is actually still in bay nine and hasn’t left Gallifrey. Perhaps the President considers this sort of thing as ‘business as usual’ under her jurisdiction.

which shows that same Gallifreyan detachment towards the very real, very brutal injuries sustained by Wynter. However, when Narvin gets injured in Fractures, despite the fact that he is struck unconscious and clearly is badly hurt, Leela takes on the role of the unconcerned, from her commenting that ‘even in his sleep, Narvin must correct me’ to her reaction of him getting knocked out a second time of ‘not again!’

By underplaying the severity of Narvin’s injury knocking him out for almost an entire episode and pairing that injury with the blasé attitude of so-called doctor, Elbon, Narvin’s injury seems a lot more amusing than Wynter’s. Perhaps it is a little to do with the dehumanisation, or perhaps that Narvin as a character serves a different role in the wider Gallifrey story. Perhaps it is just funny to hurt Narvin. As a main character, and despite the repeated death fakeouts, we know that Narvin will not truly succumb to his injuries, unlike Wynter or indeed any of the other minor characters who could fall victim to the plot killing them at any time.

This is certainly true for the legion of Time Lords who get infected and transformed by the Free Time virus, which is the last point I would like to touch on here. Panacea sees an awful lot of damage done to an awful lot of people, and poor wretches like Janartis and Elbon get, to quote the ‘unrecognised medical term’, zombified. There is a whole essay in this by itself over the Time Lords fearing to become what they see as brainless monsters, and how they treat the zombies as utterly disposable, but the point I would like to raise is that Panacea is perhaps one of the most laugh-out-loud funny episodes, from Romana demanding ‘I am an ex-president, get me out of here!’ to Narvin driving a TARDIS to the theme of a Nokia ringtone.

It seems that more prescient the threat, the more jokes we get. A deadly virus is threatening to sweep over all of Gallifrey and destroy the Time Lord way of life, all while Leela ‘advocates unsafe medical procedure[s]’ and Narvin is being teased about stamp collecting. By cracking these jokes and witty one-liners, we are shown an incongruous picture of Horror and Comedy which serves to highlight the damage being done to people, as well as build tension in the plot.

The Horror of the Mind

The Free Time virus is not just a physical threat, however. It serves not only to transform Time Lords into zombies, but threatens to strip them of all that makes them by removing their regenerations. This ‘downgrade’ is perhaps what the Time Lords themselves see as a bigger threat, as without their regeneration and longevity, how can they be the overwhelming power they once were? Certainly, loss of regeneration is something we see as a Horror through Narvin, and we later see this have an incredibly profound mental effect upon him.

Regeneration and the mind are two things that are clearly linked in Gallifrey, from Andred’s personality change to the loss of autonomy cause by the Free Time virus. However, it is Leela’s reaction to the ‘life change’ that really invokes a sense of horror. Spirit is, of course, an excellent episode, but when you stop to really think about what happens to Leela in the Sensory Tanks, the body swap becomes quite Horrific. She is already struggling with the way Time Lords can ‘throw off your form like an old sheet and be a new person, someone I would no longer recognise’, but to be forcibly jumbled into Romana’s mind and faced with all the fears of regeneration and abandonment in a shadowy world is something terrifying.

Despite the way this should be played for Horror, however, we all come away from the episode with a sense of them having had a fun holiday. This is because so many of the beats where Leela should be facing her worst nightmares are undercut with Comedy. For instance, there are plenty of moments like this, where Leela reflects on how she must sound to Romana:

LEELA: Do I always speak in such plaintive metaphor?
ROMANA: It has a certain unpolished charm, does it not?
LEELA: What a jumble! Everything in my head is a mad jumble! Part me, part you. I can’t think straight!
ROMANA: I understand you! But give me a moment, and I will say it more prettily.

Another consideration is that while Romana and Leela are having their holiday, they are paralleled with Hallan and Melyin flirting with each other in a completely unserious way. This serves to lighten the episode, especially when Leela and Romana are having heavy conversations. Then paired with the moments of comedy during the body swap, the Horror is brushed away and Leela and Romana revert to being who they were before, albeit with slightly more open minds.

For Leela, the Horror of the mind presents itself in repression, but for the Time Lords, the Horror comes from allowing themselves to let themselves think and feel beyond what they are supposed to. This is what the Pandora entity does to Romana as she takes over her mind and compels her to become the Imperiatrix, something which Romana has always been adamant she will not become. Throughout series 2, Romana is increasingly confused and scared, of herself and of what Pandora will do if she allows her self control to slip.

Romana’s nightmares of being Imperiatrix are especially interesting to look at. They aren’t particularly funny scenes, but there is a certain level of morbid humour in them from the way Romana reacts to the visions. She is horrified by the destruction she is seeing, but she also seems to find an amusement in torturing Pandora for information.

ROMANA: Then help me!
PANDORA: I will help you, on one condition. You must free me from the partition.
ROMANA: You’re in no position to ask for deals. I don’t think that you have anything to say after all. K9, squeeze her.
PANDORA: Wait. I will help you stop Darkel.

Though I would hesitate to call anything in this scene Comedy, it does give us that incongruous feeling of seeing our Romana act in a way we would not expect. Her amusement at the sitation, rather than ours, is what heightens the Horror here. Not only is Romana afraid of the future she sees in her dreams, but she is enacting more violence than we would expect on Pandora in order to try and circumvent it. And, as with Wynter, there is a certain inevitability to listening to this, as it is all part of Pandora’s plan all along.

It is not just Romana’s mind that Pandora torments, however. Just as the Free Time virus possesses Time Lords and strips them of their agency, Pandora possesses Romana and Darkel and uses them as puppets to enact her wicked visions. Under her influence, Romana murders Andred and Darkel lays all the foundations that bring them to civil war, and both seem to enjoy their actions slightly too much. Again, it is their amusement that heightens the Horrors, especially in Darkel’s case as she seems to revel in manipulating and influencing events, even if she cannot see how things are working against her.

Braxiatel too suffers from Horror of the mind, though entirely of his own making as he takes the past and present forms of Pandora into his mind and is forced to flee Gallifrey. Arguably, it is the Pandora entity that makes him commit atrocities in the Bernice Summerfield range, but that is a different conversation about a different set of Horrors. In Gallifrey, Brax taking on Pandora is seen as a tragedy, because for him and the Time Lords, being forced away from Gallifrey is a great punishement as so much of their identity is wrapped up in the planet. Again, the Pandora possession is Horrific to them because it forces them to lose a part of themselves and their own autonomy, and not always in ways they can see.

It is also a triumph and a Horror when Braxiatel returns in Mindbomb and Pandora is let loose on Darkel. Her tormented screams are certainly Horrific, though what undercuts her death is the conversation our main characters have after her demise:

LEELA: So finally. The evil, twisted creature is gone forever.
NARVIN: And Darkel is dead.
LEELA: That is what I meant.
ROMANA: Thank you Brax! Now perhaps we can get on with the resignation and put everything back to normal.
NARVIN: I’m not sure normal is the most desirable state of affairs.

There is a lot going on here after a woman has just been brutally eaten from the inside out in front of them, but none of them seem particularly bothered. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the reactions Leela and Romana have are funny, as Romana just wants to move on with the election, and Leela is taking pleasure in Darkel’s downfall. These are completely not the reactions you would expect anyone to have in this situation, and the fact that they just do not care creates a Comedy that only Gallifrey can give you in the face of torments of the mind.

It would be remiss of me to write an essay about Comedy in Gallifrey without also mentioning two of Narvin’s funniest lines: 'You can’t let her stab me, K9, it’s not legal!' and 'So much for non-intervention. Would anyone else care to join this conga over Rassilon’s grave?'

Though neither of these particularly serve my point about Horror, both come at times when Narvin feels under threat, either for his own safety against Leela with a knife, or for the safety of the planet he is bound to protect as he feels control slipping away. These funniest lines, and indeed the funniest lines of many characters do come at the height of stress, which is often the height of Horror in this series.

The Horror of Society

One of the things about Gallifrey the series that is so compelling is that it is such a politically wretched world. None of the people in charge are good at being much but self-serving, and even Romana - who does care about her people and the wider universe - gets so wrapped up in fighting the system that she forgets she too is part of the problem.

There are many more quips I could discuss, and there are funny moments beyond series 3 which are Comedic and Horrific in their own rights - Narvin’s loss of regenerations being a prime example. But here, I hope I have shown just how entwined Comedy and Horror is in early Gallifrey, and how that helps to make it such a unique and compelling series.

horror of society - gryben, square one, narvin et al towards leela gryben gives us the view of the way time lords view the rest of the world vs the way it actually is return to panacea - narvin fighting for his life slash the entirety of what he holds sacred ie gallifrey but undercut with the fucking nokia Gryben is a game to romana et all in WoC – a poverty riddled, immigrant penal colony where the people don’t matter (narv: many of these arrivals claim they cannot return to their own time. Apparently. Oh you wouldn’t believe the excuses. ‘Oh the Daleks will get us!’ ‘I’m sorry but our sun is about to go nova.’ ‘But we’ve all been ravaged by the Creeping Bubos.’ So. If they can’t or won’t go back... Gryben is where they stay.)