2.1b - The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance

Not much to this one. As a brief character piece I didn't think it added much to Barbara's story. I also wasn't interested in the aliens or world. The best thing I can say about it is that the story didn't overstay its welcome.

A complex and yet quite cleverly written tale, our 4 intrepid visitors are making ready to leave the planet Fragrance, a planet of blue suns, emerald seas and red trees. The inhabitants of the planet have a rather bizarre measure of their life and the stages of it. For it a person finds love and loses it then they must die. Added to this the Doctor is overly open about sharing the secrets of the Tardis with two local people who have assisted the Doctor in helping him with a faulty co-ordinator part for the Tardis. Ian is worried however that the Doctor is sharing to much with them. Ian however insults the two inhabitants, and this slight makes them insist that they all stop on the planet on Fragrance, for the two locals feel that if they die due to the part not working then it will be a bad thing. Fragrance seems a little too good to be true, and that in itself starts to raise your suspensions. Barbara if she does not tell Rhythm that she does not love him, must die, and she is essentially sending him to his death. This is all getting little like a twisted fairy tale.

The story in a sort of anti climax manner does not end well for Rhythm and that is somewhat a better ending, than it ending happily ever after. It made for a much definitive end, and it sets it apart as being a much more grown up ending than is normally expected from a Who adventure. I liked this for the fact that it appealed to my - smiling is not always a good thing, and a drop of sadness makes life much more balanced.

The TARDIS crew have landed on the world and a young man named Rythym has fallen for Barbara and perhaps she's fallen for him too. The story hints at it but isn't really clear. It's a one off story that writer Moris Farhi wrote as a sample of his work rather than a fully developed script and it shows. The Doctor makes the key decision that resolves the story but we never actually know why he did what he did. It feels like a science fiction story that could be in any franchise (or non-franchise for that matter.) Still, it's interesting for what it is.

Barbara, without realizing it, gets placed into a very sticky situation. This little story did a wonderful job of slowly converying the problem and it left us with no easy resolution, similar to how the Companions must have felt. I especially found it interesting that Barbara was the focus of the story instead of Susan, but that added even more to the story.