From his typewriter in the mid-1970s, Dicks offers a rebuke to the (I suspect inadvertent) message of 'Kerblam!':
DOCTOR: The systems aren't the problem. How people use and exploit the system, that's the problem
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Dicks has been doing this since Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters at least, twisting the knife in on the crew and passengers of the SS Bernice. Here, he takes the onscreen uselessness of Salamar and Sorenson in 'Planet of Evil' and explains it as a symptom of rampant nepotism, turning the Morestran empire into a fetid, rotten society locked into bloated decline.
This is going to become even clearer in Doctor Who and the Mutants, where the Earth empire is a transparent analogy for the British empire. The Marshal will remain both repugnant and responsible for all the damage done to Solos, but he's also plainly a product of the very concept of empire. Yes, the problem is how he uses and exploits the system, in his case with clearly selfish ends, but he would not behave as he did nor have the power to inflict such damage were it not for the systems that cultivated and unleashed him.
Mind you, the Doctor doesn't tear down the Earth empire for its role in the near destruction of the Solonians, nor does he seek to topple the putrid Morestran establishment (indeed, he throws it a lifeline, allowing Sorenson to return a hero after all thanks to his brilliant new idea for generating energy), so why does 'Kerblam!' attract opprobrium when these earlier tales didn't (as far as I'm aware)?
Part of it is the unfortunate phrasing of line quoted above - it really did stick out clumsily on broadcast in a way that suggested there was an intended resonance to it. I think mostly though it's because Charlie's actions aren't meaningfully tied in with Kerblam's actions. In The Planet of Evil, Sorenson's mistake is to believe the solution involves an extension of Morestra's expansionist policy - it is an empire after all - by basically stealing resources from yest another planet; in Doctor Who and the Mutants, it's implied the Earth empire would actually be rather supportive of the Marshal were it not for the fact it already wants to retreat for reasons that are entirely its own and have nothing to do with the Solonians - indeed, no one ever challenges the Marshal's statement that he'll be fine if he can just transform Solos before Earth is able to complete its withdrawal. The Doctor's victory in each case might not topple the whole regime but they still feel like significant victories against the spirit of those regimes; stopping Charlie has nothing to do with challenging the problems of Kerblam.
Anyway, for a look at The Planet of Evil that doesn't get bogged down in the troubles of 2018, click here...
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