(Note: Sorry for being gone for so long!)

I have always viewed “The Trial of a Time Lord” as being analogous to the trial and death of Socrates, and episodes 5-8 provide some of the sharpest similarities.  The similarities are seen in three main aspects.  First, the Doctor is accused of putting his companions (and all of those around him) in danger.  The accusation is similar to the accusation waged against Socrates: that he corrupted the youth.  The Doctor corrupts his companions by teaching them that life is much more than simply getting by, and that one should live his or her life to its fullest.

Second, the Time Matrix (at least it is supposed to) serves as the perfect, unchanging, eternal Forms that Plato suggests are the archetypes of the world in which we live.  Like these Forms, the Matrix serves as the measure by which the Time Lords judge what is true and false.

Third, the Valeyard, like those who brought false charges against Socrates, uses the set of laws to prosecute the Doctor for being an “incorrigible meddler.”  But the Doctor, just as Socrates, shows that the truth cannot harm him, and that it is not the laws that are corrupt; rather, it is the prosecutors that distort the laws who are corrupt.

I love all of these episodes in “The Trial of a Time Lord” series.  I think the Doctor and Peri’s relationship had matured, and the episodes had some really nice philosophical meaning nestled in the overall entertaining stories.  It is also nice to see Sabalon Glitz again.