September 30: State of Decay Parts Three & Four

Camilla and Zargo hold Romana and the Doctor while Aukon listens
to the Great One. (State of Decay Part Three) ©BBC

This story really does an excellent job of evoking the mood of an old Hammer horror film while still retaining that scientific grounding that Bidmead prefers.  The Three Who Rule themselves are wonderful, looking like they've stepped out of a medieval castle, and the impending rise of their master, the Great One (not the leader of the Metebelis spiders), is treated as a cause for great concern, and it's not hard to imagine a version of this story during the Hinchcliffe years (or, indeed, as the opening story of season 15).

It's unlikely that there would have been quite such an emphasis on technology in that older version, though; the sequence with the Doctor telling Romana the legend of the Great Vampires would have probably remained the same (and can we just pause for a moment to talk about how wonderful it is when Tarak enters their cell to rescue them and smacks the Doctor in the face?  I'm still not sure how much of that was intentional and how much was accidental, but it makes me laugh every time I see it), and there would have been similarities with the stuff in the TARDIS and the Record of Rassilon, about how the king of the Great Vampires disappeared, but one wonders if the climax of the story -- the idea of using one of the Hydrax's scoutships as a giant stake -- would have been at all like what we get here.  And there's also the matter of using the old Hydrax scanner to see what the Great Vampire looks like, but probably the less said about that less-than-successful effect the better.  But those Record of Rassilon scenes are a nice touch, by making the Great Vampires into a threat that even the Time Lords took very seriously -- which means that they must be a grave threat indeed, and as viewers we put the king of them in the same category as Sutekh or the Fendahl ("If it escaped into our universe," the Doctor says at one point, "billions of lives would be lost").

Part four isn't quite as good just because it's concerned more with tying things up rather than continuing the mood.  There's also the odd subplot where Adric seems to be going over to the vampire side but not really, which just doesn't feel properly motivated in either the set-up or the execution.  And, finally, there's the way in which the Doctor builds up K-9 as "a very useful tool.  Armoured.  Immune to hypnotism. ... And a dead shot with a nose laser," only for K-9's appearance to be met with dubious looks and something of a "sad" cue from the music.  The show's not taking him very seriously anymore, is it?

However, the attack on the tower is pretty well staged, and the shots of the Great Vampire being "staked" by the Hydrax scoutship are surprisingly well done (particularly given the earlier shots of the vampire on the scanner).  And the deaths of the Three Who Rule are horrifying and effective -- it might be the best "turned to dust" effect we've ever seen on the series.

It's well-written and -directed, and the mash-up of styles (Dicks's older, Hammer horror-tinged approach, and Bidmead's more serious, scientific one) works very well, setting the vampires up as ancient powers preventing scientific knowledge and progress from blooming.  To be honest, it's hard to find much of anything really at fault with State of Decay.  So far this E-Space story arc has turned up trumps for the show.  Can they keep it up?

September 29: State of Decay Parts One & Two

Welcome back to Terrance Dicks, who hasn't written for the show since 1977's Horror of Fang Rock -- which was itself a last-minute replacement for his vampire tale The Witch Lords.  And this story is in fact that same Witch Lords script, dusted off and revised for the current TARDIS team.  The upshot is that for the first time in a while, we get another Gothic horror-style story.

Well, except that this is now being edited by scientifically-minded Christopher H. Bidmead, which means that there's a tension between fantasy and science in this story, with the Three Who Rule holding back the development of the peasants by forbidding any sort of scientific knowledge.  Bidmead was reportedly very unhappy with the more fantastic elements and kept stripping them out, only for director Peter Moffatt to keep putting them back in.  But the final result is a good balance between the two positions, with the more horror/fantasy elements placed in opposition to the peasants' attempts to acquire forbidden knowledge.

Another advantage this story has is that the production team has made a concerted effort to rein in Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, which means that there's a seriousness to events that probably would have been missing a year before.  The danger that the Three Who Rule represent is much more palpable as a result, and when combined with the moody direction from Moffatt, the result is a compelling story.

It's not perfect, of course; there are some draft artifacts from earlier incarnations that get some emphasis (namely that the Three in the tower protect the peasants from something called the Wasting) before being completely forgotten (so good luck figuring out what the Wasting is about), and there's also Adric.  He's stowed away, it seems, and worryingly, his first scene shows that he can't even walk across the TARDIS console room convincingly, instead smiling fatuously and deliberately looking at nothing as he jauntily strides across the room.  It's a cringe-inducing moment, and while it doesn't seem to be the norm for the remainder of Adric's scenes in these first two episodes (in which he veers from acceptable to quite good), it doesn't exactly endear him to the audience. 

But his interaction with the script is actually quite limited thus far, and it's far more interesting to watch the Doctor and Romana, as they discuss Grimm's law and the implications of language change in regards to the crew's original names and that of their descendants¹¹², and then go about exploring the tower (which is actually an Earth vessel called Hydrax, which, weirdly, seems to have left in the 1990s), discovering some nasty things along the way.  All the bats, stored blood, and general oddities of the three leaders have brought the Doctor to some unpleasant conclusions: "Do you know, it just occurs to me; there are vampire legends on almost every inhabited planet. ... Creatures that stalk in the night and feast on the blood of the living.  Creatures that fear sunlight and running water and certain herbs.  Creatures that are so strong they can only be killed by beheading, or a stake through the heart."  And while they're trying to work out why they can hear a giant heartbeat down at the base of the tower, they're confronted by Aukon, the chancellor member of the Three Who Rule, in the cliffhanger to part two.  "You are in the resting place," he says.  "I am Aukon.  Welcome to my domain."







¹¹² It's a good thought, but there are some anomalies if we take seriously the Doctor's suggestion that this is Grimm's law at play -- it would be incredibly strange, for instance, for the [k] in "Sharkey" ([ʃa:ki]) to become the [g] in "Zargo" ([za:go]), as that's the exact opposite direction of the law (in which voiced stops like [g] becomes voiceless like [k]).  Still, at the very least it shows that someone (likely Bidmead) was thinking about this topic, and maybe it caused kids to look up Grimm's law, in the spirit of the best Hartnell historicals, and thus introduce them to the broader idea of language change.  Well, I looked it up, at least.

September 28: Full Circle Parts Three & Four

Adric and the Doctor check on Romana in her room. (Full
Circle Part Three) ©BBC

Full Circle continues to impress in its last two parts, as we learn more about Mistfall and the Alzarians.  There's also some drama with Romana being infected and somehow linked telepathically with the Marshmen.  Well, the Marshchild, at least.  It's genuinely distressing, seeing Dexeter beginning his scientific operation on the unanesthetized Marshchild over the Doctor's protests ("That's not scientific understanding, it's cold-blooded murder!"), and while it's a bit difficult to feel bad for Dexeter when the Marshchild breaks free and kills him, it's much more affecting when the Marshchild sees the image of the Doctor, the only person who showed it any kindness, and electrocutes itself breaking the screen in an effort to get to him.  This would be something of a feat even if it were a person, but the fact that it's someone who looks like a monster makes it even more impressive.

But then Full Circle is full of moments like this, deaths that seem to mean more than just cannon fodder for the Marshmen.  Varsh's death is obviously a crucial moment for Adric, as Varsh is the only family he has, but even a death like Tylos's, where he's killed while saving one of the technicians, is treated as something meaningful.  Compare this with Lexa's death in Meglos and the difference is clear.  All the characters in Full Circle matter.

All this and a good plot too.  The stuff about Romana being taken over is primarily just to provide a reason for the Marshmen to successfully enter the Starliner, but the stuff with the Deciders and with the Doctor, as the Doctor works out that the Starliner has been ready to leave for centuries, and that the people inside the Starliner are in fact descended from the Marshmen (and look like the Terradons because they adapted to live in the Starliner) is both entertaining and interesting, and even the E-Space set-up for the next couple stories leaves the viewer curious.  It's a very well-written story, and at no point do you feel less than satisfied with its development.

Up to this point, season 18 has had a distinctive new style, but it hasn't quite had stories to match.  Full Circle feels like the first time that the new style comes through in the storyline as well as the visuals.  Add in the fact that Andrew Smith was seventeen when he wrote this, and Full Circle becomes even more impressive.  This is a story by someone who understands the show and who's in sync with the more serious direction that Nathan-Turner and Bidmead are looking for, and it's directed by another newcomer (well, as far as the Doctor Who directing chair goes) in the form of Peter Grimwade, who's able to make this all dynamic and smooth.  The end result is an excellent story that finds the new production team beginning to hit their stride.

September 27: Full Circle Parts One & Two

Big news in contemporary terms: the day before Full Circle Part One aired is the day it leaked that Tom Baker was leaving the series.  The fourth Doctor is now on borrowed time...

It was, coincidentally, during the making of Full Circle that Baker decided not to return for an eighth season -- but that's not a commentary on the serial itself, which (at least on the basis of these two episodes) is one that's generally firing on all cylinders.  There's a cleverness and momentum about the script that makes it very entertaining, and there's also a sense of drama that was missing from the last two stories.  Romana's unhappiness at being summoned back to Gallifrey is understated but affecting, and the main scenario at play on Alzarius -- the coming of Mistfall -- is nicely compelling too.  Mistfall, much like Alzarius in general, is presented in an interesting way, and writer Andrew Smith makes a good move by having a band of rebellious Alzarians, the Outlers, remaining outside the Starliner, as this means that there are people for Romana to interact with outside the ship while the Doctor is inside.  The main outsider Alzarian, Adric, is passable -- some moments are a little wooden, but Matthew Waterhouse also has a few rather good moments: his waking up in the TARDIS, alarmed about Mistfall, is one such moment.

Mistfall is treated well, as I mentioned before, and not only is it presented as a serious concern for the locals, but it's filmed in an effective manner as well -- all the bubbling mist that hangs over the place at the end of part one and all throughout part two looks fabulous.  Plus, it really helps sell that first cliffhanger, as the Marshmen rise from the water.  The Marshmen also look great, and there's some fine acting going on from the people inside; the Marshchild that follows the Doctor inside the Starliner is especially good, and the fact that the Doctor can see that the Marshchild is terrified but harmless is another great moment.

Really, Tom Baker in general gets to be very good here, even in exposition scenes with K-9. And his first meeting with the Deciders is also great: "Why can't people be nice to one another, just for a change?" the Doctor says, after noting that the Marshmen dragged Decider Draith under the water.  "I mean, I'm an alien, and you don't want to drag me into a swamp, do you?   ...You do."  Romana fares less well: she maintains her cool under pressure, after the Outlers attempt to hijack the TARDIS, but the cliffhanger to part two involves her trying to defend herself from some large spiders by grabbing a riverfruit (a type of melon), only for a spider to hatch out of it and attack her.  Which might be excusable if she hadn't just witnessed a bunch of spiders hatching out of other riverfruits.  And K-9 does well for a bit, but then he enters a cave and loudly announces his presence to the Marshmen, which leads to one knocking his head clean off.

But overall, it's an entertaining story and a compelling script.  If the last two episodes are like this, then Full Circle will be something special indeed.

September 26: Meglos Parts Three & Four

For some reason these episodes are getting shorter and shorter; not only are parts three and four both around 20 minutes long, but the cliffhanger reprises are getting longer too -- there're two full minutes of footage from part three at the start of part four.  And then the whole thing ends early, meaning that the last episode of Meglos only has 15 minutes of new footage.

The real Doctor listens to Lexa's accusations. (Meglos Part Three)
©BBC

And yet even with this there's still padding; Romana leads the Gaztaks around in circles in part three, and there's some stuff with the two Tom Bakers (one the Doctor, the other Meglos) wandering around the screens of Zolfa-Thura in part four.  Part three in particular feels like one great big stalling moment; other than the Doctor working out that he has a doppelgänger and Lexa taking over, the episode is waiting for Meglos to leave the city and get on with the main plot.  Even the part of the plot that should be really dramatic (the Deons are staging a revolution and driving all the non-Deons out onto the inhospitable surface!) feels more like a damp squib, and it doesn't help that it's apparently undone three minutes into part four.

Fortunately Tom Baker is still worth watching, and his performance as Meglos is very good, full of nuances that we don't really expect from Tom.  It's a tribute to his skills that you're never in doubt as to whether you're watching Meglos or the Doctor, and he's just about the most watchable thing in a story that often feels pointless.  Things happen on Tigella just so that something happens, rather than for a good reason.  Oh sure, there are nice moments here and there, but too often things occur in such an undramatic manner (witness, for instance, the death of Lexa in part four, which feels so arbitrary and meaningless that it verges on insulting) that it's hard to care.

When Gareth Roberts was writing "The Lodger" for the eleventh Doctor, in one draft he apparently had the main villain be Meglos, with the joke being that the Doctor had completely forgotten who he was.  That's sort of the position of this story in fandom ("oh right, that story does exist"), and it's not hard to see why.  It's not a story that's been written with any real intent in mind beyond (barely) filling four episodes; the direction is more workmanlike than inspired, and there's no drive or passion behind the writing -- new writers John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch seemingly more interested in writing in generic clichés of the sort of thing they think should be in Doctor Who rather than anything personal.  In fact, it goes further than that.  In the past there have been stories that haven't worked for one reason or another, but it's generally felt like there was at least some care and style going into the writing, even when it was Terry Nation just turning in another Dalek tale.  Meglos, however -- despite the efforts of the cast and the actual production crew -- feels like the first serial that has contempt for its audience, interested more in the paycheck at the end than in anything in the story; all too often, it feels like "eh, good enough".

September 25: Meglos Parts One & Two

Meglos doesn't look quite as strikingly different as The Leisure Hive did -- hardly surprising, given all the work Lovett Bickford put into it -- but enough of the changes are carried over to make it clear that, no, The Leisure Hive wasn't a fluke; this is how things are going to be now.

Yet Meglos is a bit of an odd story; while there continues to be some new technical trickery used here (The Leisure Hive introduced Quantel, which allowed digital manipulation of the video, Meglos introduces a technology called Scene Sync, where two cameras move in sync with each other -- in other words, you can now pan across CSOed backgrounds without the actors appearing to slide around), the actual storyline seems rather perfunctory.  We get two storylines, both of which we're introduced to in the middle of events -- the Gaztaks (aka space pirates) have kidnapped a human and brought him to the planet Zolfa-Thura for some reason, while the civilization on the nearby planet of Tigella is on the brink of collapse.  This latter plot seems mainly to provide a rather tedious argument about science versus religion -- particularly since neither side's views are presented in any sort of interesting manner, but instead consist of each side literally shouting at the other.

But holy hell, it's Jacqueline Hill, not seen on the show since 1965!  And not as Barbara this time, but as Lexa, the leader of the Deons (the religious side).  It's a first for the show, bringing back one of the stars in a different supporting role (and a last for the show, as John Nathan-Turner decided he only wanted old stars back in their former roles¹¹¹), and Hill is very good as the unhappy Deon leader.  She's certainly a lot more watchable than any of the Savants (the scientist side), who're all wearing blonde wigs that make them look like Sela, the Romulan-human daughter of an alternate universe Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Crawford Logan, as Deedrix, only seems capable of sarcasm and angry yelling at the Deons, and while Colette Gleeson, as Caris, is rather better, she doesn't get much screen time in these first two episodes.  Zastor (as played by Edward Underdown) often looks like he can't quite believe he has to try and mediate between these two sides instead of just sending them both to their rooms.

And while all this is going on, the Doctor and Romana are in the TARDIS, initially fixing K-9 but then caught in a "chronic hysteresis" (because apparently "time loop" doesn't sound exciting enough for the new scientifically-minded script editor, Christopher H. Bidmead) that's been caused by Meglos of all people -- Meglos being the cactus that the Gaztaks brought the human to Zolfa-Thura for.  Meglos apparently has the ability to affect time, yet he's relying on the grubby Gaztaks for help.  Oh, and it seems he can shape-shift (with the human's help), turning into the Doctor at the first cliffhanger.

The cactus part of Meglos is breaking through his Doctor form.
(Meglos Part Two) ©BBC

So part two involves Meglos impersonating the Doctor in an effort to steal the Dodecahedron, the source of Tigella's power, while the real Doctor is stuck in a time loop which is escaped from in an incredibly silly manner.  You can sort of see what they were going for with the mention of phase cancellation, but as shown it's really astonishingly stupid, as both the Doctor and Romana ham their way through a recreation of the beginning of the time loop in order to cancel out the hysteresis.  It also means that our heroes are sidelined from the action for the vast majority of these first two episodes, which means that lots of things are happening without their knowledge.  Still, it does mean that Tom Baker gets to play the baddie, as Meglos-as-the-Doctor, and it does look like he's enjoying it ("I, swear allegiance to Ti?" he says in a very un-Doctor-like manner after Lexa tells him he needs to do so to see the Dodecahedron) -- although I'll bet he was less happy about the spiny make-up required at times.

So these first two episodes are best summed up as a bit fun but ultimately inconsequential-feeling, and while there are some good moments (such as Zastor's description of the Doctor: "He sees the threads that join the universe together and mends them when they break"), it's hard to truly stay engaged with this story.  Let's hope things pick up in parts three and four.







¹¹¹ A policy that's continued thus far in the 21st-century version -- allowing both for Billie Piper technically playing a different character (but one that's meant to look like Rose Tyler) and for the deliberate ambiguity of the identity of Tom Baker's character in "The Day of the Doctor".

September 24: The Leisure Hive Parts Three & Four

One of the more striking things about the second half of The Leisure Hive is that part two's cliffhanger, with the Doctor now incredibly old, isn't immediately reversed at the start of part three.  No, instead they leave the Doctor as old and wizened for an episode and a half.  It's a bold move, and while you might have reason to be worried about essentially sidelining the Doctor for that long, given how little was going on in the first two parts, these two episodes fortunately pick up the pace and provide a good deal more in terms of incident.   Pangol starts getting bloodthirsty, declaring that a new Argolis will dawn that will once again be war-like (apparently he missed the lesson about the futility of war that all his fellow Argolins learned), and our heroes start to wonder why Pangol looks twenty-five when the Argolins became sterile forty years ago.  We also get a great lead-in to the cliffhanger, as we're finally introduced to a Foamasi that the Doctor then takes to the Argolin boardroom, and part three's cliffhanger gives us possibly the best literal unmasking we've seen on the show yet, as the Foamasi removes Brock's face to reveal another Foamasi.

Romana and the aged Doctor talk with a Foamasi. (The Leisure
Hive Part Four) ©BBC

That unmasking is hampered somewhat by the follow-up sequence in part four, where we get a lot of shots of Foamasi being undressed and revealed, and we learn that there is no way such (frankly) fat creatures could have fit into fake human skins.  And there's some stuff about independent Foamasi parties trying to buy Argolis under the legitimate government's beak that's apparently related to gangsters in some way (famously, "Foamasi" is an anagram of "mafiosa", which is close enough to "mafioso"), but this is honestly so far down in the mix that it's difficult to notice, even when you know about it.

No, part four is all about Pangol revealing that the experiments in tachyonics have led to successful cloning techniques that mean Pangol can make an army of himself, which leads to his now-explicit warmongering -- including blowing up the departing Foamasi shuttle.  It's reasonably exciting, even if we learn early on that the Doctor has thrown a spanner in the works and created tachyon images (as seen in the first episode) instead of long-lasting clones, and that this process has also de-aged the Doctor.  Nevertheless, the dying Mena is taken into the Recreation Generator along with Pangol, and a revitalized Mena emerges with a baby Pangol to lead Argolis into a better future.  And the good Foamasi are okay!  ("You mentioned Foamasi?" the ambassador says -- a line that's oddly popular in fandom.)  Everything can be left in safe hands as the Doctor and Romana depart.

The difference between seasons 17 and 18 is one of the most startling style shifts in all of Doctor Who, and the new direction is made abundantly clear in The Leisure Hive.  Not only does this look and sound unlike anything we've seen and heard on the show before, but it also strikes a significantly more serious tone than what we've been used to.  It's a little too unengaging as a story in its own right to be a real success (the action is lopsided and Pangol's actions, while striking, aren't built up as the threat they probably should have been), but in purely aesthetic terms The Leisure Hive impresses.  A qualified success, then, and one that makes us interested to see what happens next -- is this a fluke or the shape of things to come?

September 23: The Leisure Hive Parts One & Two

Wow, lots of changes going on as we enter season 18; a brand-new starfield title sequence (complete with new neon tubing-style logo) and a brand-new arrangement of the theme tune (in a higher, more triumphant key) -- something that's been essentially the same (give or take a few tweaks here and there) since 1963.  And so, immediately after this exciting new intro, we get... ninety seconds of slow panning across a beach.  Er... yes.  It even has Tom Baker snoring over the shot as we linger over beach chairs and changing tents before we finally see the new version of the TARDIS; it's not that different (the roof is stacked again, for one thing), but they've finally attached the door handle that's been missing since the last redesign, for The Masque of Mandragora.  And look, the Doctor has a new outfit, primarily in shades of burgundy.  The coat and scarf are really quite nice, but this is also the debut of those damn question marks that are going to plague the Doctor for the rest of the '80s -- here, they're stuck on the points of his collar.

So, new titles, new TARDIS, new outfit, old voice for K-9 in the brief moments he has on screen before he stupidly heads into the sea to get shorted out (but hooray! John Leeson is back)... and new incidental music, as it turns out.  Instead of the familiar sounds of Dudley Simpson, we get synthesizers from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (and Peter Howell in particular -- the man who also redid the theme tune).  It's a bold new sound for the show, and one that's honestly quite welcome; not to disparage Dudley Simpson at all, but it is nice to have some fresh blood.

The whole thing also looks different too.  The leisurely (sorry) pace that characterizes the first couple of minutes of the show continues throughout.  This isn't an action-packed, frenetic story; instead, first-time (and last-time, as it would turn out) Doctor Who director Lovett Bickford chooses to use lots of slow-yet-constantly moving shots to give things an almost sensuous feeling (well, as much as a story about plant people running a tourist haven while fending off a takeover from reptile people can be sensuous) -- and this is aided by lots of handheld shots and unusual (for Doctor Who, at least) framings, with extreme close-ups and out-of-focus foreground elements often the order of the day.  Plus, set designer Tom Yardley-Jones has (presumably at Bickford's request) elected to put ceilings in most of the sets.  This means both that Bickford gets a lot more low-angle shots, and that even the lighting is different as a result, which just continues to add to the feeling that a new and different stylistic change has occurred.

Of course, the problem with these first two installments of The Leisure Hive is that there's not actually much going on story-wise.  We learn a bit about the Argolins and their Leisure Hive, and about the war that led to the downfall of their race ("How long did the war last?" the Doctor asks Chairman Mina as they look out over the radioactive wastes of Argolis.  "Twenty minutes," she replies.  "As long as that," says the Doctor, somewhat impressed), and we know that something (almost certainly a Foamasi) is skulking about the Hive causing problems and killing people.  Oh, and there's an Earth scientist named Hardin who's playing about with experiments involving tachyonics (a real theoretical field involving faster-than-light particles) and time.  And that's about it.  There are so many elegantly-paced shots and camera moves that it occasionally feels like they're trying to make up for the slight plot, and with Tom Baker and Lalla Ward both firmly reined in as far as humor goes, it does come across sometimes as rather dull.

Still, two great cliffhangers: the first shows the Doctor apparently being torn apart and in agony (something of a shock for those who'd become used to the untouchable Doctor of recent seasons), and then, after an experiment in tachyonics gone wrong, his coming out of the Recreation Generator cabinet looking incredibly old and decrepit.  The superhuman Doctor is, it seems, a thing of the past...

September 22: Shada Parts Four, Five, & Six

The Doctor tries to sneak past a burning Krarg. (Shada
Part Four) ©BBC

It's significantly harder to piece the story together based on these last three parts than it was for the first three, as there's so much that went unfilmed.  Parts four and five only have something like five minutes of footage a piece, and while there's more of part six it's almost entirely confined to Chronotis's TARDIS.  It's like watching clips from missing episodes, except here there aren't even any soundtracks to listen to in between scenes.  There is some nice material in what we have (such as the stuff on the derelict Think Tank), but the general sense, watching the stuff for parts four through six, is that there was an awful lot of tea drinking going on.  And one of the all-time stupid Doctor Who moments also exists in what they recorded; no, not the medal ceremony (although that is awfully self-indulgent), but the part where Claire Keightley, trying desperately to hold on to an increasingly hot control, suddenly decides to abandon her station (which has been already emphasized as incredibly important) in order to fetch a pencil so that she can hold down that control.  It's an unbelievably silly way to force the TARDIS controls to explode, and had this story actually aired it would likely be infamous in its execution.

But yes, it's very hard to get a sense of what Shada would have been like, and so it's nice to have the Ian Levine version to help fill in the gaps.  Obviously, as before, it's not a perfect solution (and why did they decide to give the Krargs glowing eyes, given that there's no evidence of this in the one scene with a Krarg that they shot?), but you do get a decent sense of the overall story.  In this version the virtues of the existing scenes become more apparent when spaced out -- instead of all smushed together -- and you get a better sense of what the storyline is and the threat that Skagra represents.  The idea of Skagra trying to put his mind into everyone else's ("With the aid of the sphere I shall make the whole of creation merge into one single mind, one godlike entity ... The universe, Doctor, shall be me!") is a nice one, and if Shada had been filmed the way it appears in the animation, with dark red corridors and lots of shadows (and there's no reason to think it wouldn't have been, since Williams was holding back money for this), then this might have been a winner.  There's also some great unfilmed dialogue (such as Skagra scoffing at the idea of taking over the universe: "How childish.  Who could possibly want to take over the Universe?"  "Exactly! That's what I keep on trying to tell people," the Doctor replies.  "It's a troublesome place, difficult to administer, and as a piece of real estate it's worthless because by definition there'd be no one to sell it to"), and it would have been neat to see the mental battle between the Doctor and Skagra.  If nothing else, the animated scenes suggest that this would have been worth doing -- more interesting than, say, The Creature from the Pit or The Horns of Nimon.

But despite narrations, novelizations, animations, and audio adaptations, we'll never truly know what Shada would have been like.  It's fun to speculate (and, incidentally, has anyone ever talked to designer Victor Meredith about what the unmade sets were going to look like?  He had to have designed them, right?), but that's all we can do.  What we do know about it suggests that it probably wouldn't have been the all-conquering gem that its reputation often claims it would have been -- it has some good ideas, but there's an awful lot of season 17-ness floating around (the milk/sugar joke, the medal ceremony, what one imagines the walk through the vortex would have been like), and there are a number of plotting problems as well (Chronotis's casual revelation to Skagra that he's actually Salyavin, the perfunctory manner in which Skagra is defeated).  But there's enough here to tantalize as well, to suggest that this would have been worth doing.  It would have been hugely flawed, of course, but the strength of the basic storyline makes it look like it would have been compelling despite the flaws.  In effect, it would have been the quintessential season 17 story.

September 21: Shada Parts One, Two, & Three

Shada is unique in Doctor Who's history: a story that they actually got halfway through filming (namely, the location filming and the first of the three studio sessions) before it had to be abandoned -- not because the script wasn't working or there was some sort of problem with the cast, but because there was a strike at the BBC.  An effort to remount the taping failed (first because when the strike was over, Doctor Who wasn't considered a high enough priority to be completed, and then later because incoming producer John Nathan-Turner was unable to secure the studio space necessary to finish the story before the regular cast left the show (first Lalla Ward, and then Tom Baker)), and so Shada in fandom became a tantalizing "what if?" and a swansong denied to writer/script editor Douglas Adams and producer Graham Williams (who, you may recall, had been saving up money to spend on this serial).  Then in 1992 permission was secured to release the extant footage on VHS, linked by Tom Baker briefly narrating the missing bits.  This is the version that was released on DVD.

I do quite enjoy the opening bit, as Tom Baker wanders through a Doctor Who exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in London and looks at old enemies ("Cybermen; beat you.  Daleks; beat you") before remembering the events of Shada, which leads into the existing footage.  The first thing you notice is how incredibly inappropriate Keff McCulloch's score is.  I actually don't mind most of his work during Sylvester McCoy's time, but it's a very late 80s style of music, which means McCulloch is just about the last person you'd want to score a season 17 story.  (Was Mark Ayres unavailable?)  You might be surprised to learn that McCulloch was attempting to mimic regular composer Dudley Simpson's style; I know I was.

But if you can get past the awful music, there's actually quite a bit to enjoy.  Part one is the most nearly complete episode of the six (there are only two short scenes (and a brief insert) and the cliffhanger missing), which means that you can start to get a feel for how this story was going to be.  The Cambridge scenes are quite nice (including the bit they used for The Five Doctors that everyone's familiar with), and Professor Chronotis's study is also rather lovely, with lots of battered books and furniture strewn about.  The stuff with Professor Chronotis himself is fairly standard season 17, which means there are some clever moments with some lame jokes thrown in.  Denis Carey does a great job as the absent-minded Chronotis though.  The scenes on Think Tank do look a bit cheap, but it's a nice touch to make the countdown in Roman numerals.

Professor Chronotis's mind is drained by Skagra's sphere.
(Shada Part Two) ©BBC

Alas, parts two and three are much harder hit by the missing material, which gives what exists a much more disjointed feel, taking place as it does either on location in Cambridge or in Chronotis's study with almost nothing else in between.  There are still some nice moments (such as the rather charming a capella group singing "Chattanooga Choo Choo" as the Doctor pedals by, "I'm not mad about your tailor", and Wilkins opening up Chronotis's door, only to find a blue void), but it's hard to get a sense of the danger that Skagra represents.  And, sadly, things are only going to be less finished from here on out.

(Well, sort of.  It turns out that superfan Ian Levine did a version of Shada where he animated all the missing bits with most of the original cast.  It's been suggested that this was done with an eye toward including it on the then upcoming DVD, but that never happened (probably for various reasons; Tom Baker didn't participate, for one, and there honestly probably wouldn't have been space to include it and still keep everything else).  But it was made available unofficially on the Internet (a low quality version can be viewed here if you're interested), so out of curiosity I checked it out.  The original cast all participated except for Denis Carey and David Brierley (both sadly no longer with us), and Tom Baker.  Other than the fact that Christopher Neame seems to be playing a significantly less subtle character in 2010/1 than he was in 1979 (a lot more shouting, for instance), and that Paul Jones (playing the Doctor) sounds like he's doing a parody of modern day Tom Baker (instead of late 70s Tom Baker), it's actually surprisingly good.  (It's certainly a lot better than the crude 2003 Flash animation that accompanies the Big Finish version... yes, yes, advances in technology and all that, but nevertheless it's still better.)  The shift between live-action and animation isn't actually that jarring, and while the animation isn't quite up to, say, broadcast animation standards, it's still serviceable (in fact, it reminds me rather of the animated missing episodes on the Ice Warriors DVD).  But, most crucially, it gives you a sense of how the story was meant to be, how it was going to build up the threat over time.  Which isn't to say that it was going to be a lot better than what the existing footage suggests, but you do get a better sense of pacing and danger.  I look forward to seeing the last three parts.)

September 20: The Horns of Nimon Parts Three & Four

The Horns of Nimon Part Three was first broadcast on 5 January 1980, which makes it the very first episode to be broadcast in the 1980s.  Not the most auspicious start to the decade, but you've got to start somewhere.

Although actually these two episodes are a definite improvement over the last two -- probably because this is where the plot really gets going.  And since the plot is finally moving along, it means that Tom Baker has to do plot-related things instead of screwing around for two episodes while Lalla Ward gets on with the real story.  This is, on balance, a good thing, for while Lalla's role is somewhat reduced, as she has to feed standard companion lines to the Doctor, Tom is much more interesting when he has something to react against; it's tiresome when he's just clowning around in the TARDIS, but it's dangerous when he makes jokes in front of the Nimon.  Besides, Romana is soon separated from the Doctor and gets the chance to stand out again in part four.

The Doctor and Romana watch as the Nimon prepares to bring his
brethren to Skonnos. (The Horns of Nimon Part Three) ©BBC

The other good thing about these two episodes is that the plot is actually rather interesting.  Anthony Read has learned from some of the mistakes of Underworld (which he script-edited) and turned this story into more than just a simple retread of the Greek myth by making the Nimon a race rather than an individual -- and showing them beginning to arrive en masse -- and also by making them the main antagonists of the story.  They're shown as being much cleverer than they initially appeared to the Skonnons, tricking them into giving the Nimon everything they needed to ravage Skonnos, and the actual method of transmatting between planets (via two artificial black holes and a hyperspace tunnel connecting them) is quite nice.

It's not all good, of course; Graham Crowden continues to take Doctor Who as an opportunity to overact (infamously, he thought his death scene was only a camera rehearsal, rather than the real thing, but there was no time to go back and redo it -- hence the laughter as he dies), which, while oddly watchable, doesn't contribute much to the believability of the enterprise.  (Of course, John Bailey as Sezom, the last surviving person on the Nimon's last conquered planet, Crinoth, more than makes up for this with his performance.)  And the character of Teka really is blissfully unaware of Seth's complete inability to handle what's going on around him, often annoyingly so.  Meanwhile, the whole thing does look a bit cheap (since, as with Nightmare of Eden, Graham Williams elected to spend less money on this so that Shada would look really good when it was broadcast...), although not unbearably so.

To be honest, if you can get past all the clowning in the first two parts (or if you can sit back and just enjoy it without thinking too much), then The Horns of Nimon isn't a bad story.  Obviously it has some serious issues, but the main plot is a nice twist on the standard "alien invasion" set-up, and there's enough here to remain entertaining.  This does require you to look past said clowning, and it's understandable if you can't do that, but if you can you may be pleasantly surprised.

I'll be continuing on with what there is of Shada for the next couple days, but as that story was killed by industrial action and only about half of it was completed, as far as the viewing public was concerned this was the end of season 17.  It's not the most auspicious end to the season, but this was a very uneven season in general.  Tom Baker clearly wants to goof around and save planets while he's doing it, and this less serious tone is reflected in the scripts of this season; it's also supposedly a reaction to the universe-threatening stories of last season (although even those weren't really large-scale stories), but this season is full of smaller threats (the fate of a planet or a couple ships rather than absolutely everything) that, combined with that less serious tone, means that often times these stories feel slight.  Occasionally this works -- City of Death is so good that you hardly even notice that it's all of humanity at risk until the end, and Nightmare of Eden just wouldn't be as good if there was more to worry about than a couple of ships -- but more often than that the end result is one of apathy on the part of the viewer.  While none of these stories are out-and-out failures, there's still frequently a need for the viewer to work at getting at the good bits -- something that hasn't really been true of most previous seasons.  Doctor Who has become the television equivalent of wallpaper: nice enough if you pay attention, but otherwise just always there in the background, being inoffensive.  For most of the viewing public, this is no longer appointment television, but just something you switch on because there's nothing better on; as fans we know that's not true, but the show's virtues aren't as apparent as they used to be.

Fortunately, the next season is going to bring about an awful lot of changes...

September 19: The Horns of Nimon Parts One & Two

One wonders, watching the first two parts of The Horns of Nimon, how much of this was intended to be played straight and how much was meant to be comedic.  The nagging suspicion arises that the entire thing was meant to be serious, but that somewhere along the way actors got sidetracked into having a laugh instead.  The result is an incredibly uneasy tension between drama and humor.

It certainly looks like this is supposed to be a fairly serious SF retelling of the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur, but somewhere along the line they've thrown in a bunch of jokes; someone's decided it would be funny for Malcolm Terris's character to bellow "Weakling scum!" at the Anethans, someone else has decided it would be funny to see K-9 literally buried in tape (all of which is apparently the full damage report for the TARDIS), a third someone has decided it would be funny to hear comedy sound effects when the TARDIS fails to work properly near the start of part two... It's almost as if, collectively, the cast and crew decided, "Eh, this is the story going out over the Christmas holidays, let's just screw around and have some fun with it."  And so Tom Baker appears to be delighting in every silly moment he can interject (blowing down K-9's "snout" to bring him back to life is just one example), while Graham Crowden, playing the Skonnon scientist Soldeed, appears to be seeing how long he can go without ever blinking (the answer is a long time, although he does blink occasionally).  Yet seeing the two of them together is weirdly an exercise in underplaying, as they both try to deliver their lines in the most matter-of-fact manner possible.

The one exception to this pantomimic approach is Lalla Ward; she seems to have realized that no one is taking things seriously and stepped up to address the issue.  Not that Ward typically plays Romana for laughs, but here she easily steps into the Doctor role, treating everything seriously as she confronts Soldeed and then leads the Anethans through the Nimon's Power Complex, and it looks like she's relishing the opportunity to play the straight leading role.

And that's the thing; based on these first two episodes, one gets the impression that former script editor Anthony Read's script was meant to be taken seriously (even if, so far at least, it suffers the same problem as Underworld, in that we're not given an independent reason to care that Doctor Who is retelling Greek myths), but by this point on the show hardly anyone can be bothered to treat these themes with any sincerity.  There are a number of interesting ideas on display (creating artificial black holes, a labyrinth that's constantly shifting its layout), and some of the technical effects are quite good -- especially the collapse of the Anethan husk -- but they're not getting the treatment they deserve.  Ah well, maybe things will improve in the latter half.

All that said, watching the co-pilot's death scene at the part two cliffhanger, and seeing as he falls that he's split his trousers, is terribly funny.  The ultimate indignity.

September 18: Nightmare of Eden Parts Three & Four

I'm not sure whether it's by accident or design, but the character of Waterguard Fisk is so intensely unlikable that you can't help but feel frustrated by him every time he's on screen.  He's far more concerned about his own promotional prospects than about doing the right thing, and it's the sort of sheer bureaucracy that you instinctively want to rail against.  In other words, whether it's because of the script, Geoffrey Hinsliff's performance, or both, Fisk is a perfect example of the worst kind of villain.

What this does is increase the pressure on the Doctor and Romana even more; now it's not just Mandrels and drug smugglers that they have to contend with, but also small-minded officials who want them shot on sight.  But while this does provide a bit of drama at the cliffhanger, for the most part it's Fisk and his partner Costa who end up dealing with the Mandrel attacks while the Doctor and Romana are inside the Eden projection.  The scene with Rigg laughing, off his head on vraxoin as he watches the passengers being attacked by Mandrels, is quite disturbing, and while it's still wittily written ("They're only economy class; what's all the fuss about?"), you don't really want to laugh along.

So while chaos is reigning in the passenger compartments of the Empress, the Doctor and Romana first learn that Stott, the person who was "lost" during Tryst's Eden expedition, is still alive in the projection and was also on the trail of the smugglers, and then they decide to carry on with the separation of the ships. "Hadn't we better deal with [the Mandrels] first?" Romana asks.  "No, no, no," the Doctor replies.  "Until the ships are separated and the projection is stabilized, it'd be like trying to bail out a small boat with a..."  "Sieve?" Romana supplies helpfully.  "Yes," the Doctor agrees.  There's some fun with setting that up too, both with a Mandrel attacking the Doctor while he's rigging something up in the Empress's power room (which leads to the death of the Mandrel and the discovery that its powdered remains are the source of vraxoin) and with Rigg attacking Romana as he comes down from his high, insisting that Romana give him some more vrax.  Seeing Rigg in this state is just as unsettling as his earlier apathy.

Stott helps drive the Mandrels back into the CET. (Nightmare
of Eden Part Four) ©BBC

Part four has, infamously, the moment where the Doctor, leading the Mandrels back into the Eden projection after the successful separation of the ships, heads in with them and begins to ham things up tremendously off-screen ("Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  My fingers, my arms, my legs!  Ah!  My everything!").  It's such a dramatic departure from everything that's gone before that it can't help but stick out like a sore thumb.  But as what follows isn't like that either, it's not representative of the story as a whole.  Well, the famous fluff that's also in part four (where Fisk calls Tryst "Fisk" by mistake) probably doesn't help either (or the moment where Della gets shot in the neck and clutches her stomach -- but that's hardly Jennifer Lonsdale's fault), but it's predominantly this scene, I think, that is what's responsible for Nightmare of Eden's poor reputation.  And that's frankly a shame, because so much around it is excellent.  Tryst justifying himself to Della ("They had a choice.  It was their own fault that they became addicted") and then again later to the Doctor ("Tell them.  Tell them that I only did it for the sake of funding my research.  You understand all this.  You're a scientist") are both compelling scenes, even though we know Tryst is in the wrong -- but the Doctor's reply (a quiet "Go away" while he stares off into the distance) is even better, everything we love about Tom Baker distilled down into two words.

With the last story, I suggested that while it was better than its reputation, The Creature from the Pit wasn't actually what you might call good.  There are no such reservations about Nightmare of Eden.  It does, admittedly, look cheap (thanks to Graham Williams holding back money so that the season-ender could have enough money spent on it...), and there are a few duff moments, but so much of this story is well thought-out and well executed that it's easy to forgive these flaws.  The script is a gem, the performances are generally good, and as I said before, I don't even think the Mandrels are that bad.  Considering the nightmare this was made under¹¹⁰, it's amazing that anything watchable was created; the fact that we got something as clever and enjoyable as this is impressive.  This is easily one of the best stories of Graham Williams' entire tenure.







¹¹⁰ So. This story was directed by Alan Bromly, who'd previously directed The Time Warrior and a number of other things since, but at this point in time was in semi-retirement.  He was by most accounts an authoritarian director of the old school, which meant that he butted heads with Tom Baker almost immediately.  It also didn't help that he didn't have a good grasp of how the show normally ran (apparently, he initially wanted to shoot the programme in story order -- something that hadn't really been done since the '60s), and that he also rubbed most of the crew the wrong way.  In addition to all that, Bromly also wasn't very comfortable with all the elaborate effects shots that Doctor Who required (this is the same director, you may recall, who thought that a quarry blast would be an effective substitute for an exploding castle -- this might (might) explain why Della is shot in the wrong place in part four).  All of this meant that Bromly was a very difficult director to work with, and Bromly's inflexibility and strict dictatorial style of direction didn't sit well with the cast or crew.  Baker eventually began to openly revolt on the studio floor, which led to a standstill on the last studio day as Bromly informed producer Graham Williams that he was washing his hands of the whole thing.  Williams was forced to step in and finish directing the serial, and it was agreed that the problems were Bromly's fault and that he would never work on the show again.  This experience, it seems, was the final straw for Williams, who decided he would step down as producer of Doctor Who at the end of the season.

September 17: Nightmare of Eden Parts One & Two

It's a surprisingly mature thing to do to make a Doctor Who story about drugs (you may occasionally hear people claim otherwise; they can safely be ignored), and the fact that it's not terribly heavy-handed in its use is definitely in Nightmare of Eden's favor.  It also helps that this story isn't just about drug smuggling: we've also got a problem with two ships that have accidentally merged with each other, a matter transmuter that might be unstable, and monsters from somewhere that appear to be roaming the larger of the two ships, the Empress.  It's the collision that first interests the Doctor ("Of course we should interfere!  Always do what you're best at, that's what I say"), and his unorthodox method for separating the ships is what drives the plot of these first two episodes.  The drugs are still present, but they're not always the primary focus of things.

It certainly doesn't hurt that the Doctor seems very serious about what's going on, even when he's making light of the situation; much like in City of Death, here we get someone who's trying to put everyone at ease while he works out what's going on, and thus we get the impression that he really does care about things and isn't just clowning around for the hell of it.  Lines like, "I value my life, and this machine makes me fear for it," while delivered rather off the cuff, still nevertheless convey a sense of gravity.  And the depiction of the effects of the drug vraxoin, or "vrax" for short (presumably analogous to cocaine/coke), is surprisingly chilling; watching the navigator Secker laughing his head off while the Empress crashes into the Hecate is genuinely unsettling, as is the moment where someone spikes a drink with vraxoin that looks like it was intended for Romana but ends up with Captain Rigg instead.

Then there are the monsters of the piece, the Mandrels.  While we don't really see them that much in these two episodes, I have to confess that I've never really minded their design.  They do walk awkwardly, but other than that they seem quite effective to me.  The hands are nicely clawed, and the growling sound they make is pretty scary.  Rather less impressive is the bug that attacks Romana -- well, a "bug" was apparently the intention of the script, but all we get is a white light that could be just about anything, and it takes a number of viewings to work out what's actually meant to be happening.

But really, these two episodes move a long at a nice pace, keeping things interesting with additional discoveries, new problems, and lots of great dialogue (such as, "Work for?  I don't work for anybody.  I'm just having fun," the Doctor tells Rigg).  It may have been a nightmare behind the scenes (more on that next time), but the result on screen is so far very good indeed.

September 16: The Creature from the Pit Parts Three & Four

Part three isn't really too terrible either.  High praise, I know, but the stuff with Organon trying to break the newly-created wall down, and Lady Adrasta trying really very hard to kill the creature, is quite enjoyable.  And I find I don't even mind the creature itself, other than the ludicrous pseudopods that someone's decided to attach to the thing.  It does look awfully padded in places though; the Doctor's attempts to communicate go on far too long (complete with some incredibly rude-looking interactions with the creature), and the group of bandits continue to be both annoying and a bit boring.  That last bit's not strictly padding, since the plot needs them to take the communication device to the creature, but it's not a very engaging scene.

It is nice how things come together by the end of part three (although, how did the Doctor break down the barrier that the creature created?  The given reason feels awfully facetious...) and there's something compelling about watching Lady Adrasta's carefully constructed house of cards collapsing around her -- Myra Frances continues to impress.  It's a weird cliffhanger, though, that wants us to care about her fate more than the Doctor's; why they didn't stop thirty seconds sooner, with Adrasta threatening the Doctor's life, is beyond me.

Erato uses Lady Adrasta's larynx to communicate. (The Creature
from the Pit Part Four) ©BBC

No, the real problems set in with part four.  The natural conclusion of this story happens at about 8 minutes in; Adrasta has been killed, the creature (who's really a Tythonian ambassador named Erato) has been set free, and it looks like things are going to be all right for Chloris.  But there're still 12 whole minutes to fill, so we get a bunch of padding with Lady Adrasta's right-hand woman Karela stealing a bit of Erato's spaceship and negotiating with the bandits, followed by some truly bizarre bits involving a neutron star being flung at Chloris and an aluminium shell being able to reduce its gravitational pull long enough to be redirected.  It feels like pure padding; worse, it feels like stupid padding at odds with the rest of the story.  We couldn't even get some extended characterization scenes or a palace coup or something; just nonsense about missile-like stars instead.  It seems pretty clear that The Creature from the Pit's poor reputation rests squarely on the last half of part four, and everything else that goes wrong is just fuel for that particular fire.

Because the thing is, until the second ending tacked onto part four, this story isn't that bad.  There are some questionable decisions, to be sure (why do the production team want to keep making gigantic monsters?  Do they keep thinking, "this time it'll work"?), but the thing holds together better than you might have heard.  Making Erato not automatically a villain is a good move, and Myra Frances and Geoffrey Bayldon both light up the screen.  If there's a plotting problem beyond the ending, it's that it's occasionally too straight-forward; for instance, the bandits bring the communicator to Erato because the plot needs Erato to start speaking rather than for any other reason.  This, combined with all the other problems mentioned, does mean that The Creature from the Pit isn't an underrated gem or anything like that, but it is rather better than you may have heard; there's enough here to keep you entertained despite these issues.

September 15: The Creature from the Pit Parts One & Two

The Creature from the Pit doesn't start too badly; the jungle set at the beginning is rather nice, and the scene with the Doctor and K-9 reading Beatrix Potter is rather sweet.  And it's also (finally) the debut of David Brierley as the voice of K-9 (since K-9's been absent from the first two stories of this season) -- it's a different approach from John Leeson's, but it still works.

The jungle set, as I said, is nice, and the Doctor and Romana make the most of exploring the odd eggshell that the TARDIS materializes near.  And the wolf weeds are frankly much better than one might have expected; the rolling motion helps sell the effect and demonstrates that they're not just being dragged around with strings.  The other good thing about this episode is Myra Frances as Lady Adrasta.  She's playing the part with very serious intent, and so the danger seems much more plausible than in other stories.  The same can't be said for the bandits who've captured Romana, though; writer David Fisher appears to have made them deliberately stupid for some unclear reason, and so while it's entertaining to watch Lalla Ward command them imperiously, it does make for some rather labored comedy moments later on.

But still, this first episode is quite well done, and the cliffhanger's pretty good too (even if you get a sense that none of the actors quite know how to play the scene leading up to it).  It's in the second part that things start to slip.  Lady Adrasta remains wonderfully straight with her villainy, but the Everest in Easy Stages bit with the Doctor is incredibly lame; at least when they did something similar in Destiny of the Daleks it was an in-joke.  Of course, things improve rather when the Doctor meets Organon, a seer, at the bottom of the pit; Geoffrey Bayldon pitches his performance just right, and he gets some great lines ("Organon, sir. ... Astrologer extraordinary.  Seer to princes and emperors.  The future foretold, the past explained, the present... apologised for").  But then we get our first view of the eponymous creature, and it's... ah... worryingly inappropriate-looking.  It's a bit better when we can see more of this gigantic thing (thanks to CSO shots), but there's still a green fleshy pseudopod probing the air in front of it.  To say it's not realized well is a bit of an understatement.

The realization isn't very good, and there are some misjudged comedic bits (such as anything involving the bandits), but so far there's enough here to keep viewer interest.  It's a nice touch, having the Doctor not be afraid of the creature or consider it evil automatically; if things continue like this, The Creature from the Pit might work out okay.

September 14: City of Death Parts Three & Four

The joyousness continues, as we learn that Scaroth communicates with his other splintered selves across time and has been forcing the human race to progress in order to arrive at a level of technology for his most future self to be able to go back in time and stop his spaceship from exploding in the first place -- only that explosion is what began life on Earth in the first place, as the Doctor seems to realize in his conversation with Captain Tancredi.

There continues to be a great deal of wit on display, such as the Doctor agreeing to tell Scaroth what he knows not because of the threat of thumbscrews but because he can't stand being touched by cold hands, but what separates this from other stories is that the wit goes hand in hand with the threat; the Doctor can make jokes and verbally spar with Scaroth, but he knows what will happen if Scaroth is successful in his goal, and this motivation gives the story an undercurrent of serious intent.  It matters whether the Doctor succeeds, because the entire human race is at stake.

The scenes with Romana and Duggan are also entertaining in their own way, as Duggan continues to act as the slightly blundering muscle, smashing windows and accidentally setting off alarms around the spot where the Mona Lisa used to be.  Duggan works well as Romana's foil, as she slings withering dialogue at him.  "You know what I don't understand?" Duggan says to Romana.  "I expect so," she says loftily.

Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth. (City of Death Part Four) ©BBC

Part four is to date the Doctor Who episode with the highest ever ratings, as 16.1 million people tuned in.  This is partly because ITV, the other British broadcaster, was on strike at the time, but if there was an episode for people to see, this is a good choice.  There are a number of moments in this episode that seem highly influential; the scene between the Doctor and the Countess ("I recognize the handwriting," the Doctor says.  "Shakespeare's," the Countess replies.  "No, mine," the Doctor corrects her; "he'd sprained his wrist writing sonnets") seems to have been a significant influence on Steven Moffat's approach towards Doctor Who.  And there's the oft-lauded scene with John Cleese and Eleanor Bron as the art gallery visitors, admiring the TARDIS on display in the modern art museum.  It's a perfect scene in a story full of fabulous moments. There are serious moments as well: the shots of Scaroth with his true face revealed, but still in a white suit, are potentially ludicrous looking but actually very effective.  And Duggan, who's been criticized by the Doctor and Romana for most of the story for his brute force methods, saves the human race thanks to a well-placed punch to Scaroth's head on prehistoric Earth.  It's a satisfying solution.

Seriously, City of Death is one of the best things ever.  The whole thing fits together beautifully, and there's a sense of a cast and crew having fun with a superb script.  There's often an awkward tension between drama and levity in this era of the show, but City of Death is the story that strikes the perfect balance between the two.  It's got a cracking plot and tons of quotable lines, and a self-assured production with a cast that knows how to walk the line that the script by David Agnew (aka Douglas Adams and Graham Williams) is asking them to walk.  What more could you possibly ask for?

September 13: City of Death Parts One & Two

In the interests of full disclosure, I should inform you that City of Death is my all-time favorite Doctor Who story, so don't expect a lot of harsh criticism this time around.

It certainly doesn't hurt that they've gone and traveled to Paris for the location filming this time around.  That slow pan across the flowering trees to show the Eiffel Tower is a fabulous shot, and it's clear that the Doctor and Romana are having a great time.  The scenery is pretty, and I at least don't have a problem with the production team indulging themselves with shots of the Time Lords exploring Paris, given how great it all looks.  And the script sparkles, with tons of fabulous lines (such as describing 1979 as "more of a table wine", rather than as a vintage year) and some really striking imagery: the sketch of Romana with a cracked clock for a face is imaginative (and illustrates the problems with time very well), and the shot at the very beginning, of Scaroth's ship taking off and exploding, is really nicely done.  Scaroth himself is a suitably interesting villain -- both in visual and characterization terms; Julian Glover exudes sophisticated, charming villainy, and he's a joy to watch.  Plus that first cliffhanger, where he rips off his fake human face to reveal the Jagaroth underneath, is certainly memorable (though it's not quite clear why he's doing so; maybe he needs to let his real face breathe).

Part two is even more wonderful.  It's chock full of great dialogue ("I say, what a wonderful butler, he's so violent"; "Now, while we're here, why don't you and I find out how they're going to steal it and why.  Or are you just in it for the thumping?"; "You're a beautiful woman, probably..."; "Duggan, why is it that every time I start to talk to someone, you knock him unconscious?"; and scores more), but it's also plotted very cleverly.  The scene with the Doctor talking with Professor Kerensky is fascinating, and the idea of raising money by stealing the Mona Lisa and then selling seven different copies of it is marvelous.  I also love how the Doctor and Duggan are having a conversation in Scarlioni/Scaroth's cellar while Romana is in the background investigating why one of the rooms isn't as big as it should be.  It's all simply gorgeous.

And another great cliffhanger: the Doctor pops back to Renaissance Italy, only to find that Scarlioni is also there...

September 12: Destiny of the Daleks Episodes Three & Four

It's a bit unfortunate how much things go down in episode three, and most of the issues can be blamed on Davros.  David Gooderson doesn't have the same intensity as Michael Wisher did, and the result is that he frequently sounds, well, bored.  And any time he's not required to deliver dialogue he just sits there -- it could be a mannequin in the chair for all the interactivity he displayes; he doesn't rant, he doesn't rave, and he doesn't object when the Doctor wheels him around the ruined Kaled base.  Maybe Gooderson doesn't have much experience with mask work and it's affecting his performance, but nevertheless it's a problem.  And it doesn't help that when Davros has to move under his own power (as opposed to being pushed around), Gooderson is shuffling so furiously that his upper body wobbles back and forth alarmingly.

This might not be as huge an issue if the episode wasn't devoted to the rematch between the Doctor and Davros, but the result is that this epic showdown feels small and inconsequential.  It culminates in the Doctor's decision to destroy Davros (only thwarted because some Daleks remove the explosive from Davros's chair before the bomb goes off), but because the preceding scenes were so limp this isn't the shocking choice that it should have been; it's just an incident along the way.  Oh, and then there's something about the Movellans (as the Doctor somehow learns the silver-haired humanoids are called) turning evil and placing an unconscious Romana inside a glass cylinder with a huge bomb.

The Doctor and Romana stage an argument for the Movellans.
(Destiny of the Daleks Episode Four) ©BBC

Episode four is a little better -- David Gooderson is better when he's giving orders to Daleks than when verbally fencing with the Doctor -- but there are some unsatisfying moments nevertheless.  The motivation behind the Movellans turning "evil" (they actually just want to hold on to the Doctor at all costs) makes sense (sort of), but it happens so suddenly that it's still jarring.  Everyone (even the Doctor) seems to believe that the Daleks are now completely inorganic for some reason (is this the "destiny" referred to in the title?).  And rock paper scissors is used to illustrate the logical impasse that the Daleks and the Movellans find themselves in, even though there's no logical reason for the Daleks and the Movellans to be picking the same moves (unless the idea is that the Daleks and Movellans think identically, but that's not really made clear at all).¹⁰⁹

Of course, there are some nice moments to make up for this: making the Movellans androids in the first place is an interesting move, and to his credit Terry Nation does follow through with this idea a bit (the logical impasse, the power packs).  The Daleks advancing toward the Movellan spaceship, all loaded down with explosives, is a distinctive scene, and Ken Grieve does a good job with the direction -- their eventual detonations are impressive as well.  And the prisoners' raid on the Movellan ship is also well directed.

But it's not enough to save Destiny of the Daleks.  There's definitely some promise here, and Terry Nation (in his final script for the series) provides some interesting ideas, rather than just rehashing old scripts.  Making the Daleks purely robotic may be a daft move, but it shows that he's at least thought about things somewhat.  But the two central problems (Davros, and the fact that there's not quite enough incident to fill up the four episodes satisfactorily) hang over the production, and a scene like the Doctor confronting Davros after all these years -- which should have been iconic, and looks like (for Nation, at least) the crux of the whole story -- fades into the background.  Not even Ken Grieve's direction (which tries to stay engaged with the action) can save things, and the non-serious material at the top and tail of the story don't help at all.  If they'd had Michael Wisher back as Davros, or if they'd done this a couple years earlier, they might have pulled it off.  But as it is, Destiny of the Daleks ends up being a story that just fades into the background, with nothing to sustain it -- which, given this is a return for the Daleks after four years, is frankly inexcusable.







¹⁰⁹ One "error" that isn't, though: About Time wonders how the Dalek that's wearing the Doctor's hat explodes in episode four, but it seems they didn't notice the explosive that the Doctor grabbed and planted on the Dalek right before.

September 11: Destiny of the Daleks Episodes One & Two

That's right, for one story only we're back to calling them "episodes" instead of "parts".

It doesn't open very seriously, does it?  It's slightly surprising to see Romana regenerated for no obvious in-story reason, and the manner in which the regeneration is treated is at odds with how it's been treated before.  In the past, regeneration has been treated as a last resort, with one body essentially dying and being replaced by another, but here it's a much more casual affair, with various bodies being presented in the same manner as which Tom Baker presented various costumes in Robot.

Yet after this opening scene (which also features K-9 with laryngitis, somehow¹⁰⁸), Destiny of the Daleks is a surprisingly serious affair.  The scenes of the Doctor and Romana clambering over the ruins of Skaro (not that they know it's Skaro yet) are very atmospheric, and there's a sense of dread that pervades everything.  Well, almost everything; the bit with the Doctor trapped under a pillar and reading a book about the origins of the universe (complete with a Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in-joke from new script editor Douglas Adams) is pretty jokey.  And since this is a Terry Nation Dalek story, we have to wait until the cliffhanger for the Daleks to make their appearance, as they threaten Romana.

The second episode is just as serious; the Doctor appears to be taking the threat of the Daleks very seriously, and he keeps making noises about how he thinks he knows what it is the Daleks are searching for in the ruins of the Kaled city, but he won't actually tell us what that is.  "I'll tell you when I find out," he says.  And while he's investigating the ruins, trying to find whatever the Daleks are looking for before they do, Romana is subjected to an interrogation by the Daleks (and looks suitably terrified by them -- you can even see a tear on her face when they finally stop questioning her) and then forced to help them excavate the ruins.  It's honestly pretty brutal, and the atmospheric direction from Ken Grieve (helped by this new technology they're trying out called "Steadicam") helps a lot with this.  And while there's another jokey moment in episode two (the famous bit with the Doctor taunting a Dalek: "If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us?"), for the most part this somber air pervades the whole thing.  Oh, and look: we get our first localized extermination effect (as opposed to the whole picture going negative) -- it's quite a nice effect.

And it turns out that the Daleks are looking for Davros (even though it looked like they killed him at the end of Genesis of the Daleks -- and was the Kaled bunker really under the city in that story?) -- who, the cliffhanger shows, apparently isn't as dead as you might think...

And incidentally, full marks to whoever pulled out the background sound effects from the first Dalek story for use in this story.







¹⁰⁸ The real world reason being that John Leeson has left as K-9 and has been replaced by David Brierley -- but still, they couldn't come up with a better reason than laryngitis?

September 10: The Armageddon Factor Parts Five & Six

Apparently I had lowered expectations going into these last two parts: I had a memory that the Drax bits were too jokey and that the very end wasn't very good.  It was therefore nice to be pleasantly surprised.  These two episodes hold up quite well.

But yes, if the first two episodes were primarily on Atrios, and the second pair on Zeos, then these final two are set on the Shadow's world (what the Doctor calls the planet of evil but which looks more like a space station, at least from the model shots).  There's a sense of trying to disorient the Doctor (and therefore the viewer) by providing fake voices and multiple visions of Romana, but it doesn't quite come off.  And as it turns out, it doesn't last too long either, as the Doctor counters fellow Time Lord Drax, who refers to the Doctor as "Theta Sigma".  As About Time mentions, it really does feel, given Bob Baker & Dave Martin's history of naming Time Lord characters after Greek letters (Omega), that they're revealing the Doctor's real name after all these years.  (Fortunately (since Theta Sigma is a dumb name) The Happiness Patrol will retcon this as a nickname.)  The Drax bits are quite entertaining, and I like how the Doctor rumbles his game almost immediately -- which means we don't have to worry about Drax betraying the Doctor at a crucial moment.  Mind, part five's cliffhanger makes it look that way...

All the shrunken stuff in part six is okay, but this episode is really about trying to obtain the complete Key and stop the Shadow from handing it over to the Black Guardian, and doing so before time runs out on the time loop and Atrios and Zeos annihilate each other.  This does give things some welcome tension, and while the events themselves aren't the most exciting (it's basically about the Shadow getting the first five segments, turning Princess Astra into the sixth, and having the Doctor and Drax infiltrate the Shadow's main chamber via K-9), that time pressure makes you wonder if they're going to achieve everything in time.

The Doctor commands the completed Key to Time while Romana
looks on. (The Armageddon Factor Part Six) ©BBC

The very end of the episode is a bit problematic.  The bit where the Doctor pretends to have gone mad with absolute power doesn't really work (although one wonders if it would have been more successful if Dudley Simpson had put some dramatic music over the scene), and there's a bit of a sense of "that's it?" at the end.  Yes, the Key to Time was completed, but the Doctor is never seen to hand it over to the White Guardian, choosing instead to rescatter the pieces across the universe (which brings Princess Astra back, who tenderly looks at an injured Merak -- except I'm so heartily sick of Merak by this point that the scene doesn't have the impact I suspect they were going for).  It's a bit anticlimactic for a season-long arc, and while there are theories to account for this (one is that the Guardian in The Ribos Operation was in fact the Black Guardian in disguise, and that the Universe wasn't actually in grave danger; this appears to have been the view that the production team took -- at least according to interviews with Bob Baker), the problem is that none of those theories show up on screen, which does leave an unfinished feeling at the end.  (Oh, and speaking of unfinished business... what actually happened to all the Zeons?  Did they die early on?  Are they all in hiding on another part of Zeos?  We never find out.)

Still, this only happens at the end, and before that The Armageddon Factor is a surprisingly entertaining story.  There's a feel of an epic here in Bob Baker & Dave Martin's final story for the series (and as it turns out, the last six-parter as well¹⁰⁷), and even if what we get on screen doesn't quite match the effort, there's still plenty here to engage with.  It's also nice to have a story that's actually largely about the Key to Time, as opposed to the other five stories this season, which treat the Key as an incident along the way.  Making the Key the focus helps with that epic feeling.  It's not perfect, but The Armageddon Factor is a damn sight better than its reputation would have you believe.

Season 16 was, of course, the first season of Doctor Who to have a linking theme for all the stories.  As an experiment I would say it was a qualified success.  Certainly having a specific season-long goal gives the stories an impetus that contributes to the feeling of something monumental going on.  Of course, the fact that these six stories often only have a passing familiarity with the Key to Time as they go on to tell their own tales (The Androids of Tara in particular) does lessen the impact somewhat, but I found I didn't mind.  It's only at the very end that things disappoint, and as that's something that could have been solved with an extra line or two of dialogue it's not that frustrating an ending.  The production issues behind the scenes (essentially, linking six stories means you can't switch the running order around any, which causes problems when one of the stories is having troubles) meant that they were unlikely to try this again, but in general the Key to Time season works more often than it doesn't.

Of course, the other thing to note about this season is how uninterested it is in being scary.  The one story that half-attempts this (The Stones of Blood, if you've forgotten) seems incredibly uncommitted to making things terrifying.  This is a season far more interested in space stories and in romping about and having a good time.  This obviously suits Tom Baker just fine, as he seems far happier being invincible and having fun than in being dark and brooding.  But the issue this causes is that the focus of the show is now squarely on the lead actor's shoulders.  Doctor Who, at this point in time, is no longer interested in exploring strange environments and presenting striking, often scary, imagery; now it's all about watching the Doctor and Romana romp through the action and being generally invincible -- content to make jokes at the baddies rather than look worried (which, to be fair, isn't the worst lesson in the world).  It works as well as it does because, frankly, Tom Baker is incredibly entertaining to watch, but there's a sense that there's only so much more of this the programme can take and still remain viable.  Doctor Who has essentially become a light entertainment show, something safe and comfortable; we're a long way away from its beginnings.







¹⁰⁷ Allowing for the fact that The Two Doctors (and, sort of, "Utopia"/"The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords") is essentially a six-part story masquerading as a three-parter.