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...