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.