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.