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.

September 9: The Armageddon Factor Parts Three & Four

The action shifts in these two episodes from Atrios to Zeos, as we see what the other side has been getting up to.  Well, I say "the other side", but it seems there's a third party involved, a tall, dark, emaciated figure called the Shadow who wants the Doctor to hand over the first five segments of the Key to Time.  But he seems to believe the Doctor will make a mistake and so leaves him be to explore Zeos.

K-9, the Doctor, and Romana in Mentalis's computer room. (The
Armageddon Factor Part Three) ©BBC

There's a lot of corridor wandering in these two episodes, but in part three, at least, I find I don't mind too much, as there's enough to sustain interest.  The stuff with K-9 and Mentalis, the Zeon computer, is a lot of fun -- particularly K-9's pleasure at encountering another computer and his slight exasperation with all the organics he has to deal with; K-9 often comes across as a mobile plot-solver-cum-weapons-platform, so it's nice to see him get some characterization.  And while Davyd Harries is starting to get a little looser with his portrayal of Shapp, I still don't really mind it.  He's leagues ahead of the characterization of Merak, who seems so focused on Princess Astra to the exclusion of everything else that he comes across as unbelievably wet and annoying.  Mind, even the Doctor (or is it Tom Baker?) seems irritated with him, as he snaps at him near the end of part three.  The cliffhanger to part three, by the way, gives us our best ever look at Doctor Who's standard monster actor Pat Gorman, who here is the Marshal's copilot.

It does start to sag a bit in part four, though.  The best part involves the Doctor constructing a temporary sixth segment to hold the Universe in check long enough for the Doctor and Romana to stop the impending Armageddon from both the Marshal (who's preparing to blast Zeos out of the sky) and Mentalis (which is prepared to destroy both planets if an attack gets through).  The idea of the time loop affecting the Marshal's ship and the Zeon computer room, and how the time loop is slowly stretching as the makeshift sixth segment burns out, is clever (even if it isn't incredibly original).  The stuff with Princess Astra and Merak, on the other hand, is rather dreary -- Astra may be possessed, but this seems to be an excuse for some rather theatrical acting.  And at this point in the story it's hard to care about the Shadow, as all he's doing is lurking sinisterly -- he's not really putting many plans into motion.  Still, it's one of the better cliffhangers, as it's rather unsettling to hear K-9 refer to the Shadow as "Master" -- and the Shadow is more than happy to laugh maniacally as the credits roll...

September 8: The Armageddon Factor Parts One & Two

Five hundred episodes!  That's quite a milestone that The Armageddon Factor Part One has reached.  And it's also my anniversary, which is a different kind of milestone and rather harder to tie in with this story.  I guess there's that couple at the beginning ("Men out there, young men, are dying for it")?  No?  I guess not.

This is another one of those stories that gets a rough ride from fandom, but -- at least on the basis of these first two episodes -- it's hard to see why.  It's no worse than anything else we've seen under Graham Williams's producership, and there's quite a lot to enjoy here.  The propaganda video is honestly a nice touch, juxtaposed as it is with the scenes of despair and destruction we see in the makeshift hospital on Atrios.  I also like the iridescent quality of the braids and such on the Atrian costumes.  I'm less convinced about using an office chair as the Marshal's seat of power though.

See, the thing is that these episodes are structured quite well, and no one really lets down the side on the acting front; people often deride Davyd Harries, but here, at least, he's quite pleasantly understated.  The worst of them is probably Ian Saynor as Merak, and that's only because the script needs him to be all moony over Princess Astra.  And this is probably Mary Tamm's best performance as Romana, as she's finally figured out how to deliver the exposition lines in a way that sounds natural (a problem that she was having in earlier stories).  Plus there's a lot of fun to be had with John Woodvine's performance as the seemingly possessed Marshal of Atrios, constantly fingering his neck and prone to sudden, irrational mood swings.

It's got a decent set design, a good cast, and a reasonable script (well, except for the second cliffhanger, where the Doctor suspects he's walking into a trap and then seems surprised when the trap is sprung).  It's not going out of its way to impress anyone, but so far The Armageddon Factor is a solid, entertaining story.