The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It

 "The unexpected but accurate bisecting of the Belgian foreign minister; the Royal College of Needlework massacre; the strange affair of the seven boiled bishops; and the man-eating poodle of Lambeth Palace enigma?"

This is, shall we say, somewhat obscure. A one-off ITV comedy thing, co-scripted by and starring John Cleese, and with his signature absurdist verbal humour all over it. It's not available anywhere officially, as far as I know, and will certainly never be seen on television again- it was 1977, and there's a little light racism on show here. But let's just say that YouTube happens to exist, shall we?

But damn, this is funny. Don't get me wrong, it's uneven, and it would be absurd to expect the plot to make sense. But there are some delightfully clever touches and, despite the fact it all looks extremely cheap, the performances are excellent. Atrthur Lowe steals the show as the most bumbling Watson ever, but Connie Booth is also hilarious as Mrs Hudson. And Denholm Elliott is, of course, his usual superb self.

It's also illuminating as to the world of 1977- the Chinese delegate to the Police of Five Continents meeting has Mao's Little Red Book; there's a hilarious spoof of both Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford; and there's a rather funny scene with a very 1970s computer. Oh, and there's a nicely casual skewering of all sorts of pop culture detectives.

This is not, by any means, one of the best things John Cleese has ever done. Some bits are funnier than others. But this is just so much fun to watch.

Erik the Viking (1989)

 "Stay calm. This is not happening."

Oh dear. What went wrong here? We begin with a moderately well-scripted Pythonesque little scene about, er, rape (yes, quite), and then we seem to descend into quite the mess.

And yet... it's written and directed by Terry Jones, he of Monty Python fame, certainly someone with comic talent, many glimpses of which are seen here- it's a bad film, yes, and don't get me started on the dragon, but there are funny concepts and funny lines. Jones, of course, knows his mediaeval history, and there are references and in-jokes aplenty, many of which go over my head. There's a theme of belief that runs throughout- Harald the Missionary refuses to believe in the aspects of Norse myth that surround him, and cannot see them. The King of High Brazil and his subjects refuse to believe that their land is sinking beneath the waves. And Erik falsely believed that he is wearing an invisible cloak.

There are other little bits of cleverness. The Norse gods are played by children. And yet... overall, it falls flat. There's a clear plot, pretty much, but it all falls flat. This tries to be a Monty Python and the Holy Grail or a Time Bandits but... it isn't.

Then there's the performances. Jones himself is excellent, as is John Cleese as the delightfully evil Halfdan the Black. But so many of the cast fail to shine. And I suspect this offers us a clue: Terry Jones is a damn good writer and performer, and I don't think the script is at all the problem here... but he's just not a good enough director to helm a big blockbuster, at least on his own.

An interesting failure, then, and with nuggets to be found. But a failure nonetheless.

Die Another Day (2002)

 "What are you? CIA?

"NSA..."

I was spoilt for choice for quotes. This may not be the best Bond film ever, but it's one of the very best for double entendres.

Yes, I know, it's reputation isn't great. And yes, it's flawed. I sisliked it back in 2002. And yet, on today's second viewing... is it really that bad?

Yes, we have the invisible car and really quite out there sci-fi elements. But I wasn't as bothered about that this time for some reason. And yes, the plot doesn't quite make sense. And it's a bit harsh for Bond to be in the doghouse for supposedly cracking under torture!!!

But I was entertained. Even the universally panned theme song... well, the production is truly horrible, and it's a waste of Madonna to use her in a song like this, but if you look past the horrible autotune and production issues, the song itself is fundamentally good.

Yet we have a good villain, however preposterous his backstory. Halle Berry is... well, adequate as a Bond girl, and gets a nice little scene involving a laser beam that's a nice little homage to Goldfinger. There are some nice locations in Cuba, although by the time we get to Iceland there's far too much CGI. That becomes a problem during the car chase action sequences, too.

And it's all very, very early 2000s, all waterboarding torture and conflict diamonds and smoking at work.

But fundamentally, this film is far from terrible. Perhaps the bad reception was because of everyone now having seen Austin Powers, meaning the format needed to become more serious to survive, and this film is gloriously silly?

And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)

 "My hovercraft is full of eels."

This film is, of course, just a load of sketches from the first two series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, barely rewritten at all and reshot with a slightly bigger budget. That, of course, is no bad concept for a film.

Whether the "best" sketches were chosen is, of course, a subjective thing. Any thirteen episode series of half hour shows is going to be, as the cliche goes, hit and miss. There's so much good stuff in those two series, and the film has less than ninety minutes to play with, so it's a shame they went for the killer joke sketch, the rowdy old ladies, and other second tier stuff. I suppose they were pretty much obliged to include the slightly overrated parrot sketch. Nevertheless, we get the two mountaineering sketches, not being seen, the restaurant sketch, defence against fresh fruit, and other top tier stuff/.

Obviously, the film is superb. It couldn't possibly not have been. But what fascinates me, after the passage of fifty-odd years, is how much longer ago 1971 feels than it did the last time I saw this film, I suspect when John Major was prime minister. We no longer, mercifully, have many tobacconists. Let us just say that attitudes to LGBT+ people are a bit different. Even more fascinating, though, old people wear Victorian fashions because they are, of course, Victorians. It's middle aged women who look like my generation's idea of what old people look like. And there are the ever-present city gents with their black bowler hats.

This is a hilarious comedy, and also a fascinating little time capsule.

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

 "There's no point in living of you can't feel alive."

This is the finest Brosnan Bond film so far. I was unimpressed with GoldenEye; Tomorrow Never Dies was better; this is a superb film that channels the best of Bond.

It's all very late '90s, of course. Q is about to retire, and his replacement, the fittingly amusing R, played by a sprighly John Cleese, a mrere sixty years old, describes the latest Bond supercar as having "six cupholders". Amongst the globetrotting to Bilbao, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Istanbul is a superb set piece boat chase through London, including the Millennium Dome. And, of course, Miss Moneyponey says of a cigar that "I know exactly where to put that."

There's only one decade where that line makes sense.Still, let us note tht Bill Clinton was an abusive wanker, and Kenneth Starr was the same by proxy. May they both suffer lifelong impotence.

There's an innocence to this world pf post Cold War, End of History hubris, where there are no significant hostile countries and where threats of tyranny or nuclear armageddon, that feels charmingly dated. Yet the whole dynamic of Bomd and Elektra offers a surprisingly thoughtful take on sex and to wthe extent it can involve deceiving and using people.  

All this, and we have some splendid set pieces, a supern Bond villain in Robert Carlyle, a nice bit of misdirection where we think Elektra is the Bond girl but she turns out to be the big baddie, and one of the best theme tunes ever. This is, quetly, one of the very best Bonds.

Clockwise (1986)

 “It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope."

I was probably still in primary school when I last saw this film, expecting a straightforward comedy that, after all, starred John Cleese. That's not what I got, and I recall being disappointed.

What a difference thirty-five odd years makes.

I'm not, as a rule, one for farces. They run like clockwork; they tend to be masterful exercises in plotting and to showcase superb comic acting but, for me, they tend to be more a thing to admire than to love.

Yet this film, although genuinely funny in a gently facical way and showcasing a bravura performance from John Cleese and lots of fun little appearances from various familiar character actors, has a lot to say beneath the surface humour. Brian Stimpson is a man obsessed with punctuality and propriety who was, we learn, perpetually late in his youth. He has overcome his own flaws through fear of his own weaknesses. I can identify with that, certainly, in my own life.

Yet he's also a man with a slight chipon his shoulder but determinedly ambition. He's the firsty head of a state school to char the Headmasters' Conference, which is dominated by the public school clique that runs far too many things. He knows, deep down, despite his upper middke class lifestyle and respectability, that he will never be as "good" as they are, but he's chairman now. And, with all those evenings at Tory party events, he hopes this may be a step to political success. He can dream.

And yet, alas, not all ambitions can be realised in Thatcher's Britain. Hubris is still a thing. Sois nemesis. Stimpson's arrogance lets him down in the end, ruining his life but bringing him, also, a much-needed momemt of self-realisation and genuine self-awareness, wearing a monhk's robe on the side of a country road.

This is a superblyu crafted and surprisingly deep film. I'm impressed.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

"Touch his dick and he's dead!"

I first saw this magnificent farce back when I hired out the video, which shows you how long ago it was. It not only stars but is written by John Cleese, and the figure behind Fawlty Towers certainly knows how to do a good farce.

Cleese is bloody good as Archie, of course, the (ahem) archetype of repressed, sexually stultified exemplar of a certain type of public school educated Englishman. Jamie Lee Curtis is also bloody good as the cynically feminine and deeply greedy Wanda with her foreign languages fetish. But truly outstanding are Kevin Kline as the psychopathic Otto and Michael Palin as the stuttering Ken, an extraordinary performance. All four give splendid comedy performances.

There are some laugh out loud moments-  I loved Archie’s apology to Otto- but it’s largely an intricate and character based farce, perfectly constructed. I’m not a fan of the farce in general but John Cleese is a master of the art.

Archie’s speech to Wanda about the stultifying embarrassment of being English is both funny and true, up to a point. I tend to think the stiff upper lip stereotype applies only to the public school educated, separated from their parents and put into a strange and repressed existence that I know mainly from popular culture; the English are fundamentally open, emotional, beer swilling north Europeans quite culturally close to the Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch, but something about that sense of very English embarrassment has permeated throughout our culture. Perhaps the upcoming horrors of Brexit will change that. Perhaps they won’t.

Be that as it may, this is a true comedy classic, and possibly the last creation of John Cleese to have true greatness.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)

“Let the heathens spill theirs
 On the dusty ground
 God shall make them pay for
 Each sperm that can’t be found.”

There’s a sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look which shows our two eponymous writer-performers sorting out the order of sketches for their comedy sketch series, which is of course very much in the lineage of Monty Python. The joke is, of course, that they try to arrange the hits and the misses in the correct sequence so there are equal amounts of each, as every sketch show has to be hit and miss; it’s a fully fledged cliche. And one often made of this film.

Thing is, though, this criticism is somewhat dodgy. Of course the Monty Python telly series could be hit and miss; they had to fill thirteen episodes a series at the pace of telly, where union rules meant the studio lights went off at 10pm no matter what. But it’s commonly a criticism not made of The Holy Grail or The Life of Brian, both more narrative and less explicitly a series of sketches. Yet The Meaning of Life gets these criticisms full force.

But this is absolute pants. Yes, this film isn’t quite as good as the other two; I accept that. But how many individual telly episodes have this kind of hit rate? I mean, Every Sperm Is Sacred, sex education, a run of excellent war sketches, the Galaxy Song- this would have been a critical hit if it were the only Python film.

It’s also a lot more explicitly political, a sort of last hurrah for the Beyond the Fringe generation, as it gleefully skewers the church, public school, the armed forces and all sorts of upper middle class pretensions. Even Terry Gilliam’s glorious opening feature with its accountants raiding international finance on the high seas, a live action version of one of his own animations, is aimed squarely at Thatcherism. But more than that, it’s hilarious. And so is the film as a whole. So forget all this hit and miss stuff; this is classic, superb Python for the very last time.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

"He wanks as high as any man in Wome!"

This is, surely, the greatest comedy film ever made. By miles. I suspect that’s an uncontroversial comment. It’s also not at all about religion. That one needs a bit more explaining.

Life of Brian is about how ideas, such as Jesus’ rather excellent views on how to live one’s life, are always taken over and twisted into something else by those who want to use them to gain power and status. Hence the central part of the film, where Brian is followed by professional disciples (“I should know- I’ve followed a few”) who argue amongst themselves and split into various denominations over a dropped shoe on day one, killing their first heretic for good measure. The main example of the film’s central message is in that context. But it isn’t only applied to religion- aren’t Reg’s People’s Front of Judea and all the other “splitters” am example of exactly the same thing? Yet again, principles are subordinated to power, status and meaningless bureaucracy, exactly the same as per every organised religion that has ever existed. That’s how humanity always twists religion but also, I’m afraid, politics. Principles don’t stand a chance. That’s the film’s message, beneath the inspired humour. It’s very bleak, very Adam Curtis, and every bit as dark as the gleefully dark humour.

It’s bloody funny, though. We all have our favourite lines; mine is when Brian convinced the crowd that “we’re all individuals” and “we’re all different”, and one bloke shouts “I’m not”. The performances are superb, the Pythons being geniuses, and the script is the best comedy script ever. The filming in Tunisia looks lush and expensive- thank you, George Harrison, for paying for such things as this and Shirley Bloody Bassey. If you haven’t seen this then just bloody watch it now.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!"

I'm obviously not blogging the telly series; it’s brilliant and revolutionary, of course, and any kind of “best of” will always be hilarious, but a sketch show with thirteen episodes to fill will inevitably be, to use the hackneyed phrase, hit and miss. And it’s not an appetising thought to attempt to review individual episodes of a series that is, deliberately, rather stream-of-consciousness. But I’ll have a go at the films. And yes, I know And Now For Something Completely Different is technically the first Python film, but I think we’re safe to treat that as a stand-alone compilation.

So, what of the film? Well, it's utterly hilarious, obviously, a serious contender for funniest film ever made. The Python style and humour translates perfectly to the big screen, in spite of the obviously low budget. The great locations and bloody good direction by Terry Jones (not Terry Gilliam, but they didn't know at the time that he would go on to be a big Hollywood director) really help here.

It's interesting to see, though, how coherent the sketches more or less are as a longer narrative, the perfect fruition of what Michael Palin and Terry Jones were trying to do increasingly during that final, truncated series. But the many iconic scenes, which we all know so well, are an absolute triumph. Forget the gleefully dodgy history; this is comedy gold. Even Elvis thought so.

Yellowbeard (1983)

"Three farthings for a lump of shit please..."

This film is, well, not all that good which, considering that two of its three writers were Peter Cook and Graham Chapman, is rather bewildering. But it just isn't much good. And it killed Marty Feldman.

That isn't to say that there are no laughs at all, of course, nor that it isn't a pleasure to see the talents of those in them tags down there, plus Spike Milligan, Nigel Planer and even an eyebrow-raising from a very Let's Dance era David Bowie. But the whole thing never really takes off, perhaps partly because the script isn't great but in large part, I suspect, to a rather flat directorial style with no comedic timing or flourishes. Also, I have to say, the constant rape jokes don't exactly make for comfortable viewing.

Still, Graham Chapman is good, as is Marty Feldman in his last film, although Peter Cook is somewhat wasted in a straight man role. And the character of El Nebuloso is superb, with the scenes of Cheech and Chong, the acid pool and the torture device being the closest the film gets to being Pythonesque. But the film as a whole is a bit of a damp squib and worth seeing only for Monty Python or Peter Cook completists.

Time Bandits (1981)

"Four foot one! That is a long time, isn't it?"

This isn't really all that brilliant a film, in spite of some splendid individual bits of comedy, but it's a fascinating record of Terry Gilliam at this point in his career, with stylistic signs of his later directorial career yet with one foot very much still in Python- the film just feels very Monty Python, not surprisingly as Gilliam co-wrote it with Michael Palin, and both Palin and John Cleese get some splendid cameos: I love Cleese's version of Robin Hood as Prince Charles. And, as with the Python films, the owner of Handmade Films, one George Harrison, is involved, in this case providing a rather good song.

Also brilliant are Ian Holm's height- obsessed Napoleon and Sean Connery's noble and charismatic Agamemnon, complete with the Caledonian tones which were, I'm sure, de rigeur in ancient Mycenae. David Warner is, as ever, a magnificent baddie and the great Ralph Richardson is, literally, God, although he phoned in his performance somewhat.

The whole concept of a portal in young Kevin's bedroom, a portal into other realities that does not abide by the laws of science, is so very reminiscent of British children's fiction, from Alice to Narnia. The dwarves, put in charge of shrubbery by the Supreme Being, remind me a bit of Slartibartfast from the then-recent Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, while also providing a good employment agency for dwarf actors.

It's not as good as I remembered; individual scenes are good but as a whole it drags a bit. Still, it's a fascinating film to look back on.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

"You gave me life, and then you left me to die."

This is a very different cinematic version of Frankenstein. The point is not that it follows the broad outline of Mary Shelley's novel- which, not splitting hairs, it more or less does, including the Arctic bits- but that it is quite self-consciously made as part of a different genre. This doesn't have the trappings of a horror film and, unlike every other version I've seen, isn't a melodrama. Instead, this is presented simply as an adaptation of s classic novel, owing more to Merchant Ivory than to James Whale or Terence Fisher. The very presence of Helena Bonham Carter would signify that, we're it not for the fact that she would go on to meet Tim Burton.

Obviously, this means a focus on scientific ethics. But Kenneth Branagh's take on the themes of the novel seems to emphasise the Gothic, and not just in terms of mood; he includes the prominent lecture room scene in which Frankenstein stands up for an older, "philosophical" approach to science, and the controversial Professor Waldman (played by John Cleese in an entirely serious role) stands for an older, more alchemical tradition. This makes the monster, in a sense, a creation of the knowledge of a dark past- true Gothic.

It's also worth pondering Branagh's take on the links to Romanticism too, what with the original author being married to a certain writer of Ozymandias (and the thematically relevant Prometheus  Unbound) but not really in tune with the movement. Frankenstein here seems to be no fan of rationalism, yet he is hardly a sympathetic figure.

The film works well enough; Bonham Carter is excellent in the film's (and novel's) only significant female role from the pen of a daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Branagh is competent although, outside classical parts, he is not the most charismatic of actors; next to Colin Clive and Peter Cushing his take on the character is not overly memorable. Robert De Niro is superb as always. But there's a reason why film versions of Frankenstein lend themselves towards melodrama. This is a good film but not a great one, simply because the source material doesn't really lend itself to a straight adaptation.

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)

" Peter, I was just jotting down a few reasons why you might want to leave IOP and come over to us at the Fairburn Organisation."

"Oh yes, that's very well put. I particularly like the noughts."

This is one of the greatest films ever made, a work of true genius. Yet so few people have seen it, or even heard of it, in spite of its stellar cast: it stars Peter Cook, and features the likes of John Cleese, Leicestershire lad Graham Chapman, Arthur Lowe, Harold Pinter (a Nobel Prize winner, no less!), Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Dennis Price, Ronnie Corbett and many, many more, and was scripted by Cleese and Chapman. It seems to have flopped, and pretty much vanished off the radar. That's a tragedy; it's one of the greatest works of satire ever, in any medium. Watch it now. Please.

Michael Rimmer (Cook) is a man with no past or hinterland but limitless ambition, who suddenly appears from nowhere. He seems to have no desires beyond the pursuit of power, and his entire personality is constructed so as to achieve his goals, even choosing his wife by focus group. We begin with him inveigling his way into a hopelessly inefficient advertising business managed by the hopeless Ferret (Lowe). This is a far cry from Mad Men, in spite of the sexy secretaries, and probably something of a commentary on the state of British industry circa 1970.

Rimmer gradually gets himself into a position of real power via mastery of opinion polls, and gradually ends up as a spin doctor to the political world, and eventually an MP, Chancellor, Prime Minister and ultimately absolute dictator. Rimmer ends up with the Tories, but it all seems very New Labour. And this is 1970. This film is quite scarily prophetic.

In 1970, political differences meant something. The political left was actually socialist. Unions had real power. Sensible, Keynesian economics was the orthodoxy. It all seemed to be a far cry from our modern era of managerial politics and interchangeable political parties, run by what Peter Oborne describes in his thought-provoking book as "the political class". Today (as Adam Curtis has rather eloquently discussed, especially in such series as The Trap and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace), this sense of politics as merely being about efficient ways of running a market economy with an ever-shrinking state. It seems such a clear contrast between then and now. Why, then, is this film so eerily prophetic?

The cynicism of the political class, and the meaninglessness of ideology, is plain to see. The unnamed Labour prime minister (suspiciously northern, pipe-smoking and, well, Wilsonesque, and played by the caretaker from Grange Hill!) unsuccessfully tries to lure Rimmer into joining the party, insisting that his lack of left-wing views need not be a problem, as Labour is "not bound to dogma". Worse still, once Rimmer is comfortably ensconced in senior Tory circles, a member of the cabinet makes a speech which is obviously meant to evoke Enoch Powell's racist "Rivers of Blood" speech. Yet Rimmer suggests that the Tory leader should do nothing to prevent the speech, but sack the minister afterwards. That way he can have his cake and eat it by looking like a man of principle by publicly opposing racism, while still giving the impression that the Conservatives are tough on immigration. It's deeply, deeply cynical.

The film isn't laugh out loud funny in the way that people might perhaps expect from this cast; it's very much in the style of Yes Minister or The Thick of It. But it's easily as good, as funny and as truthful as both of these, and I personally believe that it's a little more philosophically profound, even if there is a bit of nihilism underneath. Also, there's a pretty naked woman in it. Just saying.

There's another. less political, subtext too, I think. Peter Cook seems to be giving Rimmer the mannerisms of David Frost, and Cook once famously commented that his biggest ever regret was saving Frost from drowning. This entire film may well be one long character assassination, which would be rather ironic. Frost is executive producer...!

There's one thing that's puzzling me a little, though. There's a scene supposedly set in Nuneaton, although there's a suspicious lack of local accents, and I'd love to know whether or not it was filmed there. I know Nuneaton well, being a Hinckley lad, but I wasn't born until 1977, and I know the town centre was extensively redeveloped in the early '80s. So, can anyone put me out of my misery and tell me if it was filmed there or not? I can't say I recognise any of the locations, but things may have changed a lot.

Doctor Who: City of Death

Part One

“Do you mean an alien’s trying to steal the Mona Lisa?”

“It’s a very pretty painting.”

For these cash-strapped times we begin with some shockingly excellent modelwork far superior to anything we’ve seen recently. And then, no less un-shoestringly, we’re in Paris, 1979. Just after leaving Skaro. Courtesy of the Randomiser for both landings. Er, yes…

Of course, this story is flawless in every way (well, there’s one piffling little thing in a later episode, but that can wait) so I’m having to try very hard not to spend the whole review gushing and quoting bits of funny dialogue or people might assume I’m the sort of person who does that in conversation, which simply wouldn’t do. So I’ll not quote any of the dialogue from the Eiffel Tower in an attempt to ration myself. It’s all fab though. And so, unusually, is Dudley Simpson’s incidental music. 

I realise what was going on off screen, but for me there’s absolutely no doubt that what we see here on screen is the Doctor and Romana obviously being a couple. The doctor’s clearly been dancing. Look at all the holding hands and the body language as they frolic amongst Notre Dame, the Place de la Concorde, and the Louvre. Oh, and Paris is very pretty by the way.

What’s that Romana just said? “Braxiatel Collection”? Pah! we’ll be heating no more of that, I’m sure.

There’s some nice directing from Michael Hayes, not at all harmed by the location- I love the shot through the postcard rack with the postcard removed. Through all these scenes Duggan is following our heroes, but within minutes settles down to the companion role for our two Doctors.

Interesting cliffhanger- we’ve established from the talk of playing games that the Countess is aware she’s basically just Scarlioni’s beard, but she doesn’t know the half of it…

Part Two

“What I don’t understand is why a man who’s got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh.”

Oh dear, the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are brought before the Countess and the Count is so damn quotable that I could spend the whole of the next page just quoting from it. But I’ll restrict myself to “My dear, no one could be as stupid as he seems”. Julian Glover is utterly perfect in the way he delivers his lines. It helps that he’s clearly loving it. Even the fact that the room is designed to fit a concept of what’s classy that, er, may have dated just a little, doesn’t detract from this perfect scene.

There’s a nice in-joke after our heroes are locked in the cellar where the Doctor asks Duggan if he’s like to “stay on as my scientific advisor?”, but that’s enough quotage for now. Honest. Other great stuff includes the Count’s lecture on how the Mona Lisa is going to be stolen, Duggan hitting people and the unravelling of the plot. 

Best of all though is the cliffhanger- I love the way Peter Halliday’s mercenary says of Captain Tancredi “He’ll be here instantly”- nicely postmodern, that- and it’s Scarlioni…

Part Three

“You know what I don’t understand?”

“I expect so.”

Hmmm, so the Jagaroth ship exploded 400 million years ago, not, say, 4.6 billion, and we’ll be given this figure again and again. I shall pretend this isn’t happening though as I insist this story is perfect in all ways.

I love Scarlioni / Tancredi’s “I think it’s time we conducted this conversation more formally” before calling for the thumbscrews- but I’m quoting again. Just one more; “When you work for the Borgias, you’ll believe anything!” The Mona Lisa plot becomes clear- Scarlioni is getting Leonardo to paint a further six of them in 1505 so that once he’s stolen the one in the Louvre in 1979 he’ll have seven of them, one each for every potential buyer. Except that the Doctor has just written “This is a fake” on all of them in felt tip. Brilliant!

Meanwhile, we have the Romana / Duggan team-up. Twice Romana sneaks into a building and twice Duggan smashes through a window! Once we’re back to Scarlioni, though, we get my only problem with this story- Scarlioni’s splintered selves being responsible for the pyramids, fire, the wheel and the mapping of the heavens. I don’t like it when it’s implied that humans aren’t clever enough to do all those things so aliens must have done them. Still, one gripe ain’t bad.

There’s something a bit peculiar about this episode though- in the scene where the Doctor walks into the café to enquire about Romana and Duggan, with the television in the background showing (in English, apparently!) the news of the Mona Lisa being stolen, there’s a man at the bar, who appears in no other scene, and says “I’ll see you, eh?” as he takes his leave. This looks very much like a cameo to me- not Douglas Adams, surely?

Part Four

“On the contrary, Doctor, you’re going to help me.”

“I am?”

“You are indeed. And if you do not, it will be so much the worse for you, for this young lady and for several other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person.”

Poor professor! Interesting conversation between Scarlioni and Romana afterwards, though. It’s here that it strikes me what a mind-blowingly paradoxical concept it is to have splinters of Scaroth scattered through time- the later splinters must have their personal timelines altered many times by the earlier ones.

The professor’s death is followed by that of the Countess (I rather liked her). There follows a race against time in which we get to see some of the bits of Paris we missed out on in Part One such as the Arc de Triomphe and, er, some taxis. But just at the point the Doctor and co, anxious to travel back and stop Scaroth, reach the TARDIS, we get another fab scene with Eleanor Bron and yer actual John Cleese. This is roughly the last point where the possibility of this story being ranked anything less than the top spot so far disappeared utterly. Even the fact that prehistoric Earth features an obvious matte painting doesn’t detract from anything.

And the ending is perfect. Duggan’s punch saves the day! The Doctor has arranged for one of the Moma Lisas with “This is a fake!” written on it in felt tip to be hung in the Louvre, but that’s fine because it’s what it looks like that matters. Wow.

Well, that was stonkingly good, perfect, genius. 5/5, obviously. The best story so far, easily. For the first time in 13 years we have a story that’s actually better than The Massacre. I’m still reeling from how good it was. There’s a reason for my policy of rationing my viewings of this story to avoid diluting the pleasure of each viewing!