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!

Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor

Part One

“Don‘t say it, please! Don’t say ‘Another underground passage!’”

The beginning is fantastic- an ersatz Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in a spoof piece of propaganda which contains the line “Men out there, young men, are dying for it”. Unfortunately, as the camera pulls back to reveal the joke it also reveals a general cheapness of the kind which was so ubiquitous last season but which has been far less on obvious show recently. And, of course, this is a script by the Bristol Boys, and I fell out badly with them last season. This is not a story I’d been looking forward to, frankly, as the last time I watched it about four years ago I absolutely hated it.

But actually, some so-so acting and a bit of visual cheapness aside, there’s not a lot wrong with this first episode. The premise seems simple at first- Atrios is at war with its neighbour, Zeos although, naturally, this being a Baker and Martin script, we shouldn’t expect the “nuclear” part to in any way reflect scientific fact. The Marshal, who seems to be in charge, is a stereotypically trigger-happy military type who owes a fair bit to Jack D. Ripper and, surprise surprise, wants to carry on with the war. Princess Astra (the lovely Lalla Ward- yay!), meanwhile, wants the war stopped, and has been trying to negotiate with the Zeons, alongside her medic boyfriend Zerak. Except that Zeos doesn’t seem to be there. And, this being a sci-fi concepts heavy Bristol Boys script, we instantly know that’s important.

And then more mysteries pop up: the Marshal is talking to a mysterious mirror, and the Doctor and Romana can’t see Zeos from the TARDIS. But it’s not all big sci-fi ideas- there’s some great dialogue between the Doctor, Romana and K9 towards the end of this episode, which makes me suspect the hand of Anthony Read, who’s had an unexpectedly fantastic season as script editor. K9’s description of optimism as “Irrational, bordering on insane” is priceless.

Part Two

“I think one of us is being extremely stupid.”

“Affirmative.”

I love the Doctor’s dialogue when the Marshal unexpectedly becomes friendly towards him, claiming that his coming has been foretold. His mockery of the marshal’s cod-Shakespeare dialogue is great, and I love the way he spends much of this episode gently mocking the Marshal in ways that go over his head. In fact, the awesomeness in this episode pretty much centres on the dialogue; I love K9’s silly yet bathetic “Temperature unacceptable!” as he trundles to his fiery doom.

Oh, and the space invaders scene is brilliant, as is the very fact that Atrios has only six- er, three- ships. The mystery continues, too, with the suggestion of something between Atrios and Zeos. Once again, a surprisingly good episode.

Part Three

“I have watched you and your jackdaw meanderings!”

Suddenly things really start happening and we get some total changes of setting and situation which, rather unfortunately, strain the budget a little, but still show this to be a surprisingly great plot which tends to foreground the Big Ideas- the very things that Baker and Martin are good at.

Our heroes are transmatted to the mysterious third planet we get to meet the Shadow and his similarly hooded underlings. Things start getting rather epic as the Shadow demand the five segments of the Key to Time which are in the Doctor’s possession, and he has the TARDIS. He also has Astra. And, incidentally, if Astra is the only surviving member of Atrios’ royalty, why isn’t she queen? Presumably at some point the Marshal became military dictator and ended the monarchy.

The Doctor manages to talk his way out of trouble- and the Shadow simply walks away declaring he’s just going to wait for the Doctor to make a mistake! Bizarre though it may seem, this scene actually works through clever scripting.

The episode ends on a bombshell- there are no Zeons on Zeos as they’ve all been killed in the war, but their automated defence system, under the control of K9’s new computer friend Mentalis, have carried on prosecuting the war anyway- a brilliant concept. The next stop is “obliteration”. Of everything…

Oh, and I love Shapp’s description of Zeons as looking just like the Atreusians(?) aside from their clothing. The cheap depiction of alien races in this season extends even to verbal descriptions!

We end with the Marshal’s ship, clearly based on the Millennium Falcon- this is our first blatant influence from Star Wars. And, as another aside, it occurred to me while watching it that it’s probably the influence of the Bristol Boys who pretty much caused the word “transmat” to become a Doctor Who standard- they were using it back in The Sontaran Experiment and they’re still using it here in their swansong story as a team.

Part Four

“I’ve stopped the universe.”

So, the Marshal wants to blow up both worlds for some reason, but Mentalis won’t defend itself as it’s won the war- the clichéd military mind versus the clichéd machine mind- “the armageddon factor”. How very cold war. Why was all this not explained at the end of last episode? It certainly would have helped improve the cliffhanger.

After spending a comically long time panicking, the Doctor and Romana finally remember they can take shelter in the TARDIS. Rather cleverly, the Doctor knocks up an ersatz sixth segment so he can use the Key to Time to create a time loop, delaying Armageddon for a few hours.

Great cliffhanger here, as K9 calls the Shadow “Master”!

Part Five

“Your silliness is noted.”

The Doctor and the Shadow get a rather pleasing confrontation scene here, as the Shadow reveals, to no one’s surprise, that he’s an agent of the Black Guardian, and so the Doctor’s counterpart. Rather more of a surprise is the appearance of Drax, a technician coerced into helping the Shadow, who turns out to be not only a Time Lord but an old classmate of the Doctor’s.

We’re told that the Doctor and Drax were both in the “Class of ‘92”, and that the Doctor’s uni nickname was “Theta Sigma” or “Thete”! And all this was 450 years ago, 73 years after the Doctor first stole the TARDIS, if Romana’s comments in The Pirate Planet are to be believed! Drax spent five years in Brixton Prison, where he picked up not only a cockney accent but a complete set of cockney stereotypes, and is now trapped, with his TARDIS on Zeos. He’s a Time Lord, not just an ordinary Gallifreyan. And apparently the war’s been going on for five years, so they’re a lot more efficient at this nuclear war business than, say, the people of Skaro. 

The Shadow, dastardly fellow that he is, wants to do with the whole cosmos what he’s done with Atreus and Zeos, causing a nuclear war between the two sides of the cosmos like a proper Dr Strangelove. The fiend!

Part Six

“Any second now, beautiful mushrooms will blossom and burst!”

So, Astra is the sixth princess of the sixth dynasty of the sixth royal house of Atrios. Good job the Doctor and Romana happened to come across her sixth, then. But the idea of an actual person, with as much right to live as anyone, being a segment of the Key is pretty horrible, and I’m glad we get some dialogue in which Romana says so. It seems even the White Guardian is not necessarily very nice from the perspective of a mere mortal.

The Black Guardian is great. I care not that he’s just the White Guardian with the negative reversed, as we get to hear Valentine Dyall’s magnificent voice. I shall gloss over his silly attempts at disguise and move straight to the Doctor’s “absolute power” speech- another great piece of acting from Tom Baker. The ending doesn’t quite work, which is disappointing- after all this, the Doctor just scatters all the segments through space and time again? What happened to this great crisis we were told about in The Ribos Operation? Surely the White Guardian will be highly displeased? Still, Asdtra’s back, and after a season of the Doctor having absolute control of the TARDIS he’s now obliged to fit a “randomiser”. No doubt he won’t be landing anywhere we’ve heard of for a good while, then.

Surprisingly entertaining stuff, that. Not one of the greats but some great sci-fi concepts and lots of wit and humour make this a strong 4/5. And doing that comes as a shock to me, frankly- before the Marathon I’d have had this down as a dead cert for a 1/5.

And just as shockingly, after last season’s car crash, this season scores a solid 4.667/5, making it my favourite season so far! Now that I was not expecting.

Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara

Part One

“Do you mind not standing on my chest? My hat’s on fire.”

We start with the Doctor and K9 playing chess, as in The Sun Makers, and once again the Doctor contrives to leave the game unfinished once he knows he’s losing. It’s a good scene, but in the context of the marathon it’s a little disturbing to see the seemingly oblivious repeating of something so recent. Never mind though- this first episode is a good ‘un.

Arguably it’s more than a little out of character for the Doctor to have a “day off” at a time like this, although the character has been moving more in that direction lately. Still, I can’t dispute that it’s all well scripted and performed. But if looked at as a commentary on the Doctor Who format itself (as pretty much everything about this story is) it definitely works. On a similarly format-subverting note, Romana finds the first segment within just a minute or so.

I have to admit the monster is… unfortunate. In fact, it’s suddenly quite noticeable that there’s been a distinct lack of monsters this season so far, and the only two proper ones we’ve seen- the Shrivenzale and this one- have been notoriously bad. Could this be why the budget seems to be stretching further this season than last, because of a deliberate cutting back on the monsters?

Peter Jeffrey, on top moustache-twirling form, makes a great entrance as our villain (boo! hiss!) Count Grendel as he “escorts” Romana to his castle, while the Doctor becomes acquainted with Zadek and his unnamed swordsman underling in a rather amusing scene. I particularly love the bit where he briefly grabs the sword to examine it and then immediately hands it back.

We’re given a brief précis of the plot so far; Prince Reynart must appear at the appointed time to be crowned king, but Grendel wants him killed first. But he has plans to avoid this, involving an android strangely similar to those in the Android Invasion. Is this originally Kraal technology perhaps?

This is a fascinating world, where everything looks mediaeval on the surface but technology lurks, suitably embarrassed, in all sorts of corners, as this is a society where engineering is the work of peasants. A great concept, and also a great excuse for doing The Prisoner of Zenda as science fiction. I’d better put my hand up here and confess I’ve not read the novel and frankly have no particular intention of doing so, but I love the occasional asides: “Well, it has been done before.”

Part Two

“Don’t be so tediously heroic, my dear fellow!”

Picking up from where we left off, there’s an exchange early in this episode which pretty much sums up how brazen the script is about its debt to Anthony Hope: “There is a secret passage.” “Ah! I thought there might be something like that!” Wonderful tongue-in-cheek self-referential stuff, of course, but let’s take it a bit too literally for a moment- how come the Doctor’s so aware of the rules of the fictional genre he’s in? Is this planet what it seems, or could it be a part of the Land of Fiction or some such place?

We get to meet Princess Strella, played by guest actress Mary Tamm, and get to hear about the rather tragic situation between that cad Grendel and poor Madame Lamia. Apparently she has the hots for him as he once did her “a certain courtesy”, but as he is a noblemen and she a mere peasant she hasn’t a hope. Instantly the audience sympathises with her, even though at no point in the story is she very nice.

We get to see Cyril Shaps again as the Archimandrite, which is nice, and also get a little backstory; two centuries ago a plague decimated the population (I love it when I can use the word “decimated” with complete accuracy) and that’s when androids started to be used to replace people. Not exactly the fullest explanation I’ve ever heard!

Part Three

“It’s funny. They always want you to go alone when you’re walking into a trap. Have you noticed that?”

I love these kinds of episodes; it may be one of those part threes where the plot takes a week off to wait for the conclusion and the time just gets filled up with loads of capture and escape scenes, but frankly who cares when it’s this much fun? I loved the scene where K9 slowly cuts a door in the tent so he and the Doctor can escape- the flip side of so many old Terry Nation Dalek stories!

We get some actual poignancy too here though as Lamia’s story comes to an end. She knows Grendel’s just using her- she’s not stupid- but “That is better than nothing”. And when she’s killed (I think the only character in the story to die), Grendel barely notices.

In other news, most of the episode is taken up with the elaborate springing of Romana from Grendel’s clutches, only for Grendel to restore her to said clutches at the end…

Part Four

“Next time, I shall not be so lenient!”

I love Grendel’s silly and convoluted plan- Romana, posing as Princess Stella, Marries King Reynart. Raynart meets with an unfortunate and tragic accident. Grendel marries the widowed Romana, masquerading as Princess Strella. Romana, that is, not Grendel. Grendel is now prince consort. Romana, still posing as Princess Strella, meets with an unfortunate and tragic accident. Her grieving widower is now king. Phew!

A great conclusion, with all the usual fun, a great exit for Grendel, and even a swordfight. Still, poor K9!

A wonderful story, a very high 5/5. Loads of postmodern humour with almost everything being a commentary on the programme and the genre it’s currently pasticheing. The uber-Graham Williams story. One caveat, though: much as I love this kind of thing, I can understand why some people don’t like the amount of violence that’s getting inflicted on the fourth wall this season. I love it unreservedly, but I can understand how too much of it would threaten the integrity of the programme. Still, we can probably sit back and safely enjoy some more of this sort of thing until that point gets reached. Say, the rest of this season and all of next?