I must admit, when this
collection of table wine stories was announced as the next chapter in the continuing
range of phenomenally well-presented Blu Ray Doctor Who episodes, I was a
little deflated. There is a definite feeling amongst fandom that this is the
worst of Tom Baker’s seven-year stint, its stories (City of Death aside)
regularly found in the doldrums of DWM and online polls. Some are seen (even by
their directors) as the “nadir” of Doctor Who. Many consider the heady brew of
the excesses of Tom Baker combined with the freewheeling knockabout vibes of a
young Douglas Adams a recipe for trouble. The season climaxing in a half-finished
story seems emblematic of a show in turmoil, laughing so hard at itself because
it knows it’s only a strike away from cancellation.
What a treat then to come to these
stories afresh, free from the context of their day, the attendant anxieties and
comparisons, and presented as one unit of work – 26 chunks of late 70s sci-fi
hokum to be enjoyed 40 years later on their own merits. I was surprised.
Watching Season 17 in December 2021 is the most enjoyable it has ever been and positioning
the (rightly) exalted City of Death amongst its contemporaries shines a healthy
light on the remaining 22 episodes. The charm and wit of City is present
across the season. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward make for a confident, brassy duo across
the series, becoming our touchstones. When Tom stops taking things seriously, for
better or for worse, so do we, but Lalla’s always there playing sensibly to counter
him. There is a glorious amount of film footage, not just in Paris but on
Skaro, on Chloris and in Cambridge. Made under incredible budgetary
constraints, there is a feeling that this show still aims high. We not only
scale the Eiffel Tower but in its cheapest production visit two different planets,
explode a city-sized ever-moving labyrinth and meet alien minotaurs and
collapsing corpses as well as witness space walking and a spinning TARDIS slow-bowling
its way from an asteroid. This is a television series that still knows no
limits.
Destiny of the Daleks is amazingly
well-directed, perhaps controversially even more so than Genesis. The
first admittedly clunky regeneration scene sets entirely the wrong tone,
however. It isn’t particularly funny, is badly filmed (look at that opening
shot!) and lacks the wit of stories and even scenes around it. It feels clumsy
and thrown together. June Hudson emerges as the first obvious star of this
season, as Lalla Ward arrives in that glorious pink cossie. As soon as we
materialise on Skaro, though, there’s an immediate pleasingly filmic aura to Destiny.
Ken Grieve turns off Dudley Simpson’s music and we’re left with unearthly sound
effects and slow rumbling to complement an atmosphere of palpable dread. Tom Baker
is serious, playing his scenes perhaps in reverence to Genesis, remembering
its mythic status and one of his great early successes. Our heroes run from the
soundscape back into studio and we find our first very successful set, helping to
bridge the gap between studio and location, wonderfully designed by Ken Ledsham.
His Movellan ship is also striking and replete with detail, complemented again
by June Hudson’s fabulous robotic costumes. As the Daleks smash through the
walls at the close of Part One, they re-establish themselves as a force of
terror and the low, gliding mirror shots of them later in the tunnels are menacing
and dreadful. It’s lovely to see Davros again too in this his first return, the
cobwebbed cadaver recalling ancient, almost legendary fear.
True, as with most of Season 17, there
are some lapses, the likes of which the series’ naysayers hold up as evidence
of a show losing its way. David Gooderson, whilst dignified and valiant,
remains the George Lazenby of Davroses, even his untreated voice (now fixed
thanks to the wizardry of Mark Ayres who propels the story aurally into the 21st
century with dazzling aplomb) sounds manic to the point of vulnerability. He
loses the eerie whisper of Michael Wisher and doesn’t quite reach the arrant mania
of Terry Molloy. As he cries, “Remove the explosive!” warbling uncontrollably, we
see a Davros who is beginning to lose his status as a serious threat. Later, as
he repeats “To your right!” to a clearly stupid Dalek, there’s a sense that the
show can’t attain the sense of pandemonium it is clearly trying to reach and
the banality of the dialogue is a testament to that. Like the initial TARDIS
scene, this feels slipshod, despite some well-judged explosives. Perhaps the
best way to exemplify Destiny as a whole is to look at its Daleks – shot
well, credibly dangerous and happy to go kamikaze, but in the end, they look a
bit rough around the edges, have the wrong voices and are a bit wobbly. There’s
much to love about Destiny and a great deal of skill on display in terms
of design, camerawork and performance, but its ambition means that it sometimes
feels slapdash and rough when at its best, it’s striking and dangerous.
City of Death is the
crowning glory of the Douglas Adams season, created by its era’s great minds:
not just Douglas himself, but Graham Williams and David Fisher, the too-often unsung
heroes of late 70s Who. Fisher knows damn well how to tell a fun Doctor Who story
using a limited cast and a few choice sets. Although he distances himself from City
of Death, his hallmarks remain. This has Fisher written all over it in much
the same way that we can hear Douglas’s voice in tandem. It’s a perfect storm,
matched by one of the finest guest casts the show has ever had and some of the
best guerrilla filming ever undertaken by the Doctor Who film crew.
Some commentators point to a very
specific weakness in City of Death – famously the Jagaroth’s unexplained
appearance in the time bubble. But to my mind, that’s exactly what gives the
Doctor the knowledge that before the chicken and the egg came the Jagaroth. It’s
here that he works out what the exploding ship at the dawn of time means to
humanity. It’s a shame that he doesn’t tell the viewer though before we reach
the plains of ancient Earth. The threat of the Jagaroth isn’t seeded well
enough and we don’t really know why it’s such a bad thing for Scaroth to be
reconstituted until the very end, meaning the journey through Parisian walkways
as we approach the climax seems to lack a narrative motor. Apart from this slight
structural issue though, and a piece of dodgy spaceship design in the first few
minutes which in no way matches the amazing prior model shot, there’s very
little to pick holes in here. Its wit is justifiably famous, its lines
infinitely quotable. City of Death offers minute to minute joy. Dudley
Simpson’s last great score and John Cleese’s very funny cameo mark out this
adventure as a thing of not only the overused adjective genius but also beauty
and finesse. This is the BBC at the peak of its 1970s prowess, producing Doctor
Who at the peak of its 1970s prowess. This is classic television, up there with
those most celebrated shows: Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses and
Morecombe and Wise. But better.
It would take a monolith of a
story to beat those final moments of Dudley Simpson’s glorious, romantic saxophone.
The Creature from the Pit is not that monolith, but it has a damn good
stab at continuing the high standards set by its predecessor. The first episode
is fantastic. Indeed, it’s difficult to think of ways in which it could be improved.
David Brierley’s new K9 is perhaps a little too forthright and the bandits are
a thinly characterised bunch but again, we have sumptuous set and costume
design, beautiful film footage and (mostly) vital, daring performances. The opening
scenes, shot on that fantastic jungle set, assure us that we’re on our way to a
continuation of the high standards set by the series so far. There are some
genuinely funny gags, the more serious Myra Frances, the more eccentric Tom
Baker becomes, and we end with an astonishing cliff-hanger, perhaps the best of
the season, with a lunatic hero doing something completely unexpected. It’s a
defining Doctor moment.
Sadly, The Creature from the
Pit doesn’t stick the landing. The eponymous Tithonian is – bluntly –
horrendously imagined. When Tom starts to suck it off, there’s absolutely no
doubt that that is exactly what he is doing. The clumsy effects shots of the tri-pronged
green mattress cross-fading its way over clumsily from the slimy model shots
don’t remotely convince. This might not be a problem but for the fact this is
the titular threat. Having said that, Geoffrey Bayldon gives a joyous
performance, there are some pleasingly well-lit cave scenes and despite some
time meandering around down there, we reach a climax to Part Three which feels
unexpectedly dangerous and frightening, not least in thanks to Myra Frances’s tangibly
terrified Adrasta matched by a suddenly threatening and quiet Tom Baker. The
unusual cross-fading, building music and fine performances make for a most
unusual episode ending and The Creature from the Pit’s best moment. Part
Four is frankly a write-off. The plot and indeed interest have come to an end
with the death of Adrasta and there’s a very weak incoming missile narrative
which gifts us some cool video effects in the TARDIS but little else. It’s the
first episode of the season which feels like a real failure but that’s by no
means bad going for a series so often found in fandom’s collective bargain bin
of fondness.
Nightmare of Eden is another
cracking story. Bob Baker’s script is the best of the season after City of
Death. It’s got the functional clarity of a Terrance Dicks, the insatiable
need to get to the next big moment of a Robert Holmes and the attendant gags of
a Douglas Adams. Perhaps it’s a bit too neat in this season of more outrageous plotting
but it saves its surprises even till its final episode. Its characters’ motivations
are clear, its geography is defined and there’s a real assuredness about Bob
Baker’s work. This is the voice of a veteran Doctor Who writer.
It’s a shame that Nightmare of
Eden has clear directorial issues. Two actors embarrassingly talk straight to
camera in the first five minutes, Tom Baker emerges from the TARDIS in a
clearly difficult mood and the ship seems to have been designed by the same
person who invented the avocado bathroom suite. Some of the performances are
ill-judged, Lewis Fiander’s Tryst whilst occasionally unsettling is for the
most part irritating and graceless. The scenes of intoxicated Vraxoin sufferers,
whilst possibly naively scripted, are played too broadly, despite David Daker clearly
living those moments. It’s the women keeping this show afloat – Lalla Ward and
Jennifer Lonsdale creating some much-needed credibility and Ward making the most
frightening moment of the season (the eyes of the jungle) come to very real life.
The Mandrels are badly imagined,
their arms uncontrollable, their flares enviable. The ships’ collision (now happily
fixed by Jonathan Picard and Anthony Lamb with their spruced-up CGI) is difficult
to understand visually and the infamous “Oh my everything!” scene feels like
the state Tom Baker reaches after three days in studio with a director who can’t
beat him. Thankfully, we have his steely “Go away” moment a few scenes later and
he very quickly retains his powerhouse status. I feel like I’m giving Nightmare
short shrift. There’s the fantastically, wittily shot chase sequence in Part
Two to enjoy. There’s the ingenuity of a cleverly conceived script – full of
imaginative concepts - to goggle at. There’s the fantastic cliff-hanger to Part
Two, where the show’s narrative motors vitally in a new direction, and there
are the very dangerous-seeming jungle scenes at the start of Part Three in
which Tom gets unceremoniously soaked. There is a lot to enjoy in Nightmare
of Eden but its real star, not envisaged as well as it should be, is its well-structured,
unshowy but exciting script. At its heart, there is one great big idea: the
monsters are the drugs! That simple, unpredictable cleverness perhaps
defines Season 17.
It certainly defines The Horns
of Nimon, an effortless segue of Greek and sci-fi mythology. The classic
ships are spaceships, the minotaur is the Nimon and most cleverly of all, the labyrinth
is an electrical circuit. It may seem like simple transposition but again, like
Nightmare of Eden, its done with efficient clarity and neatness. Like Eden,
though, Nimon suffers visually. This season opens with three stories boasting
lavish film material and aside from an incredible explosion, both Eden
and Nimon haven’t got any, meaning that they suffer by comparison,
seeming the weaker cousins of their earlier, grander predecessors. It seems most
notable in Part One here though, where the spaceship set is clearly one row of
rooms and a fourth wall. There isn’t a window – or even a porthole - into space
or a pilot’s seat facing the right direction. Whilst the sets of Nimon
are again, clever and full of detail, especially Soldeed’s office, they lack
any real sense that people might live here. The strange gameshow-style area in
which the TARDIS lands has a painted empty wasteland behind it. Where do the
people of Skonnos dwell? Where are the houses? Where do the corridors lead?
Even the moving maze we never actually witness move. June Hudson – her again – saves
Nimon from looking completely shoddy, her elaborate costumes enlivening the
screen immeasurably. That said, her Nimon creatures themselves are ultimately
another monstrous failure, blokes walking in stilettos balancing water jars on
their heads, the plasticky horns the final insult to the poor performers.
Graham Crowden is worth the entry
fee though, his crazed Soldeed another in the line-up of Season 17’s impeccable
leading villains. His last fall into lunacy is a masterclass in overacting and
actually rather fine melodrama. Tom tries to out-act him by turns and is often,
surprisingly, defeated. The problem is that the actors are treating Nimon
as if it’s the same knockabout comedy we’ve come to expect from this season,
but actually, it’s a fairly humourless script, more concerned with its grim
locust-like demonic scheming than making us laugh. When the cast try to, therefore,
it’s not particularly funny. After the comedically elaborate whizz-pops and
bangs from the TARDIS console, we might be forgiven for assuming a punchline is
on the way. “That’s very odd” is not that punchline. Lalla Ward again gives a
heroic performance which goes a long way to saving the day and she’s certainly
the heart of Part Two. This means that The Horns of Nimon ends the
season on a tonally uneven beat which thankfully, the now “Definitive” edition
of Shada has a chance to rectify.
Viewed in six parts as intended,
freshly edited so that each episode is roughly the same length, this feels as
close to the original Shada as we’re ever likely to get. There’s a
feeling from both the 1979 team and the 2021 team that this is a true labour of
love. The animation has been “enhanced” and the music and sound effects
slightly altered in such small ways that they’re almost imperceptible but it’s
little things like the “undergraduate voices” which really help lift scenes. I
love Shada. It may be a little flabby, a little undisciplined (Why hasn’t
Skagra looked at the last page of the book yet? Hasn’t he even flicked through
it?) but it’s so charming, so cherishable and it’s a crime that it was never completed.
Denis Carey is fabulous as Chronotis and Christopher Neame is Season 17’s last
adorable villain. If I’ve one complaint, it’s that – in the re-working of the
edited material – the newer version uses slightly weaker takes of scenes in
terms of performance. Some fluffed lines slip through which weren’t there in
1992 because alternative takes were used, notably in the first scene between
the Professor and Chris Parsons. But it’s a small niggle in what is a fantastic
production and ends the season on a latter-day Tom Baker laughing at us, the old
man looking back on his glory days, knowing they were golden. Judging by this boxset,
he’s not wrong. Season 17 is the best it’s ever been and its stars – Tom Baker,
Lalla Ward, Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, June Hudson, Dudley Simpson, David
Fisher, Bob Baker and Anthony Read – are shining more vividly than ever, with
special thanks to the new stars of Doctor Who: Mark Ayres, Peter Crocker, Pete
McTighe, Matthew Sweet and the rest of our Blu Ray heroes.
This presentation, as is now - unbelievably
- standard, comes with an extensive range of special features old and new. The restoration
is jaw-dripping, picture and sound across the set crisper than a May week in
June. New documentaries on Destiny of the Daleks and Douglas Adams are
stand-out films, with contributions from major players the DVD range never managed
to collar; it’s lovely to hear from David Gooderson, for instance. Matthew
Sweet’s interview with Bob Baker is perhaps not as riveting as his usual explorations
but that’s perhaps because Baker doesn’t seem to be a particularly philosophical
or alarmingly articulate contributor. He doesn’t really seem to want to talk about
himself which makes the interview almost self-defeating. Tom Talks however,
sees the other Baker in a spell-binding mood and offers some lesser heard
anecdotes, proving this old dog still has so much to give. I’m sure, like he himself
readily admits, we’re happy he’s alive. Lee Binding’s artwork is as superlative
as ever, and even better in your hand than online. The CGI menus, the box
itself, the oh-so-obvious care and attention – all combine to produce a first-rate
Doctor Who product, the standard to beat. Many, many thanks and congratulations
to all concerned. It’s impossible to believe that our little show is offered so
much affectionate and high-quality curation. We are blessed.
