Monday, June 9, 2014

Doctor Who Season 17: City of Death! and... oh dear


A confluence of influences combine to make this, if not the worst season of the classic series, than at least the most disappointing. After all, we have the iconic Tom Baker in control. Lalla Ward joins the crew as the new Romana. Douglas Adams serves as script editor and even writes two of the stories. What could go wrong?

By season’s end, just about everything. The final three completed series of the season rank among the worst in the show’s history, as bad acting, directing and design work against material that is already weak. By the end, strikes at the BBC scuttle the final serial, but more about in a bit.

Destiny of the Daleks

It gets off to an uneven start with the return of the Daleks and their mad creator, Davros. Terry Nation contributes the script (at least his name is on the title card; word is that Adams wrote quite a bit of it himself), which turns out to be his last for the show. It’s a pretty uneven ride, hurt by David Gooderson as Davros. He isn’t able to build up the same level of mad anger that made Michael Wisher’s performance so brilliant. Here, the Daleks are at war with another race of robots (humanoids, mainly memorable for their braided hair). They need the original organic factor to win. It’s up to the Doctor, Romana and a few rag-tag crash survivors to scuttle all of the plans for universal domination. Money problems are already in effect here, giving the episodes as rag tag of a vibe as the survivors.

City of Death

Here is the one saving grace of the season. We have: A terrific script by Douglas Adams; great guest turns by Julian Glover, Catherine Schell and Tom Chadbon; they went to Paris (Paris!) to film. The plot (which Adams reused a bit in his Dirk Gentry books) involves an alien split across human history by an accident at the dawn of life on Earth. A plot involving time travel, multiple copies of the Mona Lisa, and the possible end of all life on the planet twists and turns for a quartet of thrilling and funny episodes. It’s all downhill from here.

Creature from the Pit

Perhaps having spent all their money on a trip to Paris, the production apparently spent about three pounds on the monster here, which is basically an inflated blob of plastic painted green. Horrible creature aside, we also have a plot cobbled from Star Trek’s “Devil in the Dark” and some awful mugging from Tom Baker. It makes for a largely forgettable experience, except for the creature: we will never forget that as much as we want to.

Nightmare of Eden

Speaking of mugging from Tom Baker… His performance pushes beyond the envelope here, especially in the final scenes. It doesn’t help that director Alan Bromly clashed with everyone on the production and eventually was fired/quit the production, forcing Williams to step in and finish the storyline. The hard work directing doesn’t pay off, as the series is riddled with unconvincing shots and wooden performances. There are a few highlights, such as one character’s descent into drug-addicted hell, but mainly this is another one to forget.

The Horns of Nimon

Our trilogy of doom ends with another interesting idea (a recreation of the story of the Minotaur on an alien world) that is done in by one of the worst performances in Doctor Who history. Graham Crowden was an extremely talented performer with a long history on stage, film and television. He was even offered the role of the Doctor, but turned it down. Here, as the evil Soldeed, he puts on a full ham dinner. His calls of “Nimon,” as if he is trying to find his pet cat, just won’t leave your mind, no matter how hard you try.

Shada


The season finale was to feature a retired time lord, a prison planet, and a script by Douglas Adams. Only about a third of the series was completed, as continued industrial actions at the BBC left the recording schedule in tatters. It’s hard to judge what remains, as it only includes the exterior filming (including a dandy scene where the Doctor, on a bike no less, is chased by some floating sphere thing) and some studio work. Adams, again, later strip mined the story for Dirk Gentry, and the series was first compiled with the existing footage and linking narration by Tom Baker, and then made into an audio play with Paul McGann taking on the Doctor role.

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