Nightmare of Eden

Rigg: Galactic hasn't existed for twenty years.
Doctor: That would explain why I haven't been paid.

Drug addiction story time! From what I have heard, this story has a very mixed reputation. Some people like it with a strong emphasis on the writing. Others deride it with terrible production values. I'm generally a bit more lenient when it comes to production so we shall have to see if the DEA story can overcome its limitations.

Plot Summary

A star cruise liner is preparing to come out of hyperdrive but because the navigator is stoned, it comes out a few degrees off course. It rematerializes in the path of another ship and the two become fused together, creating a unstable interface between the ships. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 materialize aboard the cruise liner and the Doctor, posing as an insurance agent, offers to help unfuse the two ships.

The Doctor and K-9 head down to the power room with the navigator but he begs off before they get there. Curious, the Doctor follows him and discovers him sneaking a pill from a hidden stash. K-9 analyzes the stash and finds it to be Vraxoin a dangerous drug. The Doctor pockets the stash and heads back up to the bridge.

Romana had stayed in the lounge where she met Professor Tryst and his assistant Della, who have catalogued species from multiple planets and placed them in electromagnetic crystals. When placed in Tryst's CET machine, the crystals provide a gateway into the slice of the planet sampled. Romana is especially curious about one planet called Eden as when she observes it in the projector, a shadow of a person is visible. Della informs her that a crewman on their cataloguing voyage, who was a close friend of hers, was killed on Eden.

The Doctor pulls Romana aside and informs her of the drugs. He tells her to monitor things on the bridge while he and Captain Rigg try to activate the power. However, they find the power room access blocked by the other ship. As they leave to find another way, the navigator comes out, having been mauled by some creature. He is taken to sick bay but dies of his injuries.

The Doctor heads back to the site where the navigator's stash was to see if he can find anything else. There he is attacked by an unknown assailant who stuns him and steals the stash. Romana and K-9 find him and the three surmise that the supplier of the drug is still on board the ship.

Romana continues to investigate the CET machine and Eden specifically. She activates the machine again and looks deep into the jungle shown. As she does so, an insect comes out of the jungle and stings her, causing her to pass out.

The Doctor and Captain Rigg head back down with K-9 to a point where they can cut through the hull to access the power room and bypass the merged point of the ships. The Doctor also informs the captain of the drug that his navigator was on. K-9 finishes cutting through the hull but as they pull the piece of bulkhead off, a large creature lunges at them through the hole. K-9 pushes it back with his stun gun and the Doctor reseals the hole knowing that passage through there is impossible.

Della finds Romana and wakes her. Romana is unaware of what caused her to pass out. Della offers to get her a drink. As she does so, Captain Rigg also comes up to the dispensery. As he talks with Della, a someone slips Vraxoin into the drink intended for Romana. But the captain takes the drink instead with Della pulling another one to give to Romana.

The Doctor proposes setting up an external power source from the TARDIS that might allow separation of the two ships. Both captains agree, although Rigg begins to show signs of mirth and apathy from the drugs. The Doctor monitors things from the bridge while Romana runs the power supply. K-9 is sent to monitor the interference directly. The plan begins to work and K-9 passes through the cleared area to the power room. However, Captain Dymond detects break up of his ship and shuts down, leaving K-9 trapped in the power room.

The Doctor heads down to find K-9 but discovers a man dressed as a passenger who flees. Suspecting him of being involved with the drugs, the Doctor pursues him through the passenger areas and into a merged section of the ships. The man escapes but the Doctor pulls off a radiation badge from him, leading him to believe that he was part of Tryst's expedition.

Tryst is made aware of the presence of the Vraxoin and he tells Della that he suspects the killed crewman, Stott, may have been involved and that he probably had an accomplice. Tryst tells the Doctor the he suspects Della of being the accomplice, although Romana doesn't believe him.

The Doctor and Romana are summoned to the bridge where Captain Dymond is waiting with two police officers. When the Doctor and Romana are unable to produce identity papers, they are scanned and the police find trace amounts of Vraxoin in the Doctor's pocket from when he placed the stash there. The Doctor and Romana run away and use the CET machine to escape into the sample jungles of Eden.

Their plan is successful as the police scour the rest of the lounge but ignore the jungle image. The Doctor and Romana head deeper into the jungle, fending off the local wildlife. They are attacked by one of the creatures that was seen in the power room, but the creature is shot and driven away by the same man Romana saw staring out earlier. He is Tryst's missing crew member (presumed dead) Stott.

Stott takes them back to a shelter in the jungle where he reveals that he was left on Eden but got caught up in the sample beam and trapped in the crystal. He is actually an intelligence agent, tracking the group supplying the Vraxoin but has yet been unable to find the source in his sample of Eden. He also discovered that when the two ships merged, it created an interference allowing both him and the creatures, called Mandrels, to escape their crystal sample. There is the main display entrance but there is also another way out that leads to the power room. Stott also reveals that he was the man the Doctor chased as Stott was reclaiming the sample of Vraxoin the Doctor had found and trying to continue his investigations of the drug runners. The group then heads for the power room exit.

Entering the power room, the Doctor finds K-9 who informs him of the presence of the Mandrels. The Doctor sets about repairing the power system when he attacked by a Mandrel. K-9 shoots it down and it collapses near the Doctor. The Doctor decides that the only way to deal with the Mandrels is to separate the ships as the Mandrels are starting to spread through the ship and attacking the passengers. K-9 is sent back to the TARDIS to activate the secondary power source. Stott escorts Romana through the jungle of Eden so that she can activate the engines of the ship from the bridge. The Doctor remains behind to finish his repairs.

While everyone is gone, the Mandrel K-9 shot wakes and attacks the Doctor again. He ducks away and when the Mandrel lunges a second time, it smashes into the power supply repairs. The surge of power kills the Mandrel and it's body quickly dissolves into a powder that the Doctor recognizes as Vraxoin. He sets about to finish the repairs, including the damage done by the Mandrel.

Romana emerges from the Eden projection, sending Stott back to help the Doctor. She sneaks through the ship, overhearing the state of things from a couple of police officers fighting back the Mandrels. She enters the bridge to find Captain Rigg in a withdrawal state. He attacks her, believing her to have another supply of the drug but he is shot by the police, who then turns his gun on Romana to arrest her.

As the prearranged time arrives, the Doctor finishes his repairs and blows a dog whistle. K-9 receives the signal and activates the secondary power supply. Romana also activates the engines, ignoring the warning of the officer that he will shoot if she pushes the button. The ships begin to phase shift as the Doctor rushes through the corridors to get back to safety but is caught in the interface. The maneuver is successful and the ships separate. The acceleration also knocks out Chief Officer Fisk, allowing Romana to run out of the bridge.

The Doctor finds himself on Dymond’s ship once the ships stabilize. On Dymond’s ship, he finds a special laser and a profit projection of distribution of the Vraxoin. Seeing that Dymond is preparing to head over to the Empress, the Doctor sneaks aboard the shuttle and hides while Dymond flies over.

Romana finds Della and tells her that Stott is still alive, having been caught in the suspension beam. Della realizes that Tryst lied to her as he showed her an image of Stott mauled to death by a Mandrel and that he is the one supplying the drugs. The two women search the ship looking for the Doctor but K-9 picks up the Doctor’s signal from Dymond’s shuttle. They head down and meet the Doctor who informs them that Dymond is the pick-up man and that Tryst’s plan is to transfer the Mandrels (and the drugs) into a new crystal using the laser on Dymond’s ship. A pair of security officers discover them and take Della. The Doctor and Romana escape when K-9 stuns the other officer.

The security officer escorts Della towards the bridge but is attacked by a Mandrel. Stott arrives and stuns the Mandrel as the Doctor and Romana also arrive. The Doctor decides to lure Tryst and Dymond into a trap. He tells Stott to help him inform the police and to help him drive the Mandrels back into the Eden projection.

Della goes and confronts Tryst, who has met with Dymond, about Stott still being alive. Tryst plays innocent but encourages her to help the Doctor drive the Mandrels back into the projection. However, when she leaves, he orders Dymond to shoot her down. Dymond does manage to wound her but is driven back by K-9 as Romana and K-9 shadowed Della to protect her. K-9 begins to pursue but lets Dymond go to defend Romana against a Mandrel.

The security officers move to arrest the Doctor who has gone to the CET machine but Stott emerges and shows his credentials. The Doctor then informs the officers that they must drive the Mandrels back into the projection. The order is given over the loudspeaker with the shoot order against the Doctor cancelled. Tryst and Dymond hear this as they prepare to leave the ship.

The officers use their guns on stun setting to drive the Mandrels towards the projection. Their guns begin to give out and the Mandrels begin to turn on them. However, the Doctor attracts the Mandrels back using his dog whistle. He lures them into the projection and then has Romana shut it off as he jumps out.

Tryst and Dymond prepare to transfer the Eden information and make the jump to hyperspace. The Doctor has Romana create a new drive on the CET machine and orders K-9 to track Dymond’s ship. The Doctor powers up the CET machine and fires it just as Dymond’s ship prepares to jump. Dymond’s ship is caught in a matter transmat beam and is stored as a projection on the CET machine. The police step into the projection and arrest the pair.

The Doctor and Romana disassemble the CET machine and take the crystals back to the TARDIS, promising to release the captured creatures on their native planets.
Analysis
Nightmare of Eden is a potentially good story based on the writing, but doesn't live up to that potential due to odd direction and poorer production values. This is even mentioned by some of the production crew in a short about the making of The Nightmare of Eden. Apparently the director tried to do things that weren't practical and midway through the shoot either quite or was terminated. As such, people who didn't have much experience in directing were brought in to finish and their amateurism is easily seen. Other flaws also cropped up due to the age old problem of running out of budget.

The writing is the clear stand out of this story. If you close your eyes and only listen to the dialogue, you can hear the smart and topical story played well in a science fiction setting. Most of the actors do fairly well as well with it, despite their problems with the director. Lalla Ward was apparently a strong advocate of this story and even made a suggestion or two in the production to avoid giving the subject matter too much of a comic bent.

That is not to say that there is no comedy in it. There are a number of pun-y jokes made, especially by the Doctor and the story overall has a generally lighter tone that could easily have been done given that it's about drug addiction and has monsters rampaging across a passenger liner. But there is a fairly nice balance where you can enjoy the lightness of tone but still appreciate the seriousness of the subject and that again speaks very well of the writing and much of the acting.

Not all of the acting is good though. Some of that might be up to the direction, which is pretty bad, but one of two of the actors just aren't up to snuff. I think the worst is probably Della, who is trying hard but just doesn't seem to have any emotional depth. When she gets emotional over finding out that Stott is still alive, her reaction is an odd mixture of bland and yet over the top at the same time. It is a downright painful thing to watch. Some of the security guard extras are also floundering completely when it comes to how to perform, though their screen time is fortunately short.

On to the direction. I got a bad feeling about this story right from the get go when Captain Rigg appears on screen. He is looking directly in to the camera, apparently monitoring a view screen as they approach their destination. Anyone looking directly into camera for anything other than an aside joke is always a bad thing. Things did not improve from there.

Some shots weren't bad, especially in the first couple of episodes. There was a decent use of shadow and tight shots that did a decent job of keeping the mystery going. But the shift to amateur directors became very apparent in Episode Four. There are a number of shots where the actors are holding position for too long during effects shots. Reactions and overall performances are generally shoddy and the editing between shots is no where near tight. It very much looks like a story where actors are standing right off to the side waiting for their cue to move rather than being in a scene as a whole where they would act and react in a completely different manner and timing.

Two other aspects that weren't great but probably not as bad as other people accuse them of are the model work and the Mandrel costumes. The model shots aren't too bad in my opinion. I think the only one that really looks poor is the opening shot of the Empress where it clearly looks like a model. Shots of the two ships together and of the shuttle traveling between the two ships aren't too bad. I think shooting on film as had been done in the past would have improved things a bit, but they still would have looked like models and I'm not going to slag the story for that.

I have a similar philosophy about the Mandrels. I don't think the costumes look that bad. The production did have a small problem in that they would have looked better in shadow as they are shown on Eden and that goes away when on a flood lit passenger liner. Perhaps the loss of power could have taken things down to emergency lighting and that would have helped. But still, the costumes seem reasonable to me. There are a few instances where you can see limitations of the costumes (zippers, tears, etc.) but nearly all of those are in the back of the suits. For that, direction must again be blamed as for some reason, the Mandrels were shot with their backs to the camera more than to the front. If the flaws of the costume are known, then the director should be manipulating things to minimize the viewing of those flaws for the betterment of the overall story. So again, I opt to blame direction rather than the costumes themselves, which were actually not too bad.

Bringing up the lighting again, that would have helped with one other small problem: the set. Overall, the set was pretty good, but with such strong lighting, the limitations were exposed. One of the easiest is near the end of Episode One where K-9 is cutting through the bulkhead. You can actually see the line where the piece of bulkhead would be cut through to allow the Doctor and Captain Rigg to remove it. There are a couple of other times where there is a zoom in on a character near a wall join were you can see chips or paint scrapings over that section of the wall. Again, nothing bad but something that could have been obscured a little bit better.

Overall, this is a good story but hampered with production problems. They are not so bad as to make the story unwatchable. But they are significant enough that you are taken out of the action every now and again and that is distracting. I'd watch it again and would enjoy doing so, but there is enough on the bad side of the scale that a total immersive experience is just not possible.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5