The Caves of Androzani

You have the mouth of an itinerant jackanapes, but your eyes...

The Caves of Androzani won the #1 spot in the 2009 Doctor Who Magazine poll and finished #2 to The Day of the Doctor in the 2014 poll. By many it is easily considered to be the best story of the classic era. That's a rather high bar to clear and it does set expectations rather high. That it also has Peri, who is my least favorite companion, also gives me that feeling of a story's expectations being set too high. I have seen this once before but I was very distracted while watching it and didn't give it my full attention. We'll see if it holds me better a second time around.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Peri land on the planet of Androzani Minor where the Doctor is surprised to find evidence of mechanical activity given that the planet is supposed to be uninhabited. He and Peri venture into a cave system where Peri stumbles into a nest of fungus. The Doctor helps her out, getting some of the fungus on him as well. They continue down the caves where they find a stash of weapons and are immediately arrested by soldiers believing them to be arms smugglers.

Taken to General Chellak, the Doctor learns that they are mining a substance called Spectrox which extends human life, but are fighting a guerrilla war against Sharaz Jek, a rebel with a talent for building androids. Summarily convicted by Chellak, he puts them in a holding cell while calling back to Androzani Major to report in.

Chellak contacts Morgus, the head of the company that owns the Spetrox mines and is a close confidant of the President. Morgus congratulates Chellak on his capture and orders the summary execution of Peri and the Doctor. Shortly after the call, the President informs Morgus that the government is considering parleying with Sharaz Jek as the price of Spectrox has gone up so much that the people are revolting.

At the same time, the real arms smugglers, led by a man named Stotz, lead a raid and kill one of Chellak's patrols. The patrols are working extra as several miners have been killed due to an attack by a creature living in the caves known as the Magma Beast. All of these instances are monitored by Sharaz Jek who uses them to create further destabilization in the mines.

The Doctor and Peri are brought out for execution by firing squad, although Chellak is starting to doubt that they are gun runners. They are draped in red cloaks, lined up and shot. After the soldiers are dismissed, Chellak looks at them and realizes they are actually android duplicates. The real Doctor and Peri were spirited away by Sharaz Jek.

In his lair, Jek informs them that he intends to keep them as company, Peri for her physical beauty and the Doctor for his stimulating mind. He also reveals that he has captured Chellak's aide Salateen and replaced him with an android as well as his plan to restrict the supply of Spectrox until Androzani Major agrees to give him Morgus, whom he blames for his mutilated state.

While imprisoned with Salateen, Salateen recognizes their symptoms and informs them that they will die of Spectrox Toxemia in a couple of days. The only antidote is the milk of a queen bat that lives deep in the minds where there is no oxygen. Motivated by the deadline, the Doctor elects to escape quickly.

Stotz, determined to get paid even though he lost the arms to Chellak's men, signals Sharaz Jek and Jek agrees to meet with him in person in the caves. Knowing that the androids are programed to kill any human without a special modulator on their body, the Doctor exits the cell, hoping his non-human physiology will allow him to pass. He gets past the android guard and deactivates it, beckoning Peri and Salateen to follow. They are spotted by another guard who attacks them. Salateen destroys it with the gun taken from the deactivated android but the Doctor is knocked out by a stray bullet glancing off his head. Salateen pulls Peri along the passage, leaving the Doctor behind.

Jek meets with Stotz and his men and negotiates to pay them just under half of the original agreement. Jek leaves to get it but Stotz orders his men to follow Jek and steal the whole supply of Spectrox. As they enter, they are attacked by the Magma Beast who seems to be immune to their bullets. The Doctor wakes just as this beast attacks and takes cover behind a rock. The beast is driven off and the Doctor is captured by Stotz who takes him back to their ship on the surface after getting the Spectrox as negotiated.

Salateen brings Peri back to Chellak and fills him in on everything. Chellak decides to use the android Salateen to try and trick Jek into a trap. However, when briefing the android Salateen, it picks up the real Salateen and Peri's heat signatures and then reports this back to Jek. Jek orders Salateen to lead Chellak's men into a counter trap while he breaks into Chellak's base and re-kidnaps Peri.

Stotz flies the Doctor back to Androzani Major and communicates with Morgus on their next move. Morgus orders them to stay in orbit while he decides their next move. Morgus becomes convinced that the Doctor is a government plant and that the President is on to him. He kills the President, making it seems as though it was an accident and then flies in his own shuttle to Androzani Minor to take Jek's supplies of Spectrox.

While in holding orbit, the Doctor manages to take control of the ship and reroutes it to Androzani Minor. He crashes the ship and runs to the caves to try and rescue Peri. Stotz and his men give chase but they are forced off when a superheated mud burst occurs, forcing them to take shelter. The Doctor continues in to the caves.

Jek's androids, reprogrammed with information from Peri, attack Chellak's men, killing a number of them but they are overrun by sheer numbers. Chellak himself fights his way into Jek's hideout where he engages Jek. Jek fights him off but he loses his mask in the process. Chellak is thrown out of the bunker just as a mud burst occurs in the passage, killing Chellak. Peri herself sees Jek without his mask and her horrified reaction breaks him.

With the rest of Chellak's men dead or running to escape the mud bursts, the Doctor enters Jek's bunker unimpeded. He finds Jek with his mask back on but fretting about the dying Peri. He gives the Doctor an oxygen cylinder to help him as the Doctor heads deeper into the caves to get the milk of a queen bat. On the way he finds the Magma Beast which was also caught in the mud burst.

Morgus lands on Androzani Minor but upon contacting Major, he finds that his secretary, Timmin, has turned over evidence against him, getting him charged with treason and taking over as head of the corporation. With his assets seized, Morgus agrees to work with Stotz and split the Spectrox 50-50. Stotz's men refuse to help and Stotz kills them, leaving him and Morgus.

The two of them make their way into the caves and follow the trail of bodies to Jek's bunker. Seeing Morgus, Jek rips his mask off and attacks Morgus. Stotz, briefly thrown aside, shoots Jek but is in turn shot by the Salateen android. Jek kills Morgus by shoving him into an engine and then dies in Salateen's arms, who goes inactive with Jek's death.

The Doctor manages to make his way to a queen bat and gets two vials of milk from her. He makes his way back to Jek's base and grabs Peri. He carries her back to the TARDIS but as he reaches for the TARDIS key he drops one of the vials. He pulls Peri into the TARDIS and gives her the remaining vial. Peri recovers but with no cure, the Doctor feels the poison take effect. He sees a vision of his five previous companions as well as the Master who urges him to die. With that, he regenerates into the Sixth Doctor, shocking Peri.

Analysis

I will certainly not quibble with any fan who says that The Caves of Androzani is the best Fifth Doctor story. I think and argument could be made regarding Kinda or Earthshock, but The Caves of Androzani is unquestionably a top notch story. However, is it worthy of the #1 ranking in all the classic era? I would say no. I liked it a great deal, but the answer is still no.

As good as the writing and most of the acting is, the thing that truly sells this story is the direction. Graeme Harper went full stop and gave some wonderful scenes using unique angles, proper lighting and strong, intense performances from the actors. In lesser hands this story could easily have been middle of the road as it does not tread any new ground for Robert Holmes, but Harper is able to infuse it with a pathos that is lacking in many other stories.

Now, I must detract Harper as well because one of the few quibbles I had with this story is also due to Harper's direction. I hate it when the actors stare down camera and it happens multiple times. There's the big obvious one with the Sixth Doctor directly addressing the audience at the end and that was not good but I could have gotten past it. What I really didn't like was how it was used by Morgus. He looks directly down shortly after being introduced in Episode One but in Episode Three, he constantly looks away and down the camera while talking with Stotz. This is the sort of thing that I would expect in a Moliere play which is always tongue-in-cheek about it's own existence. This is trying to be serious and the constant asides to the audience, with a character offering commentary, takes you right out of the experience.

But since we're here, let's talk about Morgus. Morgus is probably the weakest performance of any of the main cast but it's still not bad. I mentioned before his asides and how off-putting they were, but he also had a rather flat delivery. I believe the intent was to make him colder, very much in the mold of an 80's industrialist but by sapping all his emotion, he became boring. He needed a bit more color, not enough to make him mustache twirl-y, but enough to show that he had depth. Smugness during his conversations with the President, anger at Stotz or a bit more open fear when he thinks the Doctor is a government agent would have fleshed him out and made Jek's revenge feel that much more satisfying. I still liked him but more would have been better.

Keeping with the villains, I liked Stotz a lot more. He was emotional but not stupid. He was a thug but one who could think and plan on his own and that made him so much more enjoyable than Morgus. When he's cutting through the bridge door and threatening to murder the Doctor at the end of Episode Three, you really believe him and it ups the peril you feel for the Doctor in the cliffhanger. It also feels that much more satisfying when the android Salateen shoots Stotz in the back. My only quibble with Stotz is that they gave him and his fellow gun runners Stormtrooper aim when the Doctor is running away. It makes the villain seem less potent when they have ample opportunity to kill the hero but don't because they can't shoot straight.

Going to the Doctor, this is an interesting performance because he is such a secondary character in the story. Had the Doctor not intervened, things would have remained in the status quo with Jek slowly infiltrating Chellak's men and eventually driving him to the point of parley. Instead, the Doctor galvanizes things by exposing Jek's mole and forcing a full confrontation between Chellak's and Jek's forces. He also draws in Morgus which brings everything to a head there. In it all, the Doctor mostly just stands by, offering a snappy comeback here and there. His only moments of actual action are in the escape attempt with Peri and Salateen and his rush back to rescue Peri. Everything else just swirls around him.

In a way, that seems rather fitting for the Fifth Doctor. More than any other iteration, he seemed to be always on his back foot and reacting as things unfolded around him. He tries to help but either comes up short or drives things to a conclusion that was probably going to happen anyway. The situation around him is interesting and I like the Doctor's wit in both dealing with what he can and also in still maintaining some level of humor about things. But he is truly not the central focus of this story, despite his name in the title.

If the Doctor didn't have much to do, Peri had even less. She does have a nice interchange with the Doctor before everything goes to pot and she seems to pair well with the Fifth Doctor. I also like how stoic she was in this story. In later stories with the Sixth Doctor, Peri would get snippy and rude in as much as the Doctor would. Here she just gives it the full "stiff upper lip" and accepts what she can. My personal favorite moment is at the end of Episode One when facing the firing squad. Even though she's an android double at that point, you believe it's Peri when she tells Chellak to just get on with it. That's the reaction and attitude that I enjoyed her having and she would have been a much better companion if that attitude had stayed a permanent part of her character. Some of her whininess does come through but you feel she has earned it a bit more given that she is dying and feels she has been abandoned by the Doctor at one point. So Peri works much better here than in other stories.

The unquestioned star of this story is Sharaz Jek. In many ways, he is nothing new. The maimed figure seeking revenge is very common (see most pre-Weber Phantom of the Opera adaptations for example) and Robert Holmes has even used this type of figure before in the full villain Magnus Greel. But, Sharaz Jek is given a number of pretentious and artistic lines that give him a veneer of being a more cultured monster than the rest of them. He is also so expertly performed by Christopher Gable, especially given that only his lips and one eye are available to him. It's almost all done with his voice and body language. Gable also makes sure to express that Jek, while a somewhat sympathetic figure, is still just as dark and malicious a character as Morgus or Stotz. He kills others without thought and shows no mercy or pity when it does not suit him. His ego, even after disfigurement, is almost as large as the Doctor's so he still is a very unpleasant individual.

In fact, it is this devotion to Jek's unpleasantness that exposes another small flaw in Episode Four. Jek is not stupid and you would think that he has seen the effects of Spectrox toxemia before. So why is he so broken up about Peri's impending death when the Doctor arrives? He should have been aware that Peri was dying the moment he recaptured her in Episode Three. I can only think that his exposure by Chellak and Peri's reaction to him broke something in his mind. He could not even delude himself at that point that she would learn to love the façade he presented, much less the real him. With this realization, the only hope he had for beauty was to keep her alive, even if it would be lost to him once again. But that does take a bit of intuition and head cannon. If not paying full attention, you might be lost at Jek's rather sudden tolerance for the Doctor, his desire to preserve Peri and his loss of focus on his revenge.

I enjoyed the writing of this one as I usually do for Robert Holmes. Of course, there is nothing new here. Nearly every aspect of the story has been used by Robert Holmes in a different story. But it doesn't feel recycled and that is the important thing. How much of that is due to Holmes and how much of that is due to the actors or the directing is up for debate, but ultimately the story does feel at least mostly new. Even if it does feel a bit familiar at points, you get peppered with proper Robert Holmes witticisms which are so enjoyable that you stop caring if the characters seem familiar or not.

There is one point of weakness in the writing of the story and I think that is how it was adapted to be the Fifth Doctor's final story. The Doctor retrieves the bat's milk near the end. I assume he cannot drink it himself immediately because he is holding his breath but once he makes it out of that portion of the cave, there is no reason he couldn't. He certainly could have drunk his and even forced Peri to drink hers before running out of Jek's lair. If he was concerned about speed, he still could have carried her while the milk took effect. The waiting and dropping of one vial just seems like a bit of idle chance that was thrown in because it was time for the Fifth Doctor to die. In the non-regeneration version, I'm betting they would have drunk the milk sooner or the Doctor would not have dropped it getting back in the TARDIS. A simple difference between regenerating and not regenerating.

I am relieved to say that I did enjoy this one greatly. Perhaps not quite as much as others but I would still consider it either the #1 or #2 story of the Fifth Doctor era (can't quite decide between this and Earthshock). Even with my concerns and the quibbles I found in it, it is still an excellent story and I'd happily recommend it to anyone curious about it. I will throw in the caveat that I would not place it as the #1 overall classic story. In fact, I doubt I'd even place it in the top 10, but with 159 stories to choose from, that's rather understandable I think.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5