The Horns of Nimon

How is it where ever I go in the universe there are always people like you pointing guns or phasers or blasters... now don't do anything hasty, it's just a flying visit. Take me to your leader.

The Horns of Nimon was the unintentional end to Season 17 when Shada ended up being cancelled due to a technician strike. It has a reputation of being a prime representative of the Douglas Adams era with a lot of jokes but also a lot of unintentional silliness. The acting is said to be very over-the-top as well but with everyone doing it, it supposedly makes the whole thing feel like a farce. I'm nervous when it comes to farces so we shall see.

Plot Summary

A dilapidated warship from the Skonna Empire is carrying a group of youths from the plant Aneth. Desiring to make good time as this was to be the last tribute ship, the co-pilot overloads the engines, blowing them out and killing the pilot. The ship stalls in space and creates a gravity well.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor is attempting to make repairs but has taken a number of systems off-line, including the dematerialization circuit. It gets caught in the gravity well and crashes into the warship. The Doctor extends the shields to create an air tunnel through which he, Romana and K-9 pass through.

They find a set of high energy crystals along with the Aneth youth. The Doctor sends K-9 back to the TARDIS to assess the repairs needed while he and Romana continue. They are detected by the co-pilot, who takes them to the bridge when they offer to help repair the engines before they are sucked into a singularity.

On the planet Skonna, the leader, Soldeed, is overseeing the preparations for the arrival of the youth, who are tribute to be sacrificed to the Nimon, a powerful Minotaur creature living at the center of the city. Upon receiving word of the warship's disappearance, Soldeed ventures into the Nimon's lair to inform him where he is most displeased. He sends Soldeed out with instructions to fulfill the tribute one way or the other.

Romana and the Doctor manage to jury rig something using some spare equipment from the TARDIS. They supply power and tell the co-pilot to ready the ship but not to start until the Doctor has moved the TARDIS onboard the ship. But the co-pilot starts the ship before the Doctor is ready and leaves the TARDIS in the gravity well. The Doctor activates the visualizer and sees a small planet being dragged into the gravity well. The Doctor puts the TARDIS into a spin and uses the momentum of the incoming planetoid to slingshot the TARDIS out of the gravity well.

The co-pilot locks Romana away with the other tributes when she tries to take control of the ship. In with the tributes, she learns that their leader, Seth, has been selected to defeat the Nimon and free Aneth from tribute. Seth however confides in Romana that he was just a traveler and has no plan. It was simply a backstory to feed to the tributaries to give them hope.

The ship arrives on Skonna and when two of the high energy crystals are shown to be missing, the co-pilot tries to claim that he used them to repair the engines. Soldeed immediately sees through the lie, condemns the co-pilot to death and pushes him into the Nimon's maze. Soldeed then pushes both the tributes and Romana into the maze as well, convinced that this will finally fulfill the bargain and the Nimon will bestow them with the technology to rebuild their empire.

After making some repairs, the Doctor steers the TARDIS to Skonna and then lands in the central plaza. He is arrested and brought before Soldeed. The Doctor shows off his technological knowledge but with the reveal that he is connected to Romana, Soldeed orders him taken to the Nimon as well. The Doctor briefly escapes his guard but is recaptured and put into the maze. Once in, he attempts to leave markers to follow back, but the markers disappear and the walls both appear and disappear in random order.

The tributes find the Nimon's lair and find both a desiccated body as well as previous tributes stored in hibernation. Romana realizes that the Nimon feeds on the energy of the tributes and keeps them in hibernation until he has completely used up each one. The co-pilot jumps out with his gun, hoping to fool the Nimon that he was ordered to escort them into the maze. The Nimon, drawn by the noise, sees through this and kills the co-pilot.

The Doctor enters and distracts the Nimon, allowing Romana, Seth and another tribute, Teka, to escape into the tunnels. The remaining five tributes however are too scared to move and the Nimon sets them in hibernation while taking the power crystals they had brought.

The Doctor and his party sneak back into the lab and observe the Nimon powering his equipment. He inflates the black hole that the Skonnan ship and the TARDIS were trapped in and brings in a capsule containing two other Nimon. The Doctor realizes that the Nimon have exhausted the planet they are currently occupying and are colonizing other planets under the guise of bringing a technological revolution.

When the Nimon leave, the Doctor and his group work to see if they can reverse the flow. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS but K-9 is captured and damaged by Soldeed. Soldeed intends to take K-9 apart to see how he works but stops when he sees the Nimon's temple become activated. Convinced that Skonna's new age is about to begin, he enters the maze to converse with the Nimon.

The Doctor experiments with the controls and manages to reverse the direction of the capsule. However, Romana was in the capsule and was transported back with it. The Doctor attempts to bring it back but Soldeed interrupts and damages the equipment with a blast from his staff. He then threatens to kill the Doctor for interfering with the Nimon's plans but Seth stuns Soldeed. He then works to repair the damage done by Soldeed.

Romana emerges from the capsule and finds herself on the planet Crinoth. She is pursued by other Nimon but they are stunned by Sezom, the last survivor of Crinoth and who held a position similar to Soldeed. Having seen how the Nimon consume the resources of the planet without fulfilling their promises, he works only to spare others from the Nimon. He has modified his staff with a mineral to amplify it's power to a level that will actually stun the Nimon. He helps Romana get back to the capsule, overcome the Nimon guards and climb into it, awaiting it's recall by the Doctor.

While the Doctor is repairing the machine, Soldeed awakens and runs off. Seth and Teka run after him but become separated in the maze. Teka is captured by Soldeed who turns her over to the Nimon, though he is shocked to see three take her. Seth returns to the Doctor just as he has finished the repairs.

Meanwhile, the captain of the guard, Sorak, experiments on K-9 trying to figure out how he works. K-9 is reanimated and after shocking Sorak, enters the maze to fulfill the Doctor's call.

The Nimon reenter the control room capturing the Doctor. The Nimon reactivate the device pulling the capsule with Romana to them. Sezom was killed in his defense of the capsule. The Nimon attack Romana and Seth as he reenters the room. Romana gives him the mineral from Crinoth and he places it in the staff. He stuns two of the Nimon while a third is taken down by K-9.

The Doctor and K-9 set about running the calculations to reverse the pull of the black hole while Seth and Romana go to rescue Teka. They find her in suspended animation along with the other Anothians. They start to revive her when Soldeed attacks them. He has gone mad in his refusal to accept that the Nimon deceived him. He runs to the power room and jams the overload switch before Seth shoots him down. With the switch jammed, they have no choice but to flee.

With everyone revived, they are joined by the Doctor and K-9 and K-9 leads them out of the maze. The Nimon also revive and chase after them. The Doctor's group emerges from the maze and orders everyone to take cover as the whole complex explodes, taking the three Nimon with it.

With Soldeed dead, Sorak takes over and sends the Anothians back in a spare ship with Seth in command. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 reenter the TARDIS to continue their repairs and as they take off, they observe a distant explosion. The Nimon trapped on Crinoth had tried to convert the planet to energy to reopen the portal to Skonna but with the receiver destroyed, it backfired and destroyed Crinoth with them still on it. The group then leaves the system to pursue adventures elsewhere.

Analysis
The Horns of Nimon is very similar to Underworld in that you have a potentially interesting story with a science fiction spin on a Greek myth, only to have it undone by production values and poor acting. I think The Horns of Nimon did it better than Underworld but it's still a case of looking at what could have been versus what is actually there.

One of the most frustrating things is that the potential of this story shines through. The tale of the Minotaur is a wonderfully dark story and a number of the people in this story do a good job of playing the tale straight, giving it a slightly creepy edge. That even works with the Douglas Adams style one-liners that intercut the story, giving it a gallows humor edge. But there are three characters that take all that potential and squander it. If a minor character is off, that can be overlooked, but in this case it's the Doctor and Soldeed that throw the tone off and never get it back on track.

By Season 17, it's obvious that Tom Baker has decided that the Doctor should be light-hearted and funny. He adds a serious tone here and there when required but he still feels that this is a show for children and that if the Doctor doesn't show fear, the kids won't be scared either. This can work in stories like Nightmare of Eden but the Doctor usually has to be balanced out by some gravitas on the other side. Here, the actor playing Soldeed has dialed it up to eleven in the idea that this story is a complete farce. Tom Baker either goes along with that or decides that he will not be upstaged by anyone and also dials it way up so that his performance is just as over-the-top and silly. He controls it better than Soldeed but when contrasted with the tone of everything else, it just doesn't fly.

I would love to know what the actor playing Soldeed was either thinking or got in terms of direction because his performance is absolutely terrible. You might think the character was already completely crazy or stoned out of his gourd based on the way he reacts to everyone around him. There is no moment of quiet or dialing it back. It's just up at eleven all the time. He has a moment when with the Doctor towards the end of Episode Two where he comes back a touch but that moment is so fleeting. Then you have his final scene in Episode Four where goes another notch up and the performance is almost painful to watch. Having already seen as crazy, trying to go extra crazy just makes the performance go to pieces.

The third character who is a bit of a loss is Teka. As a minor character that is mostly just an annoyance. She does absolutely nothing other than talk incessantly how Seth is going to be this great hero and save them all. Even when tasked to do something she ends up doing effectively nothing. I don't mind a bit of play up about the hero but a little balance would have been nice. Heck, showing her competent at anything other that verbally fellating Seth would have been an improvement.

Now that we've addressed the bad, let's hit the good. Romana is excellent in this story. She is competent, daring and even gets a few sharp barbs in here and there. The Doctor does very little in this story other than get himself captured and repair the Nimon's equipment. Romana is the one running about, trying to keep the Anothians alive and free. It is she that brings back the weapon to hold off the Nimon when they rise up. She also seems to actually care about the people around her. The Doctor seems to only care about Romana until the end of things.

Seth was pretty good too. In many ways, he was a less cocky version of Adric. I wouldn't be surprised if the interaction Seth had with Romana and the Doctor broached the idea of having a teenage boy as a companion. Unlike Adric, he is grounded in the limits of his abilities, clearly worried about not being able to perform what has been set before him. Yet he doesn't whine about it. He confides in Romana and puts Teka off a lot, but you don't see him curling up in a corner going "woe is me" as we so often have in fake heroes. Instead, he works as best he can and does step up when forced to do so. It actually makes for a nice arc for him.

Probably the best performance in the whole story lasted only five minutes and that was Sezom. He is in the same role as Soldeed but unlike that over-the-top performance, Sezom is reflective and quiet. He says more in a quiet look of despondence than Soldeed does with any of his ravings. Sezom's story is more tragic as well given that his planet was not interested in conquest but instead looked for peace and knowledge. His compromise of allowing a small evil (the tributes) led only to great evil rather than the peace and comfort that they wanted. It's an excellent performance and wonderfully underplayed. I'm glad that it was with Romana as well, who played off that well rather than going for an easy joke as the Doctor might have.

I like the idea of the Nimon a bit more than their execution. A minotaur race that act like locusts but that have real technological abilities is interesting. I even thought the costumes weren't that bad though the constant need for the actors to walk on tip-toe to simulate a hoof was probably jarring. What I didn't like about them was the constant arm movement. It was always like they were doing a free expression dance while simply walking around. I also would have liked some padding on arms. The loincloth covered the legs well enough, but the arms looked so skinny compared to the head and torso that it drew me out of the story. It was much easier to see it as a man in a costume rather than a creature. Padding would have added the illusion of musculature which also would have made the Nimon just that much more threatening.

I also enjoyed the sets for the most part. The clanking grates outside the maze were not good, but within the maze and the lab itself, I thought they did a good job. I could easily imagine that the hibernation chamber was recycled from The Ark in Space set while the computer equipment was probably gotten off some salvage yard. Both gave extra touches of realism when the budget would probably not have allowed that. I also appreciated the dim lighting. It hid what would have been imperfections in the set and costume and added an air of creepiness that might have otherwise been lost.

One small thing that was a bit odd was the pacing. The story had a slow start with a lot of hijinks in Episode One. It moved fairly steady after that, though it did slow down a bit in Episode Three. Then you have things all over the map in Episode Four. Many plot elements are stuffed in giving it a very crammed feeling, yet at the same time, there is a long segment of the Doctor's party following K-9 down various corridors with the Nimon doing the same. It kills several minutes that could have been used elsewhere. You then have a very hasty summary where three different storylines are summarily ended in a TARDIS coda that feels tacked on. It's very odd pacing with fast and slow elements throughout the whole story.

As stated earlier, this story is more of a reflection of what could have been. It has a number of good elements and even having dark or silly humor here and there are not a problem. The problems come from the contrast in performances and the up and down pacing. It's not quite the same but it's easy to see how the second attempt at this story in the form of The God Complex worked much better if only due to a consistent tone throughout. This story is not bad to sit through but there are going to be several roll your eye moments. If you can set those aside, it can be enjoyed just fine, but I doubt I will make much of an effort to come back to this one.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Leisure Hive

Arrest the scarf then.

The Leisure Hive is the first story of the Christopher H. Bidmede era and if there is any story that defines his era, this may be it. David Fisher wrote this story in the vein of the silly Douglas Adams overseen Season 17, going so far as to envision the Foamasi as Jersey Shore style villains. Bidmede came in and slashed nearly all the comedy out of the story and reworked as much scientific techno-babble as he could. He also cut anything out that he saw as story padding. As such, this story has episodes almost as short as The Mind Robber and that includes reprises that last for 1-2 minutes. But does this slash and burn style help or hurt the overall story?

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Romana relax on Brighton Beach when K-9 short circuits himself by chasing a beach ball into the water. Romana takes him back to the Doctor and requests to go to a place with legitimate entertainment: the planet Argolis, which was turned into a recreation planet after a devastating nuclear war.

On Argolis, the chairman of the board, Morix, is trying to get additional investment from his human banker Brock. Brock is unwilling to invest himself but has an offer to buy the planet outright from the reptilian race, the Foamasi, with whom the Argolans had their nuclear war. Morix refuses to sell but dies before negotiations can continue further. Morix's wife, Mena, takes over as chairman and plans to revitalize their facilities by using anti-aging techniques developed using their expertise in tachyonics with an Earth scientist named Hardin.

The Doctor and Romana arrive on Argolis as Mena's son Pangol is giving a demonstration of their experiments in tachyonics. A member of the audience is curious and he is invited in to test it but something goes wrong and he is mortally injured. The Doctor rushes forward to help but is pulled away by a guard who mistakes him for Hardin. He and Romana are taken to Mena who suspects them of being spies (as they have no identification) and orders their arrest.

The Doctor and Romana run back to the main hall unaware that a group of Foamasi have infiltrated the hive. Romana gets back to the TARDIS but the Doctor is drawn to the Tachyonics machine where he appears to be pulled apart. Romana yells for him, alerting the guards. The Doctor emerges having used his sonic screwdriver to escape, but still revealing that it was an illusion by the machine. When brought before Mena, the Doctor and Romana reveal that they are very familiar with tachyonics and Hardin, who has just arrived, is eager for assistance, not wanting to reveal to Mena that he falsified his data and hasn't made the experiment work right yet.

Even with their help Hardin thinks about confessing the whole thing but his financial backer, Stimson, compels him to try and make it work. Stimson goes to talk to Brock in his quarters but finds them empty. He does however find a human mask and suit in the closet. Panicked, Stimson runs away into the main hall where he is strangled with the Doctor's scarf.

The Doctor, Romana and Mena all review the layout and plans for the rejuvenation techniques but encounter technical problems due to Foamasi sabotage. Mena briefly collapses due to accelerated aging brought on by the fallout of the war, but she recovers. The Doctor goes to look for the source of the sabotage while Romana goes to assist Hardin. The Doctor enters the main hall and finds his scarf around Stimson's neck. He is arrested by the guards and brought before Mena for trial. As none but circumstantial evidence can be found, Pangol suggests trial by test. Mena scoffs at this but changes her mind when Hardin and Romana enter stating that they've made the process work but only require one more test.

The Doctor is put into the tachyon machine while Hardin transfers the information from his lab. Romana goes back to the lab and discovers that their experiment reverted itself in a bad way. She runs back to stop it but Hardin has already begun the process. They stop in the middle but the Doctor emerges having turned into an old man. Pangol has the Doctor and Romana placed under house arrest and confines them to an empty suite.

Pangol does a little investigating and determines that Hardin faked his results. Mina confronts Hardin and he admits to fudging the final results but that he and Romana did make the process work. He requests and is given leave by Mina to have access to the lab to continue working. She does deny his request to have Romana assist him. Hardin however sneaks into their quarters and frees the Doctor and Romana to determine what went wrong.

With guests leaving rapidly, Brock brings up the Foamasi offer once again. Mina is still hesitant but agrees to look at the offer. Pangol suspects forgery as the documents are not issued by the government and the Foamasi government owns everything. Brock demurs, suggesting that a form of private enterprise still functions. Pangol becomes incensed and informs Brock that he is not actually a biological child of Mina (the Argolans having become sterile after the war) but a clone produced by the generator. Showing off a view of the generator, he sees the Doctor sneaking around and alerts the guards.

The Doctor, Hardin and Romana had snuck into the generator room to investigate what went wrong. Romana snuck in while the Doctor and Hardin took care of the guards. They are forced to flee when Pangol enters with his troop. He observes someone in the generator and activates it, turning the aging up to 10,000 years. However the generator is empty as a Foamasi had pulled Romana out before Pangol activated the machine.

The Foamasi takes Romana back to the lab with the Doctor and Hardin. It speaks with the Doctor and the whole group heads to the conference room. Pangol has returned to the conference room where Brock is still trying to get Mina to sign the papers. As the Doctor and his group enter, Brock panics at the sight of the Foamasi. The Foamasi grabs Brock and pulls off his mask to reveal that Brock is actually another Foamasi in disguise.

The original Foamasi reveals himself as a government agent while the fake Brock and his associate were representatives of a crime family attempting to gain control of Argolis to use it as a base of operations. The agent arrests the two and takes them to his shuttle with the intention of taking them back to the home planet for trial.

Pangol, now having whipped himself in to a frenzy with Mina's impending death, refuses to let the Foamasi go and orders the shuttle destroyed when it attempts to take off without clearance. He then sets up the tachyon generator to create a clone army of himself, prepared to go to war with the Foamasi and any other system that would oppose him.

While Pangol is setting this up, the Doctor, Romana and Hardin try to figure out how to both stop Pangol and fix the generator. The Doctor takes the randomizer out of the TARDIS and sneaks into the generator to counteract the previous sabotage. Romana realizes what the Doctor has done and tries to stop it but Pangol enters the generator and begins to make his clones. The clones, masked, step out and take her away. Once they are down the corridor, the clones take off their masks to reveal a rejuvenated Doctor. Since he had been in the machine, his essence was replicated while taking on Pangol's outfit. However, the clones are unstable and they disappear, except for the original Doctor.

Hardin discovers Mina passed out and dying in the conference room. He picks her up and decides to try and put her in the generator as a desperation attempt to keep her alive. Pangol sees what he is doing and runs into the generator after Hardin places her in and the door closes behind them. The Doctor arrives, noting that he left the generator in regeneration mode and it begins to work on both of them. The Doctor smashes the controls and a youthful Mina emerges holding Pangol, who has been reduced to a baby.

Mina vows to raise Pangol correctly this time and asks to contact the Foamasi to avoid another war. The Foamasi agent emerges, noting that the destroyed shuttle was launched by the fake Brock before the agent could board in an escape attempt. The two go to discuss arrangements between their two planets while Hardin looks after Pangol. The Doctor and Romana slip away in the TARDIS with the Doctor dismissing the threats of the Black Guardian and refusing to reinstall the randomizer.

Analysis

Despite some flaws, I rather like this story, although I can't say that much of that credit goes to either David Fisher or Christopher Bidmede. The plotline, for the most part, is fairly good but I think it is the overall atmosphere and tone that really help sell it and credit there must be given to Lovett Bickford. I also think they got a rather good cast for this story as nearly everyone sells themselves in a very believable way.

This story kicks off the season of entropy and nowhere is that better exemplified in the form of the Doctor. The producers actually got somewhat lucky in that Tom Baker had a bad case of illness in the period between seasons and came back looking rather badly. It ties in rather nicely with the way things worked out for this whole season and even beyond that, you can tell that he's pulling in his A-game. After running with just about whatever he wanted in Season 17, Tom Baker is heavily clamped down and it suits him. He presents himself in a serious manner and that adds a level of gravitas that might have been lost given the changes that were made. It also adds a bit more punch in the few and far between instances of comedy. If Bidmede made one major error, it was in cutting out the comedy completely. A few jokes sprinkled here and there (such as the scarf line) would have lightened things a touch and made the story much more palatable to regular viewers.

Romana gets a nice little arc and some good scenes here and there, although I feel like she had more scenes cut for time. Hardin always seems so insistent in working with Romana that you can't help but think they might have had a couple of more scenes showing their interaction while the Doctor did his own thing. But even with those scenes absent, it's nice to see Romana in full scientist mode and especially nice to see her being consulted as the scientific mind rather than the Doctor, freeing him for more intrigue. I do think her K-9 short circuiting reaction was a bit over the top, especially in contrast to how blasé she was when talking to the Doctor while carrying him back to the TARDIS. Still, a strong performance that I enjoyed.

Mina was the standout among the secondary characters. It's actually something of a shame that she had to spend a good portion of two and a half episodes acting like she's dying (which was well acted) because her performance when fully lucid is excellent. She's a hard driven yet compassionate woman, trying to die with dignity and grace. She does fall a bit flat in the final scene where she comes out of the generator. The whole scene is very rushed and both her and the Foamasi representative sound like they are doing a quick run through rather than a proper performance. You have to wonder if the union was threatening to cut the lights in five minutes when they filmed that scene.

I rather liked the Foamasi and I also liked the slight mystery angle where you have two criminals trying to get a deal while being pursued by a government agent. That was the better story and I rather wish that it had been drawn out just a bit longer rather than indulge in the whole bit with Pangol. I liked the design of the Foamasi and the fear that they seemed to inspire in Mina as well as the rage in Pangol. I thought they worked well as the primary villain in the first three episodes.

But then we come to Pangol and the oddity that is Episode Four. Pangol, through the first three episodes, has been shown to be arrogant and chafing for leadership. But in Episode Four, he goes totally off the rails into full totalitarian mode. With the plot revolving around finding about the Foamasi sabotage and their plans to take control of the planet, Pangol's sudden declaration of himself as the next Alexander the Great and the creation of a clone army is just a complete and total surprise.

What's more, the whole thing is a giant fizzle as it is resolved in less than fifteen minutes of show time. They are clones of the Doctor but you get the impression that even if they had been clones of Pangol they wouldn't have lasted long either. So the whole deviation is an exercise in futility. All it does is allow the Doctor to be made back to his normal self and that could easily have been done as a tie in with trying to revive Mina as the groundwork was laid for Hardin's age reversal experiments. Pangol could easily have been left as the skeptic that we've seen in many different stories only to be shocked at the end. I think it was just a very clumsy deviation.

It also might not have been that good but a better stretch would have been trying to save Mina as well as a temporary escape by the criminal Foamasi, destroying part of Hardin's work and adding that much more tension to trying to save Mina. You could have also added that the rapid aging and instability of the original tachyon experiment was causing the Doctor to become weak and die, thus the race becomes to save both him and Mina, which would actually unite Hardin, Romana and Pangol. The Foamasi agent could also contribute as it would be something of an interplanetary incident if it was known that Foamasi criminals acted in ways that led to the death of the Argolan leader. What's more, the interaction between the agent and Pangol would have formed a more natural bridge of the two planets looking to create a stable peace and comradery rather than the patch job that was shown in the last minute of the show.

There was some interesting and arty direction in this story. There was also some very shoddy direction so it's an odd mix there. Any time the story went into noir, especially with close ups and shadows, it looked really good and intense. There are also some very nice long shots from the exterior into the hive itself which I enjoyed. But then there were also other shots where there was too much lighting, giving a harsh appearance to everything. There was also the very bad blue screen of the Doctor and Romana retreating to the TARDIS in Episode One as they passed through the racquetball court. I think Barry Letts would have chided them for that shot.

The other significant problem is editing. Bidmede clearly went through and slashed everything he could that was not part of the bare bones story. That led to a number of transitions where you could just feel that more had been discussed and shot but that we weren't privy to it. In a story like this, because it was so straight-forward, that's less of an issue; but when a man who is supposed to be interested in emphasizing the science can't explain what this magic box is actually doing or why it's doing things wrong, I would say that you can take an extra minute or so to explain it. They could have had even more time by cutting back on the reprise time as well so the slash and burn that was done actually created confusion rather than effectively streamlining the story.

I got rather harsh towards the end but there is still a lot to like in this story. It's just frustrating when you see a story that could have been the stand out story of the season be reduced to a middling state. I think it also says a lot for Christopher Bidmede's approach that the story that I found the best of his season was the story that was leftover from the Philip Hinchcliff/Graham Williams transition days (State of Decay). But I do like this story a bit more than some fans and I could easily watch it again. Even the stupidity that is Episode Four has a bit of entertainment and gives enough of a run around to keep you engaged. Not a horrible start to the JNT era but less than it could have been.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5

The Armageddon Factor

This thing makes me feel in such a way I'd be very worried if I felt like that that about somebody else feeling like this about that, do you understand?

If you listen to fans about Season 16, you will usually get a debate on whether The Power of Kroll or The Armageddon Factor is the worst story of the season. Given that I rather liked The Power of Kroll, I'm betting this one will win my vote unless it pulls something miraculous out of a hat and The Pirate Planet ends up in last place. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt especially since it brings in Lalla Ward for the first time.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Romana follow the Key detector to the planet Atrios which is currently in the midst of a nuclear war with it's neighbor Zeos. The military leader is known as the Marshal and he runs the war while the planet is ruled by Princess Astra. Astra is having a liaison with the chief surgeon Merak and the two are working together to try and contact Zeos about bringing an end to the war. The Marshal is having none of it and aware of their attempts, traps Astra in an abandoned part of the base flooded with radiation.

The Doctor and Romana arrive in the base, having just avoided being vaporized by nuclear missile, just outside the section where Astra has been trapped. They find a dead guard but fearing a trap from the Black Guardian have K-9 cut a small hole in the door. The use of the weapon alerts the Marshal and he and detachment of guards arrest them, shortly after Astra makes a plea for help through the hole. K-9 drops into the shadows and is not seen by the guards.

The Marshal takes advantage and has Merak brought up as well, accusing all three of them of being Zeon spies. The Doctor tricks the Marshal's second-in-command, Shapp, into summoning K-9 with his dog whistle. K-9 enters and shoots the lights, allowing all three to run back into the tunnel towards the TARDIS. Meanwhile, a cloaked figure has materialized into the room and taken Princess Astra out, transmatting them to some other location.

The three fugitives run back to the TARDIS to find it blocked by debris from the last attack. K-9 returns and informs them that the guards ran down the other passage. Merak figures that Astra was behind the door and the Doctor has K-9 cut through the door. They find it empty except for Astra's tiara. With no alternatives, the Doctor and company return to the control room although he tells K-9 to keep watch on the wall of the radioactive room.

When the Doctor, Romana and Merak reenter the control room, they find the Marshal staring into a mirror "meditating". He welcomes them and decides the Doctor is to be the new strategist to fight the Zeons. He activates the viewscreen to see the space battle, although he is forced to recall their forces when they are beaten badly by the Zeon fleet. Realizing the Marshal is probably mad, the Doctor proposes a psychological force field and asks to speak to a Zeon prisoner to create one. The Marshal replies that they have no prisoners.

Back in the room, K-9 follows a signal into a duct where he becomes trapped in a chute heading towards the incinerator. The Doctor requests K-9 to help him and Shapp informs him of K-9's plight. The Doctor goes in after him and the Marshal begins freaking out that the Doctor might die. As he does, he pulls at his collar and Romana notices a chip on his neck. When the Doctor emerges, she tells him of this and they figure he is being controlled by another source.

The Doctor proposes to head to Zeos to capture a prisoner for the shield and the Marshal informs him of a transmat near the radioactive room. Meanwhile, Romana and Merak sneak around and find a hidden room that looks onto the control room through the Marshal's mirror. They see him being controlled through a skull that transmits through the mirror and rush to warn the Doctor. They arrive too late as the Doctor is grabbed by two masked men and transmatted off planet.

The masked men take the Doctor to a room where the leader, called the Shadow, interrogates the Doctor about the five found segments of the Key to Time. He also produces the TARDIS and demands that the Doctor go in and give them to him. The Doctor insists they are in a state of limbo and points out that if he enters the TARDIS, he could escape at will. The Shadow agrees that it is a stand off and is willing to wait him out. He and the men who grabbed him disappear.

Back on Atrios, Romana has K-9 reconfigure the lock to allow access to the transmat. Merak however grabs the key detector and transmats himself first, locking her out again. She once again has K-9 force the door, this time breaking the mechanism which keeps the door open. She and K-9 also transmat over. The open door is seen by Shapp while investigating the alarms and he too is transmatted to Zeos.

Romana catches up with Merak and takes back the detector although not before discovering a bracelet that belongs to Princess Astra. The Doctor runs into Shapp and figuring that Romana and K-9 have also come, summons K-9 with the dog whistle thus uniting the entire party.

K-9 informs the Doctor that he's been in contact with the Zeon commandant who is also a computer. The Doctor has K-9 take him to it and K-9 gets access to the core room where he introduces the war computer Mentalis. While examining the computer, they also learn that the Marshal is personally flying towards the planet with a load of weapons, intending to destroy Zeos for good.

The Doctor sends Shapp and Merak back to the transmat to try and stop the Marshal. Shapp is shot by a minion of the Shadow but falls into the transmat and makes it back to Atrios. He radios the Marshal to stop but the Marshal ignores him. Merak sees a projection of Astra summoning him but falls into one of the Shadow's traps and is knocked out.

The Doctor and Romana try to deactivate Mentalis' shut down state to allow it to defend itself from the Marshal's attack but it destroys the control mechanism to prevent them. They head back to the TARDIS and assemble the five segments of the key to time. When nothing happens, the Doctor crafts a facsimile of the sixth piece which allows him to create a small time loop around the Marshal's ship as it is firing it's missiles. However, as the key is not complete, the time loop begins to degenerate, meaning that the Marshal's missiles will eventually destroy Zeos and Atrios in the blast.

A mind controlled Astra finds Merak and tricks him into believing they need to find the Doctor and Romana. They do and the Doctor tells them to transmat back to Atrios with K-9. As they walk, they are attacked by the Shadow's guards. K-9 drives them off but is tricked into a transmat which sends him to the Shadow's planet. Astra ditches Merak and he is sent back to Atrios.

Astra finds the Doctor and Romana and tells them that she was separated when K-9 drove off the Shadow's guards. With the time loop deteriorating, the Doctor decides to go to the Shadow's planet to stop him. The three take the TARDIS there and Astra and Romana head off to find the Shadow. The Doctor waits and heads in a different direction.

The Shadow captures Romana with the help of the mind controlled Astra and uses a projection of Romana to confuse the Doctor. The Doctor catches on but is caught in a cell shortly afterward. In the cell, he runs into a fellow Time Lord named Drax who was threatened by the Shadow to build Mentalis and help him get the Key to Time. The Doctor convinces Drax to help him and repair some of the equipment from his TARDIS, which is on Zeos.

While Drax is busy, the Doctor investigates a tunnel outside of which he finds a mind controlled K-9. K-9 offers a deal from the Shadow to the Doctor to spare Romana's life but the Doctor grabs K-9 and throws him down the tunnel where Drax removes the mind control chip. The two then work together to repair the equipment.

The Doctor tries to get back to the TARDIS but is captured by the Shadow's guards who take him to Romana. The Shadow also removes Astra's mind control chip to return her to normal and tells the Doctor he is working for the Black Guardian. Knowing that the Doctor would gather the other five segments, he found the sixth and has sat in wait for the Doctor. The Doctor agrees to bring the Key segments out of the TARDIS. He and a guard make their way to the TARDIS but Drax is waiting for them with the repaired equipment. However, he fires at the Doctor, shrinking him. He then turns the gun on himself and shrinks himself as well.

The Doctor runs across the floor and he and Drax hide in a crack in the wall while the guard searches for them. The Shadow, watching from his screen, sees the door of the TARDIS unlocked and leaves to take the Key. The Doctor and Drax then run through the crack and into K-9, whom the Doctor orders to return to the Shaddow, pretending he is still under his control.

On Atrios, Shapp and Merak see the time loop holding the Marshal deteriorating. Merak, suspecting that the sixth segment of the Key to Time is connected with Astra, pulls up her medical file and notes a genetic anomaly that has passed through her family. Suspecting that she is the key, Merak attacks one of the Shadow's guards guarding the transmat entrance and forces him to take him to the third planet. He steals the guard's robes and follows the Shadow back into his lair.

The Shadow retrieves the Key to Time and brings it back to where Astra and Romana are held. Astra, realizing what she is, is drawn to the key and is transformed into the sixth segment when she touches the detector. The Shadow picks it up but before he can remove the fake segment, K-9 bursts through the wall and points out Merak. This distracts the Shadow long enough for the Doctor and Drax to exit K-9 and be returned to normal size. The Doctor grabs both the key and the sixth segment and runs with Romana, Drax and Merak down the tunnels.

Merak, in a state of confusion, wanders to find Astra. Drax also stays behind, promising to transmat himself and Merak while acting as rearguard. With only one second left in the time loop, the Doctor doesn't have enough time to replace the segment so he and Romana take the TARDIS back to Zeos. There, with Drax assisting him, the Doctor fully disables Mentalis, allowing him to put up a gravitational deflection field around Zeos.

As the time loop fails, the missiles from the Marshal's ship deflect away from Zeos and destroy the Dark planet. As it explodes, the Shadow begs forgiveness from the Black Guardian, who vows to finish the job and take the Key for himself.

Drax bids farewell to the Doctor, deciding to go into business with the Marshal to rebuild both Atrios and Zeos. The Doctor then places the sixth segment, completing the Key. As he does so, the Doctor becomes worried about the extreme amount of power that the wielder has and knows that he must get it to the White Guardian as quick as possible. The White Guardian appears on screen and asks for the Key so that he might restore balance to the universe. The Doctor asks him about Astra and the Guardian notes that while regrettable, the Key must remain in his possession.

The Doctor realizes that the Guardian is actually the Black Guardian masquerading as the White. He activates the TARDIS defenses. He also orders Romana to dematerialize the TARDIS as he pulls out the Key detector. Pulling the detector out redisperses the segments through time and space, freeing Princess Astra, who reunites with Merak as he recovers in a hospital bed. The Doctor and Romana decide to continue their travels but with a randomizer that will make it unpredictable to know where they are going and thus keep the Black Guardian on his heels about how to catch up to them.

Analysis

While not the worst thing in the world, this story had a lot of problems and easily takes the crown of the worst story of Season 16. This is even more unfortunate as it feels bad to end a pretty good season on such a sour note.

This story has a myriad of problems. To begin, it is six parts and you can feel the bloat. In fact, I ran through it in my mind and I think that if you skipped directly from Episode One to Episode Three, you would pick up the plot almost where you left off and missed nearly nothing, the bloat is that bad. Even in the episodes where there is a critical bit of information given out or a key change of scene, so much of what is said and done could be pared down from the full twenty minutes it's given to a span of five to ten; the bloat is just that bad.

There are other problems with the bloat as well in that there are at least a couple of scenes where we've come out of long stretches of people running around or doing other things to kill time and then get a massive info dump. The worst of these is at the start of Episode Four where the Doctor is bringing Merak and Shapp up to speed on everything that has happened. We saw some of those scenes but instead of exploring all of this in those scenes, we're only given little glimpses and then a large expositional piece. It is some of the worst way to convey information, especially since we had been given at least a little insight into what actually happened.

Tone is another problem in this story. The whole thing has an underlying tone of wanting to be serious and a dire situation to get out of. Yet we are flooded with characters who are clearly comedy elements. Shapp is a pratfalling type straight out of Monty Python. I actually thought he even looked like John Cleese. Drax is a British geographical stereotype (Brixton is where I think he was supposed to have picked up the accent) and is an odd left turn after the first four parts of the story. Even the Shadow is played so over the top (as opposed to the Marshal) that he is impossible to be taken too seriously. By the time you get into Episodes Five and Six, you feel as though you're in a pantomime show and nothing is to be taken seriously.

This story also suffers from a lack of compelling characters. I've already noted the comedic ones but both Astra and Merak are just so devoid of personality that they are just boring. When writing up the recap, I had to go back and correct myself because I accidently wrote "Romana" when I meant "Astra", mostly because Lalla Ward is given so little to play with that you only remember her as Lalla Ward i.e. Romana II. If she hadn't become Romana II, I'm not sure anyone would remember her, she has that little personality. You basically get that in Merak as he is also a completely forgettable milquetoast who's only defining feature seems to be his hunt for Astra. It's even worse when you think that there was a set up for some interesting political drama between them and the Marshal but that just fizzled out and we're left with dirty dishwater.

The one character apart from the Time Team that is actually interesting and compelling is the Marshal. He has a very odd personality shift starting in Episode Two but once it's exposed that he is being mind controlled by the Shadow, that makes a bit more sense. But even with the twists, his personality and range of acting is such that you want to wee what happens to him and interact with him. So of course he gets put in the time loop and is essentially removed from the story for the last three episodes.

Another character who is completely underused is Romana. She does almost literally nothing except summon K-9, ask the Doctor what is going on and get captured. She shows almost no initiative except in a couple of scenes while on Atrios and does nothing to help out. I think her lack of action on both Zeos and the Dark planet are especially annoying because there is no reason why she can't be of use. She knows computers just as well as the Doctor and there were no guards around at one point so there was no reason why she and Astra couldn't have made a run for it. It's just a waste of a good character.

The Doctor is enjoyable as always and he at least gets to keep the central focus. He alone of everyone is probably the only one who navigates the waters between drama and comedy but even he goes over the edge here and there. His "evil" moment after they've completed the Key is downright disturbing to look at it and not for anything to do with the portrayal of evil. Still, he is one of the few reasons to get invested in this story.

Perhaps one of the oddest things is that this story seems compelled to make K-9 be the hero. It's like the writers decided that although it was the Doctor who would save the day, K-9 would be the most dutiful sidekick who would get all the proper action scenes and directly solve all the major issues. K-9 rescues the Doctor from the Marshal; he allows Romana to access the transmat; he gives the Doctor access to Mentalis; he smuggles the Doctor and Drax into the central chamber to retrieve the Key from the Shadow; etc. I don't mind K-9 but any story where he is the one providing the solution to all the problems (similar to the sonic screwdriver) and it just becomes boring. It's like Batman going to his utility belt for some magic gadget every time. At some point, I want to see the regular hero actually think his way out of the problem, not produce a "get-out-jail-free" card.

Even the ending is a let down. There might have been some interest in it if the Black Guardian had first shown up on the TARDIS view screen as the audience would have to figure things out as much as the Doctor did. But instead we had that silly overlay with the Shadow talking as he dies and we are given a very clear shot of the Black Guardian. So we know instantly that it's the Black Guardian who is appearing. There is also the unsatisfactory point of the Doctor dispersing the Key nearly instantaneously. We are given no evidence that the White Guardian accomplished what he wanted to do with it so the whole quest ends up having been for naught. It was just such a sloppy end to what seemed to be a good premise.

One of the reasons that I think this story was so tonally off is that Douglas Adams came in as script editor at this time. So you went from the more serious minded Anthony Read to the comedic Adams. My suspicion is that Adams ended up pushing any unresolved threads in the script to the silly side and that's why the tone seems to start in a serious direction and then crater into absurdism.

I will say that I thought the direction was alright. There were a few moments where it was pretty obvious that they were trying to maximize what was a small filming space by taking obvious circular routes around the set but most were fairly well hidden. The lighting also helped give the story a darker mood, although that also contributed to the odd disconnect between what the focus of the story should be.

Overall, this is a pretty bad way to end the story arc. If it were more entertaining, I think it could be redeemed a bit, but it steady goes downhill and it gets boring. Even worse, you don't even get a proper climax at the end as you would think the White Guardian would have come in to give a little coda. The ending was done much better in Enlightenment where at least you had a direct confrontation between the two. Outside of a rewatch of the whole Key to Time season, I can't think of any particular reason to pull this one out and watch it again.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5

Underworld

The quest is the quest.

I think the only two things I had ever heard about Underworld was that it was a take on Greek myths (especially Jason and the Argonauts) and that it was rather famously shot largely on green screen. Both elements are not exactly the thing that fills you with confidence going into a story but I'm willing to keep an open mind, especially if the quality of the story can keep up with any shortcomings in production.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Leela arrive at the limit of the universe where a nebula is forming. Unwilling to get sucked in, the Doctor has K-9 reroute the TARDIS on to a passing vessel which is also approaching the nebula.

The ship is piloted by a small crew of Minyans, a race of people who were visited by the Time Lords in the past and revered them as gods. Ultimately, they rose up against the Time Lords and drove them off. The captain, Jackson, and his crew have been searching for thousands of years for a ship called the P7E, which contained a race bank and can be used to reconstitute the Minyan race after their home world was destroyed by civil war.

Jackson detects the sound of the TARDIS landing and enters it into the computer which registers it from the days of Time Lord intervention. One crewman, Herrick, is distrustful and thinks they should attack but Jackson is more patient.

The Doctor and Leela emerge from the TARDIS find themselves in a store room. Leela picks up a shield with a laser weapon attached and uses it to blow open the door. They make their way to the bridge, leaving K-9 in the TARDIS. When they arrive at the bridge, the Doctor and Leela are taken captive but in a restrained manner. Leela resists and one of the crew, Orfe, zaps her with a pacifier gun which gives her a calm, almost blasse demeanor for a few minutes. Orfe is forced to use the same gun on Herrick when he tries to attack the Doctor.

Before much can be said on either side, the sole woman crewman, Tala, collapses of what appears to be old age. Orfe and Herrick carry her to the regeneration pods where her youth is restored. She returns to duty and the Doctor is impressed. Jackson tells the Doctor of their question and of the many regenerations they have been through to try and see it through.

The ship becomes caught in the gravity of the nebula and is too damaged to allow full power to be used. The Doctor summons K-9 to the bridge and he and the Doctor conduct quick repairs, restoring power and allowing the ship to escape.

As they do, they detect the signal from the P7E and Jackson orders a turn around back into the nebula. As they enter the nebula, the hull is bombarded with small rocks and other matter and a planetoid skin begins to form around it. Jackson orders the guns to fire and manages to blast a small hole in the skin and the ship emerges from the forming body. However, the maneuver uses up nearly all the fuel and they are unable to redirect the ship as they crash into another planetoid from which the P7E signal is emitting.

In the depths of the planet's core, a rebellion is being suppressed. The underclass, called Trogs, are being put down by a guards. They capture an old man advocating the rebellion and pursue his son through the tunnels as he climbs to higher levels, eventually emerging on the same level as the crashed ship.

Jackson and his crew leave the ship to find the P7E but order the Doctor and Leela to stay behind. The Doctor and Leela wait a couple of minutes and then head out to explore on their own. The Doctor and Leela see the young man pursued by the guards and duck out of sight. He dashes towards the ship and they make a distraction, causing the guards to start following them. They hide in some old ore trams, giving the guards the slip and then head back to the ship.

Jackson and his crew wander through the tunnels until they reach a branch. Jackson sends Herrick on ahead with a radio relay while the others wait for his report. He is attacked by a guard who thinks him a Trog but Herrick rebuffs the guard's weapon with his shield gun. Irritated by the attack, Herrick picks up the radio and sarcastically replies to the call sign. Fearing the Trogs are gaining the upper hand and weapons, the head of the guards orders that area of the tunnels sealed and gas to be pumped into that area.

The Doctor and Leela return to the ship where they find the young man, named Idas, wounded. They tend to his wounds but observe gas being pumped into the tunnels. The Doctor orders Leela to take him onto the bridge and disconnect K-9 while he heads out into the tunnels to deactivate the gas. He finds a relay station and rewires it to suck the gas back rather than pump it out. The gas flows back into the control room where it knocks out the guards.

The Doctor returns to the ship where Idas and Leela are waiting. Idas gives the Doctor a map of the tunnels and speaks of the central room where the Oracle lives much like their own ship. The Doctor grabs K-9 and the four of them head back into the tunnels to travel to the central lair. The Doctor sends K-9 to find Jackson and his team and tell them where they are going while the rest head to the tunnel main entrance.

Leela disables the electronic shield with a spare shield gun from the ship and the three of them descend down the shaft with a gravity cushion. They are captured while boarding the ship and are taken to the control room where they find Idas' father Idmon about to be sacrificed by a hanging sword with it's cord being burned through. Just before the cord snaps, the Doctor lurches forward and pulls Idmon's bier to them. Leela fires a captured gun, knocking down the guards. The group and several other slaves rush back through the ship towards the entrance bridge.

Guards come up and surround them but they are cut down by Herrick who has run ahead of Jackson and the others. He provides cover while the others run back to the bridge. On the edge of the bridge, Jackson urges Herrick to fall back with the rest of them but Herrick impulsively stays to fight. He takes down a number of guards until he is eventually shot down. Stunned, the guards drag him into the ship.

In the tunnels, the group catches their breath. Jackson knows they'll have to reenter the ship but the bridge will be too well guarded to breach by force. Idmon and another slave named Naia tell the Doctor of how they gather ore to be crushed and used as fuel for the operations of the ship. The Doctor gets an idea of how to sneak on to the ship. He and Leela climb in a tram and have Idmon push it as though it's another load of ore to be dumped into the processing chute. As they are dumped, the other Trogs jump out and attack the guards. The guards manage to set off the alarm but are steadily pushed back, overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Herrick is interrogated by two figures known as Seers that work directly for the Oracle. Herrick is tortured and tells the Seers of the quest to find the race bank of the Minyons. The Seers deny that he is of the Minyon race as they are the only survivors but also claim no knowledge of the race banks. They remove their hoods to reveal that they are robots. They overhear that the guards are being overwhelmed but order them to stand and fight. One of the robots then suggests that give Herrick what he wants just have them go away.

The Doctor, Leela and Idas use the cover of the chaos to sneak through the tunnels and back to the ship. As they go, Herrick is released and given two golden cylinders, which he is told are the race memories. He makes his way back to Jackson and the others and together they return to the ship to prepare for departure.

The Doctor, Leela and Idas enter the ship and slip into the Oracle's chamber. The Doctor tricks the Oracle into revealing that the race memories she gave were fakes. He then pries open a hatch and steals the real race memories as she sounds the alarm. The trio retreats back through the shafts as the guards come through. The guards set off a trap and seal the trio into a part of the tunnel by collapsing either side.

Jackson readies the ship for take off despite K-9's warning that the Doctor has not returned. Jackson sends K-9 to find him and finishes the preparations. K-9 frees the Doctor, Leela and Idas and takes them back to the ship. Jackson nearly takes off when the Doctor returns and orders him to stop. He gives Jackson the real race memories and takes the fake ones to K-9 who diagnoses them as powerful fission bombs. The Doctor takes them to get rid of them and orders Jackson to wait for him but to fully prepare the ship.

The Doctor, Leela and Idas head back into the tunnels where the guards have been searching for him and the race memories. He hands them over to the head of the guards who orders him to leave. While those guards are distracted, Idas and Leela knock out other guards and free the working Trogs. The two of them gather up all the Trogs throughout the city and, per the Doctor's orders, have them brought to Jackson's ship.

The Doctor has them all board the ship but Jackson tries to throw them off due to the extra weight. The Doctor overrides him and once everyone is aboard, he orders them to take off. They do so but lack the fuel to achieve breakaway velocity. The begin to orbit the planet but the Doctor tells them to hang on.

The guard brings the cylinders to the Oracle but she recognizes them as the bombs. When told that the other ship has already left, she bows to fate and the Seers open the bombs. The resulting explosion destroys the forming planetoid and the shockwave pushes Jackson's ship out of the nebula. They set course for Minyos II, estimating that it will only take 300 years to get there. The Doctor, Leela and K-9 board the TARDIS and depart with the Doctor making an offhand comment about the parallels between Jackson and the story of Jason and the Argonauts.

Analysis

This was a bit of a disappointment of a story given it's rather interesting premise and a pretty good start with Episode One. But once Jackson's crew arrive on planet, the whole things just starts to crumble.

In many ways, this story was two different stories. The first episode gave so much potential to play with. You had a race of people that were shadows of Greek myths and had versions of Time Lord technology with them, at least a form of regeneration. These were people with whom you would expect to deal with the Doctor on more of an even footing and could be developed well. There were also some rather disturbing ideas as well. I found it very interesting that when Leela came back to herself after having the pacifier used on her, her reaction at that loss of identity was akin to a woman who had been raped. You could see this profound anger at what had been taken from her without her permission. It's a disturbing reaction, especially given Orfe's very casual reaction. But like the regeneration, nothing is done with that past Episode One.

While on the subject of Leela, we can chalk this story up as another wasted opportunity for her. She is written with the emphasis on her savage nature and not her intelligence. She also relegated to the role of bodyguard and messenger girl for the rest of the story. K-9 actually has a more active role than her. She is at least in most scenes so you never confuse the fact that she is the companion but aside from her line about how the Doctor has saved many fathers, after Episode One she could be swapped out for any other character. All semblance of the personality that is truly Leela is absent and that's a real shame.

Aside from the rescue by K-9, this is one of the stories where it could be argued that the Doctor doesn't really need a companion. There's no real deception going on in this story so the Doctor understands everything pretty much from the get go. That's not a bad thing except for what it does to Leela though. The Doctor is pretty much the best thing about this story and he does almost no faffing about either. He helps Jackson land, he helps people, he recovers the race memory, he saves people and he allows the enemies to be destroyed. There is the occasional joke and the general lightheartedness that the Fourth Doctor has during the Graham Williams era but overall it's very direct and you never question the Doctor being in charge. As long as he is the focus, the story is at least somewhat entertaining.

That same cannot be said for the guest cast. There is almost no personality among any of them. Idas spends three episodes with the Doctor as a pseudo-companion and yet he is instantly forgettable. The Trogs are almost never seen and their plight is only given a surface level examination. Even Jackson's crew is boring. Herrick is the only one who is given something resembling a personality and even then, it doesn't do much. His mouth off at the end of Episode Two is mostly to create a conflict for the cliffhanger and his staying behind on the bridge to be captured towards the end of Episode Three makes even less sense. Playing rearguard is fine but it should have been a slow retreat along with everyone else. It's just stupid and lazy writing to have him stay. But everyone else, even if they get lines, are so generic that you question why they are even there except to fill the screen.

These are also the most underdeveloped villains I've seen in quite a while. You have a mad computer (something that's been done a lot), two enforcer robots, a select team of security people and then the Trogs. Why was this society set up this way? Why did the computer go mad? Why does being the protector of the race memory mean that most of the population has to be controlled and culled with occasional cave ins? None of this is explained. You simply have evil because you needed evil to be there. In the original story, Jason defeats the guardians of the Golden Fleece with the help of Medea, the daughter of the king. If the Oracle and the robots represented the guardians of the fleece, then there should have been some backstory about taking possession and either Jackson or the Doctor getting help from someone on the inside and high up in the power structure to represent Medea. That might also have given insight into the motivations of the guardians and why the computer went mad upon having the planet form around the P7E.

But of all the failures of this story, and there are many, the worst has to be how it was shot. As the second to last story of the season, what little budget they had was gone. So the whole thing apart from the bridge of the ship and a couple of corridors was shot on green screen and it looks dreadful. Aside from always being painfully obvious that it is an illusion, green screen forces the camera to stay still, meaning that you can only shoot your actors coming or going and if you want a shift in shot or a zoom you have to cut to a new shot. That can be time consuming and expensive so most of the shooting is done at a distance. For me it felt especially pronounced as it wasn't that long ago where I was watching Revenge of the Cybermen and you had some very nice shots in caves there. That is what being underground should feel like and this just looks and feels awful.

There are other directing faux pas that I can't understand. One of the most prominent is when Leela and Idas free the Trogs. They shoot down one guard but there is another standing right there in the shot. As they free the Trogs he just slowly backs out like he realizes he isn't supposed to be in frame. It's an absolutely terrible shot and it makes it look like no one knew what was going on. There were other bad shots as well but that is the one that really made me question if the director had any idea of what he was doing.

I would argue that this story needed a major rewrite. I doubt there was much anyone could do about the lack of budget though I think it would be interesting to see if it actually might have cost less to back to Wookie Hole and film there rather than on green screen, which would have improved the look. But as for the story, some of the ideas involving the Minyons and the Time Lords should have been dropped to get to the planet sooner. Once there, it should have been a direct line to the ruler of a people who live in fear of the Oracle and her guardianship of the race memory. From that point, you have a representative of these people working with the Doctor, Leela and Jackson's crew where each lets their talents shine to defeat the barriers the Oracle has laid before them. That would have been a more direct rip of the Jason legend (and more akin to the Hinchcliff era) and would have probably streamlined the cast while also giving more attention to each of the characters.

I don't know if this story could ever have been great given the limitations facing it, but the writing and direction only amplified the problems with it. It only gets more disappointing given how well it started. About the only positive things I can say is that each episode is short and when action is happening, things move quickly. I enjoyed watching the Doctor and as bad as things looked, I'm not sure I could ever say that it was boring. So I'm going to give it a small pass in the regard that it generally held my attention which is better than some stories. But as for actively picking this one to watch again, I can't even imagine that it would occur to me to look for it.

Overall personal score: 1 out of 5

The Creature From The Pit

Adrasta: We call it "The Pit"
Doctor: Ah, you have such a way with words.

I've heard very little about this story other than the creature is supposed to be one of the casualties of the lowering of the budget. I've also heard that one of the by-products of this shortfall is that one of the results of this is that a certain portion of the creature ends up looking a bit "naughty" and that the mind can get rather dirty with this one. I know it's not generally regarded well but at the same time, it's not openly derided the way some others are, so I'm curious to see how this one falls.

Plot Summary

Romana is cleaning out some of the storage areas of the TARDIS and comes across a distress beacon receiver. The Doctor had removed it as it was used by the Time Lords to summon him back too often for his taste. Romana reinstalls it and the TARDIS lurches forward and lands in the middle of a jungle.

They step out to explore and come across a living, metallic structure. The Doctor determines that it is the source of the distress signal and that it is likely the shell of an egg. While examining it, the Doctor is attacked by rolling plants called wolfweeds. They are called off but the Doctor and Romana are taken captive by the caravan escorting Karela, minister to Lady Adrasta, the ruler of the land.

While in route to Adrasta's palace, they are ambushed by bandits who steal several metal objects and take Romana captive. Karela orders the caravan onward while the huntsman sends the wolfweeds out to track the bandits. The bandits take Romana back to their lair where they have a vote on whether to kill her or not. Romana however imposes her will on the bandits, making them untie her and summoning K-9 with a dog whistle. K-9 arrives stuns the head bandit, Torvin. Romana then leaves with K-9 while the others watch her go.

The Doctor and the caravan arrive at the palace where Adrasta welcomes the Doctor. She hears his theories about the structure and then introduces him to two of her own scientists, Tollund and Doran. Interrogating the Doctor about his thoughts, she then turns on Doran for not reaching conclusions like the Doctor. She orders him arrested and then the whole group heads into the jungle.

They arrive at a pit and Doran is thrown in where he is attacked by a glowing creature. Adrasta threatens to throw the Doctor in if he does not tell her everything he knows. Before he can answer, Romana and K-9 appear. Adrasta orders a guard to seize her but K-9 stuns him, causing him to fall into the pit. The wolfweeds attack K-9. He destroys a couple of them but they swarm him, rendering him inert. Another guard seizes Romana and she becomes Adrasta's new bargaining chip. Caught in the situation, the Doctor grabs the bucket rope and leaps down into the pit.

The Doctor grabs a ledge just below the surface, intending to climb out once Adrasta has left. Adrasta seizes Romana and orders her and K-9 to be taken back to the palace. She then kicks dirt into the pit which gets in the Doctor's eyes. He loses his balance and falls into the pit. At the bottom, he finds Doran and the guard who was stunned by K-9 dead. The Doctor then explores the tunnels, seeing a glowing green tendril extend down one passage.

The Doctor is grabbed and hushed by a man named Organon who leads him back to his cave. Organon reveals that he was an astrologer who made a prediction that Adrasta didn't like. He managed to avoid the creature and has hidden himself away. The conversation between the two attracts the attention of the creature and it sticks a tendril in the cave. Organon and the Doctor press themselves against a wall and Organon holds a candle under the tendril and the creature retreats from the flame. Curious, the Doctor follows.

Back at the palace, Adrasta interrogates Romana about both the egg shell and the TARDIS. Upon learning about the TARDIS, she plans to take it and make herself more powerful. Romana convinces Adrasta that K-9 is the only one who can operate the TARDIS and she is the only one who can control K-9, making themselves useful to her. Romana cleans K-9 and tries to use him to escape, managing to stun several guards. However, another guard seizes Romana and threatens to kill her unless K-9 stops.

With the potential power of the TARDIS in her grasp, Adrasta decides to destroy the creature in the pit as it will no longer be needed. Adrasta has had a heavily secured door put into the palace that connects it to the mine where the creature lives. Romana, under guard, goes first along with K-9, while she and Karela bring up the rear.

In the cave, the Doctor and Organon find the creature and the Doctor goes up to try and communicate with it. The creature extends a tendril, nearly smothering the Doctor. Two of Adrasta's guards rush in, startling the creature and it knocks the guards back, along with Organon, through the tunnel opening and seals it with a strange material.

The Doctor gets up and follows the creature, finding it hiding in a further recess. He attempts to communicate with it and show that he is friendly. The creature seems to accept the Doctor and also tries to communicate by drawing a picture of a piece of metal with a symbol similar to one hanging in Adrasta's throne room. He also sees the symbol on bits of metal left behind by the creature. He promises to try and get the object from Adrasta's throne room and slips back up the tunnel.

The thieves become convinced that with Romana's depature, Adrasta will be sending out her guard to find them. Torvin suggests they raid Adrasta's palace for metal since most of the guards are out. They do find most guards gone, but they are down in the mines, not looking for the bandits. They kill two guards and raid the throne room of metal, including the object the creature wanted, which has now started to glow. An alarm is sounded and more guards come, causing the bandits to retreat into the mines.

Adrasta comes upon Organon and her two guards trying to open the passage. She orders K-9 to shoot through the barrier. He fires on the blockage but is unable to cut through as the material regenerates itself when damaged. They ponder how to break through when the Doctor knocks the barrier down with an easy push, owing to the creature letting him go. Adrasta immediately seizes him and orders guards down the passage to find the creature.

In the tunnels, the bandits examine their haul. Torvin is especially drawn to the large object which is starting to glow once more. It glows stronger and he and another bandit named Edu become entranced. They pick the disk up and carry it through the mines towards the creature.

The guards return, having been unable to find the creature. She prepares to send them back and is intent on having K-9 kill the creature. To conserve power, Romana has picked up K-9, allowing him to recharge. The Doctor slips out a shiny pieces of metal he took from the creature's cave and orders K-9 to shoot. K-9's laser reflects off the metal, knocking out a guard. He shoots down two others, leaving Adrasta alone. The creature then comes down the passage, seeming to be in a fury. She grabs a knife and holds it to the Doctor's neck, ordering Romana to have K-9 shoot it.

Before Romana can react, Torvin and Edu arrive, carrying the glowing disk, which they give to the creature. Distracted, the Doctor disarms Adrasta and then approaches the creature. By touching the disk, the creature can communicate using the holder's voice. It reveals that it's name is Erato and it came to Cloros fifteen years ago as an ambassador for the Typhonians, offering to trade metal for chlorophyll, which the Typhonians feed upon. Adrasta trapped Erato into the pit to keep her monopoly on metal.

Adrasta denies the story but her guards don't believe her. They force her hand on the plate and Erato confirms the story using Adrasta's voice. Angered, the head of the guard sics the wolfweeds on Adrasta. Erato then lurches forward and eats the wolfweeds, it's first real meal in fifteen years, but also crushes Adrasta in the process. The Doctor orders the head of the guard to get the engineers and hoist Erato out of the pit.

Back at the palace, the Doctor reveals to Romana that he suspects Erato of concealing something and has stolen the drive system of his ship to ensure his cooperation. Erato comes to the palace and confirms that because of his distress call, his people have assumed that Cloros has declared war. In response, they have launched a neutron star at the sun of Cloros that will destroy the it and the planet. The Doctor discovers that Erato can weave aluminum with it's body, as that is how it intends to rebuild his ship and the Doctor convinces Erato to help move the neutron star on a different path.

The Doctor goes to recover the photon drive, which he left with Organon, but finds Organon knocked out and the drive stolen. The drive was stolen by Torvin and his men to ensure their wealth. However, Torvin is killed by Karela and she moves to take over the band, having hidden the drive. The Doctor arrives and has K-9 destroy the collected metal. With the wealth gone, Karela give the drive back.

With Erato's ship rebuilt, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 follow it out to the neutron star in the TARDIS. The Doctor extends a gravity field around the star while Erato weaves an aluminum shell around it. The shell allows the Doctor's gravity field to get proper conductance on the star to move it, but the console fuses and the gravity beam pulls the star directly at the TARDIS. The Doctor dematerializes, disengaging the beam and the neutron star heads away from the Clorosian sun.

Erato continues back to Typhon and the Doctor returns to Cloros with a full trade treaty. He gives it to the head guardsman who has become the new administrator with Organon as his advisor. The Doctor and Romana then disappear in the TARDIS.

Analysis

I think disappointing is the best way to describe this story. Episode One kicks off with a high joke density, some nice repartee between the Doctor, Romana and other characters, and also some nice camera work. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. The budget limitations start to show and the script loses it's comedic edge. The acting also starts to decline, especially from Adrasta, who goes from having a villainous edge to just beyond over-the-top. This does not even factor in the complete and totally random filler that is Episode Four.

Both the Doctor and Romana aren't too bad in this, although the heavy hand of Douglas Adams is very evident, especially in Episode One where there are a lot of puny jokes being tossed back and forth between them. But those jokes go away pretty much after the Doctor hops into the pit. Instead you get the Doctor being a bit silly with Organon, although they do have a nice play between them and then a few jokes between him and Romana in Episode Four when they are reunited. But nothing really stands out in between that. This story is clearly meant to be a comedy, but the comedy seems to go away after Episode One and what is left doesn't elicit much laughter.

Organon is an unfortunate waste of a character. I looked up the actor and found out that he had actually been offered the role of the Doctor at one point and I think he would have made a decent one. Organon keeps up a bit of the comedy and he has a nice relationship with the Doctor. In fact, I think you could easily have made a buddy story involving the two of them and it probably would have been more entertaining than this story. It's such a shame that after about halfway through Episode Two, Organon is sidelined and is nothing more than a random interjection here and there.

Adrasta is also such a terrible waste of a villain. She starts off well and while she is just a hair shy of mustache twirling, she is still enjoyable as a villain up until Episode Three. After that, she loses her wit and starts becoming just bossy and angry. It all really falls apart at the Episode Three cliffhanger where she goes wayyyyyy over the top in her hysterical screaming about Erato going to kill her, for which is actually right. But why is the fate of the villain given to the cliffhanger? That makes no sense as we would actually want the villain to be in peril and eventually defeated.

But for all the problems of the first three episodes, they do make a somewhat passible story. I get can get by some of the bad acting and shoddy effects (including those that have slight sexual overtones) because there are good moments and it runs fairly smoothly in terms of pacing and character development. Where the poop really hits the fan is in Episode Four which is nothing but nearly twenty minutes of nonsensical filler.

As poor a turn as she took at the end of Episode Three, Adrasta was clearly an engaging villain. However, she is killed off in the first five minutes of Episode Four leaving nearly a full episode where a random peril has to be raised. Thus we are given the new problem of Erato's people deciding to destroy the planet and a runaround to repair Erato's ship so the problem can be dealt with. This is the sort of extra conflict that would have popped up in the First Doctor era, but there it would have placed in a six-part story where extra conflict would have been needed. Here, it's blatantly bad padding.

What makes this padding even worse is how little sense it makes. Erato's ship has been sending a distress signal for fifteen years. So rather than investigate it, his people automatically assume that war has been declared? What's more, how does Erato know this? He either senses it or has been in contact with his people and found they have launched an unstoppable attack. That's rather stupid given that one of their own people is still on the planet. They are needless condemning one of their own to death over a distress signal.

Even worse is the nature of attack. Erato states that they are running out of food on Typhon. So why are they launching an attack that will completely destroy the planet which has more food than they could want? If they believe that Cloros has declared war, why not send an invasion fleet. They know that without metal the Clorosians have no advanced technology and could be beaten easily in a fight. They could have conquered and colonized the planet without much of a second thought, getting revenge and assuring themselves of abundant food. Instead, they are going to burn the lot? Even within the story this makes no sense.

Even the Doctor and Romana's attempts at banter in Episode Four fall flat. While they came off as playful and easy in Episode One, they seem forced and out of place in Episode Four. It's like they are trying to return the story to a proper comedy but know it's a hopeless cause. In a way, their banter makes things worse because playing it straight would have at least added to the dramatic tension (miniscule as it was).

In so many ways, this story was such a let down. I think I could have actually forgiven it some if it had been bad from the start. But you are given some real potential in Episode One and even into Episode Two with fairly interesting characters, decent atmosphere and some proper wit between the Doctor, Romana and the rest of the cast. But it goes downhill so fast and then to have the turd that is Episode Four to round it out just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Episode One would be interesting to watch it isolation as it makes for an interesting set up and is worth a look at. But I would not recommend the rest of the story to anyone. It's just not good and such a follow on disappointment.

Overall personal score: 1 out of 5

The Androids of Tara

Next time I will not be so lenient!

The fourth leg in the Key to Time saga is somewhat notable for having almost nothing to do with the actual Key to Time. The Doctor and Romana find the key almost immediately and then follow though on a fantasy style adventure that would not be out of place with the likes of The Princess Bride. When ranking stories in their various lists, The Androids of Tara almost always ends up near the top of Season 16, usually in a battle with The Ribos Operation for the top spot, although exceptions are to be found here and there.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS materializes on the planet Tara where the Doctor has decided to take a break and go fishing. Romana, in a fit of mild irritation, ventures off into the forest to find the fourth segment of the Key to Time. She comes across a statue and the segment is disguised as a portion of the statue. As she retrieves it, she is attacked by an ape-like creature. The creature is then driven away by a helmeted knight with an electrified sword.

The knight removes his visor and reveals himself as Count Grendel, the lord of the lands on they are found. Seeing Romana has sprained her ankle, he carries her to his horse and takes her back to his castle. Upon reaching the castle, he gives her over to his engineer, Madame Lamia, where both he and her have mistaken Romana for an android. Lamia prepares to disassemble Romana but Romana notes her ankle and upon seeing swelling, Lamia realizes that Romana is flesh and blood. Under orders from Grendel, she knocks her out with an injection.

While fishing, the Doctor falls asleep. He is woken by two men holding him with electrified swords. They are Zadek and Farrah, two soldiers serving Prince Reynart. They take the Doctor back to a cabin where the Prince is resting. Reynart appeals to the Doctor to help him fix an android double of himself. The Prince is scheduled to be crowned king tomorrow and he fears that Count Grendel might try to harm him on the way to the ceremony which if he misses, he will forfeit his right to the throne, allowing Grendel to put forth his claim.

The Doctor agrees and manages a patch job on the android. Reynart pulls out a flagon of wine to celebrate, inviting the two guards to imbibe as well. As all four drink, they pass out from the drugged wine. The door to the cabin opens and Grendel walks in. He kidnaps Reynart, leaving the other three.

Upon waking and realizing what has happened, the Doctor decides to use the android copy of Reynart to be crowned, thus thwarting Grendel's plan and buying them time to rescue him. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS and asks him if Romana has returned. When he answers negatively, Farrah informs the Doctor that if she went into the woods, she was probably captured and taken to Grendel's castle. The Doctor sends K-9 to the castle to see if Romana is there and then report back to him.

In Grendel's castle, Romana wakes and is taken into the dungeons where she is shown Princess Strella, whom Grendel intends to marry and then dispose up, putting him closer to the line of succession. Princess Strella also happens to look just like Romana, which caused Grendel's confusion earlier. She is then taken to Prince Reynart's cell where she is locked in with him to tend his wounds and the subsequent infection he is now suffering from.

The Doctor, Zadek, Farrah and the android Reynart make their way to a secret passage that leads to the castle. They knock out one of Grendel's guards stationed at the entrance and make their way in. When nearly there, they are discovered by more of Grendel's guards, forcing them to make a fighting retreat into the throne room. As the hour of crowning comes, the Archimandrite (the high priest) opens the doors to find Reynart already seated on the throne, flanked by Zadek, Farrah and the Doctor.

The Archimandrite crowns Reynart as king of Tara. Grendel hesitates but goes along with the submission to him, unwilling to expose his knowledge that this is a trick. The android Reynart gives his acceptance speech, although it jogs slightly during the speech. Princess Strella then approaches the throne and bows before Reynart. The Doctor suddenly leaps up and strikes Strella with the scepter, revealing her to be an android. At Count Grendel's insistence, the ceremony is adjourned until the following day to allow Reynart to rest and investigate the assassination attempt.

As Grendel returns to the castle, Lamia pulls Romana out of the dungeons to ask about the Key segment. Romana pretends to be unaware of it's properties but Lamia suspects she is lying. Grendel returns and orders Lamia to create a new android, but this time of Romana. He then sends his man servant to lure the Doctor into a trap by offering to return Romana at a cabin on Grendel's land. K-9 returns to confirm that Romana is being held by Grendel.

The Doctor and K-9 head to the exchange cabin after agreeing and hide themselves prior to the time of exchange. Lamia, Grendel the android Romana and several guards approach the cabin. Lamia enters and is surprised by the Doctor, who initiates the exchange earlier. She brings in the android Romana but K-9 warns the Doctor and he ducks before the android can shoot him. He maneuvers around, allowing K-9 to destroy the android. Hearing female screaming, Grendel orders his men to fire on the cabin. Lamia runs out, yelling at them to stop firing but is shot down.

Back at Grendel's castle, Romana picks the lock of her chains and frees herself. She unlocks Reynart but he is too weak to travel. He creates a ruse and knocks out the guard, allowing Romana to escape on Grendel's horse. She rides past the cabin just as K-9 finishes cutting a hole in the back, allowing the Doctor and himself to escape. The Doctor and Romana ride off while K-9 stuns the pursuing guards.

The Doctor returns to the house outside the city where he first met Reynart and the android has been taken for repairs. Shortly after arrival, Grendel appears under a flag of truce. He enters and offers the Doctor the chance to become king. The Doctor is amused but alerts Zadok to Grendel's plan. Grendel takes his spear to which his white flag is attached and throws it into the chest of the android Reynart. Grendel then flees, grabbing Romana and riding back to his castle with her.

Back at the castle, Grendel summons the Archimandrite to perform first the wedding between Reynart and Princess Strella (really Romana) and then his own to Princess Strella following Reynart's death. As the real Strella refuses to go along with it, he uses her life to threaten Romana and Reynart to agree to his plan.

The Doctor devises a plan to get into the castle and open the doors from the inside for Reynart's men. He and K-9 take a boat across the moat to a passageway under the castle. The passage is baracaded by a heavy door but K-9 cuts an opening for the Doctor. The Doctor sneaks in but leave K-9 to guard the boat in case they need a hasty escape.

The Doctor enters the main hall and stops the wedding before it finishes. Angered by the Doctor's interference, Grendel challenges the Doctor to single combat, going so far as to give him a sword for a proper fight. The Doctor toys with him a bit but soon has Grendel on his heels. He tells Reynart to open the gates and he does, allowing Zadok and his men to pour through the main gate.

Grendel's captain of the guard heads down to the dungeons to kill Princess Strella but Romana follows him and she and Strella knock him out before he can attack him. As the castle falls, Grendel and the Doctor fight on the rooftop. Realizing the battle is lost, Grendel retreats and dives off the battlements, into the moat and swims away.

A victorious Reynart offers the Doctor control of all of Grendel's lands but he declines. He collects Romana and then the Key segment from Lamia's lab. They then spy K-9 adrift on the boat in the middle of the moat. They move to collect him and depart the planet.

Analysis

I don't know that I could rate this one as high as The Ribos Operation, but this is a fun story to watch. While the androids and electric swords and crossbows officially push this over to science fiction, it's much more of a romantic epic in the lines of The Man in the Iron Mask and the like.

The Doctor is quite fun here. He's jokey but not over-the-top to the point of silliness. He has good lines and trades wit with both friends and foes alike. But he also has a few moments of seriousness that emphasize the danger to those involved. It's a good adventuring Doctor.

Romana is pretty good in this one and Mary Tamm actually gets a lot of extra work playing Princess Strella and two androids. She doesn't do much as Strella and the acting for an android is to play nearly dead, but it is still a lot of screen time. I rather enjoyed the beginning how she is off to shove it in the Doctor's face as to what their business is. She also has a good amount of spunk while still showing how green she is in the ways of the universe. Her attempting to get Grendel's horse to move is quite funny and you can tell that she is much more comfortable with something like K-9 than an actual animal.

Unquestionably, the star of the show is Count Grendel. He is mustache twirl-y but not so over-the-top as to become farcical. He also shows an odd dichotomy for both being a cheating asshole (such as promising not to shoot the Doctor and then ordering his men to shoot him) but also being a strict observer of the rules. Grendel clearly has the power to seize the throne by force or at least threaten the other nobles into supporting his claim, but he instead chooses to through a more complicated plan involving androids and murder just to ensure he has legal standing.

For all his mustache twirling, it was nice to see him be fairly competent. He successfully captures Reynart, successfully destroys the Reynart android and could have killed the Doctor to seal the wedding plan if he had not chosen to indulge in sport and a bit of chivalry. What's more, he is actually a very good swordsman and could have bested anyone else who challenged him, making his pretense of chivalry with the Doctor a lot less bluster than it would have been with other villains. Despite his being a bastard, in the end, there is a part of me that is happy to see him swim away, the odd taunt still on his lips.

The sword fight at the end was actually really well done. It's starts with a touch of silliness from the Doctor and a clear bit of irritation from Grendel. But it escalates quickly. What's even more interesting is that there is no music for the first part of the fight. It's just the open clash of the blades that fill the hall. It's not until Grendel is disarmed by the Doctor and he takes on a "this is serious tone" that we start getting some background music for their fight. What's more, the focus then begins to shift to the other aspects with Reynart retraining the manservant and opening the gate as well as Romana tracking down the captain of the guard in the dungeons. I only wish the middle portion of the fight in the passageway to the roof had been better lit. There is a nice play of shadow but Grendel gets the Doctor off-balance before he runs off and I would have liked to see that better rather that have the Doctor just be consumed by one area of darkness and then shown to be on the ground.

Most of the rest of the cast was also decent, though they didn't have that much to contribute. Reynart was probably the strongest of the lower tier, managing to pull off a man who did seem truly suited to be king. Lamia was probably the weakest as she was a little too emotionally stunted for my taste. I think she was going for bored indifference, but it came across as more stiff than anything else. Even her death seemed like weak acting, as though she couldn't show emotion even then. It just didn't play that well.

There were some nice little touches made in the production. I found the clock with extra hours a nice addition and there was a good diversity among the clothing of the nobles, giving it a strong period vibe. There was also a nice blend of exterior and interior shooting, including some clear night shots which gave the story an added layer of depth and realism that I enjoyed.

I also enjoyed how this story used K-9 as a true member of the crew though it did expose one reason why he isn't used that often. The Doctor clearly needed him to get out of the one trap and to breach the castle in another. But in the escape from the cottage trap, K-9 mows down four or five of Grendel's guards and that does remind the audience just how overpowered he is. K-9 could easily have been used to destroy the entire garrison of Grendel's castle single-handedly should the Doctor have wanted to blast his way through, but keeping him to the boat as a trusted sentry, actually makes sense and was a way to keep him from doing something like that. It's smart use, even if it does highlight other problems.

It did slow down in a couple of points and when the Doctor and Grendel were not directly involved, it bogged down a bit, but this story still moved along fairly well and is well worth watching for Count Grendel alone. I will say that I think you have to be in the right mood for it as the structure and tone is much closer to The Princess Bride rather than any traditional Doctor Who. But I think most folks would be happy to sit down with this story most of the time. I know I would and could easily have some fun with it at any time.

Overall personal score: