How fitting that the John Nathan-Turner years should begin on Brighton beach, plus what looks like a gay couple visiting space Center Parcs. This announces its entrance and exit with screams courtesy of Peter Howell’s excellent reworking of the theme music (still, for me, the true Doctor Who theme), and from Tom Baker as the Doctor seems to be torn apart. In between, 24 of the strangest minutes in years.
Shada hangs like a ghost over Doctor Who, often glimpsed but never definitively. There have been at least half a dozen attempts to do so: in books, audios, animations, official and unofficial. As far back as 1980 the new producer John Nathan-Turner proposed finishing it off as a couple of specials. But it defies all attempts to exist as a final version. Even the 2017 version, a Frankenstein’s Monster of original footage, animation and newly-recorded video, almost consciously avoids being the definite article by virtue of excising the cliffhangers and episodic structure. As much as any of the missing 1960s episodes, it’s impossible to experience this as it would have been on TV. It doesn’t exist. It never existed.
Anthony Read’s interest in adapting the Classics in a sci-fi context threads through stories he script edited, and this, which he wrote. More than that: the idea of the Doctor becoming a mythical figure himself is very attractive (Steven Moffat plays with it all the time). This ends with the jokey implication that the Doctor was around to advise the historical Theseus and ponders on the way that ‘legends are made’ by admirers telling and retelling stories, aggrandising them in the process, so that they last forever. Douglas Adams picks up on this, and reiterates it at the end of Shada. And so, while this is the unintended conclusion of the Graham Williams years, it’s an oddly fitting one, that reinforces the idea that, in the end, ‘it’s all about telling stories. Nothing else matters.’
Doctor Who begins the 1980s with an episode that’s not a million miles off what Christopher H Bidmead might have enjoyed, with lots of old men in charge of the second Skonnon Empire, the science of wormholes connecting two quantum singularities, the power complex modelled on a giant circuit board, and Soldeed marvelling at the ‘monumental piece of electronic engineering’ that is K9. Of course, Bidmead would have disdained the story’s roots in Greek myth, and Tom fooling around trying to spy on the Nimon. But apart from that, there aren’t really many jokes: some of the performances may raise a smile, but the script probably won’t.
The Doctor spends the majority of this episode stuck in the TARDIS and kept away from the action, which speaks to the thinness of the story. What there is I enjoyed, particularly Lalla Ward getting the chance to sweep in and tear a strip off Soldeed, expose the Co-Pilot and take command of the Anethans as they plunge into the Nimon’s power complex. This is a top episode for Romana. The Doctor’s arrival, by way of contrast, is almost entirely played for laughs as he accidentally arrives smack bang in the most conspicuous spot in the city, haphazardly confronts Soldeed and makes a hash of escaping.
I don’t know how much this is drab because it’s meant to represent the faded remains of a fallen empire, and how much because it’s the budget one so they can afford Shada. But it’s the drabbest the show’s looked since The Armageddon Factor – another story rooted in Greek myth, set in the fall-out of planetary war. Even the TARDIS looks more ramshackle than it has for ages. At least the Anethans in their gold tunics and Romana in her stylish hunting gear provide a strong contrast to the dull, grey sets and the grim, overcast skies of Skonnos.
When I was in short trousers, Season 17 was meant to be the nadir of the show: too silly and packed with dreaded “undergraduate humour” until the blessed JNT came along and swept away the shoddy, slapstick stories that ‘insulted the audience’ (according to Eric Saward) and returned the show to its glory days (overlooking the fact JNT was practically co-producing Season 17). The reappraisal that’s been going on since the mid-1990s means most fans won’t come to Season 17 with this preconception (and probably won’t even be aware that it used to be a thing), but as it was received wisdom at an early age, I always view Season 17 episodes with the knowledge that this used to be hated.
Again, it’s not exactly moving at top speed, but there’s a steady sense of progress and development, with a couple of great surprises. The first is when Stott is revealed to be neither dead nor villainous. Previous episodes have clued us in that this is another Agatha Christie in Space thriller, and any Christie fan will know never to believe someone is dead when there’s no body. It’s also very Christie-ish to reveal that, far from being the drug smuggler behind this all, in fact Stott is a major in the Space Corps investigating a new source of vrax on the planet Eden.
This one could do with a little bit more incident, but the story is moving along. The major difference from Baker’s collaborations with Martin is the lack of an obvious catchphrase, and the relatively disciplined number of ideas. The three distinct plot strands – the drug smuggling, the Continuous Event Transmuter and the hyperspace collision – are clearly connected, with a mysterious stranger running through all of them hotly pursued by the Doctor.
Bob Baker is the BAFTA-winning co-writer of Wallace & Gromit: an accolade that might be hard to square with The Sontaran Experiment or The Armageddon Factor, but absolutely makes sense watching Nightmare of Eden. I really like this: it has a seriousness about what it does, but not necessarily the way it does it. The anti-drug message is plainly set out: XYP, aka vraxoin, can lay waste to civilisations. Its teeth-grindingly irritating effects are established in the first scene, as Secker, made idiotic by vraxoin, giggles as he risks the lives of everyone aboard his spaceship. Never have I been happier to see someone meet a grisly end. It might unfair to suggest the show hasn’t worn its social conscience on its sleeve quite so plainly since the Pertwee years, but…
Next Time... 