4 episodes featuring Peter Davison as the Doctor with Nicola Bryant as Peri
written by Robert Holmes
directed by Graeme Harper
“You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes but your eyes... they tell a different story.”
- Sharaz Jek
written by Robert Holmes
directed by Graeme Harper
“You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes but your eyes... they tell a different story.”
- Sharaz Jek
Story Review
In 2009's Mighty 200 poll this serial was voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time beating the likes of Blink, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and previous title holder Genesis Of The Daleks to the top. So what did it do to deserve the honour?
For Peri's first trip in the TARDIS the Doctor chooses to take her to the incredibly unimpressive world of Androzani Minor. A little light snooping later and local government troops have condemned our heroes to death as gun runners. So begins four episodes of events and agendas running away from the Doctor as he and Peri slowly die, poisoned by the very wonder drug the locals are warring over. Spectrox matches its planet of origin by being a very unimpressive fountain of youth, a restorative that makes Androzani Major's 80-something President appear a mere spring chicken of 65. That's not a knock on the casting, by the way, everything about the world of Caves is a just a touch... well, petty.
The government forces in this war are commanded by a weak man who takes his orders from a corporate leader and the rebels are one masked madman who has pressed machine guns into the hands of the spectrox mine's robot workforce. Said madman's motivation isn't political, it isn't even an avaricious desire to control this fountain of youth, the whole war is just to set an old enemy's head on a spike. This is all set against a subplot of war profiteering with a businessman playing both sides against the middle for his own personal gain, a theme that never gets old because it never stops happening in real life.
This petty and sordid little war is the perfect backdrop for Peter Davison's uniquely passive Doctor because there are literally no good guys to side with, no moral high ground to take. Even when madman du jour Sharaz Jek takes him prisoner and we're introduced to fellow captive Salateen our sympathy lasts a grand total of two minutes. Salateen, who any other day would be the plucky one-story audience identification figure is made instantly heartless when he discovers our heroes are dying and bursts out laughing, the sallow goit.
Perhaps uniquely for Season Twenty-One this story even looks good, all power to legendary director Graeme Harper, me thinks. Location filming for the planet surface might be good old quarry land but since Minor is meant to be a shithole it works. A conspiracy between writer and director makes the caves themselves look more convincing than they probably should: the dim lighting (again, are we sure this was the 1984 season?) softens angles and a line about superheated mudflows scouring the surfaces smooth backs up the illusion. Perpetual but subtle billows of smoke cross the camera to lend a hot, oppressive atmosphere to this shitty little world. But there's a but, of course there is, this is Doctor Who.
Our “but” is the Magma Beast, a marauding nasty that has been eating government troops who venture too far from base. With a masked maniac, faceless robots, gun runners and John Normington's villainous asides to camera you'd think this story had enough monsters but BBC Special Effects have done themselves proud on this baby. With a waddling gait, a gormless mouth stuck open and stubby little arms pinned under what seems meant to be a shell but looks more like a crocodile skin cape, the Magma Beast is a hugger. Huggers are a monster unique to Doctor Who: creatures so slow and immobile that their only method of attack is to cuddle their victims to death. Oddly, the Davison era once gave us an effective hugger in The Visitation's Terileptils where somehow the same ingredients (plus an animatronic mouth) conspired to create a brilliant baddie. The Magma Beast is not in the Terileptils' league, however.
The beastliness of the Beast and the worst cliffhanger solution ever (it turns and waddles away from the Doctor in the opening moments of Part Three) might be reason for some to not view this as the best Who ever but it's still impressive work. Even the hokey asides to camera John Normington performs as Morgus seem strangely effective, like Harper is trying to invoke Shakespeare even if it seems bizarrely unnatural for a Holmes script.
Me? I don't think it's the best ever, my love still resides with The Robots Of Death in that regard but it's certainly up there and definitely the best of Davison's time.
Moments of Charm
Can a story as dark and dour as this have moments of charm? This story is probably Davison's best performance in the role, the death and horror of Androzani Minor acting as a perfect backdrop to his Doctor's basic moral decency and gentleness. Whether it's curiously wondering about what spectrox is as he awaits execution or the moment he turns manic at the end of Part Three, willing to crash a spaceship on the off-chance he'll survive to save Peri, Davison delivers a belter for his final performance.
DVD Presentation
This story more than any other tempts me towards the Revisitations box sets. It isn't the possibility of more and higher quality extras that have me leaning in that direction, nor the hope of an academic discussion of the serial's themes and production but rather the hope that they've remastered away those God awful horizontal lines that mar the picture every time someone shoots a gun. Yes, having the soldiers armed with machine guns rather than lasers adds an extra level of tension to the action since there's no “stun option” cop out but every time they let loose with the things the picture goes to shit.
That gripe besides we're starting to get some halfway decent featurettes. One is a behind the scenes view of the regeneration scenes complete with muted directorial chatter and people stopping every few seconds to find their marks. More interesting and a taste of things to come is Creating Sharaz Jek, an interview with Christopher Gable set to clips of him in action as Jek. Mostly it concerns the well-known budgetary limitations of the show at the time but greater things are yet to come.
In 2009's Mighty 200 poll this serial was voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time beating the likes of Blink, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and previous title holder Genesis Of The Daleks to the top. So what did it do to deserve the honour?
For Peri's first trip in the TARDIS the Doctor chooses to take her to the incredibly unimpressive world of Androzani Minor. A little light snooping later and local government troops have condemned our heroes to death as gun runners. So begins four episodes of events and agendas running away from the Doctor as he and Peri slowly die, poisoned by the very wonder drug the locals are warring over. Spectrox matches its planet of origin by being a very unimpressive fountain of youth, a restorative that makes Androzani Major's 80-something President appear a mere spring chicken of 65. That's not a knock on the casting, by the way, everything about the world of Caves is a just a touch... well, petty.
The government forces in this war are commanded by a weak man who takes his orders from a corporate leader and the rebels are one masked madman who has pressed machine guns into the hands of the spectrox mine's robot workforce. Said madman's motivation isn't political, it isn't even an avaricious desire to control this fountain of youth, the whole war is just to set an old enemy's head on a spike. This is all set against a subplot of war profiteering with a businessman playing both sides against the middle for his own personal gain, a theme that never gets old because it never stops happening in real life.
This petty and sordid little war is the perfect backdrop for Peter Davison's uniquely passive Doctor because there are literally no good guys to side with, no moral high ground to take. Even when madman du jour Sharaz Jek takes him prisoner and we're introduced to fellow captive Salateen our sympathy lasts a grand total of two minutes. Salateen, who any other day would be the plucky one-story audience identification figure is made instantly heartless when he discovers our heroes are dying and bursts out laughing, the sallow goit.
Perhaps uniquely for Season Twenty-One this story even looks good, all power to legendary director Graeme Harper, me thinks. Location filming for the planet surface might be good old quarry land but since Minor is meant to be a shithole it works. A conspiracy between writer and director makes the caves themselves look more convincing than they probably should: the dim lighting (again, are we sure this was the 1984 season?) softens angles and a line about superheated mudflows scouring the surfaces smooth backs up the illusion. Perpetual but subtle billows of smoke cross the camera to lend a hot, oppressive atmosphere to this shitty little world. But there's a but, of course there is, this is Doctor Who.
Our “but” is the Magma Beast, a marauding nasty that has been eating government troops who venture too far from base. With a masked maniac, faceless robots, gun runners and John Normington's villainous asides to camera you'd think this story had enough monsters but BBC Special Effects have done themselves proud on this baby. With a waddling gait, a gormless mouth stuck open and stubby little arms pinned under what seems meant to be a shell but looks more like a crocodile skin cape, the Magma Beast is a hugger. Huggers are a monster unique to Doctor Who: creatures so slow and immobile that their only method of attack is to cuddle their victims to death. Oddly, the Davison era once gave us an effective hugger in The Visitation's Terileptils where somehow the same ingredients (plus an animatronic mouth) conspired to create a brilliant baddie. The Magma Beast is not in the Terileptils' league, however.
The beastliness of the Beast and the worst cliffhanger solution ever (it turns and waddles away from the Doctor in the opening moments of Part Three) might be reason for some to not view this as the best Who ever but it's still impressive work. Even the hokey asides to camera John Normington performs as Morgus seem strangely effective, like Harper is trying to invoke Shakespeare even if it seems bizarrely unnatural for a Holmes script.
Me? I don't think it's the best ever, my love still resides with The Robots Of Death in that regard but it's certainly up there and definitely the best of Davison's time.
Moments of Charm
Can a story as dark and dour as this have moments of charm? This story is probably Davison's best performance in the role, the death and horror of Androzani Minor acting as a perfect backdrop to his Doctor's basic moral decency and gentleness. Whether it's curiously wondering about what spectrox is as he awaits execution or the moment he turns manic at the end of Part Three, willing to crash a spaceship on the off-chance he'll survive to save Peri, Davison delivers a belter for his final performance.
DVD Presentation
This story more than any other tempts me towards the Revisitations box sets. It isn't the possibility of more and higher quality extras that have me leaning in that direction, nor the hope of an academic discussion of the serial's themes and production but rather the hope that they've remastered away those God awful horizontal lines that mar the picture every time someone shoots a gun. Yes, having the soldiers armed with machine guns rather than lasers adds an extra level of tension to the action since there's no “stun option” cop out but every time they let loose with the things the picture goes to shit.
That gripe besides we're starting to get some halfway decent featurettes. One is a behind the scenes view of the regeneration scenes complete with muted directorial chatter and people stopping every few seconds to find their marks. More interesting and a taste of things to come is Creating Sharaz Jek, an interview with Christopher Gable set to clips of him in action as Jek. Mostly it concerns the well-known budgetary limitations of the show at the time but greater things are yet to come.
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