Some thoughts on Doctor Who Season 20

 

I recently bought the twentieth anniversary season Collection so thought that as well as watching the extras, I'd give the actual stories a gander as well. Some of them I'd not seen in ages.  For an anniversary event, season 20 can seem odd with its best stories leaning on the more abstract and its less good ones the more traditional. Not exactly a great advert for the show’s history but a suggestion of a new direction? Forty years distance does allow the more nuanced feel of the season to shine rather more than had it been rammed full of big action stories. There may seem to be long sequences were not a lot happens but the better parts of the season are still rich in content if not pace. So now its recently been released in a great big blu ray collection it’s a good reason to re-watch. Here’s some thoughts on each of them from a 2023 perspective…

Arc of Infinity

Notwithstanding the Ergon, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Fan lore suggests a third-tier tale and while it’s definitely not in any danger of being an under rated classic it does open the season with some verve considering the more thoughtful pace of the rest of the stories. It’s a traditional offering with the added luxury of location filming supported by a decent attempt from writer Johnny Byrne to justify the location. Byrne’s behind the scenes interview hints at aspects that perhaps were shunted to one side by the shopping list of contents – Omega, Tegan coming back (having never really left), Amsterdam – that sit awkwardly together. Coincidence is essential in fiction but the levels it rises to here are somewhat implausible. The story does manage to froth up into a decent thriller though would surely have been better had the antagonist been a new character.

Anyone with a smidgen of knowledge of Omega’s story would find it unlikely he would re-appear in this way, anyone who had no memory of him wouldn’t care. In his interview Johnny Byrne talks about Omega’s momentary re-discovery of a sensory existence before he starts disintegrating and to me that should be the core of the story. Yet it is frittered away in a couple of scenes before he has to start stumbling around  the streets wearing cereal stuck to his cheeks. `Arc` is an early progenitor of what would become a big failing in later Eighties Doctor Who in that what is actually at stake is unclear and shrouded in technobabble. There is something quite powerful about the story but it doesn’t come across too well at times and in an attempt to fully utilise the location the four episodes end up being a runaround that is fun to watch and doesn’t tax the mind.

Snakedance

Famously one of only two classic stories in which none of the characters perish (`Inside the Spaceship` being the other) `Snakedance` is the sequel to the arthouse surprise of the previous season `Kinda`. It aspires to similar style and actually comes close. I can appreciate it’s gifts more now I’m older, to be honest I always thought it was bit boring but watching it in 2023 I can see it for the well prepared and executed narrative it is. The only niggle I suppose is that this kind of material would probably work much better on the printed page than on screen as the production sometimes struggles to match what is expected of it.

If``Kinda` was a fever dream, full of impressive visuals and concepts, `Snakedance` is more conventional while still possessing its own special qualities. It’s a talky story, in fact whenever it tries a bit of running around it looks wrong somehow.. Yet it does retain its predecessor’s staginess with sets that are good enough to work on tv but would be equally suited to the theatre.  Despite the relative lack of action I found myself enjoying the dialogue. When he came to the series Russell T Davies vowed to eradicate this kind of material for scripts filled with more casual conversation and slang. Yet this story would not work if for example Lon’s laziness manifested itself as some indie teenager or if Ambril were to declare the lost treasures he is shown “epic”.

A terrific cast bring it home with aplomb. John Carson and Colette O’Neill bring their experience to bear on roles that require more arch performances. In one his earliest tv roles Martin Clunes gives it some welly in a part that requires him to sport a succession of embarrassing costumes. And is it just me who feels that Joanathan Morris’ Chela could easily have graduated to become a regular. He’s already got the rapport with the Doctor and Nyssa. Janet Fielding’s performance is one I remember well but I hadn’t recalled how infrequently she appears later in the story. Her vocal work and the way her demeanour keeps shifting is well above the sort of things classic era companions usually got to do though this is quite a good season for the companions. The story touches on ritual, religion and history without becoming a sermon and is deifntely one of the most intelligent classic era offerings.

Mawdryn Undead

This used to be my favourite story of the season though this re-watch has pushed it down to third place because seeing it for the first time in many years I realised that very little happens. Obviously the plot is a time travel one and don’t we know it with people coming and going but it is one of those mechanical stories where the temporal element is just a device to keep the narrative moving. Hardly anybody expresses any surprise about moving back and forth and when I tried to follow Mawdryn’s storyline I wasn’t sure what he was doing.

It does look sumptuous, the art deco spaceship resembles an elegant hotel and the music is fabulously rich (though occasionally oversteps like a scene where someone comes out of the Tardis accompanied by heavy metal guitar). It’s also nostalgic in a much more subtle manner than `The Five Doctors` which is just everyone piling in. The scene where the Brigadier remembers familiar faces is sweet and an example of how to reference the past without going crazy about it. Nick Courtney gives what was probably his best Doctor Who performance drawing a distinction between the two separate Brigadiers.

Turlough joins here and is surely the oddest companion yet. I’d forgotten how soon we learn he’s not from Earth (the Doctor notices but doesn’t mention it) and Mark Strickson gets to shout a lot when not being furtive. It was a bold decision to create a companion as a potential antagonist and it works rather well. Like `Snakedance` and `Enlightenment`  this is not, despite all the dashing about, an action story and I feel they give away Mawdryn’s intent too soon. This deflates the tension with the second half of the story noticeably less interesting than the first two episodes.

Terminus

Unlike `Arc of Infinity` which I enjoyed despite its faults, `Terminus` is a slog -really an episode too long. The concept at its heart is ambitious but never really convinces despite a lot of dialogue to explain it while the fact that they are on a plague ship quickly becomes coincidental. The look of the ship too is rather generic though I sort to like the armour even if it seems an unlikely way to protect against disease. 

It feels as if there are two separate story ideas here which just don’t go together. The crew trapped on a plague ship? The crew trapped on a ship that creates the Big Bang? They feel like diverging ideas and sure enough neither of them are properly handled. The allusions to Norse mythology and the presence of a large teddy bear only muddle the proceedings. As if to even things out after their recent strong performances Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson spend much of the time in the service ducts leaving the Doctor and a rapidly de-clothing Nyssa to sort things out. At least the latter's departure is original and in keeping with her practical nature. Nyssa always seems like a character that was never properly developed or given enough to do most of the time.

Enlightenment

I‘ve finally come round to the  majority view that this is the best story of 1983. It shares with `Snakedance` a love of dialogue and though conceptually bold is composed of elements that drive the story more than others this year. It is very well edited and Barbara Clegg writes with both clarity and insight. It shows how to really utilise two companions and give them something interesting whereas other stories tend to focus on one or other. The whole space ships concept was probably not original but looks great (even better if you watch with enhanced FX) . 

The Eternals are significantly more interesting than their Marvel namesakes with Marriner’s fascination with Tegan becoming a large part of the story well played by both (Janet Fielding is having a great season isn’t she?) I know some have mixed feelings but I really enjoy Keith Barron’s performance. His first scene is great where he pauses for a moment before turning to address the Doctor. The setting ensures the story hasn’t dated at all and if anything becomes richer with repeated viewings. What a shame Barbara Clegg didn’t write for the series again.

The Kings Demons

Though this wasn’t originally meant to be the closing story it means the season is bookended by narratives that don’t share their bedfellows direction but are enjoyable enough. What can we say about `The King’s Demons`.  It has real wolfhounds, It looks exceedingly cold in the outside location footage. Then there’s the song. It is most people’s abiding memory of the serial partly because songs of any kind were rare in those days. Off the top of my head I can only think of  the wearingly long `Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon` and `Sacred Flame, Sacred Fire` which is really more of a chant than a song. We remember it too because it is sung in, shall we say, a unique style. I finally realised why Gerald Flood’s delivery is so arch ; its because he is a robot of course. Why did I never think of this before?

The song is not an authentic medieval tune but was penned by Peter Howell with lyrics by the story’s writer Terence Dudley. There’s a moment where you really think its going to go on into a third, fourth verse and maybe beyond but judging from some of the expressions as the camera pans around two verses was probably one too much. The lyric is quite brutal. Ed Sheeran has so far not covered it.

The Mater’s plan seems small fry and many have suggested this might have been an interesting moment to bring back the Meddling Monk who would fit the time period perfectly. Instead we have Monsieur Ainley sporting his least convincing disguise yet (and after `Time Flight` that’s saying something) while putting on an Allo Allo French accent, merci. Not even a Radio Times cast list anagram can hide from even the most casual viewer that this is Le Masteurr.

 

The Five Doctors

I know it's technically not part of season 20 but its on the blu ray so I may as well watch it. I’m not sure if it’s the editing or a rushed script but the constituent parts of `The Five Doctors` never really coalesce as they should. Separately there is something of merit in each yet in the final edit they come across like clips from separate adventures.

The premise is odd to say the least. Even if you accept the idea of a gone bad Borusa- and he was always a slippery so and so - the idea he has a secret lair in the room behind his office just seems silly. And that he deliberately keeps the lights lower because this is where bad things happen. And that he changes into an all black tunic because he is being bad. And that he has had scale models of his victims made in exactly the same clothes as they are wearing that day. And that the entrance is enabled by an ostentatious harp that every single person who ever walks into that office will notice. Perhaps it’s all a sign of a mid lives crisis.

Visually some of the story is extremely effective. The panoramas of the death zone do provide a much needed scale and the fact that a lot of the action takes place in a chilly outdoors makes matters look much better. However odd some of the incidents are, they are at least filmed with style notably the sequence with the Raston robot dealing with the Cybermen with that silver against slate look. Though ultimately wasted the build up to the Yeti encounter looks great too. Indoors while much of Gallifrey continues to shrink they do muster up a good sized tomb at the end.

As you'd expect the narrative does rely a lot on nostalgia perhaps not so much reflecting what did happen but our caricatures of these familiar characters. So we see the first Doctor walking in a garden, the third driving Bessie and immediately we’re back in the past. This is really the value of the production – it’s a greatest hits, a distillation of all that has gone before and this is why it makes no real sense. In slotting these tiles together, the overall result is crazy paving because the show developed across eras. 

So at times it feels like everyone is doing their party piece. For example the third Doctor has to make amusingly grand gestures to rescue Sarah from a slight incline where she could literally have stood and walked up with a lot less palaver than it takes to drag her. The first Doctor and Susan are pursued through generic corridors by a single Dalek but why? The production never really gets it's head around the second Doctor at all though Patrick Troughton is always enjoyable to watch.  Keeping the Doctors apart is now acknowledged as a mistake and had they met earlier it might have sparked something more than what is a fairly underwhelming final section. Its a good story for Anthony Ainley who gets a different flavour of material than the usual villainy. Ironically given they are on the same side here the story doesn't have him team up with the Doctor as was inevitably what happened at the end of most third Doctor / Master encounters.

Throughout there is a sense of something epic coming but it never really does. And we never get to see the giant moose. We hear it baying across the landscape several times but we don’t get to see it and that is a letdown. Just imagine how epic that would have been...

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