The Caves of Androzani

John Normington as Trau Morgus.

‘The Caves of Androzani’ is Peter Davison’s last tale -  a story rated the best in a survey of all Doctor Who stories. It is a story full of action, brilliantly directed by Graeme Harper from a script by Robert Holmes, his first contribution to the series for five years. All pieces fell in to place to make one of the most exciting and probably the best action-style Doctor Who stories of all time.

Is it perfect? There is no such thing as perfection, let’s be honest. It features a pretty average monster, and perhaps it is somewhat lacking in a little bit of humour (but that is

The Doctor and Sharez Jek.

merely the style of the story) but all in all it’s very hard to fault. The only thing is, does making it hard to fault make it perfect? I had a lot of issues with ‘The Seeds of Doom’, but I still gave it 10/10. When I put the two stories alongside each other, I definitely prefer ‘The Seeds of Doom’ despite its polystyrene snow and dodgy monster.

In essence, this is a very different Doctor Who story, seeing the Doctor and Peri caught up in events and basically just trying to survive the four episodes and little more. And that’s not a bad thing, but an approach rarely taken in Doctor Who. It starts with their arrival on Androzani

Sharez Jek is taken with Peri

Minor, a planet with frequent mudbursts and almost nothing to recommend it. The Doctor appears to have chose this planet, so my main question is why? That is never explained. Neither is Peri’s accent in the first few scenes which briefly becomes British at times (note her pronunciation of ‘glass’).

But I am sorry, because this really is a brilliant and gripping story. The characters are interesting, you care about those you are supposed to, especially the wonderfully portrayed (Christopher Gable) Sharez Jek, perhaps some of the best ‘behind the

Jek and Morgus fight.

mask’ acting television has ever seen. And then we have John Normington as Trau Morgus, even with his asides directly to camera he is one of the coldest and therefore most chilling villains in the shows’ 21 years to this point. Perfect casting.

It’s a brutal story, perhaps the most violent since ‘The Deadly Assassin’ back in Tom Baker’s third season. I wonder about its suitability for children. As part of an adjustment to aim the show more at adults though it’s great. Possibly Peter Davison’s best performance too, the Doctor’s determination to save Peri (Nicola Bryant) really adds another dimension to the character. Also, I thought the music was excellent too.

Problem is when a story is near perfect, it’s very hard to find something to write about!

The Doctor saves Peri in his final moments in the guise of Peter Davison.

9.5/10

The Tenth Planet

The Doctor and Polly get rugged up for the South Pole.

And the biggest change comes over the series in this serial since the programme began. This is Hartnell’s  final story as the Doctor, and it must be said as he was too ill to make it to the filming of episode three it probably was time to move on. He seemed to be absent for a number of episodes in the third season – with the exception of ‘The War Machines’ where he had to take on a heavier than normal workload.

Mondas!

‘The Smugglers’ saw him featured heavily throughout the four episodes, and in some way that felt quite different to the way the character had been used before. ‘The Tenth Planet’ is his last story, as he leaves the programme for health reasons. I can only imagine the schedule was murder on him as they filmed an episode a week for most of the year. Even in his final story he required a week off because of illness, and he is not in the third episode. This, like an episode (3?) in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’, was an unplanned absence so Gerry Davis, script editor and co-writer would have had his hands full doing a rewrite and many of the characters must have been given more lines.

The final episode was only a reconstruction, and now that I am in the Troughton years the episodes really dry up – so many are missing. It’s not going to be easy. As for ‘The Tenth Planet’, it’s a solid story but something about it doesn’t quite sit right for me. It just doesn’t quite click as a piece of television in my humble opinion.

We have astronauts in space, but with the limited... space in the studio their capsule is the bare minimum always shot on close up. The absence of exterior/model shots for the capsule is notable too, they would have helped. A shot looking out of the capsule is poor - it's hard to make out what you are looking at.

The story line itself is pretty linear and un-explosive, even if the Cybermen to make an immediate ‘big-time’ impact. Planet appears. Kills astronauts. Cybermen arrive, are killed, arrive again, are killed again, planet melts away incredibly fast.

Barclay to the rescue!

I guess the conclusion – just waiting for the planet to melt away, is quite disappointing. The cast is solid enough, only a few accents are really ludicrous. General Cutler (Robert Beatty) is the main protagonist amongst the humans, and I found the character and the characterisation very odd to be honest. He’s very gun-ho, and there’s something very stupid about the bomb entitled ‘the Z-bomb’. He explodes in peoples’ faces for not agreeing with him. He is over the top, but not in a sending it up sort of way. The script is centred around him for the first three parts and you think he will change and be the hero in the end, but then he’s killed off way before the end. Luckily, the very British character of Barclay (David Dodimead) balances things a little. Nice to see a show where the insane guy is the American! ;) That's for all the British villains in American shows!

Radiation kills the Cybermen – at least in this story. I have heard of the Cybermen and had no ideas that small amounts of radiation could do them in. I liked the lilted up and down way they spoke, I thought it was very original and clever, although in close up sometimes they look a tad ridiculous and I’m sure at times the costumes weren't on properly. I have been told they will reappear but as in this story they draw their power from Mondas, their planet with disintegrates by the end of the tale, that seems highly unlikely!

Michael Craze and Anneke Wills.

Hartnell is rather good in this story again, until he collapses in episode three and is passed out for the whole episode. Michael Craze has to carry a lot of the story and there are moments when he has to motivate those working on the Antarctic base to try and stop the Cybermen. I've never seen so many characters so hell bent on not trying! They appeared to have given up! It was hard to believe.

It is a base-under-siege type story, one that you’d think would work well with the show and its limited budget. And it gets a pass mark, but so many characters were stereo-types and all characters were purely functional. 

Just what is going on in Geneva?

Not to mention the crazy accents! Well, not so many of them, but we do keep cutting back to Geneva where a strange guy with an accent is trying to come to terms with the Cybermen invasion. On top of this character are a couple of men in traditional African dress which is really odd. The two astronauts also gain accents - one is Australian, the other I am not sure.

Then we have the final scene where Hartnell morphs into Troughton. Am I the only who thinks that it’s very hard to tell the difference in the two faces? People may have been confused at what had happened because it’s not very clear.

It’s a different sort of science fiction story, more grown up in many ways yet simplistic and linear, helpful for kids watching who were and are the primary audience. I think in that respect they hit a good balance. But I found it a hard story to concentrate on with a lot of loud characters.It's all a bit bizarre I think, I spent half the time wondering what was in the author's mind!

I’m now up to a new Doctor, which is very exciting, and the return of the Daleks.

6/10