This is "The Prisoner of Zenda" except they're everywhere....no less than 4 Princess Strellas/Romanas/androids.
The Prisoner of Zenda is a dreadful, old fashioned Victorian era novel which was barely credible when it was originally published in 1894. Amazingly it has been remade as movies on numerous occasions in the 20th century. Take a look at this list on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner_of_Zenda#Adaptations). I guess it has some fairy tale type appeal. Significantly there has not been any notable remakes in the last 35 years which suggests that the appeal has dimmed. (Or maybe a comeback is imminent..?)
The Androids of Tara is a sci-fi themed mash up of androids and made up Ruritania on a foreign planet. The story is *very* padded out. I'll cite the last part of p3 as a major and obvious unnecessary plot fork that seems to waste screen time to get to 4 episodes.
The plot elements of crowning Reinhardt and thwarting Gracht's plan to marry off and then bump off Reinhardt and Strella are established by the end of p1 and take fully two episodes to happen. That is constipated... slow, painful and the result is... sh*t disappointing.
The jokes are "meh" to ok. The acting is rigid and hammy. (Neville Jason as Reinhardt in the dungeon is pure ham. He acts like he's in a sketch comedy show.) In p1 and 2 the Doctor makes some interesting asides about what androids think of human behaviour in a way that appears to prefigure Blade Runner (1981).
Peter Jeffrey is given licence to twirl his moustache and takes full advantage but it seems like he knows it's fluff. The season maguffin is sorted out (more or less) in the first 5 minutes of p1. Madame Lamia is the nearest there is to an interesting character and she gets wasted in p3 before her 'story' has a chance to be told.
We're left with a tedious story about a bad prince makes the good prince marry the android (or something like that) to achieve his own evils before being thwarted by the heroic stranger (the Doctor).
Tom and Peter's sword fight in p4 is overlong, not credible and not spectacular to watch. If Pertwee and Delgado in the Seas Devils p2 was indulgent this was worse. And not well directed....
The sci fi aspect is also neglected. Why are there Androids on Tara? Where do they get their (electrical) power? I saw no power points or distribution systems. Or any self contained solar/wind type power plants or fuel cells. How are the Androids manufactured? Where do the Taran peasants get plastic, aluminium, fibreglass, or whatever else the androids are built from? Potentially I think there might be quite a good SF story here about how the peasants are the hi-tech android makers but the wealth and the power is retained (somehow) by the feudal Lords, Princes and their similarly non-technical lackeys.
In Europe (and generally on Earth) hi-tech electronics and computers and all other secondary industry (from textiles to silicon chips) historically have turned the peasant class into the middle class and the consequence is mass elected republics or limited constitutional monarchies. Political power favours rich people with inherited industrial wealth not long term dynastic royal traditions. Consider the history of Japan, Russia, France, Britain, Germany.... there are *some* exceptions but there aren't many feudal countries on Earth in 2019... maybe Bhutan or Thailand... even Afghanistan has a republic, even if it is dominated by fundamentalist religious insurgents. (Australia is more of a "branch office"....)
How has this distinctive society developed and how is it sustained in a stable way? Interplanetary tourism and trade? A very cool inversion of the Ruritania (i.e. backwards, lacking in progress) regal identity conspiracy story trope could have been sparked here by thinking about these questions. What if Madame Lamia had survived? (Perhaps she's really a self aware android who can then lead an android revolution to overthrow the feudals and become President of Tara... and make Gracht serve the tea... I'd pay to watch that...)
But no, a stupid sword fight...
Androids is disappointing and a bit of a yawn, frankly. It's well enough made but unimaginative.
And I did not say anything about the Taran Wood Beast...
ABM Rating 2.40/4.00
LJM Rating 3.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 4.50/10
No. 78 (out of 101)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
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