This is easily the best of Series 17. It's fun to watch and is both interesting and engaging.
But it is no way the 4th or 5th best DW ever.
Big problems exist with the plot.
For instance Scaroth (who has been struggling for centuries to build a time machine) discovers the Doctor and Romana have a time machine early in p3 and then makes no attempt to steal the time machine or persuade or force the Doctor to use it for him. Why not? (He's not stupid...)
I'm not sure that lifeless slime plus spaceship explosion/radiation at 400 million years B.C. equals spark of life. Life is much older than this (eg. Stromatolites at 3700 million B.C.) and a single event like this is unlikely to have sparked life on earth generally. (More likely this Jagoroth event may have caused a mass extinction which usually generates great changes in evolutionary biology.)
Also the two minute time limit for the time transfer in ep4 is introduced arbitrarily by a throwaway line from Romana. Ugh...
The late night escape (early p3) from the scene of the Louvre robbery is unconvincing. ("See that window...")
The filming in Paris is a major innovation, even if it looks low budget and the extended running down the Champs Elysees scenes are used like padding.
The Jagoroth costume is clearly ludicrous. The Count/Countess relation free relationship is distinctly weird. It can only make sense in the context of the 30's Hays code for Hollywood movies. This is possibly one of a series of symbolic nods towards genre film. Others include gangster tropes, crime caper films (eg. The Pink Panther) and Bulldog Drummond/Tintin (Look at Duggan's hair...)
Some performances are good in this. Julian Glover (Scarlioni etc) is good value, so are Catherine Schell (the Countess) and Tom Chadbon (Duggan).
Less convincing is David Graham as Kerensky and Kevin Flood as the Hermann the butler. Peter Halliday as the low budget Renaissance soldier seems odd casting.
But the story has verve and is very entertaining. Certainly the sky-high viewing figures in Britain suggest this even though they were clearly upped by the ITV strike at the time. (11 week blackout of the opposition channel...)
City of Death has THE highest average UK audience rating for any DW serial. Part 4 is still no.1 and Part 3 is no.2 on the all time highest rating list. Part 2 is no4. Part 1 is merely 25th on the list. https://guide.doctorwhonews.net/info.php?detail=ratings
Ratings do not equal quality. Underworld had a high UK audience rating.
As we watched it the premiere of this serial had its 40th anniversary (UK 29-Sep-1979)
ABM Rating 3.45/4.00
LJM Rating 4.30/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.40/10
No. 26 (out of 105)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
Rankings Scoreboard
From Quickflix
ReplyDeleteContary to the Quickflix description this was made in 1979 in colour. Starring Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor) and Lalla Ward (as Romana) with plenty of location filming in Paris, this represents the best of the Douglas Adams era of the show. Douglas Adams was script ediotr of DW in this season (his hit novel version of the Hitch Hker's Guide to the Galaxy made him a millionaire the next year...) The dvd conatins a four parter which centres around the expliots of an alien stranded on earth after his space ship explodes during takeoff some 400 million years ago. The pieces of his ship and his self are scattered thoughout the future history of earth. The fragments become separate individuals who work to influence human technology to a point where the alien can build a time machine and return to the past to stop the space ship taking off. The off beat style and humour of Douglas Adams his evident throughout this story. Tom Baker's performance is boosted by the absurdism that Douglas specialised in. Picture the Tardis in the Louvre Art Museum in Paris while being observed by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron. They think it's art but the doctor and party rock up and jump inside. I won't ruin the end of the scene but it's LOL! The dvd has plenty of extras about the making of the show and includes rare footage of Douglas talking about his time on the show.