The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: City Of Death
City Of Death: Part One (29/09/19)
Fuck me! They're in Paris! And I mean actually in PARIS - Tom and Lalla gallivanting about outside the Louvre and the Notre Dame, travelling on the Metro, up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and pegging it across busy Parisian streets! They've really upped the ante this series!
And what a clever, witty script! Tom and Lalla are having a whale of a time - you can tell from Tom's performance. Some great comic moments, like when Romana commented on the fact that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows, and numerous humorous coffee shop scenes (the Doctor and Romana were on the red wine to begin with, but swapped to water later - doubles).
It all started off with a pretty amazing sequence with a green, one-eyed alien piloting one of the coolest spaceships (on a beautifully sculpted barren planet model set) which then exploded. We then cut to Paris 1979 (Spring - lots of blossom) where the dubious Count Carlos Scarlioni is selling lost artworks (paintings and Gutenberg bibles) in order to fund his experiments (run by the hard-done-by Professor Kerensky). Meanwhile, his wife is casing the Mona Lisa with an alien scanner/bracelet (which the Doctor temporarily filched) and in turn is being watched by British investigator, Duggan. The Countess is played by the very sophisticated Catherine Schell, while Scarlioni is none other than Julian Glover! And it turns out he's one of the green, one-eyed aliens wearing a mask!
There was a lot of scene-setting this week, mostly in between scenes of Tom and Lalla running around Paris, but that's what made it so marvellous. It really does look better than the series ever has before, and it helps that it isn't just surface gloss. There was some cracking witty dialogue scattered throughout the episode to do with philosophy, academia and art; actual intellectual humour which really sells the Doctor and Romana as alien geniuses. And they work so well together as a team. I loved Leela, and the first Romana had an air of class, but Lalla Ward's Romana seems to be the perfect companion for Tom's Doctor (and it's only her second story!). Really bodes well for the rest of the serial - let's just hope they don't drop the ball!
City Of Death: Part Two (06/10/19)
This story is incredibly good! I've really taken to Romana; even though she didn't do a great deal this week she had a brilliant scene where she opened a Chinese Puzzle Box, and watching her decisively collecting equipment from Kerensky's lab while the Doctor and Duggan chatted, then locating a hidden room full of Mona Lisas in their cell was a lot of fun to watch! Lalla Ward is a great actress!
This story shines with intelligent wit and some wonderful observational humour. The Count and Countess' interrogation of the Doctor, Romana and Duggan was a tightly written and as funny as a Monty Python sketch. The Count is also a very smart and believable adversary - finally a villain who is clever enough not to give his plans away to the good guys, even if he is holding them at gunpoint.
It's only just occurred to me that there was no location work this week, just a shot of the Doctor et al. being herded through the Count's impressive front door. I'd also forgotten all about K9, too, until the Doctor went back to the TARDIS and said hello to him. Felt a bit guilty about that. I hope they aren't getting rid of him - he's only been in one episode this season and did bugger all but gurgle! We've got some great characters here, though, and I think K9 would spoil it. Plus, could you imagine them trying to film him trundling around Paris?!?
The plot has moved on a little, but not too much. Scarlioni has six Mona Lisas and is planning to steal the one in the Louvre so he can sell them all the buyers. Seems they're all real, too, and he's somehow travelled back in time to Renaissance Italy where he's encountered the Doctor visiting Leonardo da Vinci to find out what the hell's going on! Scarlioni is selling all these expensive artworks in order to finance Kerensky's time experiments, so maybe Kerensky will be successful and the Count that we saw at the cliffhanger is a Count in the future; his hair was certainly longer!
It's very intriguing and very well made. And overall, it's fun - more fun, I think, than it has been since Pertwee left! I hope the series continues like this!
City Of Death: Part Three (13/10/19)
Another great episode, even though Romana and Duggan spent most of it sat in a café. Turns out Captain Tancredi and Count Scarlioni are fragments of the same alien (from Part One's opening sequence) scattered through time, influencing mankind's development so he can develop the technology to travel back in time and stop his spaceship from blowing up! The fragments co-exist in different eras (1605, 1979, etc.) so I don't imagine he's been that influential, although he did claim to have taught Humanity to build the pyramids. So a bit like Azal and Sutekh and the Fendahl.
The Doctor's interrogation was brilliant, possibly some of the best acting Tom Baker has done in the role, with some great dialogue. Likewise, Romana and Duggan got some nice scenes, particularly Romana's response to Duggan's "You know what I don't understand?" of "I expect so.".
Scarlioni found out that the Doctor and Romana have a time machine, though, and when Romana and Duggan returned to the Count's house, Hermann captured them and Scarlioni set Romana to work on his machine, and killed Kerensky by trapping him inside the time field and ageing him to death! Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa has been stolen, but the Doctor may have scuppered the Count's plans by writing 'This is a fake' on the canvases for the six copies in felt tip.
I must say that so far this series the episodes have exhibited a very wry sense of humour which must clearly be down to Douglas Adams' script editing. He did a great job with Terry Nation's Dalek runaround, and his humour is threaded through this story like a central nervous system! If this continues, we should be in for a pretty good series!
City Of Death: Part Four (20/10/19)
I don't think I've enjoyed a story this much since Jon Pertwee left! That was really rather fantastic and a hell of a lot of fun! So many little set pieces and great dialogue.
Julian Glover is a brilliant villain; his scenes with Romana early on were wonderfully written and acted. His very Bondian confrontation with the Countess, resulting in her inevitable death after the Doctor had planted seeds of doubt about her 'discreet' relationship with the count, was wonderfully staged - Catherine Schell was perfect in the part and I loved her scream of "Put it down!" when the Count wouldn't answer her question (taking a drink instead). It seems Glover is very good in scenes where he's getting screamed at!
Tom was clearly having a ball - I've never seen him so engaged in a script! And it couldn't be down to the holiday in Paris alone (more gorgeous location work this week). The plot is good, the stakes are about as high as you can get, we've got two great companions - Romana is very much a female version of the Doctor with slightly less experience; and, oh, Tom Chadbon as Duggan! I really wish he'd been kept on! Sod Jamie! This was a character who really made an impression. Okay, so he had the K9 role, but he was so much more fun. The final scene at the Eiffel Tower was really beautiful: "Bye bye, Duggan!". And how did they get down so fast? Maybe they flew!
And then there was that cameo by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron. Yes! John Bloody CLEESE!!! In a throwaway scene straight out of Monty Python At The Louvre.
Last series I'd got quite bored with Tom's portrayal of the Doctor and, to be fair, I think he had too. The introduction of a Mini-Me companion who he can bounce off, an injection of intellectual humour and and air of FUN to the series seems to have brought him to life. I wish he'd been like this from the start, but he was lumbered with Sarah Jane and a bunch of Horror movie rip-offs. The show was good but not much fun.
This was fun. This is Doctor Who. I really hope the series continues to be this good!
Fuck me! They're in Paris! And I mean actually in PARIS - Tom and Lalla gallivanting about outside the Louvre and the Notre Dame, travelling on the Metro, up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and pegging it across busy Parisian streets! They've really upped the ante this series!
And what a clever, witty script! Tom and Lalla are having a whale of a time - you can tell from Tom's performance. Some great comic moments, like when Romana commented on the fact that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows, and numerous humorous coffee shop scenes (the Doctor and Romana were on the red wine to begin with, but swapped to water later - doubles).
It all started off with a pretty amazing sequence with a green, one-eyed alien piloting one of the coolest spaceships (on a beautifully sculpted barren planet model set) which then exploded. We then cut to Paris 1979 (Spring - lots of blossom) where the dubious Count Carlos Scarlioni is selling lost artworks (paintings and Gutenberg bibles) in order to fund his experiments (run by the hard-done-by Professor Kerensky). Meanwhile, his wife is casing the Mona Lisa with an alien scanner/bracelet (which the Doctor temporarily filched) and in turn is being watched by British investigator, Duggan. The Countess is played by the very sophisticated Catherine Schell, while Scarlioni is none other than Julian Glover! And it turns out he's one of the green, one-eyed aliens wearing a mask!
There was a lot of scene-setting this week, mostly in between scenes of Tom and Lalla running around Paris, but that's what made it so marvellous. It really does look better than the series ever has before, and it helps that it isn't just surface gloss. There was some cracking witty dialogue scattered throughout the episode to do with philosophy, academia and art; actual intellectual humour which really sells the Doctor and Romana as alien geniuses. And they work so well together as a team. I loved Leela, and the first Romana had an air of class, but Lalla Ward's Romana seems to be the perfect companion for Tom's Doctor (and it's only her second story!). Really bodes well for the rest of the serial - let's just hope they don't drop the ball!
City Of Death: Part Two (06/10/19)
This story is incredibly good! I've really taken to Romana; even though she didn't do a great deal this week she had a brilliant scene where she opened a Chinese Puzzle Box, and watching her decisively collecting equipment from Kerensky's lab while the Doctor and Duggan chatted, then locating a hidden room full of Mona Lisas in their cell was a lot of fun to watch! Lalla Ward is a great actress!
This story shines with intelligent wit and some wonderful observational humour. The Count and Countess' interrogation of the Doctor, Romana and Duggan was a tightly written and as funny as a Monty Python sketch. The Count is also a very smart and believable adversary - finally a villain who is clever enough not to give his plans away to the good guys, even if he is holding them at gunpoint.
It's only just occurred to me that there was no location work this week, just a shot of the Doctor et al. being herded through the Count's impressive front door. I'd also forgotten all about K9, too, until the Doctor went back to the TARDIS and said hello to him. Felt a bit guilty about that. I hope they aren't getting rid of him - he's only been in one episode this season and did bugger all but gurgle! We've got some great characters here, though, and I think K9 would spoil it. Plus, could you imagine them trying to film him trundling around Paris?!?
The plot has moved on a little, but not too much. Scarlioni has six Mona Lisas and is planning to steal the one in the Louvre so he can sell them all the buyers. Seems they're all real, too, and he's somehow travelled back in time to Renaissance Italy where he's encountered the Doctor visiting Leonardo da Vinci to find out what the hell's going on! Scarlioni is selling all these expensive artworks in order to finance Kerensky's time experiments, so maybe Kerensky will be successful and the Count that we saw at the cliffhanger is a Count in the future; his hair was certainly longer!
It's very intriguing and very well made. And overall, it's fun - more fun, I think, than it has been since Pertwee left! I hope the series continues like this!
City Of Death: Part Three (13/10/19)
Another great episode, even though Romana and Duggan spent most of it sat in a café. Turns out Captain Tancredi and Count Scarlioni are fragments of the same alien (from Part One's opening sequence) scattered through time, influencing mankind's development so he can develop the technology to travel back in time and stop his spaceship from blowing up! The fragments co-exist in different eras (1605, 1979, etc.) so I don't imagine he's been that influential, although he did claim to have taught Humanity to build the pyramids. So a bit like Azal and Sutekh and the Fendahl.
The Doctor's interrogation was brilliant, possibly some of the best acting Tom Baker has done in the role, with some great dialogue. Likewise, Romana and Duggan got some nice scenes, particularly Romana's response to Duggan's "You know what I don't understand?" of "I expect so.".
Scarlioni found out that the Doctor and Romana have a time machine, though, and when Romana and Duggan returned to the Count's house, Hermann captured them and Scarlioni set Romana to work on his machine, and killed Kerensky by trapping him inside the time field and ageing him to death! Meanwhile, the Mona Lisa has been stolen, but the Doctor may have scuppered the Count's plans by writing 'This is a fake' on the canvases for the six copies in felt tip.
I must say that so far this series the episodes have exhibited a very wry sense of humour which must clearly be down to Douglas Adams' script editing. He did a great job with Terry Nation's Dalek runaround, and his humour is threaded through this story like a central nervous system! If this continues, we should be in for a pretty good series!
City Of Death: Part Four (20/10/19)
I don't think I've enjoyed a story this much since Jon Pertwee left! That was really rather fantastic and a hell of a lot of fun! So many little set pieces and great dialogue.
Julian Glover is a brilliant villain; his scenes with Romana early on were wonderfully written and acted. His very Bondian confrontation with the Countess, resulting in her inevitable death after the Doctor had planted seeds of doubt about her 'discreet' relationship with the count, was wonderfully staged - Catherine Schell was perfect in the part and I loved her scream of "Put it down!" when the Count wouldn't answer her question (taking a drink instead). It seems Glover is very good in scenes where he's getting screamed at!
Tom was clearly having a ball - I've never seen him so engaged in a script! And it couldn't be down to the holiday in Paris alone (more gorgeous location work this week). The plot is good, the stakes are about as high as you can get, we've got two great companions - Romana is very much a female version of the Doctor with slightly less experience; and, oh, Tom Chadbon as Duggan! I really wish he'd been kept on! Sod Jamie! This was a character who really made an impression. Okay, so he had the K9 role, but he was so much more fun. The final scene at the Eiffel Tower was really beautiful: "Bye bye, Duggan!". And how did they get down so fast? Maybe they flew!
And then there was that cameo by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron. Yes! John Bloody CLEESE!!! In a throwaway scene straight out of Monty Python At The Louvre.
Last series I'd got quite bored with Tom's portrayal of the Doctor and, to be fair, I think he had too. The introduction of a Mini-Me companion who he can bounce off, an injection of intellectual humour and and air of FUN to the series seems to have brought him to life. I wish he'd been like this from the start, but he was lumbered with Sarah Jane and a bunch of Horror movie rip-offs. The show was good but not much fun.
This was fun. This is Doctor Who. I really hope the series continues to be this good!
Nothing much to add to that, except to say that it's either a massive coincidence or it's not that Julian Glover appears in both one of Doctor Who's finest dramatic stories (The Crusade) and the series' overall comic masterpiece (City of Death).
ReplyDeleteI think that one only has to look at his performance in Game Of Thrones to find the answer to that one!
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