City of Death

If there is one story that justifies the appointment of Douglas Adams as script editor, it is this one. It is one of those stories which I have lost count of the number of times I have seen, and it is a pleasure to revisit it. The plot itself is rather good (in fact, Adams would shamelessly reuse it in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency!) but it is only the skeleton on which a truly wonderful script has been built. The dialogue is as sharp as a sushi knife, with quotable lines being spouted at every turn. The characters are well drawn and believable. Best of all, the humour is actually funny, rather than the clumsy attempts at hilarity in Destiny of the Daleks. As I have said before, Adams does get his science wrong sometimes, but not in a really egregious way.

However, great scripts have been let down before by inadequate realisation, so it was thankful that this story benefited from Doctor Who’s first ever foreign location shoot. The Parisian locations are beautifully shot and add an ambience that permeates the other scenes (helped by the fantastic set designs). Michael Hayes again worked with film cameraman John Walker, who has a great talent for getting very beautiful shots on 16mm film (as previously seen in The Androids of Tara) and his talent behind the camera is very much in evidence throughout. Hayes makes this story one of the most gorgeous ever made. The production is excellent throughout with some very imaginative sets and model work. Even Dudley Simpson is drawn out of the rut of woodwind flatulence he has been caught in and contributes a beautiful score- I always felt Simpson was happier with a keyboard than an orchestra.

He is helped, of course, by a superlative guest cast. The team of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward really come into their own here and their performances are truly joyous, getting everything possible out of the wonderful script and clearly having the time of their lives. Julian Glover returns to Doctor Who in the role of Scaroth the Jagaroth in all his human guises. Glover makes Scaroth a chilling alien monster, urbane gentleman thief, aristocrat and desperate survivor and makes them all believable as being part of the same character. He is ably supported by Catherine Schell as his wife, willingly taking on the role as consort to a thief and murderer (incidentally, to address all you wags out there, if Scaroth can make a human mask with blinking eyes, facial expression and believable hair, a convincing willy would not have been beyond him!) Tom Chadbon is great as the clueless, violent, but otherwise good-egg, Duggan and, indeed, every role is brilliantly played, even a great little performance from Peter Halliday as the guard in Leonardo's study. Then there are the two art critics…

This is truly unmissable Doctor Who- but then, you probably guessed that already!

NEXT: The Creature from the Pit