The Androids of Tara Part Four

The one where Romana almost becomes Queen of Tara...

I bet Prince Reynart is as disappointed as I am to see Romana back in his cell, after having helped her to escape in part 3. It makes the whole sub-plot of Romana's courageous escape on horseback mere padding, seeing as she ends up back at square one after all. She escaped in order to be captured. Oh, I hate that!

Grendel is never slow to come up with a new plan whenever his last one has been foiled, and now plans to marry Reynart to Romana/ Strella (delete as applicable), then kill Reynart and marry the grieving widow to become Queen's Consort. And then it'll be the Queen who will meet a nasty end, and Grendel will become rightful and lawful heir to the throne of Tara. However, we have to go through a scene in which Reynart rather intuitively tells Romana all this, before we get another scene in which Grendel confirms everything said in the last scene by telling the Archimandrite. Two scenes telling the viewer exactly the same information are not needed, and ends up just being padding (there's a good amount of padding in this story, and episode, too).

Grendel has already established that the real Princess Strella refuses to marry Reynart as part of Grendel's power play, so he insists that Romana will pretend to be Strella and do it in her place. If Romana refuses, then Grendel shall kill Strella ("slowly"), but that's not really a strong enough threat to force her hand surely? While she wouldn't want another woman's blood on her conscience, if she did let Grendel kill Strella, it would be the Count who would suffer more as he would then only have one "Strella", meaning he couldn't kill her or Reynart. The loss of Lamia and her android-engineering skills must smart. I realise Romana wouldn't really allow Grendel to kill Strella, but she could at least try and bluff him. Instead, she weakly gives in.

It's also odd that Grendel moans about the fact he had everything prepared and in place before the Doctor and Romana interfered with his machinations, but it was actually he who got Romana involved in the first place and changed his plans accordingly.

The Doctor and K-9 climb/ trundle aboard a boat to get inside Castle Gracht in order to let Zadek and the King's Army inside, and scupper Grendel's matrimonial machinations. It's a pity Zadek and Farrah play such a small part in the conclusion of this story, as they've been prominent allies of the Doctor's throughout. When it comes to the final battle between the royal army and the guardsmen of Gracht, we see next to nothing of it, and what we do see is in dim shadow. It would have been nice to give Simon Lack, and especially Paul Lavers, some proper sword-fighting scenes to prove their characters' worth.

It's weird seeing K-9 in a boat, and throughout the scenes of him floating across the moat I felt oddly anxious, as if I was scared of him toppling in! I imagine the visual effects team were equally as nervous during filming. The scene where K-9 cuts through a 12-inch thick door to let the Doctor into the castle is amusing - "Do hurry up! A hamster with a blunt penknife could do it quicker!" - but spoiled by Tom Baker's lapse into silliness, telling the robot dog to take care, then having an accident himself, then popping back to say "Sssshhh!". It's very Tom, very Williams-era Fourth Doctor, but it's just that little bit too Rentaghost for me.

The silliness extends into the Doctor's sword-fight with Grendel, such as the bit where the Doctor turns his back on Grendel to face the same direction as his opponent. It's supposed to be the Doctor disarming his enemy by feigning stupidity, but actually it's just the Doctor being stupid, because he could have been killed in a stroke. I feel Patrick Troughton always mastered the art of "playing simple" much better than Tom, whose tendency for silliness always creeps in.

The sword-fight between the Doctor and Grendel starts off very tentatively, and looks very rehearsed, but as the fight develops, the opponents step up their attack, especially Tom Baker, who gets quite vicious at times (and it can't have been easy sword fighting with a 19ft scarf wrapped round him). The fight reaches its peak on location in the tunnels of Leeds Castle, although it's all rather gloomy and hard to make out the finesse of the choreography. Still, it ends up being far more convincing a fight than when it starts in TC6 (it was almost three weeks between them filming the end of the fight at Leeds Castle, and shooting the beginning of it at Television Centre!).

While the Doctor battles with the Count on the ramparts, Romana gets to do something actively heroic by rescuing Strella from Kurster's clutches, using the princess's tapestry to bash him over the head (it had to be useful for something!). There's some nice, seamless two-shots of Strella and Romana together, but it would have been better to have the two characters subtly different in some way, rather than being quite so rigidly identical. Both have plummy accents, both have their hair the same way... it might have been nicer for Mary Tamm to give Strella a cackling laugh, or a bitchy streak or something. As it is, they are far too boringly alike.

The Doctor manages to defeat the greatest swordsman on Tara, who opts to take an Olympic dive off the ramparts into the moat below rather than face capture by the royal guard. "Next time I will not be so lenient!" he snarls. Grendel would indeed be back, bizarrely teaming up with the Kandyman from The Happiness Patrol to menace the Seventh Doctor and Benny in The Trials of Tara in the Decalog 2 anthology. The whole idea of seeing Peter Jeffrey in collusion with Bertie Bassett intrigues me, I wish it was something I could see!

The story winds down with Romana inexplicably admitting she'll be sorry to leave Tara. Why?! It's not as if she's had a lovely time of it, having been menaced by a wood beast, abducted and imprisoned (several times), almost chopped up by Madame Lamia, threatened with death, and almost married off to a strange alien king. Where, in all that, is the fun? If I were Romana I couldn't wait to get away from the place.

The Androids of Tara is a colourful, bright and breezy bit of fluff which has fun with its villain, and has some gorgeous design, but the stakes are pretty low in the grand scheme of Doctor Who. It's like a version of Game of Thrones that eight-year-olds can understand. It's a nice story, lovely even, but not a great story.

First broadcast: December 16th, 1978

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: After a slow start, the sword fight between the Doctor and Grendel is impressive.
The Bad: Grendel avoids justice by diving into the moat. Not very satisfying after everything he's done.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 7.5 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 18

NEXT TIME: The Power of Kroll...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-androids-of-tara.html

The Androids of Tara is available on BBC DVD as part of the Key to Time box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Key-Time-Re-issue/dp/B002TOKFNM