The Armageddon Factor Part Five

The one where the Doctor bumps into an old school friend...

Astra is behaving very oddly. She's transfixed by the Key to Time, just standing staring at it as if it's the answer to life, the universe and everything (which it kind of is!). She speaks in a voice which screams "I am under the influence of an evil power", and the Doctor's already clocked the fact she's got a control device on her neck. So why oh why does he let Romana go off with Astra without telling her his suspicions? Surely that's a pretty reckless thing to do, to not tell your companion that they're walking off with the enemy. It's something the Seventh Doctor might do.

It seems the Doctor has more confidence in Romana than he should, telling the Shadow that she can look after herself, because she's a Time Lord. But that's not really the case, is it? Because Romana is actually a very inexperienced adventuress, someone who does not naturally gravitate toward violence or self-defence. So when she's faced with the muzzle of a gun, she doesn't try to escape, or charm her way out of the situation. She just gives in. And that means she ends up wracked with pain inside the Shadow's torture chamber, because Romana very rarely fights back. So Doctor, you were wrong: Romana cannot look after herself, and you were negligent in not telling her about Astra. Case closed.

Richard Macmanan-Smith's sets of the Shadow's domain are great. You might not think so at first, as they're pretty standard cave and rock sets, but the overall effect created is quite powerful: they're spookily lit by Mike Jefferies, and the jagged, angular design of the corridors, draped in cobwebs, adds a suitably haunted house feel, reflecting the Hallowe'en-esque Shadow himself. There are gently pulsing red lights buried under the surface of the walls, watching like the demonic eyes of unseen monsters, and in the background there's the distant sound of creatures growling and screeching. There's even a mysterious breeze blowing through the place, which for some reason I imagine to feel warm and clammy. That's how evocative of a haunted house the whole place is.

We find out that the Shadow is in the employ of the Black Guardian, which is no big surprise and reminds us that we're heading toward the big end-of-season climax for the Key to Time. I'm not sure what or who the Shadow is exactly, whether he's a real person, some kind of aggrandized creature, or a mere projection of the Black Guardian himself. William Squire does wander into melodrama at times, especially with his pantomime laugh, but overall he makes the Shadow a sinister presence much more effective than the Master in The Deadly Assassin.

The Shadow reveals that he has the sixth and final segment of the Key to Time in his possession, and that the Doctor has "already seen it". All the clues are there: Princess Astra doesn't have any special knowledge of where the segment is. She is the segment! The Shadow also confirms that he is a fully paid up member of the Sci-Fi Bad Guys fraternity (led by Darth Vader) in that he and his master want the power the Key gives for the sheer glory of universal destruction. They don't want to rule the cosmos, they just want to destroy it.

The main development in this episode is the introduction of Drax, a short, balding Cockney who lives behind the polystyrene walls of the Shadow's domain. Now, I never used to like Drax. When I watched this story in days gone by, I used to roll my eyes when he appeared because I thought the performance/ character was on a different level to the rest of the story. And while I still think there's some truth in that, this time around I can't help warming to Drax. It's me that's changed, not him.

Barry Jackson plays Drax with a surprising amount of energy and chutzpah. It's a very animated, confident performance, which is especially admirable given that he's entering the story towards the end at a time when the lead star was at the height of his populist powers. But the intimidating presence of Tom Baker doesn't stop Jackson from putting in a spirited, physical performance which actually succeeds in overshadowing the Doctor. Jackson pokes Baker's nose, he slaps his face, he even grapples him round the neck at one point, and underlying it all I get a sense that Baker wasn't really enjoying it all. There's no organic camaraderie between the two actors like there was with Philip Madoc in The Brain of Morbius, or Trevor Baxter in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Here, the Doctor seems wary of Drax, and that comes through in Baker's performance too. I actually think he might have been a little taken aback by Jackson's boldness. And that's why I now like Drax.

Drax is a Time Lord who picked up his Cockney patter while in Brixton, where he was jailed for attempted burglary and spent time behind bars. He's also the one responsible for programming Mentalis, allegedly under duress at the Shadow's behest, and for the last five years he's been stranded in the Shadow's domain, living behind the polystyrene walls. He has accepted the Shadow's demand to try and befriend the Doctor and get inside the TARDIS to pinch the Key to Time, but this sadly does not ring true because of the character's very sudden appearance in proceedings. If the Shadow had Drax up his sleeve all along, why did he go to the trouble of trying to get Astra to steal the Key, or taking control of K-9? The appearance of Drax is too sudden for my liking. He could have been at the Shadow's side all along, a mysterious figure who is finally put into play when all of the pieces are in position. As it is, Drax crawling out of a wall seems like crass storytelling.

Poor Romana goes through the mill in this episode, being thrust into the torture chamber and questioned until she reveals everything she knows (and it's never enough!). I felt awkward seeing beautiful Mary Tamm wracked with pain. Yes, I know it's acting, but I just don't like seeing ladies - and in Tamm's case, the word "lady" has never been more apt - creased up in agony. Making it all the more uncomfortable is the fact Romana cares nothing for her own survival. "I'm not afraid to die," she says. "It doesn't matter what happens to me."

Having built the device the Doctor asked him to make, Drax seeks out the Doctor and decides to shoot him with it. Now, none of this adds up to me. At no point did the Doctor tell Drax to make a weapon. He merely told him to keep working on the dimensional stabiliser from his TARDIS. He didn't say what for, and didn't tell him to fashion it into a gun. Nevertheless, Drax did, and then goes out looking for the Doctor in order to shoot him with it. Now, I don't have any real knowledge of TARDIS circuitry but I imagine a dimensional stabiliser stabilises dimensions. What the Doctor's plans were for such a device I don't know, but I bet he didn't intend Drax to make a gun which shrinks people.

Drax's motivation in shooting the Doctor with a shrinking gun is unclear here. He certainly has some murky morals.

First broadcast: February 17th, 1979 (with a 50-second break in transmission right near the end resulting in a 'Temporary Fault' caption accompanied by the Theme from Starsky and Hutch!)

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Barry Jackson makes a confident debut as Drax, putting Tom Baker on the back foot a little (no mean feat!).
The Bad: The Shadow gets K-9 under his control, then just uses him as a messenger. The Doctor then frees K-9 from the Shadow's power, and the whole thing feels utterly pointless.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

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

NEXT TIME: Part Six...

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

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-armageddon-factor.html

The Armageddon Factor 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