City of Death Part Four

The one where Scaroth goes back in time in order to stop himself having to go back in time...

This is the big one, the episode that a whopping 16.1 million people sat down to watch at 6.15pm on Saturday, October 20th, 1979. It is the single most-watched episode of Doctor Who ever, and will probably retain that record forever. Sadly, the main reason for that is not because everybody thought Doctor Who was the best thing on the box, but because it was pretty much the only thing on the box! ITV was on strike, it was completely off air, leaving just the two BBC channels to choose from, so it's no wonder that everybody plumped for Doctor Who. After all, the only other thing they could have watched was Grapevine on BBC2, which was about how trades union and community self-help groups were taking action to... oh blimey, who cares?! There's a spaghetti-headed monster on BBC1 dressed like the Man from Del Monte!

So 16 million people saw David Graham reprise his "death boogie" from last week, and those same 16 million people saw the culmination of one of Doctor Who's wittiest stories ever. Thank goodness these circumstances didn't manifest a few weeks later when it could have been The Horns of Nimon everybody saw!

Scarlioni persuades a rather naive Romana to help him travel back in time 400 million years by building a field interface stabiliser, enabling him to cross from the time continuum created within Kerensky's apparatus into the real world continuum where his spaceship is/ was. It's quite disappointing that Romana should agree to help Scarlioni, and I was hoping she was bluffing and would actually build a fault into the stabiliser so it doesn't work, or blows him up or something. But no, she actually agrees to help him because she thinks he's just trying to get back home.

"I see the Count's roped you in as a lab assistant," says the Doctor when he finds her tinkering in the cellar. "What are you making for him? A model railway? Gallifreyan egg timer? I hope you're not making a time machine, I'll be very angry." Well, actually that's exactly what she's doing, and when the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are locked up in their cell again, the Doctor isn't as angry as you'd expect him to be, but still makes it clear everything's Romana's fault. It's odd that Romana is this naive, as if she's learnt nothing from their dangerous adventures in time and space, nothing from all the dastardly villains and monsters they've met.

Scaroth intends to go back in time to the moment his spaceship exploded, in order to stop himself pressing the button that causes the explosion and him to splinter through time. But if he succeeds in doing that, it creates a paradox, because if he's not splintered through time, he'll have no need to go back in time to stop himself in the first place. It's one of those head-mashing plot points that Douglas Adams conveniently glosses over, and it's best that way to be honest, otherwise things just get too Moffaty.

After Scaroth zips back in time, the Doctor, Romana and Duggan have to get to the other side of Paris to where the TARDIS is in the Denise Rene Gallery so that they too can travel back in time to try and stop Scaroth stopping himself exploding. They get there just before the Jagaroth, and after a bit of eulogising and agonising, the scribble-faced monster is easily felled by one of Duggan's well-timed punches (the Most Important Punch in History). The prehistoric set only partially works. The landscape they walk on, and the primordial pools they see, are convincing enough, but the cardboard backdrop and uninspired cyclorama sky unravel our credulity somewhat. It's not a complete failure, but it does strongly hint at the remarkable failure the same set designer would suffer when trying to recreate prehistoric Earth in Time-Flight.

Some other things to note:

• The Doctor claims to have known William Shakespeare when he was a boy, and helped him write the first draft of Hamlet. The amount of times Shakespeare figures in Doctor Who almost exceeds that of Leonardo Da Vinci, but the Fourth Doctor meeting him as a boy is the earliest instance of the two meeting within the scribe's lifetime. The Bard then meets the Eighth Doctor at the age of eight (audio The Time of the Daleks), the Ninth Doctor at the age of 28 (comic A Groatsworth of Wit), the Fifth Doctor at the age of 33 (audio The Kingmaker), the Tenth Doctor at the age of 35 (TV's The Shakespeare Code), and the First Doctor at the age of 45 (book The Empire of Glass), before passing away in 1616 aged 52. Phew!
• The scene between Tom Baker and Catherine Schell is fantastic, as the Doctor completely destroys the Countess by mocking how naive she's been throughout her marriage to Scarlioni. At first she laughs off the suggestion her husband is actually an alien, but she's left with a niggling doubt which leads her to look at an ancient Egyptian scroll kept in her secret cupboard of treasures. There she sees "a man with one eye and green skin", as described by the Doctor. To be honest it's not really enough evidence for the Countess to believe what the Doctor says, but she does, and the resulting confrontation between husband and wife is tragically bittersweet. Schell is great as she shows the Countess unravelling, her entire life proven a lie ("What are you? What have I been living with all these years?"). But her Carlos doesn't care a jot, and cold-bloodedly kills her. It's a sad end for the Countess, but it was her own naivety that led her there.
• The splendid scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan return to the TARDIS is a real coup for Doctor Who. Playing two uncredited art critics are none other than Eleanor Bron and John Cleese, who script editor Douglas Adams persuaded to make cameos when he learnt they were both filming elsewhere in BBC Television Centre the same day. Bron would return to Doctor Who six years later to take the meatier part of Kara in Revelation of the Daleks. This is Cleese's only encounter with Doctor Who, but it's all the more special because he was, at that time, a huge TV comedy star. In fact, the last ever episode of Fawlty Towers (Basil the Rat) would be broadcast just five days after City of Death part 4, after having been delayed by industrial action. Baker and Cleese would also record a couple of skits for the traditional BBC Christmas tapes, so this is a heady time for Doctor Who. Exquisite!
• The story ends with most of the duplicate Mona Lisas destroyed in the fire at the chateau, the only surviving copy being one of the "fakes". The idea that nobody will ever x-ray the Mona Lisa is a little far-fetched though!

The Doctor and Romana say farewell to Duggan at the top of the Eiffel Tower, where their Parisian adventure began, and it's implied they fly to the ground this time because it takes them no time at all to get down! Is that ostentatious? Or just silly? Whichever, the final shot of the story is a glorious pan across Paris, with Tom and Lalla scampering off into the distance like two young lovers. It would be another 14 months until the two tied the knot, a marriage that was almost over before it began. They divorced in April 1982, but no matter. They will always have Paris.

City of Death is one of Doctor Who's wittiest scripts of all time, blithely balancing the comedy and the drama to create a thoroughly enjoyable ripping yarn. I've never thought it's as magnificent as fandom often claims it to be, but it's undeniably one of Doctor Who's finest wines.

First broadcast: October 20th, 1979

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The cameo from John Cleese is a real snapshot of 1979, and a real coup for the show.
The Bad: That prehistoric landscape set is pretty unconvincing.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 8.3 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 20

NEXT TIME: The Creature from the Pit...

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/city-of-death.html

City of Death is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-City-Death-DVD/dp/B000AWKSU0