The Horns of Nimon Part Two

The one where Romana becomes the Doctor...

Tom Baker might as well have taken the week off for this episode for all the impact he has. It would have been absolutely fine with Romana taking the Doctor's lead role for the episode, and to be honest, preferable. Lalla Ward is every inch the lead actor here: she looks the part, she acts the part, and she's even given the part by writer Anthony Read. While Romana gets on with the story proper, the Doctor's back in the TARDIS messing about like he's in an episode of Crackerjack.

Every now and then the episode cuts back to the Doctor in the TARDIS, like a late 1970s BBC variety show which jumps between barely amusing comedy sketches. All the guff with the Doctor trying to fix the console is puerile, and when Dick "Special Sounds" Mills wheels out that awful sound effect for the console going whiz-bang-pop (from an old radio episode of The Goons?), it descends into embarrassment. I'm not sure Doctor Who has ever been more infantile. Dear, oh dear...

While Tom Baker indulges himself over there, over here Romana is banding together with the Anethans to push the story forward. Lalla Ward is so deliciously Doctorish in the absence of a proper Doctor, and you soon forget that she's supposed to be the companion. The talk Romana has with Seth, who confides in her that he's no prince, and certainly no hero, is lovely. Played sensitively and sensibly by Simon Gipps-Kent and Ward, the scene is even better than Romana's quiet moment with Della in Nightmare of Eden, and shows that the series was still capable of moving little moments like this even in the midst of such melodrama. You feel sorry for Seth, a young man who feels the weight of expectation on his shoulders, the entire salvation of his people in fact. Teka is besotted with him, and believes in him implicitly. It's all rather touching.

Once the ship arrives on Skonnos, the Anethan sacrifices are presented to Soldeed, but Romana has plenty to say for herself. Striding up to Soldeed she demands to know where the Doctor is (why she thinks anybody on Skonnos would know is odd), and Lalla Ward is amazing here, facing up to the larger than life turn from Graham Crowden and totally owning the moment. "I have a complaint to make!" She gives Romana so much steel, like she's had a bit of Doctor grafted onto her: the DoctoRomana! Decades before Jodie Whittaker, Lalla Ward was the first real female Dr Who. It's also interesting to note that I don't think Mary Tamm would have been as good doing this as Lalla is.

The cowardly, conniving Co-Pilot is exposed by Soldeed as a lying chancer and sent into the Nimon's power complex for execution. He's soon followed by Romana and her Anethan menagerie, and they wander round the ever-changing corridors of the labyrinth until they come across a gruesome discovery. The emaciated husk they find on a table is a surefire indication of what happens to the Anethan sacrifices (it's dressed in Anethan butterscotch), and when they later find the Nimon's deep freeze full of sacrifices in suspended animation, it becomes clear what the horny horrors are up to. "I'd guess that the Nimon feeds by ingesting the binding energy of organic compounds, such as flesh," explains Romana. Yeuch!

But who's this trying to get the upper hand again? It's that cad the Co-Pilot (maybe I'll name him Malcolm?), who summons the Nimon and pretends he's personally brought the Anethans all this way himself. The Nimon's having none of his blather though, and shoots him down. It's a particularly ignominious end for Malcolm, who splits his trousers at the point of death, but it's nothing less than he deserves. It's also rather unfortunate that the Nimon has to bend forwards in order to aim and fire his horn lasers, but it's all rather good fun.

Some other observations:

• The Doctor giving K-9 a First Prize rosette is yet another example of how silly the programme has become by this point. The way the Doctor pretends the TARDIS is a cricket ball to ricochet off the asteroid is just head-in-hands pitiful.
• The Nimon has a funny way of moving around. Performer Robin Sherringham does his very best monster acting by lumbering about like Frankenstein's monster, but the bit where the Nimon's behind Soldeed looks like he's doing some stretching exercises, and mumbling like a disgruntled old man! Weird/ unique!
• Graham Crowden is already so off the scale as Soldeed that I have to wonder where he's going with it. Usually a panto-style villain starts off more soberly before building up to a crackpot crescendo (see Myra Frances in The Creature from the Pit, or Richard Briers in Paradise Towers), but here Crowden hits the ground full pelt and may struggle to accelerate any!
• The model of the Skonnon power complex is very poor, particularly after having such great models recently from Ian Scoones in Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death. The complex is devoid of any texture or depth, lacking any realism. It looks like a kitchen funnel painted grey with two yellow crayons stuck in the top, like it was made on Blue Peter.
• Skonnos looks a little like Gallifrey, with its raised walkways and robed, skull-capped elders. I do love the magnificent silver circular design on Soldeed's office wall though.

First broadcast: December 29th, 1979 (the final episode of the 1970s)

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Lalla Ward is magnificent as the DoctoRomana, 30 years before the Doctor-Donna!
The Bad: That sound effect when the TARDIS console explodes. Pitiful...
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 24

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

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

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-horns-of-nimon.html

The Horns of Nimon is available on BBC DVD as part of the Myths and Legends box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Legends-Monster-Underworld/dp/B002SZQC98/