The Caves of Androzani Part One

The one where the Doctor and Peri are shot in a military execution...

Robert Holmes! Remember him? It's great to see one of Doctor Who's best ever writers back on the beat, writing for the show in the bright and ballsy 1980s. Last seen limping into obscurity following the damp squib that was The Power of Kroll, Holmes seems to have made a triumphant comeback for what will prove to be Peter Davison's final story. Just seeing that name on screen inspires much confidence.

I adore the opening sequence as we zoom through space towards a planet, accompanied by the familiar sound of the TARDIS materialising. It then fades to a shot of the battered old police box appearing on an alien world, its little light flashing enthusiastically. What a classic materialisation, a meat-and-potatoes conventional arrival for this Doctor's final adventure. Shots of Monument Valley in Utah were used to show the mountains of Androzani Minor, but somehow director Graeme Harper manages to make a sand quarry in Dorset look like an alien world, thanks in no small part to a beautiful glass shot.

Having a director with such flair really lifts Doctor Who, and you feel that something's different (and better) straight away, thanks to the extreme long shot of the Doctor and Peri exploring the planet. Harper maintains this shot far longer than you'd expect, but it gives scope and scale, and paints the picture that these two are explorers, hopping like honey bees from spot to spot. "Oh wow!" exclaims Peri. "This place is unbelievable!" The words of a true adventurer.

The dialogue between the two is ever-so-slightly wittier, and ever-so-slightly nimbler than your average Doctor Who script. Holmes knows how to write characters, and the repartee between the Doctor and Peri is amusingly sweet, him admonishing her for calling him "a pain", and her trying to fight back with sarcasm (not her strong point!). After examining the fused silica and vehicle tracks in the sand, the Doctor heads off for some caves (The Blowholes of Androzani). "Is this wise, I ask myself," mutters Peri in his wake. Well no, probably not...

It doesn't feel like very long has passed since Planet of Fire because Peri mentions that mudbursts would make a change from lava, referring to the geology of Sarn. Peri is dressed in the same blouse and shorts as she was on Sarn too, but despite this, the two seem very comfortable together. In Doctor Who's expanded universe of course, there are many additional adventures slotted between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani, as well as whole new travelling companions who come and go before the TARDIS lands on Androzani Minor (Erimem and Amy). So that would explain the familiarity, but not the fact Peri's in those same shorts!

In the caves/ blowholes, it's not long before Peri manages to get into trouble by randomly somersaulting into a gooey white nest thing, which creates a stinging rash on her legs (another reason to have changed out of those shorts). When the Doctor reaches down to brush the webby substance off her legs ("probably quite harmless"), at precisely 4min 57sec, his fate is sealed. His contact with spectrox will be his downfall. That, and his curiosity...

We then get a this-is-the-Fifth-Doctor's-last-story sort of revelation when Peri asks why he parades around with a stick of celery on his lapel. Good question Peri, and one that nobody has ever thought to ask in the preceding 19 stories. The explanation is silly, the Doctor explaining that he is allergic to certain gases in the praxis range, and when such a gas is present, the celery turns purple. Is it just this incarnation who's allergic, because no other Doctors walk around with sticks of celery about their person. And how did he know he was allergic to these gases as early as Castrovalva, by which point he'd barely been anywhere or done anything? Spin-off fiction tells us that praxis is a chemical compound that creates random but temporary mutations in the web of time, so no wonder the Doctor's allergic to it, as a Time Lord.

Anyway, let's forget the decorative vegetable, which always was a ridiculous and embarrassing affectation, and instead congratulate Don Babbage on his stunning lighting in the caves, backlighting characters as well as keeping the illumination realistically low (most useful for when that monster appears - it looks like a fine sculpt, but very static). Harper continues to impress with some auteur-like directorial flourishes, positioning the camera to maximise on style and effect, always keeping performance in mind. Some of his choices are quite flashy (for Doctor Who), but they never get in the way of the story, and never distract from the actors' performances (sometimes they help enhance the performances as we can see characters reacting to each other in the same shot, rather than as a cutaway).

Holmes gives the Doctor a wonderfully flippant demeanour (let's face it, he's probably still writing with Tom Baker in mind), but this suits the wearier Fifth Doctor of Season 21 very well, and Davison rises to the challenge. The Doctor cheerily asks for a chair to sit down, but as soon as he gets the measure of Chellak, he toughens up, yet maintains the insolent flippancy (all the business adding the "sir" to the end of sentences is wonderful, and done so organically by Davison and Nicola Bryant). Harper's camera shots and Holmes's writing combine to give Davison the chance to breathe within the role. Just look at the way Davison's eyes grow steely and his demeanour ruffles when Chellak tells him not to waste his time. "You know, if we could just sit down and talk about this little misunderstanding in a civilised manner..." ripostes the Doctor, gently but firmly.

Elsewhere, there's a lot to take in. There are gunrunners in the caves who put me in mind very much of Scott and his men in Earthshock, plus there's politics atop a skyscraper with the wonderful John Normington as Trau Morgus, the head of a conglomerate responsible for the production and distribution of spectrox throughout the galaxy. As we learn during Morgus's chat with the President, spectrox is a fantastic restorative, potentially doubling a person's life expectancy. Holmes has fun with this little fact, having the President, played by the somewhat wrinkly-faced David Neal, express his pride that he is 84, and Morgus teasing that he barely looks 50! Neal was actually only 52 at this time (but would sadly only live until he was 68).

The way Harper directs the scenes with Normington are refreshingly bold, having the character of Morgus regularly break the fourth wall to talk to camera/ the audience. This is unexpected, particularly for a Doctor Who audience, whose only experience of this type of wall-breaking in the past has been the Doctor doing it (mainly the First and Fourth, and yet to come, the Seventh). Having Morgus speak directly to the audience gives the impression he is confiding in the viewer, and incriminating us by association. We become privy to his personal thoughts, few of them pure, and as he is the only one to do this, it means it's a definite character thing rather than a broader directorial flourish.

Oh, and look at the way Harper manages to make a simple video effect overlay look like a three-dimensional projection within Morgus's office, just by having Normington walk around and behind the effect, and then speak to it from the side. Masterful.

And then, watching proceedings on monitor screens, there's another, far more mysterious character, a hairy-handed man who dresses in head to foot leather and develops a predilection for the "beautiful" Peri. He has a wonderfully commanding voice which reminds me of Paul Darrow and Jeremy Brett, and gives him so much gravitas and presence as the camera refrains from revealing his face for as long as possible. We first glimpse him as a distorted reflection in a monitor screen, and can see that he's wearing some kind of face covering, but towards the end of the episode Harper rewards us with a full reveal as Sharaz Jek turns to camera, laughing menacingly, his false blue eye staring blankly. His leather mask is a black and white split, perhaps giving a clue as to his mental state...

The journey towards the end of the episode and the cliffhanger is handled with such maturity. Roger Limb's music has so far been disconcertingly sombre, giving a distinctive rattlesnake theme to Jek, but as the Doctor and Peri face military execution, the score goes full-on Hammer horror, weaving ominous choral chanting into the mix. It helps create a funereal atmosphere.

The scenes between the Doctor and Peri in their cell are nicely written and performed too, with Davison deciding to keep things calm and still, eschewing his usual breathless energy. We see how scared Peri is of her imminent death. Remember, she's only been travelling with the Doctor for five minutes and already she's about to be executed on an alien planet for being a suspected gunrunner. "I'm sorry I got you into this," apologises the Doctor. "Curiosity's always been my downfall." Touchingly, Peri doesn't blame him, and takes some of the responsibility on herself, and Bryant's timid delivery portrays Peri's fear well.

As the two are led, draped in military red hoods, to the execution area, you can tell there's something different or odd about the Doctor and Peri, but it's hard to put a finger on it. They're less expressive, perhaps simply resigned to their fates. But this is only part 1, the Doctor can't die yet, so something is afoot. The way Harper cuts the cliffhanger is stunning, focusing on the (many) machine guns hammering their bullets repeatedly into the Doctor and Peri (off-camera), the Doctor Who sting swarming in over the sound of the chattering weapons. Chilling...

First broadcast: March 8th, 1984

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Graeme Harper's directorial debut is impressive, stylish but thoughtful.
The Bad: Is that a TV remote control Trau Morgus is using? Yes, I think it is!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

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

The Caves of Androzani is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Caves-Androzani-DVD/dp/B00005B2T7