As recently as 2009, several
years into the run of the new series of Doctor Who, “The Caves of Androzani”
was voted the #1 Who story of all time by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine – a dubious poll for a show about time
travel to be sure, but still noteworthy when discussing this 28-year old piece
of television. Surely “Androzani” should have been bested by “Blink,” or maybe
the “Human Nature” two-parter by this point? Seems not, although it might be
telling to see a breakdown of who voted in this poll (surely readers of DWM are not representative of how the
general public feels?).
In any case, it’s not my
intention to take anything away from the story; I marvel at the seeming potency
of this particular serial. Several of my Who-devoted friends would agree that
it’s the tops, and while I can’t say that I do, neither can I offer up any
reason why “The Caves of Androzani” shouldn’t be someone’s – or even everyone’s - favorite Doctor
Who story. The case could even be made (and probably has been) that
“Androzani” is the last truly great story of the classic series – laying waste
to the entirety of the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras in one fell swoop -
and it might be a case easily won. It really is that good. “Androzani” even managed to get a shout-out from Steven
Moffat as recently as “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe,” back in
December.
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| The Doctor comforts Peri in the presence of Sharez Jek |
In the interest of informing
the uninformed, here’s the story in brief. Androzani Minor is a backwater
shithole - no doubt this is how writer Robert Holmes described it in his script
– good for only one thing: Spectrox, the key to giving the denizens of its
parent planet, Androzani Major, a lifespan nearly twice as long as normal (a
youthful appearance seems to be a bonus of the process). As you might imagine, Spectrox
is worth a lot, to a lot of people, yet in its unrefined state, it’s little
more than a deadly toxin. Enter the Doctor (Peter Davison) and his new traveling companion,
Peri (Nicola Bryant), who innocently stumble across some raw Spectrox, only to
find themselves quickly succumbing to its ravages. As if that weren’t bad
enough, the pair accidentally find themselves embroiled in a petty war
involving a ruthless, fatcat businessman, sleazy gunrunners, an incompetent militia, and
an obsessed, masked scientist and his (mostly) faceless android servants. The
Doctor has no designs on saving the universe or a planet or outwitting any of
his opponents; all he wants to do is find the antidote to the toxin, save Peri’s
life, and take leave of the entire situation. Events spiral out of everyone’s
control, as the story builds to an epic climax.
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| The Doctor and Peri with General Chellak |
Phew! Just putting it down
into those words makes me realize how utterly mesmerizing “Androzani” really
is, and how I’ve perhaps grown accustomed to taking it for granted over the
years. It's the final story of the Peter Davison era, and it’s hard to see this particular tale being anything but a regeneration story. Indeed, it is the ultimate regeneration
story, and it’s probably influenced every regeneration story since. Death is
written on every wall from as early as the first episode, and a sense of
thrilling dread lurks around every corner. And it makes perfect sense that the
Fifth Doctor - on whose watch Adric was killed - would go to the ends of the
Earth (or in this case the universe) to make damned sure he doesn’t lose another companion.
The
narrative of “Androzani” centers around bad, dumb luck, and something I took
away from this DVD set was how easily the story itself could have been a failure if
not for all of its components falling into the right places. Holmes hadn’t
written for the show for six years. It’s borderline amazing that he was coaxed
back and encouraged to write what’s arguably his finest script (out of many
fine scripts) of the series.
What’s
even more amazing, however, is that John Nathan-Turner took a chance on the
relatively wet behind the ears director Graeme Harper. This could have been a
disaster, yet it ended up anything but. Harper was hungry to make a name for
himself, and it shows. His direction of “Androzani” is nothing short of
revolutionary for this series, and he crams the frame with one invention after
another. Harper remains the only director to helm stories in both the classic
series and the new, however “Androzani” remains the jewel in his crown. What he
was able to achieve with little money and no time should have been an
inspiration for every Who director that came after him.
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| John Normington as Morgus |
Then
there’s that perfect cast, each of whom brings something solid to the table.
John Normington’s Morgus, Christopher Gable’s Sharez Jek, Maurice Roëves’ Stotz
– without any one of these guys, “Androzani” would be so much less, and I
didn’t even mention Martin Cochrane, Robert Glenister, Barbara Kinghorn, Roy
Holder, and David Neal, who round out the superb supporting cast. And then there's Davison himself, who really knocks it out of the ballpark, giving the best performance of his era, and rightly so, given the rich material he's working with. He's in turns sarcastic, smug, desperate, caring, determined, thoughtless, thoughtful...the list goes on. Bryant does a decent job, too, but early on this is choreographed to be The Peter Davison Show, and that's exactly what it is.
Bet
you thought I wasn’t going to mention the magma monster? Being classic Who,
there’s of course always at least one element keeping a story like this from
reaching total perfection, and in this case is a plastic-y looking creature,
but much like Holmes’ “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” before it, there’s simply no
way this monster keeps this from being Doctor Who gold, and you should
certainly not let it, either. (It’s onscreen for probably all of 90 seconds of
the serial’s 99-minute running time.) If you have never seen “The Caves of
Androzani,” or didn’t buy the previous DVD edition, there surely cannot be any
safer Doctor Who DVD purchase this year. If you did own the old DVD,
read on…
DVD
Extras:
“Androzani” was first released on R1 DVD back in 2002, and it was a fine DVD
with remastered picture and sound, featuring a commentary track with Davison,
Bryant and Harper, as well as some enlightening behind the scenes footage of
the regeneration shoot, an extended scene, a piece on Sharez Jek, some trailers
and news items discussing Davison’s departure, as well as a photo gallery, the
production notes subtitle option, and an isolated music score. All of this
material has been ported over to the new edition. On the original disc, some
matte paintings in Episode One were fixed, and viewers were allowed to watch
the original version via seamless branching. The Special Edition does not allow
for this, and instead offers up the original sequence as an Easter Egg. (The
only item not ported over is the “Who’s Who?” text feature, which is a fairly
insignificant omission.)
So
what’s new? First and foremost, there’s a making of doc entitled “Chain
Reaction.” Unfortunately, due to the passings of both John Nathan-Turner and
Robert Holmes, we just don’t get an accurate representation of what went into
putting this story together at its earliest stages, which I think could have
been fascinating. The topic is left to Eric “Mr. Personality” Saward to
discuss, and as usual he seems so uninterested in everything. (This guy could
make a solid career out of boring folks.) Beyond that, it’s a fine doc and
about on par with these sorts of things. There’s also a short piece on Graeme
Harper entitled “Directing Who: Then and Now,” which via its title is pretty
self explanatory. There’s an extra extended scene that’s not of very good
quality. There’s a nice little vintage news show with Russell Harty which
features both Davison and Colin Baker, and also this edition features the Radio Times listings in PDF form.
