4.33: Nightmare of Eden

In which we learn that drugs are bad.

Broadcast: November-December 1979

Watched: October 2020

Nightmare of Eden, Part One

Bob’s back. Whatever happened to Dave? [This story is written by half of a writing team, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, that’s been bothering Doctor Who since The Claws of Axos, eight years earlier.]

Better. Some properly good ideas – the two ships merging, the crystals storing bits of planet, the drugs stuff... The production can’t cope, admittedly – the model shots suck and the dramatic music can’t make up for it – but there’s enough here to make it watchable.

I enjoyed the bit where the two captains are basically arguing about car insurance, only it’s two merged ships. The drugged up guy (terrible performance) wandering into a doorway full of smoke smirking reminds me of going clubbing. The bit with the passengers, in their silver anoraks and specs, all grinning, is weirdly lovely. The scientist’s female assistant is another terrible performance.

To be proper nerdy for a second, the technology here feels far too advanced to shove it into the same era as The Space Pirates.

If this doesn’t immediately go off the rails, then we are forced to assume that Dave was holding Bob back.

Nightmare of Eden, Part Two

A thing I’m finding fairly consistently in this period: even in the stories that have a lot going for them, like this one, I am bored. The Hinchcliffe era [the horror-heavy years of the mid 1970s] surprised me with how rarely I was bored, even in stories I thought were shite. Somehow Williams just isn’t holding my attention.

Anyway. The monsters look rubbish, obviously. I like K9 reversing. I also like that the silver anoraks and specs turns out to be a plotpoint when the Doctor can’t work out who he’s chasing – the scene of him running through the passenger compartments, being interrupted by angry people demanding to know when the ship will land, is very charming.

Captain Rigg has an excellent hangdog face, but his “I am really high” acting is rubbish. And Romana is an idiot for not realising he’s high as a kite. Romana is quite often an idiot, in a way I feel has been under-discussed.

I hate it when minor characters start talking about how everyone should listen to the Doctor because he’s the only one making sense. The writer should work hard enough that you don’t need them to unconvincingly announce stuff like that.

The cliffhanger is one of the few things I remember about this story. The rest of it may not be up to much but the Doctor and Romana stepping into another world, hand in hand, is a lovely image. Except... in my memory, it’s sort of slow and poetic, whereas in reality they just jump in and the credits roll before you can take it in. Huh.

Nightmare of Eden, Part Three

“They’re only economy class, what’s all the fuss about.” An intoxicated bald man laughing maniacally while those whose safety he’s responsible for die horribly feels a bit on the nose right now. [I wrote this in 2020.]

It’s only with the recap, when I’m in a better mood, that I realise how well the escape scene at the end of 2 is done. It’s genuinely amusing and then the Doctor and Romana escape by hiding in a TV. It’s cool.

The identity of Stott would be a good twist if only any other twist was possible. Just realised there’s the same problem with the identity of the drug trafficker, there’s only really one candidate.

The Mandrels are really rubbish (are they Taran wood beasts again?). “You can get out of the projection any way you want” makes no sense whatsoever. The cliffhanger is very confusing – what is meant to be happening?

This is a rare example of a good title in this era. Also, the action sequences, in which people Mandrals vaguely wave at people and they scream and fall over dead, are terrible.

But on the whole I enjoyed that.

Nightmare of Eden, Part Four

“Kill it? I can’t even stop it!” says Dymond, about a monster that has helpfully stopped while the actor in the costume just sort of stomps on the spot a bit.

Anyway, this is probably one of Bob(and Dave)’s best scripts. It’s about more than one thing, it doesn’t fall to bits after a good episode one, the plot actually develops, there’s a twist even if it’s a fairly obvious one, there are some nice jokes…

It’s just a shame the monsters are so rubbish. If this and Destiny could swap production values then this would flirt with actually being quite good. The Doctor even makes clever use of the technology set up by the story at the end to beat the villains.

Also, the Doctor’s pied piper of Hamelin routine with the monsters, with all the off screen grunting and bits of greenery thrown across the screen (“My arms, my legs, my everything!”) is another example of the show being trivial at the moment it needs to be serious. The actor playing Stott does a noble job of taking it seriously when nobody else is.

Someone should be shot for the joke about K9 being in an electric zoo.

Dymond’s silver spacesuit is wild.