5.20: The Caves of Androzani

In which the TARDIS takes the Doctor outside the bounds of Doctor Who, and the experience kills him.

Broadcast: March 1984

Watched: January 2021

The Caves of Androzani, Part One

“Is this wise, I ask myself? Oh well.” It is sort of lovely, doing this, when you get to a great story and it still stands up. It is even lovelier when context actually makes it better, and it finally feels like the increasing grimness and nastiness of this season has been building to this.

Suddenly we’re in a world where the normal rules of Doctor Who don’t apply. When Peri falls down a slight incline, the characters sort of play it for laughs because this sort of thing happens in Who all the time and is inconsequential... but she’s just poisoned herself, in a way we don’t yet know could be fatal. We meet a clipped military leader with a trim moustache – but unlike the Brig, or Lt. Scott in Earthshock, he’s a frustrated, cynical jobsworth. When the Doctor begins his usual spiel (“I am generally known as the Doctor”), Chellak snaps, “Don’t waste my time”. Even when he says he believes them, he’s still going to have them shot. Why? Because it makes his life easier.

This world is *horrible*. A planet with no sea, where you might get boiled in hot mud if you’re not careful. There’s a scene when an entire platoon gets gassed and dies. There’s an insistent military drum beat under most of the second half of the episode. There’s more than half a minute of just watching Jek’s gloved hand creepily touching things we don’t understand. The death-under-the-red-cloth thing is exactly the right combination of dignity and horror, and the president, watching, doesn’t even think they deserve that. The moment when Peri asks the Doctor if he can see anything, and he says it’s like a graveyard – to protect her from the fact he’s watching their execution being set up – is unbelievably bleak and absolutely perfect.

The TARDIS has taken the Doctor beyond the realms of Doctor Who, and it’s going to kill him.

This is [writer Robert] Holmes’ first story in five years, and I really wish they’d used him more while they could. [He died only a couple of years later.] He’s so good at world-building through dialogue (the praesidium, conglomerates, the way the planets are referred to simply as “major” and “minor”). His Doctor has a sort of smug joviality that gives Davison an edge he’s occasionally lacked. Even Peri, who was entirely generic and annoying in her debut, is better when written by Holmes. “I don’t suppose we’ll die of it in the next hour,” she says of a poison that, untreated, will kill them both before episode 4 is out. And Bryant’s delivery of “I can take an insult, I just... don’t want to be shot” is amazing.

Normally the regulars are protected by a sort of plot armour, that means extras may die but they’ll be fine. This time, everything that could actually go wrong does. This is also a story about the Doctor realising he’s going to get a girl he’s only just met killed.

Other observations... The direction is great, especially in the scenes where Morgus looks straight at the camera, Lovejoy-style; or the uncomfortable close-up of him and Timmin in the lift. The Doctor and Peri have the same lack of tics in their final scene as Salateen has had throughout, and for the same reason. And I love that in Davison’s last story they explain that bloody celery.

The Caves of Androzani, Part Two

“After a few years you’ll be quite content living here with me.”

I forgot to even mention the bloody cliffhanger. The Doctor and his companion, executed by firing squad! Bloody hell.

Anyway. This world is still horrible. The “After a few years” quote. The way the general instantly agrees to send poor Ensign Cass to his death to spare him some embarrassment. The gunrunners – who have an amusing variety of regional accents – are horrible, and the scene where Stotz pretends he’s going to kill Krelper is as bleak as anything we’ve yet seen. The real Salateem laughs when he realises the regulars are dying. Peri screams a lot, and jumps when the Doctor touches her shoulder, and can you blame her?

The thought occurs that when we talk about [script editor Eric] Saward’s vision of the show, the narrative tends to go “it works in Earthshock, then goes too far, and the world he creates is too horrible for the show”. But this story, one of the show’s all time peaks, is a result of Saward’s vision, too, and he doesn’t get the credit for it.

The argument between the president and Morgus is basically between paternalist Macmillan Tory-ism and Thatcherism. The idea he’s shipping unemployed people out to become slave labour is horrible, though possibly not as horrible as “I hadn’t thought of that!” (Holmes may have been a Tory, but he’s a one nation, paternalist one, clearly.) Jek’s story is proper tragedy material. [Also, I’ve literally just realised as I edit this, it’s the same story as Omega’s in The Three Doctors isn’t it?]

That said, if the only block to a deal is that Jek wants Morgus dead, it’s hard to see what the problem is, because Morgus is a c*nt.

I like the way the camera moves, following Stotz running into his scene with Jek. The dragon is awful and really shouldn’t be a cliffhanger. Weird how it’s the only one viewers would have to wait nearly a week to see resolved, and it is by far the worst one. 

The Caves of Androzani, Part Three

More brutality: Jek hits the Doctor without warning, then tells his androids to pull the poor sod’s arms out. It’s a mark of the fact he’s arguably the least evil person in this that he actually lets him go (maybe it’s significant his mask is black and white). 

Every faction is horrible. Stotz promises to be worse than Jek; Chellak assumes from Peri’s survival that she must be in league with Jek (leading the guy who was laughing at her fatal illness only half an hour ago to stick up for her). When Morgus murders the president in cold blood, he has the lift maintenance guy killed, too, apparently just so there’s someone to blame.

Morgus is basically the military industrial complex in human form isn’t he? He’s the real villain, everyone else is reacting to him in some way. The bits to camera have the air of Richard III’s asides.

Best cliffhanger in all of Who, obviously, and it’s entirely in Davison’s performance (although I’ve always liked the way Stotz screams because obviously if you use a laser to cut through a door it’s still going to be hot). It shouldn’t work any better than Professor Zaroff screaming “Nothing in ze vorld can shtop me now!” in Underwater Menace… but because Davison plays it as drama, as a guy who just wants to save his friend, it’s utterly brilliant.

Shame they only made one more episode after this before IMMEDIATELY CANCELLING THE SHOW.

The Caves of Androzani, Part Four

“Sorry Peri. I can’t make it.”

It’s a weird cliffhanger in a way – there’s no actual peril, the landing is fine, it’s all about the Doctor’s psyche rather than the danger he’s in. Then it’s a very action-y episode. The moment where the Doctor seems to escape, immediately falls down a hill and is saved by a mudburst feels like it should be silly but works. His outfit is literally getting blacker. Has the celery wilted? At any rate, it’s gone by the end of the episode.

(The mud burst effects are pretty cool, by the way. Some of it’s stock footage I assume but some of it they literally blow shit up.)

I’m not sure Jek is quite hideous enough to make Chellak’s scream when he sees his face convincing. But the way it causes him to lose concentration, then immediately die in a mud blast of the sort that got the other guy, is kind of poetic, even if it doesn’t quite map onto anything. There’s also real pathos in the way Jek obviously cares genuinely, albeit creepily, for Peri: he’s the only one who helps the Doctor at any point in this story. Then he dies in the arms of an android who looks like someone who despised him, while it just stares straight ahead.

The long distance shots of the tiny insignificant Doctor crawling through tunnels like an ant in an ant farm are lovely. The blast where the TARDIS was just after it de-materialises is a nice touch. Maurice Roeves is from both Sunderland and Glasgow, which maybe explains his weird but weirdly effective accent. Also, he was 46 when they made this. Looking good on it. Love Krau Timmen finally stabbing Morgus in the back.

The parade of companions is more touching in context, when it’s all these faces from recent history. But Kamelion doesn’t deserve to be there (FFS he was only in it twice, and he was f*cking useless) so that feels like a retcon. Also, the novelisation is right that the Master laughing does more to encourage the Doctor to go on than all his friends saying “please don’t die”.

This is probably Colin’s best scene and he still manages to fluff it up. Oh well.