7.2: Paradise Towers

In which we build high for happiness.

Broadcast: October 1987

Watched: January 2021

Paradise Towers, Part One

“If there was something wrong there’d be instructions in here about how to deal with it wouldn’t there?” No mucking around here, no waiting to discover it isn’t really paradise: even if the regulars don’t, we know it’s a shithole from the very first shot. There’s even a real rat.

I sort of feel like this is inventing, or at least establishing, a new type of story in which future settings are explicitly stylised and symbolic of present concerns – heightened, rather realistic. There are perhaps hints of it in the past (Savages? Face of Evil? Varos?) but after this we get Dragonfire, Happiness Patrol, Greatest Show, Long Game, Gridlock, Best Below, Smile... In 1987 this feels quite radical. By Orphan 55 it’s just a thing Who always does. Not sure whether it’s Wyatt or Cartmel that invents it, but RTD solidifies it.

This story is basically just High Rise with some Lord of the Flies thrown in but it’s very effective. McCoy is already much more assured and Mel less irritating. I love the use of stylised language and nonverbal communication; the way that, from the red kangs, we immediately understand the blue and yellow too; the ritual for the last of the yellow kangs. Also that the fact it’s Richard Briers is held back as a surprise, even though he’s doing an incredibly distinctive voice.

The kangs all seem to think they’re in a school play, but otherwise: lovely.

Paradise Towers, Part Two

Pex does the same voice people in sketches do when they’re pretending to be superheroes. Which is funny. I like that he’s atoning for his cowardice.

Bit confused why the caretakers weren’t sent to war but the bit with the rule book is great. [One theory via Lance Parkin: they were meant to be Dad’s Army but nobody told casting.]

Second story running we get incidental music based on the theme tune. Still not sure it works.

Anyway. Enjoying this. Way more fun than I’d remembered.

Paradise Towers, Part Three

Love that the resis use their shawls as nets. Not so much deus ex machina as cleaner ex waste disposal.

Also love the interrogation scene, where the Doctor turns the tables, and the lamp, on the chief caretaker. It’s never that obvious why the chief caretaker thinks the Doctor is the Great Architect, mind. Is it a general “awkward genius” thing?

The brochure video would be great if we saw more of it – missed opportunity there.

One of the Kangs looks like Alice Lowe, which is distracting. This is the third season running we get a member of the cast of Keeping Up Appearances in a significant guest role. 

The “hungry” was stolen by Gattiss who made Maureen Lipman say it.

The pool looks very average.

Paradise Towers, Part Four

The big problem with this episode is that nobody said to Richard Briers “I know it’s a kid’s show but you still have to act, mate”. Real letdown, that.

Otherwise, I feel this is a nicely balanced story. The central conceits – a genius unwilling to compromise his vision with functionality, a society in breakdown – are quite cerebral. But the bullying of Pex, and his sacrifice and redemption, feel like something that’d be much more instinctively understood by an audience of kids.

There don’t seem to be many survivors at the end – certainly not enough to rebuild a society. The Resis pleading for forgiveness and help from the kids they’ve magnanimously decided to stop eating have strong boomer energy.

I love the ending, with the Doctor presented with a blue/red kang scarf, and the words “Pex Lives” behind the TARDIS.

Serious question – what was with Cartmel and teenage girls with explosives? Was it a comic he was drawing on? [Yes, probably: Halo Jones. His stories are very influenced by 2000AD’s Future Shocks, too, I’m told.]