Right time for a more light hearted post which is a story from Doctor Who: City of Death, which was a classic during Tom Baker's era, so let's have a look at that!... (and notice the plot summary is quite short!).
OK the usual plottery stuff to start with, the story takes place in Paris 1979, where the Doctor (Baker) and his young Time Lord companion, Romana (Lalla Ward) are on holiday. When they arrive at the Louvre gallery they encounter strange slips in time, and the Doctor grabs onto the arm of a woman, who was wearing a bracelet. The Doctor soon reveals that he had stolen the bracelet as he noticed its was not of Earth technology, and that the woman in question was using it to scan the security systems round the Mona Lisa. Meanwhile the woman in question is Countess Scarlioni (Catherine Schell) who is the wife of the Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover) as they intend to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. The Doctor and Romana soon also meet a detective, Duggan (Tom Chadbon) who has been following Count Scarlioni's activities, but the three of them are soon captured by the Count's men.
The Doctor, Romana and Duggan are soon taken to Scarlioni, where the Doctor acts the fool to set them off his interest in them, but instead Scarlioni has them locked in his basement. In the basement, the Doctor soon uses his sonic screwdriver to escape and he stumbles upon time experiment equipment, which is operated by Doctor Kerenesky (David Graham), and is behind the time slips that the Doctor and Romana had encountered. The Doctor also finds behind their room they were locked in, six exact replicas of the Mona Lisa, which turned out all to be genuine as they have Leonardo Da Vinci's signature and pigment on. The Doctor then decides to go back in time himself in the TARDIS to have a chat with Leonardo about his work, but instead he meets Captain Tancredi, who is identical to Count Scarlioni. Tancredi reveals to the Doctor that he is in fact an alien named Scaroth, and he is the last of his race, the Jagaroth. Jagaroth millions of years in the past on Earth was in his spaceship and was at the centre of an explosion which threw him into a time field and he ended being splintered into 12 different time periods on Earth's history. Tancredi reveals that he also has been using his technological advances to push the human race and also using Leonardo to create six extra copies of the Mona Lisa so he can fund Kerensky's experiments with time, in an effort to travel back in time before his ship exploded. The Doctor manages to escape Tancredi's clutches and travels back to 1979 where he goes about to try and stop Scarlioni from carrying out his plan, as the explosion itself brought about the beginning of the human race. But can he do it?????
The City of Death is without a doubt one of the most entertaining and purely enjoyable Doctor Who stories of its era. After Philip Hinchcliffe left the series as producer, Graham Williams took over, and while he served the show well enough, there weren't as many classics in his tenure, but this is definitely one of them. The story itself was written under the psuedonym of David Agnew by Douglas Adams (who was the script editor at that time) and also Graham Williams and it is wonderfully funny with plenty of amusing dialogue and the story itself is quite cleverly thought out. And the story's light comedic tone is just right here, despite some of the overt uses of comedy in some of the other stories of the Williams era.
Onto the performances, Tom Baker is wonderful as ever as the Doctor, as he was mostly considered the most popular of all the Doctors in the public eye, he does a great job here again. Baker as you would expect has his fare share of funny dialogue, of which there is plenty, of which some of my favourites (which I will point out as I usually do!) include the scene where he pretends to be a fool when he meet Scarlioni and is pushed into the room by Scarlioni's henchman: "I say, what a wonderful butler, he's so violent!". Also in that scene where Duggan attempts to escape by lifting one of the chairs to knock out Scarlioni's henchman, the Doctor says "Duggan, what are you doing for heaven's sake???! That's a Louis Quinze!". I also like the scene where the Doctor reads Shakespeare's first draft of Hamlet, out of amazement he says "I recongise the handwriting, its mine. I wrote it when Shakespeare's sprained his wrist writing sonnets!" as well "take sea in the arms of troubles, I told him that was a mixed metaphor and he would insist!". Another is when he says to Romana, "Romana, do you I think there's something funny going on, you know that man we saw in the gallery, well he's standing behind me poking a gun in my back!" as Duggan stands behind him with a gun.
Lalla Ward, who was at that time Tom Baker's wife is also really good as Romana, and she get's her fair share of witty lines, as she and Duggan investigate together, he asks her "do you know what I don't understand??" to which Romana replies "I expect so!". As well as Duggan asking "well if you've been around as long as I have, how old are you anyway?" and Romana replies "125!". She also amusingly notices how the Mona Lisa while she thinks it is "quite good" that "how come she doesn't have any eye brows?" and the Doctor looks closer at the picture and says "you're right, she hasn't got any eyebrows!".
Which brings me onto Tom Chadbon, who is great as the rather dim detective, Duggan, who is on the hunt to find Scarlioni and catch him in the act of stealing the Mona Lisa. Duggan's rather amusingly inept as well as brutish manner of dealing with just about everyone in the show is quite funny, especially as he even breaks off the top of a bottle of wine rather than uncork it, "if you want to make an omlette you've got to break some eggs!". And typically even when the Doctor takes him back in time to pre-historic Earth, Duggan still refuses to believe it all, as the Doctor shows him the ameno acids which would later form human life, and the Doctor says he came from that, to which Duggan replies "I came from that???? That soup???!". Catherine Schell is also really good as the Countess, and her best scene comes when she forces Scarlioni to reveal who he really is by pointing a gun at him, as Scarlioni peels off his human mask to reveal his Spaghetti-esque alien features. David Graham also puts in a neat performance as Kerensky, Scarlioni's unfortunate and weary scientist, who is exhausted from all the work Scarlioni pushes him to do in order to get his experiments to succeed.
But the star of the show is of course Julian Glover, who steals it as the Count, who plays the main villain with great charm, charisma and also menace. Glover also get's some wonderful dialogue and some great moments in the story, especially when he reveals himself as Captain Tancredi as the Doctor asks "You?? What are you doing here???" and Tancredi replies "that is exactly the question I would like to ask you.... Doctor!". Also the moment where he asks his henchman, Herrman to sell another Gutenberg bible "discreetly" to make more money and Herrman replies incredulously "discreetly??? Sell a Gutenberg bible discreetly???!". His reveal as Jagaroth is also well done at the end of the first episode and when he reveals himself to the Countess near the end of the story.
Oh and finally on the cameo front John Cleese and Eleanor Bron provide two funny performances as two art lovers who stand and critique as well as appreciate the TARDIS, which is parked inside the Louvre in an exhibit area, as we see the Doctor, Romana and Duggan board it and take off. This leaves the two art aficinados looking on in wonderment after the TARDIS has dematerialised as Eleanor Bron says "Exquisite! Absolutely exquisite!".
Flaw wise the story does have one or two though, although nothing too major, but you could argue that the overall comedic tone does offset the drama just a bit too much, and it does lack in providing a sense of real drama and tension. But the script is so well written and witty in a way you don't mind, but at the same time you would also like that happy medium between the humorous and the dramatic, like the Hinchcliffe did so well. Also the make-up for Scaroth's real alien face is pretty naff and yes it is pretty obvious that you see Julian Glover's real face beneath it! But despite those minor quibbles it is a great story of its time.
Also finally I will mention the story's music score by the regular composer at the time, Dudley Simpson, which is nice jaunty little score which has some nice passages, especially in the moments where we see the Doctor and Romana run around Paris (as the story was shot on location there).
So that is it for my look at City of Death and it is easily is one of the highlights of Tom Baker era and just a fun Doctor Who story that is well worth a look.
And with that I shall say byeeeeee.
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