Day 265 — September 22nd 2021
The Horns of Nimon Parts One and Two
The Horns of Nimon — Part One
The Graham Williams era loves to open a story with a shot of a spaceship, doesn’t it? Of the 18 stories he produced (including Shada, which we’ll talk about more the day after tomorrow) seven of them open with shots of spaceships, and that number goes up to nine if you include The Stones of Blood and Underworld opening with shots of the TARDIS flying through space. Both of those stories feature the traditional shots of spaceship models a little later on, too. The model spaceships are usually quite well done, but it’s becoming a bit repetitive going directly form the titles to yet another ship drifting through a black void. I can’t even blame it on the Star Wars effect which was so prevalent in The Armageddon Factor (ironically one story which doesn’t open with a spaceship) because four of the instances are from Season Fifteen, long before the film was released here.
The Horns of Nimon is another one of those stories with a pretty rubbish reputation (there’s lots of those kicking around Season Seventeen, aren’t there?), charting at number 223 in Doctor Who Magazine’s 2014 story poll. For this era of the programme, only Underworld rated lower. That’s not very encouraging given that story is currently my lowest-rated story. A few years ago a friend came to stay for a weekend and we decided to choose a ‘bad’ Doctor Who story to watch for a laugh. He confidently told me that this was his least favourite of them all, so in went the DVD.
Said friend fell asleep about ten minutes into this first episode, but I sat through the whole thing and really enjoyed the experience. I can’t recall what I thought of the story in my last marathon, but I certainly enjoyed it as a way to pass a few hours on a Saturday evening, and came away from it with a surprising respect for the story. Watching this first episode again today… Well…
It’s not bad. It’s not great either, but it’s certainly not bad. I can see why I enjoyed it so much the last time around, too, because it’s filled with the kind of silly moments that are sort of so awful that they come back round to good again. Malcolm Terris is pretty one-note as the ship’s co-pilot but he’s a great laugh whenever he wanders into the storage hold to shout ‘weakling scum’ at the pitiful group of hostages assembled there. I could remember the first of these instances before the episode began, but was surprised (and pleased!) to discover that he actually does it three times throughout the episode.
The episode is largely set aboard a Skonnan spaceship, and the set itself is pretty good. It relies a little too heavily on the wall panels from The Mutants, but you can tell some thought has gone into the design. It looks more functional than the ship we had in the last story, although it’s perhaps also a little plainer in places. I’m particularly impressed with the bridge, which is rigged to explode and spark on cue, and the central section has been built to move so that when the ship crashes it genuinely looks like the whole place is moving, rather than simply watching actors wobble around while everything remains stationary around them. There’s a handful of nice shots on the sets, too — I love the long view through to the cargo hold as all the doors slam closed in unison, and the bridge looks great when all the lights have gone out and the co-pilot is forced to scramble around in the darkness.
On the whole, then, a decent opening episode. I think I’m going with a 6/10.
The Horns of Nimon — Part Two
I complained at length in the last story about Lewis Fiander using Doctor Who as a chance to do a bizarre, hammy, over-the top performance, and how that brought the entire story down by being so at odds with it. And I’m going to sound like a massive hypocrite now because my favourite thing about The Horns of Nimon is Graham Crowden giving a bizarre, hammy, over-the-top performance!
I wonder if it works better here because the subject of the story isn’t quite so heavy? I mean okay, it’s a story in which groups of children are regularly abducted from their homes to be scarified to a bull god, but somehow that feels like traditional Doctor Who fare in the way that drug running… doesn’t. This is played much more as science fiction fantasy than the plot in Nightmare of Eden was. It also helps that Crowden isn’t the only one going a little over the top — the co-pilot shouting ‘weakling scum’ a lot in Part One feels in hindsight like it’s easing you in before you get to Soldeed.
Since watching this one about an hour ago, I’ve been stomping around the house in my dressing gown, holding a mop and shouting ‘Lord Nimooonnnn…’ to no one in particular, so it’s a lot of fun to play around with.
The entire set up of this story also feels far more suited to the level of performance. Yes the spaceship in the last story was filled with people wearing silly silver jumpsuits, but most of the characters were wearing pretty ordinary clothes. In this one all the costumes feel a little heightened — the golden robes of the sacrifices, the feathered helmets of the Skonnos soldiers. Even the helmets worn by the pilots have a curious look of Dads Army about them when forced a little too tightly over an older actor’s head. Oddly, I’ve always thought that it makes the Co-Pilot look a bit like Violet Carson as Ena Sharples, but I can’t put my finger on why.
Crowden is over the top throughout the episode — I don’t think there’s any dialling back of the performance at any point — but that’s not to say that it always feels completely over the top. When he confronts the Co-Pilot about his lies there’s something genuinely scary about him, and the fact that he’s being so hammy only adds to that. We like to mock Crowden for this one, but I can’t help thinking he knew exactly what he was doing.
This episode gives us a good look at the sets for Skonnos and I have to admit that I’m pretty keen on them. They’re an interesting enough design, with some strong visual ideas like the yellow arches which are dotted around. And I don’t think I’ve noticed before that the back of the set is supposed to be ‘open’, looking out across the landscape of a devastated planet. I’m not sure the effect quite works (as I say, I’ve not realised it before) but it’s a nice idea. Sadly the set for the labyrinth is significantly less interesting, but at least the Nimon’s control area looks functional.
The worst set in the episode is sadly the TARDIS — and as Tom Baker spends the first fifteen minutes stuck inside it we get plenty of opportunity to see just what poor condition it’s in. The roundels especially look filthy, and it’s a shame to see the set like this. When we first went back to the ‘classic’ white Control Room in Season Fifteen I said that I always thought of the Williams’ Era TARDIS looking a bit rubbish, and it’s instances like this which I was obviously thinking of.
In spite of Crowden’s performance being a lot of fun, I can’t help thinking that this episode’s biggest problem is that it’s just a bit dull. A 5/10.
