Day 283 — October 10th 2021
Castrovalva Parts One and Two
Castrovalva — Part One
This is the first time that a new Doctor Who’s first story is written by the same person who wrote the previous incarnation’s past story. Unfortunately, that means I’ve another four episodes of Christopher Bidmead to sit through. Talk about a baptism of fire for the new era…
In many ways the first half of this episode feels a lot like it’s Logopolis Part Five. We open in the same place, with our heroes still being chased down by the guards at the Pharos Project, and talk about entropy and the Master and the like which makes it feel like we’re hanging around on the fringes of the previous story. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, though. I like the idea that although the day’s been won, there’s still a battle to get the newly-regenerated Doctor Who back to the safety of the TARDIS.
Even when we do get back to the ship things aren’t entirely safe. This feels like it builds on all of the previous post-regeneration stories and draws inspiration from each of them. Davison’s Doctor Who has flashes of madness that were present in The Power of the Daleks and Robot, but he also fancies a lie down like in Spearhead. It’s probably a good job we do get those opening scenes at the Pharos Project, though, because we spend the rest of this episode stuck inside the TARDIS, running around! As a bold start to a new era, I’m not sure that’s the most exciting option.
Luckily, Peter Davison hits the ground running. He’s already recorded a handful of other episodes before starting work on this one, to give him a chance to ease into the part, but I think he’s at his best here when forced to act confused and out of sorts. I love the symbolism of his unravelling the scarf, like the ultimate indication that the show you knew before is over. There’s been a lot of talk in the last two stories about just how labyrinthine the corridors are in the TARDIS, so this feels like a natural evolution of that idea.
I’m a bit disappointed that he simply finds his costume hanging up somewhere in the TARDIS. For some reason in my head I’d thought we had a wardrobe scene for Davison, but he’s just handed the costume on a plate. I’m a fan of the approach usually taken in the New Testament, where a new Doctor Who has to earn their own costume across their first adventure. It feels like a proper moment of them finally finding themselves. I’d love to have had Baker’s costume torn apart slowly across the whole story, rather than all at once here. Still, I’m only complaining for the sake of it, because it’s a lovely idea all the same.
If I’ve any real criticism of this episode, then it’s well voiced by Davison himself while looking for the Zero Room;
Doctor Who: ‘Oh, it’s very big, empty, sort of grey. Pinkish-grey…’
That sort of sums up the episode as a whole, doesn’t it? Look, I love the design of the TARDIS as much as anyone, but lots of similar-looking corridors decked out with grey and a bit of yellow (plus the hint of pink when they do reach the Zero Room) doesn’t make for the most visually arresting episode we’ve ever had.
6/10
Castrovalva — Part Two
I always worry that I sound like an arrogant prick when I use these blog entries to pick holes in the scripts and offer a solution for where I think they can be improved. In this case, for example, Christopher Bidmead is a far more experienced writer than I am, and has several more credits to his name, so it seems a bit churlish for me to sit here and say that he’s not gotten the structure quite right. So let me say that it’s infinitely easier for me to sit here and ‘rewrite’ the story than it would have been for him to write it in the first place.
My issue with the script this time around is all about the drive for any of the characters to do anything. In order to prevent the TARDIS from crashing all the way back into the Big Bang (or ‘Event One’ as they call it here), Doctor Who and his friends have to jettison a significant portion of the TARDIS. I’m not sure I entirely understand that as a concept — the interior is in a different dimension, after all — but it’s dramatic enough for me to suspend my disbelief and go along with for now. I’ve thoughts about how you can tie this in to the rest of the story (and Logopolis), but I’ll return to that after I’ve addressed my main problem.
So the rooms are jettisoned, the Control Room is safe, and Doctor Who collapses back into his wheelchair, the stress of the previous five minutes having taken their toll on him. He asks Nyssa to return him to the Zero Room ASAP so he can continue his recovery, but when they get there — shock horror — the Zero Room has been jettisoned, and they find a solid wall behind the doors! I love that, largely because I’d forgotten that it happened and didn’t see it coming while they were doing the actual jettisoning. That’s the best kind of twist.
They reason that they’ll need to find some other way of getting Doctor Who the peace and tranquillity he needs, but it’s not going to be a problem because five minutes earlier Tegan happened to read in the Index File that there’s places with natural Zero Room qualities, and they’re already on the way there.
That’s my issue. They have no reason to go to Castrovalva when they decide to — it happens because the script needs it to happen, not because the story needs it to. And it’s a problem which is so easily fixed; they escape Event One, have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, but then discover that the Zero Room is gone and have to rush to find some alternative solution, discovering Castrovalva like that and setting off. It sounds like a tiny thing — like I’m quibbling over minor details — but the way it happens on screen means they play the loss of the Zero Room as a problem when we already know the solution and are half way to it. This feels like the kind of sloppy scripting which should have been picked up at the script editing stage.
Sadly there’s a few examples of that throughout this episode, including the awkward moment when the Master says that ‘He might’ve escaped from the in-rush,’ and then a few lines later reacts to Doctor Who’s survival as ‘It can’t possibly be!’. And it’s not only in the writing that things feel a bit sloppy — the production has some odd clangers in this episode too. There’s two moments where Anthony Ainley has to pause his performance for twenty seconds while he waits for a hydraulic platform to raise him up. Presumably the noise was too loud and had to be removed afterwards. It’s one of those things which is so rubbish it almost comes back round to good again. And then there’s Nyssa falling into the river during their journey to Castrovalva — it’s played as a moment of comedy and looks like a blooper on location they decided to leave in the final edit.
It sounds like I’ve had a miserable time with this episode — all I’ve done is complain about it! — but there’s actually been a fair amount to enjoy in this one too. I’m going with a 5/10.
