Why wasn't City of Death a game-changer?

The Williams era is something of a contentious one, and Season 17 especially so.

But most fans would agree that within that turbulent period, we did get City of Death as the best diamond in the rough. I think even fans who don’t like that story can see why it’s regarded as a cut above the rest.

For some fans the rest of Season 17 was fine, but I think it’s difficult to argue with a sense that the era never quite got as good as City of Death again. Shada is seen as the only could’ve-been contender for that.

So what went so right there…. and why didn’t the rest of the season live up to it?

For comparison’s sake, I often think of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as being like the City of Death of its franchise, if you will. But it took a few goes for the Star Trek movies to get that good. The first Star Trek movie, The Motion Picture was not a very cinema-savvy piece of work and it was often felt that it missed the mark of translating Trek to the big screen.

But Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan seemed made by a film-making team that had genuinely learned from that previous film’s mistakes, and learned how to do Star Trek to a much more ‘cinema literate’ visual language. By Star Trek IV they’d really mastered that. Those films demonstrated a real quick learning curve over a short period.

I think of City of Death as almost a learning curve for the makers that never happened. It really did suggest a production team who’d mastered this show, firing on all cylinders, and had learned by trial and error how to produce the best results….. and yet suddenly the next story, it seemed to have been less a new dawn, and more a false dawn in which all that hadn’t been learned at all. That the quality had slipped from their grasp again, and infact the show was caught in a circle of doing the same things over and over again, to the point the rest of the season seems to blur together indistinctly.

So why didn’t the rest of the season learn from that success or live up to that level? What happened? If Douglas Adams could pull off that kind of winner, why did he only manage it the once that season? What went so right with City of Death? Why couldn’t they replicate that success?

City of Death is really only a late 70's version of The Time Warrior or The Brain Of Morbius.

A daft romp with a bit of a budget.

It ain't no Caves of Androzani, Seeds Of Doom or Inferno, bruv.

Does Rob actually know I have him on ignore?

Most toddlers you only have to starve of attention for a few hours before they wise up and get the hint....

Did somebody say something?

Could have sworn I heard some weeping over an Eric Saward photograph?

Must have been the dog farting I guess...

I don't necessarily see why it would be considered a game changer. With the exception of really good performances by Glover, Schnell and Lalla, a truly memorable incidental music score and some really good model work by Ian Scoones at the start, it really doesn't add up to much. It really feels like a left over HHGG script but not from the good season (number 1) but the rather patchy, "blink and you'll miss the jokes" season two. Duggan / Tom Chadbon is a first class pratt who just runs around bumping into scenery (presumably funny but not really)  and Kerensky was likewise just another poorly acted comedy stooge. The Parisian location work is criminally underused and Julian's Jaggaroth head was ridiculously wobbly when he took his "human mask" off. It was so crap RTD used it again in Evolution of the Daleks.

The script lacked sparkling dialogue or appealing characters that made you want to see more of them but was instead very pedestrian which in turn suggested things were not going to get better in the weeks ahead. The closest it got was the conversation between Lalla and Tom at the top of the Eiffel Tower near the start but to be honest that was just brainless rather than clever or inventive or witty.

stengos wrote:I don't necessarily see why it would be considered a game changer. With the exception of really good performances by Glover, Schnell and Lalla, a truly memorable incidental music score and some really good model work by Ian Scoones at the start, it really doesn't add up to much. It really feels like a left over HHGG script but not from the good season (number 1) but the rather patchy, "blink and you'll miss the jokes" season two. Duggan / Tom Chadbon is a first class pratt who just runs around bumping into scenery (presumably funny but not really)  and Kerensky was likewise just another poorly acted comedy stooge. The Parisian location work is criminally underused and Julian's Jaggaroth head was ridiculously wobbly when he took his "human mask" off. It was so crap RTD used it again in Evolution of the Daleks.

The script lacked sparkling dialogue or appealing characters that made you want to see more of them but was instead very pedestrian which in turn suggested things were not going to get better in the weeks ahead. The closest it got was the conversation between Lalla and Tom at the top of the Eiffel Tower near the start but to be honest that was just brainless rather than clever or inventive or witty.

Really I can only sing the story’s virtues.

Far from offering little incentive to keep watching I think it shrewdly started with an enigma concerning the Scaroth, and each successive cliffhanger confounded that mystery and seemed to change the game. Add to which was the moral question of whether what Scarlioni is doing is even that wrong, if he’s only trying to save his race, and is the Doctor possibly going to stop him or help him.

And far from not adding up to much, I think there’s a genuinely beautiful, humanistic story at the heart of it about the journey mankind has taken from its beginnings and the creative beauty it’s capable of.

I mean maybe it’s a question of how I came to it. Perhaps if I’d been watching at the time, I’d have been more inclined to see it as just another light-weight we’d had too many of. I rediscovered it instead on video, after I’d already seen more edgy Hinchcliffe stories and the occasional Saward story, and maybe because of that, it seem a welcome one-off, break from the norm. Though that said, I did find the Countess’ cruel death surprisingly hard-hitting.



Where I’d say it was a could’ve been game-changer, it’s that at this point, Williams had been trying out a few things under difficult circumstances. He’d done a bit of a last gasp of Hinchcliffe horror in Horror of Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl (and maybe the early portion of Stones of Blood), but that route didn’t work out. The BBC didn’t want that direction to continue.

He attempted something ambitious with Underworld and Invasion of Time, but both fell flat.

He then tried the Key to Time season idea. Which nearly worked, but ran out of momentum toward the end.

City of Death was one of the new things he tried that seemed to pay off and offer a genuine new beginning. It wasn’t a Hinchcliffe knock-off, a Pertwee knock-off, or a Terry Nation knock off. It was something new, never before seen. Hell, you could almost watch it as a ‘second pilot’ of sorts. It seemed to draw from culture, and hint at what might be as natural a fit for Tom’s Doctor, as the UNIT set-up was for Pertwee.

The way the story was told, all suggested the show was beginning to evolve. But instead in the next three stories it seems to stagnate into circles instead, or revert to a permanent state of third gear.

The thing is City Of Death probably would have been just another run of the mill story if so many things hadn't gone so right.

If everything had gone to plan and David Fisher had produced a workable script, then Douglas Adams would have done his usual half arsed script editing job which meant a bit of grammar correction and putting in stupid jokes that Tom would have delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

As it was you had Adams & Williams creating a story and script out of basically nothing within 72 hours.
With no time for sleep and running on black coffee and adrenalin they produced what many people consider to be one of the all-time great stories. No time for Adams to take the piss.

Add to that the superb location filming,Tom & Lalla banging teh fuck out of each other making the filming a breeze, Julian Glover at the top of his game and some great support from Tom Chadbon & Catherine Schell you get Doctor Who lightning in a bottle, that was unlikely ever to be repeated because the circumstances creating it were so unique.

Tanmann wrote:Far from offering little incentive to keep watching I think it shrewdly started with an enigma concerning the Scaroth, and each successive cliffhanger confounded that mystery and seemed to change the game. Add to which was the moral question of whether what Scarlioni is doing is even that wrong, if he’s only trying to save his race, and is the Doctor possibly going to stop him or help him.

The opening scene is impressive thanks to Ian Scoones sfx, little else. Yes it gives a degree of intrigue but this is largely dissipated by the end of the first episode because of Adam's insistence on injecting his humour into the production, thereby preventing a build up of dramatic tension, conflict and human interest. And there is no morale dilemna as far as I am concerned. Its self evident that Scaroth is doing wrong in that he seeks the destruction of one sentient life form to prolong that of his own. Had human kind caused the destruction of his race I could understand the impulse to eliminate the human race  and the morale conflict you talk of, but that's not the case here. It's a clear act of unprovoked aggression. This form of morale relativism has plagued Nu Who to its core over the last 15 years. Its a shame Williams allowed it to infect the show 25 years earlier.

And far from not adding up to much, I think there’s a genuinely beautiful, humanistic story at the heart of it about the journey mankind has taken from its beginnings and the creative beauty it’s capable of.

It doesn't add up to much because the fundamental idea had been tried so many times before. The Meddling Monk was interfering in human history and thereby affecting human development over a decade before City of Death. It was hardly new when Adams plagiarised the idea in 1979. Bob Holmes was doing sthg similar in Pertwee's last year although i accept the acting by the principal supporting cast was much better than in Time Warrior, but then i acknowledged the standard of acting of Glover and Schell in my first post.

I mean maybe it’s a question of how I came to it. Perhaps if I’d been watching at the time, I’d have been more inclined to see it as just another light-weight we’d had too many of. I rediscovered it instead on video, after I’d already seen more edgy Hinchcliffe stories and the occasional Saward story, and maybe because of that, it seem a welcome one-off, break from the norm. Though that said, I did find the Countess’ cruel death surprisingly hard-hitting.

I admit it - i was fed up with Tom and GW by this point. I would also accept the Countesses death was very well done. Again down to the superb acting of Glover and Schell and little else.

Where I’d say it was a could’ve been game-changer, it’s that at this point, Williams had been trying out a few things under difficult circumstances. He’d done a bit of a last gasp of Hinchcliffe horror in Horror of Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl (and maybe the early portion of Stones of Blood), but that route didn’t work out. The BBC didn’t want that direction to continue.

Genuinely fascinating. I never knew BBC Management put GW under pressure over the violence / horror after he was appointed. I assumed they just appointed him, told him to avoid gory violent bits and then let him get on with it. Fang Rock was very good but i didn't realise it was considered scary or violent.

He attempted something ambitious with Underworld and Invasion of Time, but both fell flat.

They didn't fall flat. They crashed and burned. Imho.

He then tried the Key to Time season idea. Which nearly worked, but ran out of momentum toward the end.

Not in my world. Two stories were passable: One of them numerous years later when i rewatched it (Ribos) and the other (Stones) mainly in the first two episodes only.

City of Death was one of the new things he tried that seemed to pay off and offer a genuine new beginning. It wasn’t a Hinchcliffe knock-off, a Pertwee knock-off, or a Terry Nation knock off. It was something new, never before seen. Hell, you could almost watch it as a ‘second pilot’ of sorts. It seemed to draw from culture, and hint at what might be as natural a fit for Tom’s Doctor, as the UNIT set-up was for Pertwee.

The way the story was told, all suggested the show was beginning to evolve. But instead in the next three stories it seems to stagnate into circles instead, or revert to a permanent state of third gear.

City was an improvement on Destiny - for the reasons i stated in my first response - but I had no expectations of the improvements being continued. The fact City largely wasted the foreign location filming on shots of 3 cast members running round the streets (wow!) was an ill omen as far as i was concerned. There had already been too many false dawns - Fang Rock, Stones of Blood. I had high hopes for Destiny before it was broadcast. City felt like a flash in the pan to me rather than heralding a robust, sustainable rise in quality. It was an old hackneyed idea that had been done before. Plus, as i said previously, it was immediately preceeded by Destiny which i suspected would ultimately be a truer indicator of how the rest of the season would pan out.  As for the gear the rest of the season was in, i would suggest it was in reverse rather than anything as quick as third gear.

stengos wrote:I don't necessarily see why it would be considered a game changer. With the exception of really good performances by Glover, Schnell and Lalla, a truly memorable incidental music score and some really good model work by Ian Scoones at the start, it really doesn't add up to much. It really feels like a left over HHGG script but not from the good season (number 1) but the rather patchy, "blink and you'll miss the jokes" season two. Duggan / Tom Chadbon is a first class pratt who just runs around bumping into scenery (presumably funny but not really)  and Kerensky was likewise just another poorly acted comedy stooge. The Parisian location work is criminally underused and Julian's Jaggaroth head was ridiculously wobbly when he took his "human mask" off. It was so crap RTD used it again in Evolution of the Daleks.

The script lacked sparkling dialogue or appealing characters that made you want to see more of them but was instead very pedestrian which in turn suggested things were not going to get better in the weeks ahead. The closest it got was the conversation between Lalla and Tom at the top of the Eiffel Tower near the start but to be honest that was just brainless rather than clever or inventive or witty.

You missed out the fact that Tom Baker was still very much treating the programme like The Tom Baker Celebrity Show and is very much acting like a cunt all the way through the story. Any drama or tension is immediately sucked away by Tom Baker acting like a pratfalling cunt for cheap laughs.

Amazing how my favourite Doctor rapidly transformed into my most hated in the space of a mere two years under Williams/Adams.

Yes, you're right, Duggans character is incredibly fucking moronic and annoying to make one question why the central character would keep company with such fucking brainless thickos unless one himself, and Kerensky's retarded spazz-fit death scene ludicrous to the point of the viewer feeling absolutely zero empathy toward the character.

stengos wrote:And there is no morale dilemna as far as I am concerned. Its self evident that Scaroth is doing wrong in that he seeks the destruction of one sentient life form to prolong that of his own.

Well, it's not really revealed until the ending what the consequences of Scaroth's actions will be. So for much of the story, all that's self-evident is that Scaroth wants to save his people, and the Doctor's not telling us why that's so wrong. Once it's revealed, though... yes it's morally simple that the Doctor's in the right and Scaroth has to be stopped, but for much of the story any morally pat explanation is kept out of reach.

Okay maybe it's not so much a moral dilemma as a moral ambiguity.

Genuinely fascinating. I never knew BBC Management put GW under pressure over the violence / horror after he was appointed. I assumed they just appointed him, told him to avoid gory violent bits and then let him get on with it. Fang Rock was very good but i didn't realise it was considered scary or violent.

I've got nothing on the BBC's reception to Horror of Fang Rock, but I do know that the Head of Serials Graeme McDonald was *very* concerned about Image of the Fendahl. Specifically the scene in where the Doctor passes a gun to Stael to assist his suicide, and urged Williams to tone it down. He likewise expressed concern about the human sacrifices angle in Stones of Blood.

Anything along those horror lines was strongly discouraged.

He attempted something ambitious with Underworld and Invasion of Time, but both fell flat.

They didn't fall flat. They crashed and burned. Imho.

Fair enough.

City was an improvement on Destiny - for the reasons i stated in my first response - but I had no expectations of the improvements being continued. The fact City largely wasted the foreign location filming on shots of 3 cast members running round the streets (wow!) was an ill omen as far as i was concerned. There had already been too many false dawns - Fang Rock, Stones of Blood. I had high hopes for Destiny before it was broadcast. City felt like a flash in the pan to me rather than heralding a robust, sustainable rise in quality. It was an old hackneyed idea that had been done before. Plus, as i said previously, it was immediately preceeded by Destiny which i suspected would ultimately be a truer indicator of how the rest of the season would pan out.  As for the gear the rest of the season was in, i would suggest it was in reverse rather than anything as quick as third gear.

Fair enough.

I guess at the time things must've looked pretty dour for the show.

Strange thing about Destiny, when I first read the novelization at my library aged 11, I imagined it as a scary Hinchcliffe story that continued the dramatic tone of Genesis without a beat.

When I finally saw the TV story, it didn't really live up to that at all, barring a few fits and starts. So I can see the show wasn't really living up to itself anymore there.

Rob Filth wrote:You missed out the fact that Tom Baker was still very much treating the programme like The Tom Baker Celebrity Show and is very much acting like a cunt all the way through the story. Any drama or tension is immediately sucked away by Tom Baker acting like a pratfalling cunt for cheap laughs.

Amazing how my favourite Doctor rapidly transformed into my most hated in the space of a mere two years under Williams/Adams.

Yes, you're right, Duggans character is incredibly fucking moronic and annoying to make one question why the central character would keep company with such fucking brainless thickos unless one himself, and Kerensky's retarded spazz-fit death scene ludicrous to the point of the viewer feeling absolutely zero empathy toward the character.

I agree about Tom's performance. Dreadful. Sucked out any tension or drama from the show. I wonder who did the most damage to the show's drama pretentions - Douglas or Tom. I do however think Tom's performance improved considerably under JNT.

"Kerensky's retarded Spazz-fit death scene". Spot on description.

stengos wrote:I agree about Tom's performance. Dreadful. Sucked out any tension or drama from the show. I wonder who did the most damage to the show's drama pretentions - Douglas or Tom. I do however think Tom's performance  improved considerably under JNT.

Jaw droppingly so once he'd finished sulking, I remember thinking "Fucking hell, so he CAN act after all!" when he conveys moral indignation at the death of the Marsh child in "Full Circle" - being a more reclusive background figure in Season 18 certainly improves a certain enigma to Toms 4th Doctor as well...I fucking hated the programme being turned into "The Tom Baker Celebrity Show". It's especially painful in "Horns of the Nimon" where Tom seems to spend the best part of an episode pratfalling around the TARDIS console making idiot comedy noises and farting around with K-9 as his comedy prop.

Utter shite. No better than Season 24.

https://twitter.com/ElSandifer/status/1245010944109002752

Vote City of Death, it is just miles better