DOCTOR WHO REVIEW: THE CAVES OF ANDROZANI
Written By Robert Holmes
Directed By Greame Harper
Today, I am reviewing what is claimed by some fans to be the best doctor story of all time, and for very good reasons. The Caves of Androzani is truly and amazing story with a tremendous performance from Peter Davison, in what was to be his last hurrah. The Caves of Androzani was to be his last story as The Doctor. Davison had decided to leave at the end of his third year of playing the doctor, he had felt like enough was enough and that it was time to move on and that three years seemed to be long enough for him.
In his personal opinion and its an opinion that is shared amongst fans, Davison felt that this was the story where he had actually put a stamp on his doctor, Androzani was the story where he felt that he had nailed his character, it's just a shame we only get one story where he felt that way.
As much as I love the fifth doctor and the fifth doctor's era, there aren't that many Davison stories that stick out in the fandom as being truly great stories apart from Kinda, The Visitation, Earthshock and The Caves of Androzani. There is something about the fifth doctor's era and the stories in that era that never really seem to stick out, that's probably because of the bland storytelling that we got in the seasons. Stories like Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, Time Flight, Arc of Infinity, Mawdryn Undead, Terminus, Enlightenment, Warriors of the Deep, Frontios and Planet of Fire are not very interesting as stories. So there is something about the fifth doctor era in which stories just tend to fad into the background a bit, that is due to the fact that people would rather watch stories like: Pyramids of Mars, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Daemons, Remembrance of the Daleks or The Aztecs to name a few examples, because they are so much more interesting as stories. It's a funny thing.
Anyway, Caves of Androzani is definitely not bland. It is truly a fantastic story for Peter Davison to go out on. When deciding on what story I was going to review as my favourite fifth doctor, I was really struggling with choosing between The Caves of Androzani and Earthshock. They're both fantastic, and I have good things to say about both of them; in the end I decided to go with Androzani down to Davison's performance alone is a stand out reason why this should be the best fifth doctor out of all of them. Especially considering what I was just saying about most of his stories being bland and uninteresting.
Brief Synopsis, The Doctor and new companion Peri arrive on Androzani Minor and get caught up in one poor ordeal after another. They both come across a line of explosives, get caught and taken to General Chellak who accuses the Doctor and Peri of spying and sentences them to death, to be shot in front of firing squad. However, the Doctor and Peri get taken hostage by Sharez Jek, who is a creepy, misunderstood, dark, deformed person who fancies Peri in a creepy way of just wanting to keep her it's a bit like Phantom of the Opera in a way if you make the comparison. Anyway what The Doctor and Peri didn't know was that they are both slowly dying from a disease called "Spetrox Toxcenia" and the only cure lies in the milk of a queen bat, which is very rare to find.
The Doctor and Peri manage to escape, only for them to get separated. The Doctor gets taken by a malicious character called Stotz who plans to take him back with him to Androzani Major. The Doctor takes control of the space ship and crash lands on to Androzani Minor. In a desperate attempt The Doctor keeps going because he knows he has to try and save his friend who he doesn't know very well. And basically sums up the story with a big climatic regeneration at the end of it. Into that you have the main villain of the piece which is Trau Morgus, who is horrible and would stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Sharez Jek sworn that he would get his revenge against Morgus, because its because of Morgus his face is deformed, and he has to wear a mask.
Talking about just Davison's performance is the reason alone why you should watch this story if have not seen it already. He gives a tremendously brave performance in how heroic he acts to save his friend, not a planet, or a species or a colony of people from a bunch of sontarans for example, just one, ordinary person who he has literally just met one story before, who he doesn't really know. That sums up the selflessness of his character for you, of putting others before himself, as well as that it's the struggle he goes through in order to save her, and you really root for the doctor to succeed, you're on his side one hundred per cent.
He starts off being normal Fifth Doctor but its the events that happen to him throughout that drive him forward to become this determined hero, and that's the doctor we like to see. There are elements of Tom Baker's character that show the doctor off as being quite a selfish character and in this story Peter Davison creates a complete contrast to that, which is great, he shows that actually the doctor can also think of others before himself. Poor Peter Davison gets bashed about, smacked, beaten, captured, shot at, and at one point is in peril of having his arms pulled off by androids. Its really dark stuff that happens, not to mention he was slowly dying from a very painful disease. There's a lot going on with Davison in this story, more so to any other activity he gets up to in stories before this one.
I thought the story as a story was quite dark and mellow. Written by one of the greatest writers, if not the greatest writer Doctor Who has ever had, Robert Holmes. Holmes was persuaded to come back to write for the series by Script Editor Eric Saward, who was very keen to get Holmes writing again, even if it was one story per season. John Nathan Turner, the producer however, was not keen on having Holmes back. He thought of him as 'an old fart coming back'. Speaking in the defence of Saward, I thought it was absolutely the right move to bring Holmes back. Holmes was brought back to write for "The Five Doctors" the 20th anniversary special, but the task became too hard on him and he dropped out, but Saward was still keen to use him, so with the adamant agreement from John Nathan Turner, he was commissioned to write one story for season 21 of Doctor Who which was this story "The Caves of Androzani".
I thought the soundtrack added so much to the atmosphere of the mood of the story. It makes it quite a dark story and the soundtrack reflected that, as well as the sets as well. The set designs were brilliant. No brightly lighted sets in most places, everything was very dark and light was contained in small areas. The only brightly lit set was Morgus's office on Adrozani Major. Everything else seemed very bleak and colourless which again added to the dryness of the story.
Greame Harper was asked to direct this story and with such a raw, rich, well written script there was so much creativity and intuitive intensive ideas that could be generated throughout, which was excellent. Harper is one of my favourite Doctor Who directors, and I didn't know that he had directed for Doctor Who before and was brought back by Russell T Davies. I think Harper is a good director because he seems to have that sense of understanding that other doctor who directors don't have, Harper has worked on the show before and has watched other directors work and so has gained an understanding of how directing should or could be done. He then takes that knowledge and adds his own ideas into that, that's why I think he is good. He has the knowledge and understanding in order to do a good job, and he executes this story very well and delivers Holmes's script to near perfection.
Sharez Jek is a wonderfully, bitter and dark character, played by a confident Christopher Gable. It would be interesting to mention that David Bowie was asked to be considered for this part, but due to other commitments with his music he couldn't do it, and as much as I love Gable's portrayal, I think Bowie would have delivered a tremendous performance in that part which we can only imagine how amazing that would have been.
The monster in the caves is a bit of a let down, I think that monster is one of the worst monsters in the history of Doctor Who. Just the way it looks, the way it moves, it doesn't come across to be as neither threatening or scary. It's just there. But it's not on screen that much, so it doesn't present too greater a problem of my enjoyment of the story, but it is however a highlighted noticeable issue.
The cliffhanger at the end of Part Three of this story sticks out as being one of, if not the best cliffhanger in Doctor Who's history. Where you have an increasingly desperate Peter Davison deciding to crash land on to a planet, and there's a moment where you see parts of the regeneration coming through and the doctor shakes it off. Because he's thinking, I have got to save my friend. I do not care how I do it, I just have to do it for Peri. It's quite a bold and heroic act for the doctor to do, he's showing a side to his character which we have never seen before up until this point. It's a point in the story where anything could happen, and I genuinely thought when I first watched it that they could start Part Four with him changing into Colin Baker.
The actual regeneration itself goes a bit mental because you have so much build up to this incredible impact of a change of the actor at the end of it. You see Tegan, Turlough, Nysa, Adric and Kamelion pleading with The Doctor not to die and then you have The Master screaming "Die Doctor! Die Doctor!" and you get a massive, build up and then BANG! Colin Baker sits up and becomes the complete and utter centre of attention in three lines, not to mention his face appearing at the end of the credits. I feel that took away from Peter's excellent performance in that episode, and it made it out to look like Colin was the centre of attention after Peter was so good. I felt that was disappointing and that it should have been Peter's face in the credits and not Colin's. As well as that Nicola Bryant's cleavage did also rob Peter of a brave send off, which was a shame. That's probably the only dodgy camera angle in the whole story, where I question "Why did they do it like that?" other than that I thought the regeneration was very good.
Costumes are by the by, you think of them what you think of them. It was 1984 and they tried to push the boat out and be creative with their costumes in looking as further into the future as possible. The one costume that stands out to be is Morgus's receptionist, who by the way is brilliantly portrayed by Barbra Kinghorn as the 'sly dog' of the story. Her look just says everything.
So rounding this all up. Androzani is a brilliant story with the best performance from Peter Davison. It's story which has a lot of thought and effort put into it, and most of the time it works, with a few faults.
NEXT WEEK : Vengeance on Varos.
