Doctor Who:
The Caves of Androzani
By Robert Holmes
STOTZ: All right, snoop.
Hands in the air and over here.
DOCTOR: Why?
STOTZ: Because I'll kill
you if you don't.
DOCTOR: Not a very
persuasive argument actually, Stotz, because I'm going to die soon anyway.
Unless, of course
STOTZ: I'll give you to a
count of three.
DOCTOR: Unless, of course,
I can find the antidote. I owe it to my friend to try because I got her into
this. So you see, I'm not going to let you stop me now!
The Doctor and Peri arrive
on Androzani Minor which is the twin planet of Androzani Major but it is also
not colonized due to the fact of its constant mud bursts when its orbit takes
it close to Major. While exploring in
the caves, which The Doctor proclaimed them to be actually blow holes for the
mud, Peri seems to fall into a nest that is sticky and causes stinging on
contact. The Doctor thinks it is
harmless as he helps Peri to take the stuff off her legs. Unknown to the two travelers they have come
in contact with a spectrox web and they have now been infected with spectrox
toxameia in which there is only one cure.
It appears that The Doctor
and Peri have stumbled into a private war between the conglomerate run by Trau
Morgus and Sharez Jek. The two guys hate
each other and Morgus wants control of Spectrox a drug that the rich on Major
use to slow down the aging process and Sharez Jek has the Spectrox and isn’t
going to give it up willingly. The
Doctor and Peri get caught by the army and are accused of being weapons
dealers. After pleading their case
Morgus orders General Chellak to execute them even though it is looking more
likely that they are innocent. Sharez
Jek is watching what is going on and replaces The Doctor and Peri with android
which Chellack executes instead of The Doctor and Peri.
The Doctor soon finds out
that they are just as much prisoners with Sharez Jek as they were with the
army. Sharez Jek is infatuated with Peri
and wants to keep her forever for her
beauty and keep The Doctor around for intelligent conversation. The pair soon realize that Sharez Jek is
crazy and need to find a way out and back to the TARDIS. That is the least of their problems as the
real Salateen is delighted to tell them that they are dying. He tells them that they are in the first
stage of spectrox toxaemia and that there is little time for them. The Doctor wants to know if there is a cure
and Salateen tells them there is one but they won’t be able to get it as they
need the milk from a queen bat and they have gone to the levels below to
die. The problem there is those caverns
do not have any air so getting down there will be really difficult.
The Doctor is determined
to save Peri and get them out of this situation. It even means letting the two sides kill each
other as he makes an attempt to get the milk from the queen bat so Peri might
live. This noble act will ultimately
cost The Doctor his Fifth incarnation as there was only enough milk to save
Peri while he yet again regenerates.
The Caves of Androzani has
been hailed by many Doctor Who fans and experts alike as being the best Doctor
Who story of all time. I tend to agree
with them. If The Caves of Androzani isn’t
your number one it clearly must be in your top five as this story was something
that was completely different and never done before in Doctor Who. The thing that makes this story so different
is the way Graeme Harper approached this story in his directorial debut. He used a wide range of camera movements to tell
the story and most notably when Morgus would break the fourth wall and reveal
his thoughts to the audience. That was
pretty cool and freaky at the same time and something that was never done
before in Doctor Who.
The Caves of Androzani is
one of the best written stories in Doctor Who’s history and has some the best
dialog ever. You have some really good
sarcastic moments from The Doctor and it was delivered so expertly by Peter
Davison. Robert Holmes delivers his
best story ever and The Caves of Androzani cements his place in history as the
best Doctor Who writer ever. The story
is so strong with a lot of violence and shows a more gritty side to the show. The Caves of Androzani shows The Doctor sacrificing himself for the life of one
person something we always knew The Doctor would do and we see what lengths he
would go to save Peri which we haven't really seen yet in the show..
Robert Holmes borrows from
a lot of different beauty and the beast type of stories but none more than The
Phantom of the Opera. You have the
disfigured Sharez Jek wearing a mask to hide his injured face from everyone
just like The Phantom. Plus you have his
obsession with Peri who is obviously the Christine character and in fact it is
his love for her that leads to his downfall as he turns on his machines to cool
down his lair to help Peri fight off the Spectrox poisoning. Doctor
Who is at its best when it pays homage to old stories like that and Robert
Holmes has been pretty good at combining them into Doctor Who either as writer
or script editor and yet again with Caves of Androzani it works yet again.
If you haven’t guessed it
yet The Caves of Androzani is Peter Davison’s last story as The Fifth
Doctor. He puts in a great performance
for his last dance and that makes the story all that more special as he gives
the fans one more stellar performance to remember him by and to give his
character a sendoff he deserves. The
performance is top rate and you can see in this story how brilliant the Fifth
Doctor was and how noble and vulnerable but had that fight in him likr his predecessors. The Caves of Androzani is the best send off a
Doctor ever had and it is the best regeneration stories of all time.
The Caves of Androzani is
one of my favorite Doctor Who stories of all time and it is just a great story
that still stands the test of time. It
is a story that you can look back and see what happens when they do Doctor Who
right. The classic series has always
been joked about for its production values and how cheap everything looks and
how the stories are not sexy enough for the newer fans but if you watch this
story you see everything that was right with the classic series and when the
stars are aligned sometimes they come up and make something special and this
story is it.
Grade A +
No comments:
Post a Comment