We have one of Doctor Who’s ultimate high points with City of Death, often being near the top of many official best episodes rankings for the show but mostly due to this story holding the highest viewing figures in Doctor Who history with part four drawing over 16 million viewers. A feat that not even the 50th anniversary special achieved! Of course, part of the reason why was down to the fact that at the time there were only three channels and one of which was on strike. Plus, there were no video or repeats back then so tuning in was essential for fans. But even with all the technical reasons, City of Death is well deserving of its place in Doctor Who history as it’s Douglas Adams style sci-fi comedy at its best!

Another notable accolade for City of Death is being the first story filmed outside of the UK, taking place in Paris and it made for some great location filming as the Doctor and his Time Lady companion Romana work alongside a bumbling private eye to solve the mystery behind Count Scarlioni as to how he plans to steal the Mona Lisa, why it ties in to his experiments with time travel and why if he succeeds it could lead to the erasure of the entire human race.

The script for this is just a perfect mix of clever sci-fi and witty humour that only Douglas Adams can pull off. He briefly worked as script editor for the show between his work on Monty Python and writing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He was a much welcome addition to the Graham Williams era and helped bring that balance of light-hearted humour after such a clunky tonal shift from the Hinchcliffe era when Graham Williams initially took over as showrunner.

The guest cast is one of the show’s finest, with a quick but funny cameo from John Cleese and a fantastic performance by Julian Glover as the villain. You’re probably more familiar with him as Maester Pycelle from Game of Thrones but previously Glover had appeared in the First Doctor episode The Crusades as King Richard the Lionheart and in a bizarre coincidence would later play the villain of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

This story is one of the most enjoyable episodes you’ll find in the classic show and a huge factor in that is the incredible chemistry between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, Paris is often known as the city of love and in this case that couldn’t be a truer statement as the two began to blossom a relationship that would go one to be the only marriage between a Doctor and companion actors, albeit a very short-lived marriage. Baker himself gives one of his finest performances as the Doctor as he’s bursting with energy and charisma with some great one-liners.

If you’re new to Classic Who and are looking for a fun story to ease yourself in, I can’t think of a better starting point recommendation than this.

📝9.8/10 → FAVOURITE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

THIRD IMPRESSIONS: “CITY OF DEATH”

David Agnew (script editor Douglas Adams and Graham Williams under pseudonym) brings us the very first Doctor Who story shot on location outside the UK (Paris, France). It marked the highest average viewing figures for the Tom Baker era (14.5 million) and is generally considered one of the better serials of Classic Who. It’s also the second time we meet Julian Glover on the show, this time in his more famous appearance as Count Scarlioni.

I’ve always loved the opening sequence, the camera that sweeps over a brown and orange alien world until it shows us Scaroth’s spaceship, stuck on the planet.

The change of location and the focus on location footage give City of Death an instant edge as it looks and feels fresh. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward have great chemistry, too, which makes them a joy to watch together. Of course, the cosy Parisian feel with its cafe visit is quickly hampered by an apparent crack in time, causing time loops.

It’s pretty weird how effectively Part 1 works despite hardly developing the plot at all—we mostly follow the Doctor and Romana as they go sightseeing and notice time anomalies, and Count Scarlioni doing strange temporal tests. The infinitely quotable and fun dialogue helps here.

The Part 1 cliffhanger reveal is very effective even when you know it’s coming. It’s one of those classic cliffhanger moments. Part 2 has the brilliant reveal of the multiple genuine Mona Lisas before ending with another shocker cliffhanger.

City of Death proves to be a great mix of the best aspects of Doctor Who: exotic locations, a unique and compelling mystery surrounding the Mona Lisa, time travel and temporal experiments, a trip to history, and an alien desperately trying to escape its fate. I love how the narrative is told across multiple points in time simultaneously and how the time periods cleverly blend into each other.

The only thing that I’m not very fond of is the suggestion that the explosion of Scaroth’s ship 400 million years ago created the radiation that led to the creation of humanity.

Baker is at his very best here, and his slow decline in the role is beginning to show after City of Death. Ward is given a great opportunity to develop her character’s quirky, intelligent, and youthful abilities further (she is still sidelined a bit until Part 4, though, even if her hanging around with Duggan is enjoyable to watch). Glover is, unexpectedly, superb in a scene-stealing performance that is both suave and menacing.

The guest cast is marvellous from beginning to end. Highlights include the overworked Professor Kerensky (frequent Dalek voice actor David Graham, who previously popped up as the bartender in The Gunfighters) and Detective Duggan (Tom Chadbon), happily clubbing down anyone he deems a threat and one of the best companions who never were. Julian Glover is one of those guest actors who is superb every time he’s on the show. He’s very different from King Richard from The Crusade, but just as compelling.

This one has one of those unforgettable and fun incidental music scores.

The John Cleese cameo in Part 4, where he plays an art critic reviewing the TARDIS, is my all-time favourite cameo in Doctor Who.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• Romana mentions the Braxiatel Collection, which will play a pivotal role later on in the extended universe, especially the Bernice Summerfield stories.
• The Part 3 cliffhanger, which sees poor Kerensky rapidly aged to death, brings to mind the Time Disruptor from The Daleks’ Master Plan or the TOMTIT machine from The Time Monster.

This serial is a classic and for good reason. It's very witty and funny with solid direction and some lovely location shoots. The music is also really nice. The plot is engaging as well. There's a bit of nice commentary that resonates nicely with the current AI art discourse that I felt was very nice, even if not intentional.

This is a genuinely delightful serial. I seem to enjoy the Classic episodes set on contemporary Earth nore than any others, and this is no different.

It starts off slow, but is by no means uninteresting. I love that this show can take a moment to relax and show the characters simply enjoying their time here. The shots of Paris are lively and the music is fantastically atmospheric.

The side characters are very fun; the Countess steals every scene she's in, and Duggan, while fairly one-note and not particularly interesting, is never overused to the point of being annoying and makes for a funny Chekhov's gun. Even the one-off side characters are fantastic; the artist sketching Romana, the museum tour guide, the art critics appreciating the blue box, all serve to liven up the story and make this world feel real in a way very few Doctor Who worlds do - even the contemporary ones.

The story itself is interesting and fun without being overly complicated. Heists are a classic, and I love seeing Doctor Who tackle that.

Amazing, simply amazing. Easily lives up to the hype. City of Death was great and holds up really well. This is a great example of production really taking advantage of their location and embracing the setting fully within the story. Paris doesn't feel the slightly bit wasted and instead the episodes feel like the pretty much have to take place there - it wouldn't have the same impact or make as much sense given the art theft focus of the plot if it wasn't filmed here.

The villains were memorable and Duggan was great, even if the latter could get a little over the top. But everyone is going pretty big here, to be fair. At least it is intentionally funny. The da Vinci bits were funny and felt like the exact sort of thing they would do for a gag in the modern age, though the execution of the ending was a little clumsy.

Still, it is so strong. This is easily the best episode I've encountered with Romana (and quite possibly nothing will top it either, if the ratings are any indication). She is so well used here. That scene where she calculates the dimensions of the room they are in and realized there must be a hidden wall is a perfect expression about what makes her unique as a companion. This makes City of Death a must-see episode almost all on its own, but City of Death is full of great character moments like that. You can really feel the influence of Douglas Adams here. It left quite an impression on me.