Nightmare of Eden

📝6/10 = ACCEPTABLE!

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

SECOND IMPRESSIONS: “NIGHTMARE OF EDEN”

Taking a clear stance against drugs and drug use (who said Doctor Who wasn’t political in the 1970s?), the fourth serial of Season 17 proved to be another production nightmare. The cast and crew disagreed with the director, Alan Bromly, to such an extent that he left midway through production, leaving producer Graham Williams in charge of finishing it. This was, in turn, what made Williams (and script editor Douglas Adams) decide to leave the show at the end of the season, handing over the reins to his successor (and the last producer of Classic Who), John Nahan-Turner.

Nightmare of Eden is also known for being the only serial written by Bristol boy Bob Baker without his usual writing pal Dave Martin. Is his decision to go solo better or worse for this spaceship-set, anti-drug sci-fi adventure?

Part 1 throws us into the deep end right away, as the TARDIS arrives on a spaceship in the middle of an emergency, with the Doctor and Romana bursting onto the scene and putting their clever heads together to solve the situation. They soon uncover a drug smuggling plot, several murders, and an animal conservation project, all related to each other.

After the initial premises of the plot have been laid out, there is little more to the story until the end. Things roll along at a leisurely pace, and there are occasional moments of light tension or silly action, but mostly endless scenes of people talking to each other or lurking behind corners.

Part 3 changes things up a little by moving part of the action to Eden, where the Doctor and Romana hide from the authorities chasing after them. But things settle back to a spaceship runaround later in Part 3 and throughout Part 4.

The Part 1 cliffhanger reveal is a traditional monster reveal, but a pretty effective one.

Pretty much all of the story plays out in corridors, control rooms, and other spaces of the spaceship, and we meet the various members of the dysfunctional crew, making Nightmare of Eden feel like an episode of Star Trek (though significantly less populated). The obvious drug themes of the plot only strengthen this feeling.

There’s a comical feel to a lot of this as well, which is to be expected (such as the chase sequence back and forth through several rooms in Part 2).

The mystery surrounding the identity of the drug smugglers never sits at the forefront of the plot, and Part 4 casually reveals it to be the two most obvious candidates.

Lalla Ward is closer to her earlier Season 17 self here than the shaky character she was in The Creature from the Pit. She also takes an active role in the adventure, which is always welcome. K9 is also put to good use yet again.

Here we meet yet another slightly off-beat and colourful professor-type character (in the style of Maxtible from Evil of the Daleks or Marius from The Invisible Enemy): Tryst the xenozoologist, played in a tongue-in-cheek manner by an increasingly annoying Lewis Flander.

David Daker plays an unusually capable spaceship captain. He’s not a brash bully or know-it-all as most of them are, but once he falls for the drug, he turns into a complete nutjob and plays it very well. It’s hard to believe that he previously appeared as Irongron in The Time Warrior.

I quite like the basic design of the Mandrels, but they remain underused and never manage to become more than generic Doctor Who monsters.

The two police characters, Fisk and Costa, are quite nice additions; they end up being more enjoyable villains than the Mandrels. Costa is played by Peter Craze, the younger brother of former companion actor Michael Craze, and he previously appeared way back in The Space Museum.

The spaceship set is varied but not very interesting, and the incidental music is good here and there. The editing and cinematography of the scenes in the unstable area are wonderfully trippy. The jungle design of Eden is a major step down from the previous serial, though, and the fact that everything is so dark definitely doesn’t help matters.

Nightmare of Eden is built around important themes, and the performances mostly work well, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of being an interesting or memorable Doctor Who adventure.

A pretty standard story with a pretty standard plot. The alien zoo concept has already been done a few season earlier, and the drug plot didn't add much in my opinion. The twist was set up well and made for a predictable reveal - which is a good thing! - but I doubt I'll remember this serial in a few hours.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The English Way of Death (Audio Adaptation)

This is a surprisingly politically charged episode, dealing with a very strong and unsubtle anti-drugs message. For a late 70s family show this story deals with some serious topics, at one point one of the characters states how he was tempted to "blow his brains out" after being stranded alone on a planet for 183 days.

None of that, in my opinion, detracts from a fun little story with a great supporting cast and a brilliant story. The twist of Tryst and Dymond being the drug smugglers was fairly predictable, but I think it was rather good.

This serial is somewhat of a hidden gem it seems like, I haven't really seen it get much attention, it seems people are quite indifferent to this story which is a shame because this is a solid story with fun dialogue that's performed exceptionally by the cast.

“Of course we should interfere. Always do what you’re best at, that’s what I say.”

Next Story: The Beautiful People

We are just about still in the 1970s in terms of when this was recorded and transmitted but it is starting to feel very 80s. Bob Baker, sadly in a solo capacity for the first time, is doing a tremendous job of delivering us something new - daring to take on drugs as a topic on a tea time show with a relatively young audience is daring. A drug that makes people disinterested before ultimately leading to their death.

As it’s a Bob Baker script, there is a typically psychedelic edge to the way this is shot. K9’s voice has been tweaked and sounds a little more “traditional” in this one. More helpings of natural comedy and a fresh, loose feel to the production. Parts three and four unfortunately devolve into a runaround and the black capped baddie is about as bog standard as it gets but I do like the twist of the Dutch scientist Trist being revealed as the actual drug smuggler.