📝5/10

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

THE HORNS OF NIMON, or A BULL TO THE EYE!

Season 17 officially concludes with the final Doctor Who serial of the 1970s (and the first of the 1980s!). It's written by Anthony Read in his first and only solo script for the show, having previously co-written Invasion of Time in Season 15.

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Ahhh, pirates! Doctor Who has a rocky history with the lot; look at The Space Pirates or Curse of the Black Spot. This story takes a bunch of spacefaring human traffickers and throws them into a Doctor Who take on the classic Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

• The “You meddling fool! You shall die!” cliffhanger of Part 3 is funny. Bad, but funny.

• Soldeed’s final moments in Part 4 (including the classic “My dreams of conquest!” line) are another example of a sequence so bad it’s good.

• Romana continues to prove her worth by actually crafting her own sonic screwdriver and fiercely opposing the idiots around her. Good girl! Plus points for that fancy red coat!

• Malcolm Terris provides the most enjoyable guest performance as the wonderfully eager and comically evil Co-Pilot.

• So the Nimon are an interesting concept on paper, but their effectiveness is reduced by their shoddy realisation. They have worked much better in their EU appearances.

THE LOWLIGHTS:

• The mix of sci-concepts with old legends brings to mind Underworld—and that’s not a flattering comparison to make!

• Even the cliffhangers feel like parodies of the most barebones Doctor Who cliffhangers!

• Something’s off with both Tom Baker and Lalla Ward here. Both of them come across as disinterested and a bit tired.

• This is the final time we hear David Brierley as the voice of K9—thank goodness for that! I miss the jolly charm of John Leeson, who’s back for Season 18! The robot dog itself goes back to being barely utilised in the narrative.

• Soldeed is another villain on the level of Zaroff from The Underwater Menace or Victor Kennedy from Love & Monsters; bombastic, ridiculous, and so badly performed that the character turns enjoyable. Graham Crowden goes all in on the performance: he happily chews the scenery and steals the spotlight multiple times, even from Baker himself. This should be commended.

• The bunch of Antheans destined to become Nimon food are completely forgettable characters who spend way too much time following Romana anywhere but don't actually get anything interesting to do.

• This story has one of those ugly, grey, lifeless set designs that I’m not particularly fond of. Add to that the bizarre costume design of the supporting characters and the laughably bad monster costumes on the Nimon actors, and you have a production disaster.

• The comedy bits don’t sit well at all—the scene where the Doctor performs mouth-to-mouth on K9 (a moment ad-libbed by Baker) is mostly just awkward. Then there’s the weird cartoon sound effect in one scene inside the TARDIS in Part 2. A lot of this serial could be described as campy, and not in a good way!

• The Horns of Nimon suffers from a lack of tension and an empty and boring narrative—coming from the weak characters and the shoddy production. The weakness of the script and performances goes to show that there was very little faith in this serial, and this has been confirmed by producer Graham Williams as well.

• There is a bit more action in Part 4, but by that time I have lost most of my interest, so it doesn’t help to improve the overall experience.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• The Antheans sleeping inside pods in the ship bring to mind the sleeping Cybermen in Tomb of the Cybermen.

• This is a story of lasts—the last story where Tom Baker wears his original outfit and hands out jelly babies; the last story produced by Graham Williams; the last story using the classic diamond logo and the tunnel-style opening title sequence as well as the Delia Derbyshire theme tune; and the last story script edited by Douglas Adams and composed by Dudley Simpson.

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

Previous Story: The Beautiful People

Well this one was silly, even by Classic Who standards, this was silly. Granted, it was quite fun, especially the dialogue. The story was ok, and the first 3 parts were quite solid. In my opinion though it sort of fizzled out towards the end. It's a story that takes a lot of inspiration from Theseus and the Minotaur, even the names of the characters and planets are anagrams places and characters from the Greek myth. In a very polarising season, this manages to be right in the middle.

This is technically the finale to Season 17, and it also marks the end of an era, as Doctor Who moves from the 70s and into the 80s. However, thanks to the extended timeline and the reconstruction of Shada, I won't be giving my thoughts on the season as a whole just yet.

Next Story: The Pyralis Effect

The realistic baddie, the foolish, selfish co-pilot displays the worst in humanity in a believable, relatable way. I love how he leads the drama into the central plot, the prisoners being taken to be sacrificed to a God on another world and a selfish, imperialistic race in awe and frightened of that God who ultimately kills the foolish man. The prisoners, initially barely focused on, give the sequence where the spaceship “crashes” some much needed drama. A superb way to kick off a story.

This might make the story sound very serious - it's not. There is a lot of humour packed into these four episodes. K-9 twisting his neck is particularly hilarious! Lalla and Tom have never been better together. It is great to see Romana given some independence and take charge of the situation on the ship once The Doctor gets stranded. In part four when she verbally takes down the lead human villain she is in fiery form with her superb acting, proving she could easily have taken the lead role in the show herself.

The costume, movement and voice of the Nimons leave a lot to be desired. They are certainly not as well realised as the costumes and props that surround them. It's a shame they didn’t get a killer look for the intelligent beasts, but it's a small quibble which is outshined by the wonderful script, far better than Anthony Read’s previous effort. Concepts like the ever-changing high tech maze walls put a sci-fi spin on these classic themes.

Parts one and two feel particularly strong with it slightly losing its way the further you get through it, especially when it descends into a shoot out. But endings are always trickier than beginnings.

Talking of endings, that marks the final (complete) story from the Graham Williams era. After a dodgy first season I felt the through line of the key to time, then the comedy of season 17 lifted William's performance. It was a good era but one that pales in comparison to what came before it. With Hinchcliffe and Williams' eras considered together, the fourth Doctor's time so far is about as satisfying as the third's.