| CASTROVALVA by Christopher H Bidmead |
| Story 116 Synopsis: The Doctor has regenerated, but the local ambulance crew want to take him to a hospital. Worse, Adric gets nobbled by the Master. Tegan and Nyssa effect a daring and clumsy rescue to get the Doctor to the TARDIS, and Adric is returned to them too. He gets the TARDIS off Earth, setting co-ordinates for a destination. The Doctor goes AWOL, and eventually finds the Zero Room, which will help him pull himself together. Adric is in fact the Master's prisoner, and the Doctor's TARDIS is heading back in time to Event 1, the Big Bang. The Doctor has a small recovery, jettisons 25% of the TARDIS to create mass to shunt the TARDIS in the right direction. Unfortunately, the Zero Room is gone. The TARDIS goes to Castrovalva, where the Doctor can recuperate. Cannibalising the Zero Room doors, the Doctor and Nyssa create the Zero Cabinet, so the Doctor can travel to the city of Castrovalva. Anyway, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa arrive in Castrovalva, and meet the Portreeve, Shardovan, Mergrave, Ruther and others. The Doctor seems troubled. Nyssa gets a visitation from Adric that there is still trouble. The Zero Cabinet is pinched, and the Doctor begins to struggle. He cottons on that Castrovalva is a big Trap. He learns from Shardovan that Castrovalva is a fiction, and the Portreeve is none other than the Master, still trying to kill the Doctor. But the Doctor rescues Adric, whose maths was helping generate Castrovalva, and they, along with Nyssa and Tegan flee the city, but the Master appears to become trapped. The Doctor feels back to normal anyway. |
| Review:- The story is good fun, all the acting is neat, there is much of beauty, and the time passes nicely. The only downside is that too much of it is silly. If you agree that this is the conclusion of the 'Return of the Master' trilogy, then you have to wonder whether the journey was better than the destination. What this story boils down to is the Master having another 2 goes at killing the Doctor, having just knocked him off Jodrell Bank. (yes, I know that's not the fictional name, but I owe it to the memory of a friend I haven't seen in years to refer to it like this - end of lecture). Both methods are ingenious, but you have to ask yourself why the Master has gone to all this trouble. Why not just shoot the Doctor? I can suppose that the Master must have been imprisoned at some point, and thought to himself of ways to get vengeance on the Doctor. Over the course of time, he has become mad with rage, and is now too single-minded to think of a better way to deal with things. Well, it's one theory. I want to mention one scene I love, mainly because it has a lovely end, and doesn't seem to get quoted in reference books. In part 4, the Doctor tries to get the Castrovalvan locals to cope with the recursive occlusion, pointing out that each 1 shop cannot be in 4 places at once. As the Doctor concludes his sermon, he tries a drink, and diagnoses its constituent parts. Mergrave, I think it is, comments that amongst his other wisdoms, the Doctor is a man of science. The Doctor replies, "but one of us is sorely deluded about Geography", or whatever it is. I find this such a smashing end to the scene, letting the world-shattering news sink in with a bit of humour to soften the blow. This story is very entertaining. I like it a lot. |
| Disclaimer: I've seen the video, and read the book. |