| CITY OF DEATH by David Agnew |
| Story 105 Synopsis: The Randomiser brings the Doctor and Romana to Paris, 1979, where they decide to do some sightseeing. But they experience time disturbanes, and come across a plot to steal the Mona Lisa. They team up with an English detective, Duggan, who thinks the blame lies with Count Scarlioni, a mysterious person responsible for rare artifacts turning up for sale around the world. Scarlioni has them brought to his home for interrogation, and then locks them in the basement, where the Doctor finds 6 copies of the Mona Lisa in a room walled up for centuries. Duggan says there are 7 dealers who would pay for the Mona Lisa - a major source of finance. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to visit Leonardo in 1505, but becomes a prisoner of Captain Tancredi, the double of Scarlioni. He explains that he is the last of the Jagaroth, splintered throughout human history. During a communication with his other selves, he becomes distracted, and the Doctor slips back to 1979. Romana and Duggan find the Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre, and decide to investigate Scarlioni's chateau. There, they are soon captured, and Scarlioni offers them a demonstration - the death of the scientist he had been using in his temporal experiments. Romana helps create the missing part of his machine, and the Doctor arrives too late to inform her that Scaroth will now be able to return 400 million years to the spaceship explosion that splintered him, and helped kick start life on Earth. Using the TARDIS, they follow Scaroth back to the past. The Doctor fails to talk him out of his mission, so Duggan punches him. Unconscious, he returns to 1979, where he dies in the explosion of his time machine. To replace the missing Mona Lisa, they have to substitute one of the fakes. |
| Review:- Some people think very highly indeed of this story. I have long been sceptical of this, believing that rose-tinted spectacles are seeing Douglas Adams, Paris and John Cleese as signifiers of some cosmic magnificence. Surely it can't be perfect? Well, having given it another chance, I feel I can say it is pretty good, but I can't mistake wit for genius. Simplistically, a stranded alien manipulating time to produce mulitple rare artefacts to raise money is a damn clever idea. Unfortunately, the trappings on top of this are what detract from it. It helps that the first overseas location trip is to Paris - a beautiful and recognisable backdrop to many scenes, and famous enough for almost anyone to identify it. We see the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, the Seine... it's well worth whatever it cost in that sense. Sadly, this also points up the fact that many scenes are just the cast running along Parisian streets, in what is not so much a drama, more a travelogue. Bizarrely, despite all this action, and flitting around, the staging seems very theatrical (albeit a theatre with more than one stage). This becomes most daft toward the end of part 1, where the action cuts between the Count & Countess at his chateau, and the Doctor and friends in a cafe. Such is the cutting, the goons seem to move from one location to another as if they were next to each other (which they aren't). I'm not so concerned by more popular mistakes (i.e. how has the Countess been fooled for so long by the Count's disguise? How much of him is a disguise? How does the disguise work? Why is the Doctor over-riding the Randomiser just to flit about a bit?) I don't think the presence of Cleese and Eleanor Bron add anything, but I don't suppose they detract from things too much. Kerensky is a bumbling twit, and it's a wonder such a profoundly brilliant scientist should be so naive of the Count's intentions. Duggan gets most of the funny material. On the whole, I would recommend this story, as it packs an interesting plot, and some fun dialogue. But beware of the travel scenes. |
| Disclaimer: I've seen the video. |