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Plot:
1903 America; the Doctor and fam are investigating alien energy emanations, as they always seem to be doing, and bump into Nikola Tesla who is being attacked by some scorpion-like alien scavengers, the Skithra. Escaping to New York by train, pursued by the aliens, they investigate Tesla's former employer Thomas Edison's factory as it looks like his men might be part of it, but they're not (it's just the aliens in disguise). The Skithra queen wants to scavenge Tesla to be their engineer as he's been clever enough to pick up their signals from space, and send a signal back. The Doctor manages to get Tesla back after he's briefly transported to the alien spaceship. The fam, Edison and Tesla's assistant Dorthy Skerritt work to keep the people of New York safe, and protect the Doctor and Tesla as they rewire Tesla's Wardenclyffe tower to turn it into a giant energy weapon. The tower zaps the spaceship and kills the queen, which in turn kills all the other Skithra. Edison offers Tesla a job again, but Tesla turns him down and continues with his rather tragic but ultimately influential life.
Context:
I did say last time that I'd try to engage the family in watching Doctor Who again if a story came up with lots of explosions and action. I didn't have to wait too long as Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror was the next random selection, and it fit the bill. Having watched it again, it doesn't have lots of explosions, etc. but those which it does have are judiciously sprinkled throughout enough to keep the attention of most of the family. We watched on a Sunday afternoon, and everyone from the household were in attendance at the start (so, me, the Better Half, and three children - boys of 14 and 11, girl of 8). Right at the start, the eldest said "So, which one is Elon musk, then?" and not long after that the BH asked "Is that the doctor from ER?" about the actor playing Tesla. When I confirmed that it was indeed Goran Višnjić, she added "I used to fancy him back in the day". If you get the impression that they weren't 100% focussed on the story, you might be right; both of them bailed at around the half way point. The remaining three of us enjoyed the story enough to stay to the end. Middle child said that "the acting in colour Doctor Who stories is much better than in the black and white ones". So there.
First time round:
This most recent watch was only slightly over a year since the first time I saw Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, live on its debut broadcast on BBC1 on Sunday 19th January 2020. The whole family and I were sat in the living room as it went out. It was only a short while since the big revelations and shocks of the opening Spyfall two-parter (I'd published the blog post for that story earlier on that same Sunday). The following week would bring even bigger shocks and revelations in the next story, Fugitive of the Judoon. Falling between those two, it is doubly overshadowed. It's not even lovably naff in the same way as the other story in that valley between peaks, the previous week's Orphan 55 ("Benni!!!!!"). It just seemed competent and a bit forgettable. As such, I have forgotten anything else about that first watch. What I do know, though, is that I'd have gone to sleep that Sunday night, then got up the next morning, dropped the kids off at school, cycled to the office, and done a day's work. I probably had a run round the neighbouring park during lunch without wearing a mask or keeping a particular distance from anyone. Remembering Doctor Who always sparks off some nostalgia for bygone days; I never expected time to be so condensed by the pandemic that I'd be looking back so fondly at such a different world and life, after so little time.
Reaction:
Nikola Tesla is a very interesting figure from history. He inspired the founders of the electric car company (neither of whom were Elon Musk, incidentally) to use his name; his appearance, played by David Bowie, in the film The Prestige, is indelible in one's memory after watching the film, and it's not exactly a film that's empty of incident. As the audience is told in Night of Terror, he had so many ideas and inventions that shaped the world even to this day. He was not just unappreciated, but positively vilified in his own time, creating the dramatic injustice Aristotle in Poetics thought was so important to a story. Night of Terror also includes Thomas Edison for good measure; two historical celebrities for the price of one. So, why does the end product fall so flat? It's got perfectly good characters and scenarios, a new alien race shaped like giant scorpions, some chases and explosions, but ultimately - for this viewer at least - it didn't quite come together climactically by the end. Goran Višnjić's performance is perfectly fine, restrained but with a little gleam of madness - he's not David Bowie, of course, but that glittery lightbulb of a performance in an extended cameo would not necessarily have worked over a 45-minute adventure tale. Višnjić is a less mysterious Tesla, but more fallible, a more grounded human than Bowie's electric wizard.
The story lets us as viewers witness some of the history of Edison (portrayed with gruff efficiency by Robert Glenister) and Tesla, but neither of them change as part of proceedings either in themselves of in relationship to one another. There's some vindication of Tesla, but no sign that it affects him. It's also a very localised and private vindication; in public, and in the story's finest moment for me, there is only damnation when Edison uses their fear of Tesla's inventions to galvanise the NY bystanders to clear the streets to safety. What should be Tesla's moment of triumph and heroism is just another dent in his reputation; it's a hell of a dramatic irony (Aristotle would no doubt approve). There's no sense at the end that this or any other part of his adventure defeating alien monsters has set him on a different path. It might be that the educational style of the historical productions in Jodie Whittaker's tenure means there's a bit too much reverence - or even hero worship - about its subjects. The Doctor and friends can't be seen to be influencing them in any way. That's correct for Rosa Parks' landmark actions, say, but interaction with Tesla and Edison could have been slightly more frivolous. A loosened up production could have had fun with the Doctor accidentally dropping a few hints to give these geniuses some ideas.
Everything else in the production is more than competent. The Skithra are realised well in both costume and CG forms, and former regular of The Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off Anjli Mohindra gives a good villainous performance as the Skithra queen. Doctor Who had never done Scorpion-people before, though some aspects of them were similar to the Racnoss spider creatures (from David Tennant Christmas special The Runaway Bride) to the point that many fans were speculating on a return based on a fraction of a second's glimpse in the trailer of Mohindra in close-up. Other performances are good too, the regulars all get something to do, though as ever there's not quite enough material for all four of them. The recreation of early twentieth century New York on the backlots of a Bulgarian studio, as well as in costumes, sets, make-up and hair, is faultless. There's some great monster moments, including a bit where Edison's entire staff is killed, which can't be historically accurate, and seems like something even he would find hard to talk his way out of, but never mind. There's a few nice lines of dialogue, with Graham's AC/DC joke being a stand-out. But the whole does not add up to the sum of these parts.
There's perhaps not quite enough incident in the script to fill up the running time. The early sections of dark creeping around with aliens in the shadows are effective. The appearance of the Doctor and fam in the midst of the action, with introductions happening at speed, also keeps up the pace. There's then some great action sequences fighting off the aliens on the train, followed by a natural respite period where some more details of exposition are laid out once our heroic band make their way to New York. This possibly goes on for a beat or two too long, and the elastic tension of the plot starts to slacken a bit too much, but that's a quibble, as we're back to action soon with the disguised Skithra attacking. It's more in the latter sections that things run out of steam. We've had a first confrontation between Tesla (and Yaz) and the Skithra queen on board the Skithra spaceship, we know what's at stake, and we know the aliens are going to be blown up using Tesla's electricity harnessed by the Doctor. But it seems to take ages before the final confrontations and zapping come about, during which there's just too much tinkering and talking. There's a great diversionary chase scene with Edison and Yaz (again, lots for her to do this time) but it doesn't last long enough to keep the excitement levels up during this final section. It's probably the curse of 50 minute long episodes. With five or more minutes cut, this could very much have worked as a more old school Saturday night 45-minuter rattling along and blowing stuff up.
Connectivity:
Another story involving interaction with aliens in Earth history. Also, one of the disguised Skithra in Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, Bill Tallow (played by Robin Guiver) wears a long black coat / cape that looks a bit like a monk's robes, as seen in The Time Meddler.
Deeper Thoughts:
Repeats, repeats, repeats (part 2). In the first part of my potted history of Doctor Who repeats on terrestrial TV last post, I covered the regular reruns of recently broadcast shows that were shown when the main series was off the air, and one outing into BBC2 territory, The Five Faces of Doctor Who season in Autumn 1981. The following summer there was another repeat season, under the umbrella title of Doctor Who and the Monsters; this time only colour stories were used as it was broadcast on BBC1. Double length episodes were created by stitching two 25-minuters together for the Ice Warriors adventure (The Curse of Peladon) and the Cyberman story (Earthshock), and a heavily edited Genesis of the Daleks was presented as two 45-minute episodes to represent Skaro's finest. I completely missed any pre-publicity for this run and only found out about it afterwards from a school friend. Just under a decade later, the third and final curated BBC repeats season played out on BBC2 Friday nights from January 1992. The intention was to show one story from each of the seven TV Doctors to date. As mentioned last time, they started with The Time Meddler, followed by The Mind Robber and The Sea Devils; the first and last of these I taped to keep using my university friend Mike's VCR, as they hadn't come out to buy on VHS by then. There was then a six month gap before the season resumed. Another Jon Pertwee story was shown next, The Daemons, as it was newly colourised using a clever technique. There then followed Genesis of the Daleks (unedited this time, but already out on VHS), The Caves of Androzani (also out already on VHS), Revelation of the Daleks and Battlefield (which I still had home taped from its first broadcast in 1989).
My fandom had slipped a bit at this point (spring 1993), and I didn't even arrange for the taping of Revelation of the Daleks, which was the only one I didn't have already. I was in the second year of university by then, didn't have a VCR, and Mike lived in digs that were a twenty minute trek away for me. I wasn't enthused enough to do that walk every Friday night. Luckily, the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who came along a few months later to kindle my interest again. By then, in my third year of university, I shared a student house in college with a group of lads, and we all chipped in to hire a telly from Radio Rentals. Another house-mate - not Mike this time - contributed an old toploader VCR from home too. After many programmes shown to celebrate the anniversary towards the end of 1993, the beginning of 1994 saw another couple of stories shown: The Green Death (taped every week after missing the first episode as they didn't advertise anywhere that it was coming), and Pyramids of Mars (already had it on VHS as it had only recently come out in episodic form). I remember sitting in the communal living area watching them go out on Sunday lunchtimes, and enjoying them. They seemed to be just a couple of random stories, though, not intended to be the start of a focused season or long running set of repeats.
The last hurrah of classic Doctor Who repeats on BBC2 started in 1999. This was very ambitious indeed. No curated selection from history this, it was instead to be every story from Jon Pertwee's debut Spearhead from Space onwards shown weekly, early evening on a Tuesday. There was no chance to miss this either, as it was launched in a blaze of publicity. Fans like me at the time who knew that soon there would be problems to overcome (stories that didn't exist wholly in broadcast standard colour in the archives, for example) mused on what would happen a few stories in; but, we never got to find out. The ratings were disappointing, so they panicked after two stories and put on Genesis of the Daleks (again). The ratings got even worse, so the Doctor Who repeats were pulled altogether. Since then, there have been no further classic stories or episodes shown on BBC2. In the new millennium, BBC4 became the classic Doctors' home, and there were no longer any grand plans to do Doctor Who repeat seasons, and certainly no whole era repeat runs. Instead, Who stories or episodes shown were part of wider themed nights or seasons. This had happened a couple of times previously - the pilot version of An Unearthly Child shown as part of a 1991 BBC2 Lime Grove night, and a couple of other episodes were repeated as part of a Doctor Who night in 1999 - but it became much more common on BBC4. Amongst other contexts, Doctor Who episodes or stories were shown as part of celebrations of the year 1973, the London underground, archaeology, and science fiction. They were shown as tributes to cast and crew, and as part of the 50th anniversary Doctor Who programming. The final repeat to date on any BBC channel was in 2015.
Since then, and all the way up to date with recent stories like Nikola Tesla's Thingummy Doodah, things have come almost full circle, except now it's a Bizarro World version. Instead of new episodes being shown most of the year round, it's the repeats that are constantly available, day in day out, courtesy of streaming services like BBC iplayer or Britbox (and the short-lived BBC Store before that). Instead of a brief few weeks of repeats every year, it's a brief few weeks of new shows, which thereafter get added to the stream of old stuff and can be watched and re-watched as often as you like. A repeat showing now - even if it were on BBC1 primetime - can't ever hope to have the power and interest that it had once upon a time.
In Summary:
Not quite as inventive or electrifying as its subject.
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