Nightmare of Eden

Chapter The 217th, is silly but nonetheless somewhat addictive.

Plot:

Near the planet Azure c. 2116, two spaceships crash into each other; the first, a cruise ship called the Empress, was coming out of space warp in a semi-materialised state at the time, and now is stuck enmeshed with the other smaller ship, the Hecate. The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive on the Empress and find its Captain Rigg arguing with the one-man crew of the Hecate, Dymond, who is keen to be on his way. The Doctor has a plan that will separate the ships, but they need to reach the power unit of the Empress which is blocked by the Hecate cutting across the hull. There are also now aggressive creatures called Mandrels (not Mandrills, though that would have been just as silly) aboard. A zoologist Tryst is travelling on the Empress having finished a long expedition. He's collected specimens, flora and fauna from various planets stored in a prototype Continuous Event Transmuter (CET) machine - essentially an electronic zoo storing the materials on laser crystals. The crash has made the machine unstable, letting the Mandrels (collected from the planet Eden) escape and run amok. The Doctor finds evidence that someone on the Empress is taking a dangerous drug, Vraxoin. Captain Rigg's drink is spiked with some of the drug, and he acts strangely, eventually attacking Romana.

The instability allows the Doctor and Romana to jump into the CET projection of Eden, finding themselves on the small extracted section of the planet where they investigate. They find one of Tryst's expedition party Stott, who was thought lost; he's been collected up in the CET crystal and stuck in there until the crash. Stott is really an undercover agent investigating the Vraxoin smuggling. He shows the Time Lords that he's able to leave the projection at different exit points leading to different areas of the ship; this allows the Doctor and Romana to reach the power unit and instigate the ship separation plan. A Mandrel attacks but is electrocuted and dissolves into powder - the Mandrels themselves are the source of the drug! As the ships separate, the Doctor finds himself on the Hecate, and discovers equipment to receive signals from the CET machine. Tryst and Dymond are the smugglers - Tryst evaded security by storing the Mandrels in the CET, planning to broadcast them to Dymond. On the Empress, the Mandrels are rounded up and put back into the machine. Tryst performs the transfer, and Tryst and Dymond attempt to escape in the Hecate. But the Doctor uses the CET to scoop them up and imprison them. They are pulled out of the projection and arrested.

Context:

On the 20th December 2021, Online Pre-Order Santa bought me an early Christmas present, the Blu-ray box set of season 17, Tom Baker's sixth and penultimate run. This is the tenth release of the range; all the sets lined up on my shelf are now looking like a veritable collection, not just a random few boxes. This set for example plugs into a continuous run of three years and 80 upscaled episodes on Blu-ray that take Doctor Who from the 1970s into the 80s. It's all very exciting. Including the version of Shada completed with animation, I have previously blogged five out of the six stories on this set. To introduce something of a random factor, I flipped a coin. It came up heads, so I proceeded to watch the final remaining one, Nightmare of Eden, for this latest post; it was the story in the set to have new effects, so I watched that enhanced version. This now completes the fourth full season of Doctor Who I have covered bit by bit in random order for the blog over the years. The other three were season 8 (Jon Pertwee's second year), season 23 (Colin Baker's second year, The Trial of a Time Lord) and new series 13 (Flux). I watched the Blu-ray on twelfth night, the decorations all taken down, and a fire crackling away in the living room's hearth. That much was atmospheric, but it was slightly undermined by the Better Half, who was reading a book in the corner of the room and occasionally snarking about the quality of the acting.

A shelf, my house, recently

First Time Round:

I have mentioned this on a blog post before, but Nightmare of Eden is the first Doctor Who story I ever experienced in any way (and it was a very small way). When I was a youngster (this is early December 1979 when the story was first broadcast, so I would have been seven years old), the merest hint of the Doctor Who theme tune would terrify me and send me racing out of a room. As such, the first glimpse was inevitably going to be midway through an episode. My memory is that I looked through a crack in the door into my parents' bedroom, where they had a black and white portable TV, and it was showing a scene of a woman in a billowy dress and a tiny malevolent metal horse scooting about. I was just as scared by this as I was by the theme tune, and ran away again. The images were thereafter etched into my memory by the fear, and later I worked out from that and the rough timing that it was almost certainly a scene from Nightmare of Eden episode three, and the metal horse, K9. I later caught odd glimpses of Full Circle (spider attacking blonde lady's face), Warrior's Gate (Mat Irvine showing off a model explosion on Saturday morning kids' TV) and The Keeper of Traken (curly haired girl looking wistful in a garden) and was not scared by then, but still not interested. Finally, about two years after that first nightmare glimpse of Nightmare, I  watched a full episode and then a full story, and very rapidly I became a fan (more detail of how this came to pass is recounted in the Deeper Thoughts of the Carnival of Monsters blog post from a few years back).

It was many years before I got to see the rest of Nightmare of Eden. For a contract period starting in the summer of 1997, I got a cable package that included the channel UK Gold, and they at the time were showing omnibus editions of Doctor Who on Sunday mornings. I had a lot of the later Tom Baker episodes that were being shown already on VHS, but it did give me a chance to tape and keep a succession of the generally unloved, lower-half of poll positioned stories: The Invasion of Time, The Creature from the Pit, The Horns of Nimon, Nightmare of Eden, and Meglos. None of them were quite as bad as the reputation that preceded them, and Nightmare of Eden was my favourite of the bunch. Maybe the schedulers of the VHS range agreed on that last point, as it was the first of the five to be subsequently released on tape, less than 18 months later. So it was that in January 1999, I got to see the story in full with the beginning and end credits in place.   

Reaction:

The box set including Nightmare of Eden does a great deal to improve the reputation of season 17, perhaps one of the most unloved in Doctor Who's history (see Deeper Thoughts section below for more details of the set). The season did have a lot of issues stacked up against it, and it's worth listing them to give context: the budget was in real terms reportedly one of the lowest ever given to a run of Doctor Who; the main star of the show, though no doubt a genius in his own way, was becoming more and more difficult to work with; the new script editor, though no doubt a genius in his own way, was unqualified and not a good fit for the role; industrial action was a potential issue that could, ahem, strike at any time, and Doctor Who was still a difficult show to find sympathetic writers for, so scripts would often fall through or need major reworking at short notice. In order to make an impact across the year, producer Graham Williams put a bit more budget allocation into the Dalek opener, and a reasonable amount more into the foreign jaunt and Cambridge-based finale. This left the middle three episodes with less, Nightmare of Eden particularly: it has no location work, and the model effects are on video rather than film. The other two of those middle 'poor relation' stories have at least one input from a very talented individual to salvage a bit of pride; The Horns of Nimon has some fantastic costume design by the peerless June Hudson, The Creature from the Pit has good direction from seasoned pro Christopher Barry. Costume design and direction on Nightmare of Eden were not so lucky.

The Better Half's snark about the quality of the acting is maybe justifiable; there's a lot of shall we say 'large' performances; never large enough to reach, say, Graham Crowden's operatic silliness in The Horns of Nimon (Lewis Fiander comes closest with his outrageous comedy scientist accent) but sufficient to stand out in the wrong way. There are various moments where another take was needed (a character calling someone by the wrong name slips through, for example, and different members of the cast pronounce "Hecate" differently). Some of the cast are playing it relatively straight, but a good few are pitching it at the level of a children's comedy skit. I don't think the actors are to blame in this instance, though. I've always seen such inconsistency as a symptom of less than adequate direction; I may have been wrong about that on previous occasions, but there's a weight of evidence to confirm it to be the case here. The special features on the disc consistently speak of an unhappy production with members of cast and crew severely at odds with the director Alan Bromly (some of the crew had T-Shirts printed at the end of the shoot to commemorate surviving this particular Nightmare, that's how bad it got). Bromly wasn't around to give his side of the story (he passed away before Nightmare of Eden was even released on VHS) but its on record that he resigned midway through his work, leaving the producer to finish the taping and post production. He can't have been all that happy either.

Another infamous aspect of the production is the Mandrel costumes, but they aren't that bad at all (apart from a visible zip in some shots, they are a perfectly reasonable design), the issue is with how they are performed, lit and shot - there's one scene of a single Mandrel emerging from the mist where it looks perfect. Unfortunately, key sequences require the Mandrels to be on the over-lit spaceship corridor sets. All the other costumes are terrible no matter how one might light them: Romana is in a maternity dress, and every other outfit has been put together based on the principle that futuristic = glitter and sequins. The Eden jungle sets are okay, better than the drab spaceship sets. There are occasionally some nice trippy visuals as characters move around in the unstable areas of the ships, and the effects sequence of the Mandrel dissolving into powder is nicely done. Visually it's not a complete failure, but it is one of the worst looking stories of the period (and that's saying something, as failures of production design were more common during Graham Williams's tenure, alas).   

 

Underneath this gaudy upper layer, though, is a very solid script. As with every story in the season, it's full of great ideas and comic lines ("Of course we should interfere, always do what you're best at", "I don't work for anyone, I'm just having fun", "Just in the same way a jam maker conserves raspberries", etc. etc.). Unfortunately, like most of the stories, the execution leaves something to be desired. The quality of the ideas is unsurprising given that the author is recently departed and already much missed Bob Baker and the script editor is the long departed and still much missed Douglas Adams. Baker's previous scripts for Doctor Who with writing partner Dave Martin, and Douglas Adams' work for the show and elsewhere, were ever brimming with big concepts; here, there's the two ships being stuck, crashed neatly into one another because of  hyperspace materialisation - a clever extrapolation from a popular sci-fi concept of the time; the CET machine, a miniaturised digital zoo; and, a race of creatures that turn into narcotics when they are electrocuted. Best of all, there is the instability of the projected image of the CET machine which allows great moments like Romana watching the recording of the planet Eden and seeing eyes in the forest staring back at her; the end of episode two also - the Doctor and Romana jump into the projected image and find themselves in another world; it's a great turn of the story, and one of those episode endings that has the audience wondering where the narrative is going next. These are all fun and typically envelope-pushing ideas of Who stories of this vintage; what's unique about this story is that at heart it has a very serious intent.

Should they have gone there? The drug smuggling story, and the scenes of characters having taken drugs, are still quite shocking to watch even now, as Doctor Who has never really done anything like it before or since. It arguably had to be an over-simplification of the issues to be told in a subplot of 100 minutes of kid-friendly TV, but it nonetheless is breaking new ground and so shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Some of the story's best moments arise from this theme. Whatever you think of the pitch at which he starts his performance, the way David Daker (as Captain Rigg) modulates it once he comes under the influence of Vraxoin creates some great scenes, both darkly comic (Rigg laughing as he watches the passengers being slaughtered) to raw and terrifying (Rigg suffering from withdrawal and attacking Romana). There's also the magnificent moment at the end where Tryst tries to justify his crimes to the Doctor, who coldly rejects him with a "Go away". I'm sympathetic to the argument that a serious issue is cheapened by being part of a presentation that elsewhere looks so unserious; but, if Nightmare of Eden had been presented with more realism and restraint, it would almost certainly have turned out to be unsuitable for a family audience. Imagine the scene between Rigg and Romana being played out with totally naturalistic performances on a moodily lit spaceship set with nobody wearing any glittery light-entertainment gear. It would have been traumatising. Maybe two wrongs do sometimes make a right.

 

Connectivity: 

Both Nightmare of Eden and Flux feature spaceships crashing together, unstable areas of space-time and characters able to move in and out of a projected moving image. Flux contained lots and lots of elements from Doctor Who's history, but it couldn't find room to include any Mandrels, alas.

Deeper Thoughts:

Galactic Salvage Insurance Report: Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 17 Blu-ray box set overview. But for being stuck at home in self-isolation after testing positive for Covid, I would have had a nice write-up of the BFI screening of City of Death in December 2021 that may have been of interest to anyone reading (Hi Mum!). As it was, I heard that those that could make use of their booking were well entertained, and that the main interviewee Julian Glover was interesting and funny. It was a shame to miss him in particular, as Glover doesn't have much of a presence on these Blu-rays; his contributions to discussions of City of Death are restricted to material that appeared previously on the DVD that have been ported over to this set. Focus on this run is usually centred on its second story as it is one of the best of Who's history and was the first to film outside the UK; the Dalek story is a distant second place, and the remaining ones are best not dwelt upon at all - except maybe the finale Shada, but that's usually seen as its own thing in a space elsewhere somewhat removed; it was technically not part of the season having been scuppered by a strike and so never finished or broadcast. The semi-animated Shada, previously available as a feature length omnibus version, is presented here in what's called "The Definitive Version", as full episodes with cliffhanger endings for the first time. This extension of the season from 20 to 26 episodes, as well as restoration throughout, makes a big difference. Suddenly, this is the season as originally intended; taken as a whole, the deficiencies of certain episodes (as there always are in any season of Doctor Who) balance out. In summary, this latest watch is the most I've enjoyed this run of stories. 

Just based on the restoration, an episodic Shada and the new digital effects in Nightmare of Eden (which are really good and improve a thousandfold the crucial scenes of ships in space, as well as smaller moments like the insect that flies out of the Eden projection, and various laser blasts), I'd recommend buying this set. If you haven't got it already, it is still available in limited edition packaging at the time of writing (usually these sets sell out - I told you it was unloved!), but it will be available in standard packaging too soon, the window between the different versions of these releases seems to be shortening. In terms of Special Features, there isn't one major one that stands out as a reason to buy in the same way that, say, the John-Nathan Turner biography Showman or the Terrance Dicks tribute Terrance and Me and Me did for their respective sets. Instead of one big Christmas present, there are a lot of enjoyable stocking fillers. There's a long documentary in tribute to Douglas Adams's life and career; it doesn't break any new ground, but it's nice to have it, particularly some of the archive footage of Douglas. It's funny that most people interviewed focus on Adams's impact on them in person rather than through his work (he was an arch procrastinator, so the work is by far in the minority); it falls to Richard Dawkins to be the fanboy, quoting some of his favourite parts of Adams's books. It's also interesting to know that his successor as Doctor Who script editor Christopher Bidmead was a friend, as Bidmead seems to have spent the years since and to date criticising Adams's approach in the role.

Davros in the specially made trailer for the set

Other long features include a comprehensive discussion with Lalla Ward on season 17; this is taken from an interview from 2007, some of which has been used in other featurettes on the set, but most of which has not been seen before; there's also a separate long chat with Tom Baker setting the world to rights (but not really touching on anything as boring as season 17's stories); similarly, there's a 40-minute tour de force convention appearance by Tom recorded in 1997 where he avoids the subject of Doctor Who altogether and is all the more entertaining for it. Best of the longer new pieces is Matthew Sweet's latest In Conversation interview, this time with Bob Baker. It wasn't intended to be so, but it acts as a commemoration, Baker having died in November 2021 between the interview being recorded and the box set coming out. He is an engaging and frank interviewee throughout, and there's a staged moment accompanying the end credits that's very sweet. As usual, there is a Behind the Sofa for each of the stories (including Shada), where selected Doctor Who luminaries watch and comment entertainingly on sections of the action a la Gogglebox; here, the viewing teams are Katy Manning and Nicola Bryant, Colin Baker and Matthew Waterhouse, and Mat Irvine, June Hudson and Graeme Harper. The two best documentaries for me, though, are not new, a couple of pre-existing authored docs that previously appeared on DVDs: Paris in the Springtime (the Making of City of Death) and A Matter of Time (an overview of Graham Williams's producer-ship); I'd not seen either of these for a good while, and they are very enjoyable.

The late, great Bob Baker (pictured with Matthew Sweet and a couple of other friends)

There's plenty of archive clips included also: a Swap Shop, an Ask Aspel, a couple of Wogans, lots of Blue Peter clips from 1979 (featuring the somewhat forgotten line-up of Simon Groom, Christopher Wenner and Tina Heath). There's also commentaries old and new, information text and lots of other bits and bobs. More than enough to occupy even the most obsessive fan for months; I should know, as I am such a fan, and I'm still working through it (and still have a few things left to watch from the last release, season 24, too).

In Summary:

The script is not quite paradise, but it's pretty good; the execution, though, is a nightmare.