Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Peri
Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Graeme Harper
Background & Significance: Robert Holmes is one of the three greatest
Doctor Who writers of all time,
which is rather fortunate because he also happens to be the most
prolific, writing seventy two of the Classic series' original
almost-seven-hundred episode run (which, by the way, is over ten percent
of all Classic episodes). Throw in the lot that he oversaw as script editor and
that number balloons to one hundred forty four (which is almost 20% of
all
Doctor Who episodes ever produced). His run was so
long and prolific, in fact, it can be broken down into stages: two Troughton
era stories (where he got his feet wet), to four classic Pertwee stories
(which allowed him playing ground to experiment with different types of
stories) to his run at script editor when he shaped and created (in a
sense) Tom Baker's Doctor (during which he wrote five stories), to his
few dabbles in the post-him Tom Baker era, to his long break where he
didn't write any
Doctor Who stories for five years, to his
triumphant return with "The Caves of Androzani" and his final Colin
Baker stories, which were landmarks and such. In a lot of ways, he
reminds me of The Modern Era's Steven Moffat in that Moffat got his feet
wet during Eccleston, played around with different stories during
Tennant, and then took over the show for a new Doctor when Tennant left.
Both men created/are creating classic, popular foes that are known for
being scary, wrote tremendously famous/popular stories, and they both
are proven to be idea factories through and through.
But "The Caves of Androzani" is his unabashed masterpiece.
We've been talking about Holmes a lot lately. Hell, this is the fourth story penned by Holmes in the past two months, but this is one that's... special. It's the only time Holmes ever wrote for the 5th Doctor and it was his last opportunity to because this is Holmes's opportunity to write a Doctor's regeneration story. Indeed, it really brings him full circle because his bursting onto the scene happened in Jon Pertwee's first story (so he did a post-regen story) after two stories of warm-up. And this is his last story before (essentially) two stories of cool-down (if you count "Trial" as one big monolithic story). It also makes Holmes relatively unique, as he's one of only three other writers (Terrence Dicks, Christopher Bidmead, and Russell T. Davies) to write both a regeneration story (that is, a story that ends in regeneration) and a post-regeneration story (that is, a story that picks up immediately after The Doctor's regeneration).
"Androzani" came about because Eric Saward (having gone back through the
Doctor Who archives) became enamored with Holmes and looked for a way to get Holmes back to write a story for
Doctor Who again. Somehow Holmes (who apparently thought he'd been away for long enough) and Nathan-Turner (who disliked bringing in people who had been around on the program longer than him and who could thus undermine his authority) both got on board and there was an attempt to get Holmes to write the 20th Anniversary special (what eventually became "
The Five Doctors"). Holmes found the laundry list of things to include (Cybermen, a Dalek, Time Lords, Gallifrey, The Master, and Five Doctors) untenable and stepped down from scripting duties. But Saward, not wanting to let go of a good thing and desperate to get Holmes's quality into his own run on the show, managed to persuade Nathan-Turner to bring Holmes in for a different story. That story became, eventually, "The Caves of Androzani", The 5th Doctor's final story.
It's not all about Holmes, though. This story also marks the first behind-the-camera effort for Graeme Harper, who is, for my money, the best
Doctor Who director of all time, and this is the first thing he'd ever directed. Ever. He'd been around the show (and other shows) as an assistant at various levels (working under Douglas Camfield at one point). If you know the name, you know for a fact this is not the last thing he directed either and that he went on to do not only "
Revelation of the Daleks" but a number of stories during the David Tennant years (including the Cybermen stories in series two, "Utopia" in series three, series four's finale of "Stolen Earth/Journey's End", the exquisite "Waters of Mars", and a bunch of other programs like the BBC's most recent adaptation of
Robin Hood.
But this is the first thing he ever directed, so I guess it's worth seeing if he puts his back into it and if there's any hints of a great director in here who might one day blossom into someone fantastic amazing.
I suppose I should also mention that in that
Doctor Who Mighty 200 poll this came out at the very very top. So it is considered (at least as of 2009) as the fan-consensus greatest
Doctor Who story ever produced. So no pressure there. That poll is basically just saying that this story is better than every single other
Doctor Who story we've ever yet talked about. That's a tall order and with fifty years of television stories I'd say... well... it's worth discussing whether or not this is the best
Doctor Who story ever. Granted, I know my own thoughts based on the one previous time I've watched this. I'm just wondering if this will confirm or adjust them.
So let's get to it!