Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 533: City of Death, Episode Three
Dear diary,
The further I get through this story, the more I wish that Duggan had stayed with the Doctor and Romana for longer than these four episodes. Can you imagine him being whisked off to an alien world? Punching an alien? It’s a similar dynamic to the Sarah/Harry one from Season Twelve in a way, only here the super intelligent aliens outweigh the regular people! He’s a real highlight in this episode, and he’s bringing out the best in Romana, too. I think this is probably the most that I’ve enjoyed her in this new incarnation so far, when she’s taking on the role of the Doctor, and doing all the explaining. I love, too, that she’s less used to ‘summing down’ for people, so she speaks to Duggan in the same way she’d explain things to the Doctor, and then you’re left just waiting for his reaction, and the punchline!
As if you can’t tell, it’s the humour again which I’ve been enjoying in this episode, and almost all of the characters get a stand out moment to really stretch their comedic timing. I think it works that no one (with the possible exception of David Graham as Kerensky) is sending up the material, but treating it with just the right balance of comedy and drama. It’s a very fine line to walk, but the script and the performances are all managing to stay largely on track with it all.
I think that my favourite moment from today’s episode has to be the way in which the Doctor distracts a Renaissance guard by taking a polaroid of the man and then knocks him out! In the same way as the Rock, Paper, Scissors scene in Destiny of the Daleks, there’s something about that sequence that’s just so very in keeping with what feels like ‘Doctor Who’. Realistically, though, I could cite almost every scene as being a favourite, and a very close second would be Duggan setting off the alarms after the Mona Lisa has been stolen! It’s those kinds of antics I’d love to see with him as a part of the TARDIS team. I’m somewhat surprised that Big Finish haven’t brought him in for any of their Fourth Doctor audios, yet, but I guess with Lalla Ward and Tom Baker teaming up for a full series in the near future, there’s the perfect opportunity on the horizon. Here’s hoping, anyway!
In today’s episode, we get a good examination of the way that Scaroth works - having been splintered through time during that explosion at the start of the story, he now lives through several time periods, having personas in Paris 1979, Italy 1505, some period of Egyptian history, what looks like the Crusades (oh, I hope he gets to meet Richard the Lionheart at some stage!) and several assorted other periods. He talks of being the man who caused the construction of the pyramids and who built the first wheel… he’s clearly been a major player in human history, nudging the species in the right direction to meet his needs (was he perhaps being controlled by the Silence without knowing it? If nothing else, he’s certainly been an inspiration on their creation).
That’s always caused me a bit of trouble, though… because I could never quite get my head around the way it all works. Were there one Scaroth, with a hugely elongated lifespan who had caused these things to happen as he went along… then fair enough. The fact that there’s so many splinters of them has always thrown me, though. Does he start each ‘splinter’ as a child, in the way it’s implied that Clara does when she’s split through the Doctor’s time stream? Does he simply arrive fully formed? How is each segment kept in synch with each other? Is it simply that they automatically ‘connect’ with a version at the exact same age but in a different time zone? Presumably, all the splitters eventually die, or there’d be lots of Counts around in 1979… it’s always been a bit too much of a headache for me!
