Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 540: Nightmare of Eden, Episode Two
Dear diary,
I came in to today’s episode ready for a fight. I was looking to defend the Mandrel costumes to the hilt, but… oh dear. They’re not really given much of a chance, are they? After the slightly odd reveal of one at the end of yesterday’s episode, the poor creature is left to hang out of a hole in the wall, flailing its arms about while K9 shoots at it. The level of lighting on the set is giving us plenty of opportunities to get a good look at the design, and it’s not a great first impression.
That said, I do still really like the look of the creatures, and I’m still willing to say that they’re one of the better, more unique, creatures we’ve been given in the programme. We even get that ‘emerging from the smoke’ shot today that I was so expectant of during the last episode, and while it’s perhaps not quite as dramatic as I’d envisioned, it gives a much better idea of the monster than the earlier, swinging arms shot did!
I’m sorry to report, though, that Nightmare of Eden simply isn’t grabbing me in the way that many of the other recent stories have done. I’m not entirely sure what that might be, because there’s certainly a lot of great ideas on display, and it’s a story in many ways very far removed from your standard Doctor Who fare. I love that this programme can go from stories in which all of reality is threatened, then scale it back to a single planet, or here a single incident. Oh, sure, we’re told how much destruction this drug could cause if it’s allowed to get back out into the supply chain, but the whole story feels like its on a far smaller scale, and it’s nice to have that change of pace once in a while.
It’s strange, considering that there’s so many things to like about this one, that I’ve ended up with so little to say about it! Somewhat in desperation, I found myself casting around for people’s opinions on the story, and they all seemed to be generally positive! People all praised different elements of the story - from the fact that it’s not the kind of thing any other Doctor Who tale gives you, to the ‘genuinely funny script’, the ‘great characters’, and even that accent. And yet, there’s something about Nightmare of Eden which has simply failed to connect with me at all!
The one thing that most people seem to agree on is that the Mandrels aren’t really all that great - so maybe everyone has a different part of this story that they like, and mine just happens to be the slightly ropey monsters?
