Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 542: Nightmare of Eden, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I have to admit that I didn’t guess who the drug runners were before the reveal came. I’d suspected both Tryst and Dymond at separate points throughout the story, but I don’t think that I’d guessed they were in it together. I’m glad that it makes sense, though, and that you can go back through the narrative and see various hints in different places. Despite the mystery, and the fact that it wrong-footed me (always quite fun to find that you’ve been wrong!), I’m sad to say that Nightmare of Eden didn’t really grab me at any point right through to the end.

Oh, sure, this episode is similar to the other three from this story in that there’s things I’ve enjoyed about it, but it’s just not really come together for me successfully. I’ve delayed writing today’s entry for as long as I can, trying to think of a better way to explain that fact, but I’ve simply drawn a blank - this is just one of those stories which has not been up my street for one reason or another.

While I’ve been putting off the writing of the story, I’ve been looking in to the somewhat troubled production of the tale. Lots of Doctor Who, especially at this point in the programme’s history, has troubled behind-the-scenes stories, but this one seems to have been a particularly turbulent one. The special features on the DVD cover most of the reasons in quite a bit of detail - from the production of the model shots having to be done on video instead of film (as one commentator points out, they were able to shoot five day’s worth of model shots in two and a half hours… but they look like they were shot in two and a half hours!), and the costume department instead of the special effects team having to make the monsters, which everyone seems to agree is the reason that the Mandrels don’t really work. Despite all this, I’m still convinced that they’re a rather nice design, so there.

And then there’s the whole situation with Alan Bromley taking on the director’s role for the story, and then either resigning or being fired from his post, following multiple delays and cast criticism. Stories are often passed around of Tom Baker being difficult with some directors, and by the sounds of it, bromley was just the type of person to get on Baker’s bad side. Thinking back to his previous work on the programme, in The Time Warrior, I couldn’t recall it being especially bad (though my friend Nick did remind me of that exploding castle shot at the end), but there’s a fair amount in this story which has struck me as being a bit of a let down - chief among them the way that the Mandrels are so often shot in harshly-lit corridors!

I think, in the end, I’m simply going to have to file Nightmare of Eden away with stories like The Dominators as ones which don’t really work for me for some reason or another. Thankfully, I don’t think that this one hits the lows of that story, but it’s certainly not one that I’m going to be rushing to re-watch once the marathon is over.