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

Day 545: The Horns of Nimon, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I still can’t really tell how I feel about the design of the Nimon creatures, even though we’ve now got three of them to admire. In some ways, it’s quite a striking look, resembling enough the minotaur from legend, while also giving it enough of a contemporary update. On the other hand, though, it real is a man-in-a-monster-suit, isn’t it? When stood upright, the mask sits quite nicely, running relatively far down the actor’s back, but there’s several shots today where the creature is given cause to move its head… and you watch as the mask comes away from the rest of the costume, which really amounts to a body-stocking. Then there’s the way they walk around with their hands out awkwardly… Actually, I think that typing about it has made up my mind - I don’t really care for the creatures, sadly. At least they have rather interesting effects applied to their voices, which is a nice touch.

There’s a number of things about this story which are reminding me of the Big Finish audio Seasons of Fear, with the Eighth Doctor. The Nimon arrive as the villains of the piece in that story, and there’s lots of symbols arriving here which I can’t claim to have fully appreciated when listening to that CD a few years ago. To be honest, I’d completely forgotten much of it, but I’m suddenly getting flashbacks as this episode progresses. The main one was the egg-shaped spaceship, which I suddenly remembered the existence of just before it began to materialise - and I always get a nice smug feeling when I piece things together like that! I didn’t much enjoy Seasons of Fear at the time… I wonder if I might enjoy it more now that I’ve properly watched this serial?

Thankfully, the design work on the sets is faring much better with me. There’s lots of areas that I really like, including the labyrinth itself, but I’m enjoying again the cluttered feel of the ‘control room’ set at the heart of the Nimon’s empire here. In much the same way as the space ship bridge from the first two episodes of this story, it has a kind of ‘real’ feel to everything, with lots of cables, and slightly dodgy-looking equipment. I’m ale enjoying the neat parallel between the Doctor tinkering with the TARDIS back at the start of the story, and what the Nimon is up to here.

Something that’s been troubling me over the last few episodes… the characters of Teka and Seth don’t have a whole lot to do so far, do they? They serve their purpose in Episode One, giving the Doctor and Romana another reason to get involved with the spaceship, but in tho episode, they’re continually reduced to simply standing guard in the corridor until something happens, sending them running for the Doctor. I’m rather hoping that they’ll be given some great scene in the final episode (in which either Set defeats the Nimon single-handed - or, rather, the Doctor and Romana make it look as though he has - or dying while trying to take on the Nimon), because I’m slightly disappointed in them right now. For all I’ve been saying how much I enjoy the Doctor/Romana pairing, they’ve worked best this season when paired up with a great supporting cast, and this pair are no Duggan or Organon!