Re-running through corridors: The Caves of Androzani

Four Episodes
Aired between 8th March 1984 and 16th March 1984

Written by Robert Holmes
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Graham Harper

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Perri to Androzani minor, a sister planet of Androzani Major and it's little more than a ball of dust, filled with caves that occasionally spew hot mud. The Doctor's interest is piqued when he sees signs of a craft recently arriving and a mono-skid unloading something in the caves.

As they investigate, Perri puts her foot into some kind of sticky web. The doctor clears it off from her and they continue, eventually getting captured by a bunch of human soldiers. Things escalate quickly as they take the Doctor and Perri to be gun-runners, supplying illegal weapons to a renegade called Sharaz Jek, a man who hides in the tunnels.

Despite the Doctor and Perri's protests, they are sentenced to death by a ritual shooting known as the red cloth. Their sentence is passed by Trau Morgus, a ruthless businessman who is funding the expedition of soldiers on Androzani Minor to find and kill Jek.

The pair are tied to stakes and shot, but it turns out that somewhere along the line, they were switched out for android duplicates. The real Doctor and Perri are taken to Sharaz Jek's hideout and told they'll remain with him for all eternity. Jek is a madman, driven mad by isolation in turn caused by hideous disfigurement that forced him to wear a mask at all times.

Whilst they are prisoner, the Doctor and Perri discover one of the soldiers, Salateen, has also been captured and duplicated. His android is currently infiltrating the command, finding out every action that General Chellak makes and reporting back to Jek. Salateen explains to them that they've been poisoned by raw Spectrox (the thing Perri stepped in) and that they'll be dead in two days from Spectrox Toxaemia if they don't find the milk of bats that hide very deep caverns under Androzani Minor.

The Doctor is determined to find that milk, and he works out that the androids Sharaz Jek left to guard them are keyed to kill humans. He has two hearts (which the androids can detect) and therefore is not human and does not activate them. Using this trick, he helps Perri and Salateen escape. Together, they go through the tunnels, but a patrol comes along and Salateen grabs Perri, taking her instead back to the soldiers to inform Chellack about his duplicate.

Where is Sharaz Jek you may ask? He's gone to meet with the real gun runners and he's displeased at the number of weapons that have been seized by the soldiers. He offers a pitiful amount of spectrox (when he's sitting on tons of the stuff) to the mercenaries. They begrudgingly agree and Jek goes to get the spectrox. The mercenaries follow, intending to kill him and take the tons, but they run into a magma beast, a creature that hunts in the caves.

The Doctor is caught up in this and is forced to hide as the mercenaries engage the monster and kill it. They find and capture the Doctor.

Jek tells them they were fools and that he knew they were following him. He gives them the Doctor to take back to Androzani Major and promises them 8 kilos of Spectrox if they deliver the next shipment correctly.

Salateen meets up with Chellak and tells him Jek's plan. Together, they try to deceive the android, sending men in the wrong direction so that they can stealthily get to Jek's base, but the android sees them through walls and informs its master.

In response, Jek changes the frequency of the identifier tags, meaning that the androids don't believe they are friends when they approach. The soldiers are massacred and Jek gets hold of Perri once more (who is significantly weaker from the Toxaemia).

The Doctor is taken on board the mercenaries ship and discovers that Trau Morgus is in fact their employer, playing the army and Jek against themselves to drive profits of Spectrox through the roof. Morgus orders the mercenaries to take off and stay in orbit as he's on his way to the planet. Before he can get there though, the Doctor breaks his bonds and takes the ship back to Androzani Minor, determined to find the milk of the bat to save Perri.

The ship crash lands, giving the Doctor enough time to run off. The mercenaries chase him, but are forced to turn back as a mud-burst begins to tear through the tunnels.

Morgus arrives and gets an update from his mercenaries, only to find that his aide, Frau Timmin has double crossed him and made him a wanted man after revealing that he assassinated the President of Androzani Major. Morgus has to re-negotiate his position with the mercenaries to go into the caves, kill Jek and take all the Spectrox. Only the mercenary leader, Stotz agrees, and kills the rest of his men to make sure they don't betray him.

The Doctor finds Perri in the hands of Jek, and vows to get some bats milk. Jek gives him the remaining oxygen cylinder he has to do it.

Chellak however survived the android attack and fights his way to Jek. He tears off Jek's mask, but is trapped outside when a mud-burst comes and is killed in it.

Morgus and Stotz reach Jek, but Jek kills Morgus, is shot by Stotz and Stotz is killed by one of the remaining androids.

The Doctor gets the milk and makes it back to Perri. He scoops her up in his arms and makes it out of the caves, just as the big mud burst explodes out of them. He drops some of the milk in the escape, leaving just one dose left. This dose he gives to Perri, saving her, but dooming himself.

He regenerates, with the faces and phantom voices of all his companions urging him to survive, but the overriding voice of The Master cursing him to die.

The Doctor regenerates before Perri's eyes and when she asks what's happened to him, he proclaims that he's changed, and not a moment too soon.

Trivia

Following the disastrous attempt to get Robert Holmes in the Five Doctors, Eric Saward put his foot down and insisted they needed him to write this story. John Nathan-Turner did not like Robert Holmes in the least, but eventually relented.

Learning from his past mistakes, Saward gave Holmes carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, so long as he killed the Doctor at the end.

The regeneration sequence had specially filmed segments for Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and all the rest. This involved getting them separately and filming the sequences alone

This is a special ending sequence in episode 4, as they used Colin Baker's face in the end credits.

The way Morgus looks at the camera and delivers exposition or internal thoughts was caused by the actor mis-reading Graham Harper's instructions. Unfortunately, the scene it was first filmed in was shot with 30 seconds to go before the plugs were pulled in the studio, so it stood and everyone said they liked it so he kept it.

A number of top people were indicated to play roles in this story, including Roger Daltry (lead singer of the Who) and Ian Holme (Bilbo Baggins and Ash from Alien)

When Peter Davison came on board Doctor Who, he agreed to wear the stick of celery, but only if it's use was explained before he left. Here, John Nathan-Turner offers that explanation

For years to come, Peter Davision would always recount at conventions that his triumphant regeneration scene was upstaged by the gratuitous shot of Nicola Bryant's cleavage

The Review

As explained countless times, I believe that Doctor Who works best when its at it's grittiest. The serious application of TV violence often raises the stakes and highlights the struggles that the characters go through, justifying the victory. The Caves of Androzani has to be the grittiest of gritty stories in the entire run of the show.

It's one of the few stories in the classic era that is shot with low lighting, lots of smoke and mud. It paints a bleak image from the outset and doesn't get any better. The characters are all selfish, corrupt and ruthless. The closest to an ally is General Chellak, and he not only orders the Doctor and Perri's death, but he is willing to kill his men, just to hide his own incompetence.

The acting is superb on near enough everyone's part. Okay, Sharaz Jek is over the top, but he's meant to be. He's mad. There is an element of melodrama going on, but compare his character to Soldeed in the Horns of Nimon. Jek is genuinely threatening and does little to play the comedy up (with the exception of "even I can't bare to touch myself" line).

I can't help but marvel at how much information is crammed into this four part story. For example, there's four different plots going on at once here - the Doctor's mission to save Perri, the army's hunt for Jek, Jek's dealings with the mercenaries and Morgus' political manoeuvrings. All of these are brought to the boil at the same time and none feel rushed or overdone.

The music is haunting and accompanies the scenes nicely - what more can you ask of that.

In fact the only things you can really pick with this story are the physical things. The soldiers uniforms are just as crap as they were in Warriors of the Deep - they look like they belong on the Krypton Factor rather than going to war; the magma beast looks almost right, but its frozen jaw and wobbly talons make it more laughable than threatening, and the less said about the monitor graphics Sharaz Jek uses, the better. These are all minor points though in a sea of positives. The magma beast is barely in it, so it doesn't matter. The uniforms were probably stylish at the time, and...well, does it matter about the monitors?

There are many, many layers of things to admire in this story, but the thing I would point out most is the entire reason why this blood drenched, depressing story works so well. Here, we see the Doctor go to the limit, doing absolutely everything he can, and not to save the universe, not to save himself, but to save one girl that he has placed in harms way. This girl he's just met, and he's willing to put his life on the line for her. We never question it, because it's done so well and that's a huge credit to Peter Davison. The sacrifice truly shows us why the Doctor is so good, and we feel the desperation of it as it goes along. If only more of Davison's tenure would have been like this.

A must see for anyone who wants to watch 80's Doctor Who, and probably Doctor Who in general.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-watchability Factor

8 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...