A little spelunking in 'The Caves of Androzani'

Oh wondrous Caves! How deep & dark thine are!

I watched the DVD of Androzani a couple of days ago while I was in bed with a heavy cold (or perhaps lite-flu would be a more apt description). It was a first time viewing of the story on DVD for me & the first time I've watched it in several years. I was impressed at how well it held up. I was worried that its high standing in fan esteem was largely due to the ho-hum quality of many of the stories surrounding it. Thankfully, it seems, not so.

Firstly the faults. Nicola Bryant struggles with some awkward & unlikely dialouge. The scene early in episode 1 examining the lumps of fused silica where she fumbles with the terrible 'reticular vector gauge' joke, to which the Doctor replies sarcasm is not her stong point, is particularly cringeworthy. Her accent falters at times too, in that same 'joke', a very English sounding 'glaa-ass' grates in her faux-yank drawl. The characterisation of Peri was a troubling mess from the start really. The production team didn't seem to know what to do with her. There was half-baked botany bollocks, clunky American cliche crap & not much else. That aside, she does quite well in Caves & I much prefer her here than in 'Twin Dilemma' & most of season 22. She is quite sweet & innocent, a far cry from all the dreadful nagging & sarcasm she was lumbered with later.

The greatest fault however is the 'Mire Beast'; an absolutely wretched creation. It serves no important purpose & could just about be excised from the story all together by a nifty re-edit. It wears a cloak too?! What were they thinking? The caves themselves don't quite convince either. Studio floors with a bit of dirt thrown about don't cut it I'm afraid.

The pros? There are a wondrous multitude. Morgus is simply superb. Every deadpan line is a sweetmeat delicacy! Lines to camera almost never work, but Normington not only gets away with it, he leaves me wanting more. He turns the dastardly villian cliche inside out. There is no maniacal laughter or rubbing of hands; just simmering, unblinking malevolence. Stotz, Chellack & Salateen are all suitably shifty & self interested to varying degrees. The scene where Salateen laughingly realises his life will be spared by the Doctor & Peri having contracted Spectrox Toxaemia is particularly striking.

As with 'Resurrection of The Daleks', we have here a very dark story with very few (if any) sympathetic support characters, but Caves is all together more involving. Holmes' characters are more deeply textured & far more fascinating. Resurrection's convoluted nastiness just leaves me cold, but the unrelenting bleakness of Caves draws me in & leaves me breathless at times. Even the smaller parts add further richness to the piece; the icy & viciously efficient Krau Timmin a case in point. Her little side-plot victory over Morgus, dressing him down with her feet on his desk, is a marvellous touch.

Jek, like Morgus, is a masterful villian. Gable's voice & gestures are perfect. He conveys the complex character & its many contradictions using only these things & one eye. Once or twice he teeters on the edge of OTT, but always pulls back just in time. He & Morgus are a formidable duo. It is so rare in the history of the show to behold two classic humanoid villians in one story. Most stories have trouble raising one that is in any way memorable. Jek's love for Peri's innocence & beauty, which in the end almost redeems him, is beautifully played & utterly believable as she lays sweating, suffocating & barely conscious. Gable plays the desperation wonderfully; feverishly mopping her brow & trying to comfort her while the Doctor hunts for the bats milk.

Which brings me to Davison. I hope I haven't exhausted my superlative supply because he deserves to have lots of them shining on his sitting room mantle. The smiling, optimistic & energetic Doctor of early Davison era has been replaced by a stone dry, impatient, dour & no-nonsense demeanour that suits the story perfectly. Davison gives his swansong absolutely everything he has. His ailing Doctor, whether spitting out a very hard to deliver (but stunningly believable) "I'm not going to let you stop me now!", or panting & staggering through endless dunes while being chased & shot at, is compelling to watch.

I was impresssed by the effectiveness of the scenes of the Doctor being chased through the dunes & later carrying Peri back to the TARDIS. The grainy film stock & grey skies combine with the rumbling soundtrack to conjur some of the most striking scenes in the history of the show. This in an era that generally suffered from cheap glossy videotape, garish costumes & ham-fisted overhead lighting. Hats off to (Graeme) Harper! You forget for several minutes at a time this was an early/mid 80's JNT story! The incidental music, although uniformly strong through JNT's first few seasons, is particularly atmospheric & foreboding in Caves.

The Davison/ C. Baker regeneration is probably the greatest in the history of the show. The tension of the moment was never greater before or since. The Doctor saves Peri on the point of death & collapses with the immortal, fearful line that Davison nails; "Is this death? feels different this time". The Master's malicious taunts followed by the 'white noise' cacophany is the stuff of fan boy foam & froth. Stunning. Even Colin's brief moment shows qualified promise. He is immediately arrogant & salty, but with no warning of the mugging, bickering buffoon that would emerge in the worst moments of the following season. So not even the last scene can spoil the grandeur of Caves.

Caves...thou art shining with glowing phosphoresecent glory!....

Lucozer..