City of Death

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105 – City of Death
Doctor Who serial

The face of Scaroth.
Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion Lalla Ward (Romana II)
Production
Writer "David Agnew" (David Fisher, Douglas Adams and Graham Williams)
Director Michael Hayes
Script editor Douglas Adams
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 5H
Series Season 17
Length 4 episodes, 25 mins each
Originally broadcast September 29–October 20, 1979
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
Destiny of the Daleks The Creature from the Pit
IMDb profile

City of Death is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 29 to October 20, 1979. The story is set in Paris, and was the first Doctor Who serial to feature footage filmed on location outside the United Kingdom.[1] It is generally regarded by fans as one of the best Doctor Who serials to date, frequently reaching the top five stories in polls.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

While taking in the sights of Paris, the Doctor and Romana sense that someone is tampering with time. Who is the mysterious Count Scarlioni? Why does he seem to have counterparts scattered through time? And just how many copies of the Mona Lisa did Leonardo da Vinci paint?

[edit] Plot

Roughly 400 million years ago, a spaceship explodes on lift-off. Its crew are the last survivors of the Jagaroth race.

Paris, 1979. At a Gothic Paris chateau, Professor Kerensky complains of lack of funds for his experiments. His employer, Count Carlos Scarlioni, grants him a million francs; the Professor insists that he will eventually need far more. The Count and his butler, Hermann, discuss the sale of rare artifacts.

Meanwhile, at a Paris café, Romana twice frustrates a sketch artist, resulting from déjà vu; the Fourth Doctor realizes they have stumbled on a time distortion. When Romana shows a lack of enthusiasm for the artist's discarded sketch, the Doctor invites her to the Louvre, to see the Mona Lisa: one of the great works of the universe.

At the museum, the Doctor witnesses another time slip; he collapses, colliding with a rich lady. He is helped to a bench by a large man in a coat — Duggan. The Doctor and Romana retreat, followed by Duggan. The rich lady nods to another man to follow as well. Meanwhile, Scarlioni asks Kerensky to vastly increase the scope of the experiment.

The Doctor produces a bracelet the rich woman was wearing, a "micromeson scanner" used to monitor the Louvre alarms. Duggan marches the two Time Lords into the café at gunpoint before telling them that masterpieces thought lost for centuries have been surfacing all over, and passing every scientific test.

Back at the chateau, the rich lady — Scarlioni's wife — explains the events in the museum. Back at the café, the Doctor is held at gunpoint again; he responds by placing the bracelet over the barrel of one of the thugs' guns. The thugs return the bracelet to the Count. Alone before a mirror, Scarlioni removes his human face, revealing himself to viewers as a one-eyed green creature.

Scarlioni's henchmen bring the trio in for questioning; the Doctor is charming but unhelpful. The Count orders them locked in the basement. The Doctor prods Hermann about the chateau's history, and spies Kerensky's machinery. Duggan shows frustration at their missed opportunities for escape; the Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver. Romana observes that, judging by a geometrical discrepancy, there must be a hidden room nearby. Though intrigued, the Doctor chooses to examine the lab first.

Kerensky enters; Romana and Duggan hide. The Doctor charms Kerensky into demonstrating his work, aging an egg into a mature chicken in a matter of seconds. The Doctor is horrified. He warns the Professor of the dangers of time manipulation. As they squabble, the chicken turns to bones. The Doctor explains that rather than manipulating their own space-time continuum, Kerensky has created a separate, incompatible pocket universe. The Doctor reverses the polarity of the machinery and the chicken regresses into an egg. As the Doctor sees Scaroth's face in the time field, Duggan knocks out the Professor. The Doctor berates Duggan.

Meanwhile Scarlioni uses a holographic recreation of part of the Louvre to demonstrate his plan to steal the Mona Lisa. He uses his sonic knife to cut through the glass, and then disrupts the air around the laser beams with a device he invented. He gives the Countess her bracelet back, saying she must wear it always.

The Doctor and Duggan break through a brick wall and find six Mona Lisas, all apparently genuine; the Doctor recognises the pigment and the brushwork of Leonardo. Duggan knows of seven people that would be willing to pay for the Mona Lisa for their private collection, but not if it were still hanging in the Louvre. They would each have to think they were buying the stolen one.

The Count appears behind them, gun in hand, and asks why Kerensky is unconscious. Duggan tosses a lantern at the Count's gun and punches him out. The Doctor asks Romana to look after Duggan, retrieves the TARDIS and takes it to Florence, Italy in 1505. There a guard tells the Doctor that Leonardo is engaged on important work for Captain Tancredi. A moment later Tancredi arrives. His face is that of Scarlioni but with longer hair.

Romana and Duggan break into the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa has already disappeared. Meanwhile, the professor has found the secret room, the other copies of the painting, and the unconscious Count. As the Count stirs, he talks in his slumber - we see that this is the same conversation he is conducting with the Doctor more than four centuries earlier.

Tancredi wants to know how the Doctor came to be in Renaissance Italy. The Doctor claims that he randomly pops around through time and space, but Tancredi is not fooled. He introduces himself as Scaroth, the last of the Jagaroth, and also their saviour. The Doctor has heard of the Jagaroth: they destroyed themselves in a war some 400 million years ago. Scaroth explains that a few escaped to the young planet Earth in a dilapidated spacecraft. The ship disintegrated upon takeoff and Scaroth was fractured, with splinters of himself scattered across time and space. He then asks about the mysterious blue box. The Doctor is uninformative, so Scaroth goes to collects the instruments of torture.

The Doctor tells the guard that Tancredi is mad, to no avail; then he uses a camera from his pocket to distract the guard before knocking him out. On the canvases for the extra six paintings of the Mona Lisa, the Doctor writes, "THIS IS A FAKE" in felt tip pen, and dashes off a note to Leonardo to paint over the writing. As he is about to leave, Tancredi returns with the thumbscrews.

Kerensky awakens the Count, and asks who he is, and who the Jagaroth are: the Count was mumbling about them. Kerensky wonders whether it's the Jagaroth who need all the chickens. Scaroth, who hears the voices of his other selves, tells Kerensky he is working for more than the human race. When he shows Kerensky the end product of his labours, the professor is astonished: the plan will increase the very effect that Kerensky was trying to eliminate. The Count tells the professor to continue the work or he will die.

The thumbscrews are on the Doctor's hand and the Doctor winces - the guard's hands are cold. He reveals that he is a Time Lord. Tancredi asks about the girl and the Doctor stalls for time, asking how Tancredi communicates with his other selves across time.

The Countess gleefully talks to her husband about their their monumental theft of the Mona Lisa. The Count is unimpressed; he brags about the building of the pyramids, mapping the heavens, inventing the wheel and fire, and bringing up a whole race from nothing to save his own: he just wants a single life and to spare the lives of his people. He hears a voice and he asks his bemused spouse to leave him. Once she has gone, he communicates briefly with his 1505 self. Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor escapes into the TARDIS. All the splinters of Scaroth appear and converse; there seem to be 12 of him. Before the TARDIS dematerialises, the Doctor hears Scaroth proclaim that the centuries dividing him will be undone.

Romana and Duggan are captured again, and Scarlioni threatens to destroy Paris unless Romana examines Kerensky's equipment. Upon doing so, she tells Duggan that the Count can indeed destroy Paris by blasting the capital into an unstabilised time field. Scarlioni sends Kerensky into the middle of the field cones, and turns on the machine. Kerensky ages until only a skeleton is left. The Count says that the unstable time field has destroyed the professor, and the whole of Paris is next unless Romana tells him how to stabilise the time field. Romana pretends not to care about the welfare of humans or Paris, but gives in when Scarlioni threatens to have Hermann kill Duggan. Scaroth orders that Duggan be locked up while Romana builds a field interphase stabiliser.

The Countess shows the Doctor the original manuscript for Hamlet, missing for centuries. Knowing how the Count acquired such an artifact, he tells the Countess that she doesn't know her husband as well as she thinks. Berating the Countess for her willful blindness, he tells her that a green, one-eyed chap is ransacking the treasures of the art world in order to save his species, the Jagoroth. Hermann arrives and takes the Time Lord down to meet his master, leaving the Countess to ponder. In her hidden book cabinet, she takes out an ancient Egyptian scroll, on which is depicted a one-eyed, green creature exactly as the Doctor described.

Once in the lab, the Doctor is angry with Romana for cooperating, but Romana insists all is fine - Scarlioni only wants to go back in time to reunite himself. Scarlioni goes to say goodbye to his wife, asking his butler to kill the trio any way he likes.

The Countess aims a gun at Scarlioni and demands to know what she married. He reveals his true visage, and thanks his wife for wearing the bracelet. He activates it and it kills her instantly. Soon, he says, she will never have existed.

Having realised the enormity of Scaroth's plans, Romana is truly sorry. He tried to put the whole Earth into the time bubble by 400 million years, but only succeeded for a few seconds, which caused those time slips. Now that he has the device she constructed, the field will be stabilised. The Doctor scolds Romana, who reveals that she has rigged it so that he will only be in the past for two minutes. The Doctor says that Scaroth needs only one minute - if the Jagoroth is no longer splintered, the whole of human history will be up-ended.

The Time Lords and Duggan escape the lab, only to confronted by the monstrous Scaroth, training a gun upon them. He knows of the limitations Romana has placed upon his machine, but it makes no difference; he will still be able to prevent his spaceship from exploding, thus saving his race and remaining unsplintered. He vanishes, and the machine explodes. The trio dash through Paris to retrieve the TARDIS. In the gallery where it is parked, two art critics are analysing the artistry of a police box being placed in such surroundings. When the Doctor, Romana and Duggan enter the TARDIS and it dematerialises, the critics proclaim it to be "exquisite".

The Doctor lands the TARDIS on a barren plain, and soon spots the Jagaroth spaceship. Romana observes that the ship's thrust motors are disabled and that the aliens will try to take off on warp drive. The Doctor points out the primordial slime from which all life on Earth will develop, currently an inert slurry. He realises that the explosion which annihilated the Jagaroth and caused Scarlioni to splinter also caused the birth of all life on Earth.

Scaroth calls to his brothers to stop the take off. The Doctor tells him that he can't change history, but Scaroth disagrees. Duggan punches Scaroth and knocks him out. Scaroth's two minutes are up and he vanishes. The others rush back into the TARDIS. The Jagaroth ship explodes on take off, releasing a huge amount of radiation and heat that ignites the primordial soup.

Back at the chateau, Hermann watches, aghast, as a monstrous, one-eyed creature appears in the time field. Refusing to believe this creature is his master, he hurls an object at the machinery, destroying the equipment, setting the chateau on fire and blasting the Count to oblivion.

Back on the Eiffel Tower, the three friends discuss the fact that the only Mona Lisa to survive the fire has "THIS IS A FAKE" written on the canvas. When Duggan claims that this will ruin the painting, as authorities will X-ray the picture, the Doctor says it would serve them right - if they have to X-ray it to see if it's worth anything, they may as well paint via computer. The Doctor and Romana leave for their next adventure.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Cast notes

[edit] Continuity

  • K-9 does not appear onscreen in City of Death but no explanation is given for its absence. It apparently remains in the TARDIS throughout the story; when The Doctor enters the TARDIS in order to travel back to Florence, he is heard greeting K-9. According to the production, K-9 was dropped from the original script as an economy measure[2].
  • Romana mentions a great art gallery of the galaxy named the Braxiatel Collection. The owner of this collection, a Time Lord named Irving Braxiatel, first appears in the spin-off novel Theatre of War by Justin Richards and thereafter in the Bernice Summerfield novels and audios, as well as the Gallifrey audio series.
  • The Scaroth appears to be hiding in a human disguise despite being larger than the human form. Aliens disguising themselves in smaller human forms has also been seen in The Leisure Hive and in "Aliens of London"/"World War III". In the latter, an explanation is given for how this is possible. The TARDIS and the Genesis Ark/Time Lord Prison Ship seen in "Doomsday" also show something larger hidden inside something smaller.
  • The Doctor would meet Shakespeare again in the episode "The Shakespeare Code". A deleted scene in that episode had the Doctor telling Shakespeare "See you earlier", which would have explained their earlier connection as well as reference City of Death.
  • Romana refers to Earth as a "Level 5" civilization. A Slitheen would later use this terminology in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Revenge of the Slitheen". The planet was described as such yet again in "Voyage of the Damned" and "Partners in Crime".
  • Romana suggests to The Doctor they "fly" up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, even though they don't do it, this is the only time in the show's history that mentions a Time Lord's ability to fly. Something which appears to be ignored as The Fourth Doctor died by falling off a tower, something he wouldn't have done if he was able to fly.

[edit] Production

  • Working titles for this story included Curse of the Sephiroth and A Gamble with Time.[1]
  • The script is credited to "David Agnew", a department pseudonym used when members of the production team had to write the script rather than a contracted scriptwriter. In this case, the original scriptwriter for A Gamble with Time, David Fisher, was undergoing a divorce and was unable to complete the serial. As a result, Graham Williams and Douglas Adams rewrote it under the Agnew by-line.[1]
  • The story originally involved the Countess using Scarlioni's bracelet to rig the roulette wheels at various Parisian casinos in order to fund her husband's time experiments. However, Graham Williams ordered that this subplot be removed, to avoid children getting any wrong ideas of gambling.[1]

[edit] Outside references

[edit] In print

This is one of five Doctor Who serials that were never novelised by Target Books as they were unable to come to an agreement with Douglas Adams that would have allowed him or another writer to adapt the script. A fan group in New Zealand did publish an unofficial novelisation of the story [1].

[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Doctor Who: City of Death, Disc Two, Special Features: Paris in the Springtime [DVD]. BBC Worldwide.
  2. ^ Doctor Who: City of Death, Disc One, Part One, Production Notes/Information Text [DVD subtitles]. BBC Worldwide.
  3. ^ a b Doctor Who: City of Death, Disc One, Part Three, Production Notes/Information Text [DVD subtitles]. BBC Worldwide.
  4. ^ Doctor Who: City of Death, Disc One, Part Two, Production Notes/Information Text [DVD subtitles]. BBC Worldwide.
  5. ^ Doctor Who: City of Death, Disc One, Part Four, Production Notes/Information Text [DVD subtitles]. BBC Worldwide.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Fan novelisation

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Doctor Who season 17 serials