Doctor Who - Castrovalva

Starring Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton & Janet Fielding.

Written by Christopher H. Bidmead.
Directed by Fiona Cumming.

The Doctor defeats the Master's plans to hold the universe to ransom, but at a high cost to himself - plummeting from the Pharos Project radio telescope, the Doctor regenerates. The time travellers escape the Master's clutches, but the Doctor's regeneration is failing, and Adric goes missing in the depths of the TARDIS. Only Nyssa and Tegan can save the day, steering the timeship towards the city of Castrovalva, renowned for its healing powers. But evil lurks at the heart of this rural paradise...

 Up until 1982, regeneration was a little piece of technobabble that allowed Doctor Who to change its lead actor without compromising the narrative of the show. Sure, there would be an address of the change in the first couple of episodes of the new Doctor's first story. After that, however, it would be down to business, and the audience would quickly forget that there had even been a Doctor before Pat Troughton or Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker. However, by the time Peter Davison took over the reigns of the TARDIS from Tom Baker in 1982, there hadn't been such a change of lead actor in eight years. And Baker had attracted a greater number of viewers than ever before: organised fandom was now commonplace, rather than the rarity it had been back in 1974, when the last regeneration had occurred. And, since Peter Davison didn't have the same kind of presence on-screen that his predecessor had exuded, producer John Nathan-Turner decided to make the regeneration a more complex process than has been showed previously... And so Castrovalva was born. And it's a interesting story, by all accounts. A last-minute replacement for another script, the work of outgoing script editor Christopher H Bidmead is very different to the ethos that he has been instilling in the scripts for the previous year, and takes a totally different tone to his previous script, Logopolis. And while it's not the best ever Doctor Who script, and there are some glaring loose threads upon the story's conclusion, it's a decent opener for the Fifth Doctor, thanks to a simple storyline, some nice acting and some superb direction from newcomer Fiona Cumming.

By far the most interesting aspect of Castrovalva is what Bidmead does with the regeneration process. Up till this point, regenerations had been fairly smooth: sure, the Doctor had been disorientated for a short time, and occasionally bed-ridden, but he'd pretty much recovered by the conclusion of part two. Here, however, the regeneration is endangered right from the very beginning, and we're not certain that the Doctor's going to come out of it or not. It's only in part four that the Doctor even begins to show any signs of recovery, and only at the end of the story that we get a sense of what this Doctor will even act like. That's a brave choice, but one I think pays off, as Bidmead taps into how regeneration is such a traumatic process. After all, when a Time Lord changes, they don't just change physically, but also in terms of personality and mind-set. They become a totally different person, but also the same, so that must come with some kind of trauma. Having the Doctor repeating different lines from past Doctors is a nice way to get some continuity into the story, but it's also an effective way to display this trauma. Sure, it does take up an awful lot of the story, something which future post-regeneration stories milk to the hilt (namely The Twin Dilemma, Time And The Rani and Deep Breath), but here, it works, because this is the first time that we have ever seen it, and Bidmead doesn't labour it. There's no flashy gimmicks, like amnesia or the Doctor being an utter bastard: it's just the regeneration has gone a bit wrong and the Doctor isn't quite fully-formed. It helps that, for the most part, Castrovalva is utterly plot less, the first two episodes in particular feature very little plot of any kind, and are (mostly) set inside the TARDIS. Now, while this might be a detriment to a normal Doctor Who story, Castrovalva is no normal Doctor Who story. Not only was this the first story to feature the Fifth Doctor, it was also the first proper story to feature the team of Adric, Nyssa and Tegan, who had all been brought together in Tom Baker's swansong, Logopolis. And, because of the heavy plot of Logopolis, coupled with the fact that it was Tom Baker's final story, there was never any real time for this new TARDIS team to develop and come together as a unit. Here, however, that work is done across the story. Sadly, out of the four regulars, Adric is rather shoved into the background, basically becoming the Master's McGuffin, but it certainly gives both Nyssa and Tegan a chance to shine. Tegan, in particular, comes across a lot less bolshie than in Logopolis, and complains a lot less about the situations she finds herself in. It's a shame that, as the season wore on and Eric Saward had more control over the character, she becomes a lot more argumentative and complains a lot more, as I feel here is one of the best examples of her character in action. Once the action reaches Castrovalva, things get no more dramatic than a light breeze, but the writing is sharp enough so as to avoid it feeling empty. What helps this story is the brevity of the pace: everything keeps moving along at a fair lick, and it is never dull or boring to watch. This, however, causes it's own problems: mostly that the end leaves a number of threads unexplained: mostly related to what actually happened to Adric. Did the Master kidnap him while they were still on Earth, and the Adric in the TARDIS was simply a Block Transfer Computation? Or did the Master materialise his TARDIS on-board the Doctor's TARDIS and steal Adric away? And, if it's the latter, how did Adric pre-programme the TARDIS to go to Event One and Castrovalva? These little niggles are a bit of a problem, but they don't massively detract from the previous 100 minutes or so. It's just a shame that Bidmead couldn't quite iron out these holes, as I think the story would be an awful lot stronger for it.

The characterisation in this story is a little bit a tale of two halves: the regulars are afforded an unusual level of interest, to a level that hadn't been seen that much since the Hartnell era. In fact, the whole story plays out like it's from the Hartnell era, which is an absolute compliment to the story. As a mission statement, it couldn't be finer. The four leads are pretty good here (I mean Mat Waterhouse is still Mat Waterhouse, but what can you do?), with particular praise towards Peter Davison, who has the staggering task of taking over from Tom Baker, and who manages to convince us very early on that he is the perfect choice to play the Doctor. He has a gentle exuberance that is almost endearing, yet his confrontations with Shardovan and the Master show that he has the ability to take on the part's more demanding aspects with the same skill. At this point in the show's history, such a young Doctor was unheard of, yet I feel Davison silenced the naysayers right away, with a fantastic performance that captures what all four previous actors had done with the part, and yet injected it with something new. It might, however, be because Davison actually recorded this story fourth, meaning he had three stories which were transmitted later to settle into the part and find his feet, before recording his introductory episode. However, the flip side of this skilful work that is spent on the regulars means that less time is spent on the guest characters, and so they are, so the most part, little more than cyphers for the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan to bounce ideas about the nature of Castrovalva off. Shardovan is probably the most developed inhabitant of Castrovalva, as he, more than anyone, sees the town for the illusion that it is. In fact, his suspicious behaviour does make you think, at first, that he is the Master in disguise, but he is, in actual fact, simply trying to get his head around the nature of what exactly he is caught up in. It a wonderfully subtle performance as well from actor Derek Waring, who makes sure that you're never clear of Shardovan's intentions until the very end. And I love the fact that, despite the fact that he looks like the Master, it turns out that he isn't the Master at all. In retrospect, however, it's quite easy to see that the Portreeve is the Master, however, so the ruse of Shardovan doesn't quite deceive anyone younger than 10 sadly (which it did for me, because I was about 9 when I first watched this story); not because the writing isn't sharp enough, but mostly because of the make-up effects that are 'meant' to make Ainley look older. The rest of the guest characters are pretty one-note, however, despite some excellent acting from Frank Wylie and Michael Sheard. Sheard, in particular, is wonderful as Mergrave, the friendly physician who is simply trying to get his head around the strange events that he seems to have been caught up in. As for the Master, well, I wouldn't say that this was the most sympathetic treatment of his character in the history of the show. Sure, he's ruthless and evil, but that comes across (thanks to a combination of script and performance) as little more than pantomime villainy. Anthony Ainley is great in this, but the Master's single-minded, dogged determination to destroy the Doctor gets a little wearing after a while.

One area in which this story excels is in it's production. Every aspect is carefully considered, with some lovely attention to detail. The directorial debut of Fifth Doctor mainstay Fiona Cumming is a confident and assured one, as she brings a lightness of touch to the whole thing. She's certainly more an 'actor's director' than a production one, which is showed by the strong performances across the board. Here, however, she does manage to realistically convey the twisting nature of both the Castrovalvan geography and the interior of the TARDIS with considerable style for a BBC studio set in 1982. And the forest of Castrovalva itself look bloody gorgeous, especially on film. It certainly make a change from alien planets looking like quarries, and it's yet another reminder that Doctor Who would look even better had it all been shot in that medium. The sets for the interior of Castrovalva also look fantastic as well, and the TARDIS Zero Room has a simplicity to it that is wonderfully evocative. Although I don't know what they were thinking for the Master's TARDIS though, because it looks absolutely ridiculous. It barely looks like a TARDIS at all, so for casual viewers the whole thing might have been incredibly confusing. The effects are also pretty decent, for the time. They don't really stand up to much modern scrutiny nowadays, but fortunately, the story doesn't rely on them, so they don't attract too much attention. The music is also an excellent piece of work from Paddy Kingsland. While not as memorable as his scores for Logopolis or Mawdryn Undead, it is still a lovely piece of work that manages to be a bit more subtle than some of the other 80's scores composed by members of the Radiophonic Workshop. The little ditty that is used as the theme for Castrovalva is particularly memorable, as is the reworking of Tom Baker's regeneration music used in the reprise at the beginning of part 1 (a first for Doctor Who, in that it was the first cold open ever featured in the show's history up till that point), which is much more upbeat than the original. Sure, the music for the ambulance chase is very of it's time, but the music throughout this period was, and I have a soft spot for those synthesiser sounds.

Overall, while not the best post-regeneration story, Castrovalva is a decent first story for Peter Davison's Doctor. It establishes the new tone that had been introduced in the previous season properly, sets out what Davison's Doctor will be like and tells an enjoyable Who tale at the same time. Sure, Bidmead's script has a number of plot holes, and he doesn't really give Adric or the guest cast an awful lot to do, but, overall, Castrovalva is a decent start to a brand new era for Doctor Who.