Sunday 27 October 2019

514 The Creature from the Pit: Part One

EPISODE: The Creature from the Pit: Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 514
STORY NUMBER: 106
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 27 October 1979
WRITER: David Fisher
DIRECTOR: Christopher Barry
SCRIPT EDITOR: Douglas Adams
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
RATINGS: 9.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Creature from the Pit

"You're the fellow who was found in the Place of Death. Anyone found there is put to death!"

The Tardis receives a distress call summoning them to the verdant planet Chloris where they find the remains of a giant metal egg. They are captured by servants of the Lady Adrasta, but while en route to her palace they are attacked by bandits, who are seeking metal which is rare on Chloris, who capture Romana. The Doctor is sentenced to death for being found in the place of death. Romana talks her way free and summons K-9. The Doctor tells Adrasta that he thinks the structure he found is an egg shell & alive, for which she sentences her technical adviser to death. He is taken to the pit and thrown in, consumed by the monster within. Romana & K-9 attempt a rescue but K-9 is immobilised by the wolf weeds that Adrasta keeps and Romana is captured. The Doctor attempts to escape by jumping into the pit!

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Hmmm. Somehow the humorous dialogue used in this episode is a bit silly somehow and doesn't quite work. The sequence with the Peter Rabbit book and then the junk box are particularly silly!

ROMANA: Doctor, I've been cleaning out number four hold. You've got the most awful lot of junk in there.
DOCTOR: Shush. Something terribly exciting's about to happen.
ROMANA: Oh, really? What?
DOCTOR: Mister McGregor.
ROMANA: Who?
DOCTOR: Mister McGregor. He's chasing Peter Rabbit. He's got a sieve. He's going to pop it on top of Peter!
ROMANA: Don't worry. He'll wriggle out, lose his jacket and hop into a watering can.
DOCTOR: Atchoo.
K9: Bless you.

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DOCTOR: Junk? Did you say junk? I don't carry junk.
ROMANA: What do you call this lot, then?
DOCTOR: That's extremely valuable equipment.
ROMANA: An old ball of string?
DOCTOR: Give that to me. Come on, give it to me.
ROMANA: To the Doctor. A souvenir with love and thanks for all his help with the Minotaur. Theseus and Ariadne.
DOCTOR: Yes. If I hadn't produced that ball of string to find a way out of the labyrinth, they were going to unravel my scarf, the wretches.
ROMANA: All right, but what can you possibly do with the old jawbone of an ass?
DOCTOR: Don't be a philistine.
ROMANA: What?
DOCTOR: That jawbone's been about a bit, you know.

And surely a joke about a ball of string, a maze and Minotaur would have been better saved for later on this season when there was a planned Minotauresque story?

Two lasts for the series in this episode: The technician Tollund is an only acting appearance in Doctor Who for Morris Barry. However he had previously directed the The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Dominators, making him (I think) the only person to be credited as both an actor & director on Doctor Who. His other acting credits include episodes of Are You Being Served?, Blake's 7, The Day of the Triffids, Tales of the Unexpected, All Creatures Great and Small, and Hi-de-Hi!.

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His fellow technician Doran is a final Doctor Who appearance for regular stuntman, fight arranger, double for Jon Pertwee & Tom Baker and actor Terry Walsh, who I presume got the speaking role due to the character's fall into the pit at the end of the episode. He's credited as Fight Arranger on The Curse of Peladon, The Mutants, The Green Death, The Time Warrior, Death to the Daleks, The Sontaran Experiment, The Android Invasion, The Seeds of Doom, The Deadly Assassin, The Face of Evil & The Androids of Tara. His acting credits on the show are The Smugglers (uncredited; as a militiaman), The Web of Fear (uncredited; as a soldier) , The Invasion (uncredited; as a UNIT soldier), The Ambassadors of Death (uncredited; as a UNIT soldier), Inferno (uncredited; as a UNIT soldier), Terror of the Autons (as an Auton Policeman), Colony in Space (uncredited; as Rogers), The Sea Devils (as Barclay), The Mutants (uncredited; as a guard), The Time Monster (as a Window Cleaner), The Green Death (as a Guard), Invasion of the Dinosaurs (as a Warehouse Looter), The Monster of Peladon (as a Guard Captain), Planet of the Spiders (as the man with boat), Robot (uncredited; as a security guard), The Ark in Space (uncredited; as a Wirrn Operator), The Sontaran Experiment (as Zake), Genesis of the Daleks (uncredited; as a soldier, guard, and a scientist), Planet of Evil (uncredited; as a crew member) & The Power of Kroll (as Mensch).

The sequences set in the Jungle look superb! They were filmed at Ealing Studios and are the first time Lalla Ward played Romana for the show, having previously appeared as Princess Astra in The Armageddon Factor.

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I remember seeing some of the filmed parts from this episode, notably the sequence where K-9 is attacked by the wolf-weeds on a children's program many years ago but couldn't remember where it was from. But this episode was promoted by Tom Baker appearing, in character as the Doctor, on the Children's TV nature series Animal Magic. This sequence is included on The Creature from the Pit DVD, although there's some debate as to if the correct title sequence has been used and if there pictures of the monsters displayed over the screen while Tom was talking, so I was looking forward to seeing it again and was somewhat bemused when the sequence I clearly remembered didn't actually appear! Consultation with m'learned friends at Roobarb's Forum suggests it could instead have been an episode of Ask Aspel, a children's show presented by Michael Aspel, that I had seen which contained the clip. The sequence in question, contained in an interview with Lalla Ward, later turns up on the Nightmare of Eden DVD.

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And, although it looks like being the last we'll see of him, this is the first work on he series for David Brierly who replaces John Leeson as the voice of K-9 for this season.

Hang on, Lalla Ward's first scenes as Romana? But what about Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death?

Here's Season 17 as recorded, together with each story's production codes:

# Overall # In Season Title Story Code
104 1 Destiny of the Daleks 5J
105 2 City of Death 5H
106 3 The Creature from the Pit 5G
107 4 Nightmare of Eden 5K
108 5 The Horns of Nimon 5L
109 6 Shada 5M

As you can see the production codes jump around a bit. Rearranging the stories by Production code order gives:

5G The Creature from the Pit 106 3
5H City of Death 105 2
5J Destiny of the Daleks 104 1
5K Nightmare of Eden 107 4
5L The Horns of Nimon 108 5
5M Shada 6

The Creature from the Pit was filmed in March & April 1979, with City of Death, including the famous trip to Paris, following in May and Destiny of the Daleks, whose script was expected later, following in June and early July.

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Creature from the Pit was written by David Fisher, who had previously written Stones of Blood and Androids of Tara, two consecutive stories for the previous season. Having finished work on this story he was then due to write A Gamble With Time, which was due to be the next story filmed. Problems with rewrites, other commitments and marital difficulties led to Fisher having to abandon A Gamble With Time which was hastily rewritten by the Script Editor and Producer as City of Death. So Fisher became very close to being he only man to write two consecutive pairs of Doctor Who stories! Fisher returns at the start of the next Season with The Leisure Hive.

Sunday 20 October 2019

513 City of Death: Part Four

EPISODE: City of Death: Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 513
STORY NUMBER: 105
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 20 October 1979
WRITER: "David Agnew" (pseudonym for Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, and David Fisher)
DIRECTOR: Michael Hayes
SCRIPT EDITOR: Douglas Adams
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
RATINGS: 16.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - City of Death

"On the contrary, Doctor, you're going to help me. And if you do not, it'll be so much the worse for you, for this young lady, and for thousands of other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person!"

The Count threatens to do to the whole of Paris what he has just done to Professor Kerensky to force Romana to stabilise the time field in his machine. He wants Romana to make the machine send him back in time to prevent himself from launching the ship which splintered him through time and killed the rest of the Jagaroth. The Doctor arrives at the Château and talks to the Countess, planting seeds of doubt about her husband. The Doctor is taken to the cellar. The Countess searches the counts rare books and documents, finding an Egyptian scroll showing a Scaroth headed human as the Doctor described him. The Doctor tries to stop the Count, but the Count once again threatens to destroy Paris and has them locked up. The Count goes to see the Countess who pulls a gun on him demanding the truth about his identity. He pulls his mask off and kills her using circuitry within the scanning bracelet. Duggan forces the cell door allowing him, the Doctor & Romana to escape witnessing Scaroth vanish back in time and his machine explode. They return to the art gallery where the Doctor left the Tardis, astounding some watching art lovers who think the Tardis is a piece of art when it dematerialises. The Tardis travels back in time to when the Jagaroth ship was due to launch, the Doctor finding the fluid which will give birth to life, waiting for the radiation from the Jagaroth ship to start the process of life. Scaroth arrives to warn his earlier self but is stopped by Duggan who knocks him out. The unconscious Scaroth vanishes back to 1979 due to a limit Romana placed on the time machine. The Doctor, Romana & Duggan flee the scene in the Tardis escaping just before the Jagaroth ship explodes. The unmasked Scaroth materialises in 1979, startling Herman who throws something at him breaching the time field which kills Scaroth & destroys the time machine starting a fire which just one of the "fake" Mona Lisas survives, to be returned to and hung in the Louvre. The Doctor & Romana bid farewell to Duggan.

Another great episode, well done. Really loved it.

We pick up from the demise of the Professor Kerensky:

SCARLIONI: The unfortunate effect of an unstablised time field. Now, I shall do exactly the same thing to the whole of this city unless you reveal to me the secret of how to stabilise that field.
DUGGAN: You're mad. You're insane. You're inhuman!
SCARLIONI: Quite so. When I compare my race to yours, human, I take the word inhuman as a great compliment.
DUGGAN: You couldn't possibly
SCARLIONI: Oh, do be quiet.
ROMANA: Count, you must have realised by now that I'm not from this planet. Why should it worry me if you destroy Paris?
DUGGAN: What are you talking about?
SCARLIONI: You had your warning. Hermann, kill him.
ROMANA: No!
SCARLIONI: Ah, so you do care. I think you've answered your own question. Not a very clever bluff.
ROMANA: All right, what are you trying to do?
SCARLIONI: You agree to cooperate then?
ROMANA: Just tell me what you're trying to do and I'll see.
SCARLIONI: Excellent. Hermann.
HERMANN: Sir.
SCARLIONI: Take him away. Lock him up.
HERMANN: Yes, sir.
SCARLIONI: I shall keep him as an insurance policy, since it is unfortunately not possible to kill him twice.
SCARLIONI: Now, my problem is very simple. Four hundred million years ago, the spaceship which I was piloting exploded while I was trying to take off from the surface of this planet.
ROMANA: That was clumsy of you.
SCARLIONI: A calculated risk. The spaceship sustained considerable damage. I was in the warp control cabin and when the explosion occurred I was flung into the time vortex and split into twelve different parts which lead, or have led, independent but connected lives in times in this planet's history. Not a very satisfactory mode of existence.
ROMANA: So you want to reunite yourself, yes?
SCARLIONI: More than that. I want to go back to where my spaceship is. Was. And stop my original self from pressing the button.
ROMANA: And you were hoping to do that with this lot?
SCARLIONI: You underestimate the problems with which I was faced. My twelve various selves have been working throughout history to push forward this miserably primitive race so that even this low level of technology could be available to me now.
ROMANA: But this won't work. Put yourself in that bubble and you would either regress back to being a baby again or go forward to old age.
SCARLIONI: I had worked out a way, but it would have taken rather too long. Now, with your help, I shall be able to return with ease. Now, build me a field interface stabiliser. Do it.
ROMANA: All right, I'll help you.
We left the Doctor in the Cafe having discovered Roman and Duggan had departed for the Château. He now arrives looking for them:
DOCTOR: I'd like to make an appointment with Count Scarlioni at his earliest convenience, if you don't mind, that is. Ah, someone in authority. I wonder, would you be kind and tell the Count that I wait upon him, please? There's a good girl. The silent type, eh? I once knew a boy like you. Never said a word, very taciturn. Well, I said to him, there's no point in talking if you've got nothing to say. Did well in the end, though. Name of Shakespeare. Ever read any Shakespeare? Countess?
COUNTESS: A little. Hamlet. The first draft.
DOCTOR: What? It's been missing for centuries.
COUNTESS: It's quite genuine, I assure you.
DOCTOR: I know. I recognise the handwriting.
COUNTESS: Shakespeare's.
DOCTOR: No, mine. He'd sprained his wrist writing sonnets. Wonderful stuff. To be or not to be, that's the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and. Take arms against a sea of troubles? That's a mixed. I told him that was a mixed metaphor and he would insist.
COUNTESS: Oh Doctor, I'm quite convinced that you're perfectly mad.
DOCTOR: Only Nor-norwest. Nobody's perfect. If you think I'm mad because I say I met Shakespeare, where do you think your precious Count got that?
We briefly saw Shakespeare in The Chase but the Doctor didn't get to meet him then. Although they've obviously met at some prior point for the Doctor, Shakespeare's first meeting with the Doctor occurs in the Doctor's future when his tenth incarnation meets the Bard in 2007's The Shakespeare Code.
COUNTESS: He's a collector. He has money and contacts.
DOCTOR: Contacts? Human contacts? How much do you really know about him, eh? I think rather less than you imagine.

DOCTOR: How long have you been married to the Count?
COUNTESS: Long enough.
DOCTOR: Long enough. I like that. Discretion and charm. So civilised. So terribly unhelpful.
COUNTESS: Discretion and charm. I couldn't live without it, especially in matters concerning the Count.
DOCTOR: There is such a thing as discretion. There's also such a thing as wilful blindness.
COUNTESS: Blind? I help him to steal the Mona Lisa, the greatest crime in the century, and you call me blind?
DOCTOR: Yes! You see the Count as a master criminal, an art dealer, an insanely wealthy man, and you'd like to see yourself as his consort. But what's he doing in the cellar?
COUNTESS: Tinkering. Every man must have his hobby.
DOCTOR: Man? Are you sure of that? A man with one eye and green skin, eh? Ransacking the art treasures of history to help him make a machine to reunite him with his people, the Jagaroth, and you didn't notice anything? How discreet, how charming.
HERMANN: Excuse me, my lady. Doctor, the Count is very anxious to see you in the cellar.
DOCTOR: Think about it, Countess. Think about it.
The Countess does think about it, and something the Doctor has said has obviously touched a nerve because she retrieves a scroll from a concealed location showing ancient Egyptian figures including one with a Scaroth head!

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DOCTOR: Ah, Count. Hello. I wonder if you could spare me a moment of your time. Romana, hello, how are you? I see the Count's roped you in as a lab assistant. What are you making for him? A model railway? Gallifreyan egg timer? I hope you're not making a time machine. I shall be very angry.
SCARLIONI: Doctor, how very nice to see you again. It seems like only four hundred and seventy four since we last met.
DOCTOR: Indeed, indeed, yes. I so much prefer the weather in the early part of the sixteenth century, don't you? Where's Duggan?
DUGGAN: Doctor, get me out of here.
DOCTOR: Ah, there you are, Duggan. Are you behaving yourself? Good, good. Now, Count, this is what I've come to say. If you're thinking of going back in time, you'd better forget it.
SCARLIONI: And why do you say that?
DOCTOR: Well, because I'm going to stop you.
SCARLIONI: Oh no, on the contrary, Doctor, you're going to help me.
DOCTOR: I am?
SCARLIONI: You are indeed. And if you do not, it'll be so much the worse for you, for this young lady, and for thousands of other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person.
DOCTOR: Count, that sort of blackmail won't work because I know what the consequences will be if you get what you wanted. I can't let you fool about with time.
SCARLIONI: What else do you ever do?
DOCTOR: Ah, well, I'm a professional. I know what I'm doing. I also know what you're doing. Romana, put the equipment down.
ROMANA: Doctor, it's all right. He just wants to get back to his spaceship and reunite himself.
SCARLIONI: Doctor, I think we can dispense both with your interference and with your help. Your friend has done her work very well indeed.
DOCTOR: Count, do you realise what will happen if you try to go back to the time before history began?
SCARLIONI: Yes. Yes, I do. And I don't care one jot. Hermann.
HERMANN: Sir.
SCARLIONI: Lock them in the cellar. They shall stay long enough to watch my departure.
HERMANN: Yes, sir.
SCARLIONI: After that, kill them in whatever way takes your fancy.
HERMANN: Very good, sir.
SCARLIONI: I must say my farewells to the Countess.
SCARLIONI: My dear?
COUNTESS: Close the door. Now, what are you?
SCARLIONI: I beg your pardon?
COUNTESS: What have I been living with all these years? Where are you from and what do you want?
SCARLIONI: If I may answer those questions in reverse order, what I want is a drink. Will you have one?
COUNTESS: Stay away! Put it down! Now, who are you?
SCARLIONI: I am Scaroth.
COUNTESS: Scaroth?
SCARLIONI: Last of the Jagaroth!

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SCARLIONI: It has not been difficult keeping secrets from you, my dear. A few fur coats, a few trinkets, a little nefarious excitement.
COUNTESS: What are the Jagaroth?
SCARLIONI: The Jagaroth. An infinitely old race and an infinitely superior one. I shall show you what you want to know, my dear.
SCAROTH: I am Scaroth. Through me, my people will live again. I'd glad to see you are still wearing the bracelet I designed for you, my dear. It is, as I said, a useful device.

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SCAROTH: Goodbye, my dear. I'm sorry you had to die. But then, in a short while you will have ceased ever to have existed.

So Scaroth travels back in time which means the Doctor needs to race back across Paris to the Tardis so he, Romana & Duggan can chase the Jagaroth. This means we get one last new Paris location the Avenue des Champs Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe prominently visible.

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You may recall that the Doctor had left the Tardis in the Galerie Denise René on Boulevard Saint Germain. Since he's been gone it's been mistaken as a piece of art!

MALE ART LOVER: To me, one of the most curious things about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism.

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FEMALE ART LOVER: Yes, I see what you mean. Divorced from its function and seen purely as a piece of art, its structure of line and colour is curiously counterpointed by the redundant vestiges of its function.
MALE ART LOVER: And since it has no call to be here, the art lies in the fact that it is here.

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FEMALE ART LOVER: Exquisite. Absolutely exquisite.

The art lovers are two of the most prominent cameos in the whole of Doctor Who! The female art lover is actress & satirist Eleanor Bron who'll return as Kara in Revelation of the Daleks while her male companion is John Cleese and you don't need me to tell you who he is! Reputedly he was in TV Centre that day recording the final episode of Fawlty Towers!
DUGGAN: Where are we?
DOCTOR: This will be the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
DUGGAN: We're standing on land.
ROMANA: He's out of his depth.
DOCTOR: Duggan, we are where I promised we'd be. Four hundred million years back in Earth history.
ROMANA: I can see why the Jagaroth wanted to leave.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Where's the Count?
DOCTOR: He'll be here. Ah. There's the Jagaroth ship. The last of the Jagaroth, a vicious, callous, war-like race. The universe won't miss them.
ROMANA: You can see why it must have exploded.
DOCTOR: Yes.
ROMANA: Its atmospheric thrust motors are disabled. The idiots'll try to take off on warp drive.
DUGGAN: That's a spaceship!
DOCTOR: The amniotic fluid from which all life on Earth will spring, where the amino acids fuse to form minute cells. Cells which eventually evolve into vegetable and animal life. You, Duggan.
DUGGAN: I come from that, that soup?
DOCTOR: Yes. Well, not that soup exactly. It's inert. There's no life in it yet. It's waiting on a massive dose of radiation.
ROMANA: The Jagaroth ship.
DOCTOR: Yes. The explosion that caused Scarlioni to splinter in time also caused the birth of the human race, and that's what's about to happen. The birth of life itself.
DUGGAN: Here, while we watch?
DOCTOR: No, no, if we were watching we'd be in dead trouble. We've got to stop Scaroth.
DUGGAN: Scaroth?
DOCTOR: Yes, that's his real name. If we don't stop him, the entire human race will cease to exist instantly.
ROMANA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Hmm?
SCAROTH: Stop! Stop, my brothers! In the names of the lives of all of us, stop!
DOCTOR: Scaroth. We've got to stop him.
SCAROTH: Keep out of my way. I must get to the ship.

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DOCTOR: No, Scaroth, you can't.
SCAROTH: I'm in that ship. I'm in the warp control cabin. I must stop myself pressing the button.
DOCTOR: No, Scaroth, no. You've pressed it once. You've thrown the dice once. You don't get a second throw.
SCAROTH: But I will splinter in time again, and all my people will be killed!
DOCTOR: No! The explosion that you in there are about to trigger off will give birth to the human race. The moment your race kills itself, another is born. That has happened. It will happen.
SCAROTH: What do I care of the human race? Scum! The tools of my salvation.
DOCTOR: No, the product of your destruction. History cannot change. It cannot!
SCAROTH: I will change it!

And having spent the entire story setting Duggan up as a dumb thug who likes to punch things the eventual solution is him knocking Scaroth out cold till he's returned to the 20th Century where Herman, disgusted at his true appearance, kills him and accidentally starts a fire which destroys the Château.

Which just leaves the matter of the famous stolen painting:

DUGGAN: The one nearest the wall?
DOCTOR: Mmm. It was the only one that wasn't damaged in the fire.
DUGGAN: But it's a fake! You can't hang a fake Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
ROMANA: How can it be a fake if Leonardo painted it?
DUGGAN: With the words This is a Fake written under the paintwork in felt tip.
ROMANA: It doesn't affect what it looks like.
DUGGAN: It doesn't matter what it looks like.
DOCTOR: Doesn't it? Well, some people would say that's the whole point of painting.
DUGGAN: But they'll find out. They'll x-ray it.
DOCTOR: Serves them right. If they have to x-ray it to find out whether it's good or not, they might as well have painting by computer.
ROMANA: Like we have at home.
DOCTOR: Mmm.
DUGGAN: Home.
DOCTOR: Mmm.
DUGGAN: Yes. Where do you two come from?
DOCTOR: From? Well, I suppose the best way to find out where you've come from is to find out where you're going and then work backwards.
DUGGAN: Where are you going?
DOCTOR: I don't know.
ROMANA: Nor do I.
DOCTOR: Goodbye.
Now there's a nice little joke here: As the Doctor & Romana leaves Duggan turns away from the view at the top of the Eiffel Tower, buys, or apparently pinches, a postcard of the Mona Lisa and returns to the view by which point the Doctor and Romana are on the green bellow the tower!

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DOCTOR: Bye, bye, Duggan!
How did they get there so quick?

The Discontinuity Guide, one of my favourite Doctor Who publications suggests the answer may be found during The Doctor & Romana's visit to the tower in episode one!

ROMANA: What year is this?
DOCTOR: Ah well, yes. It's 1979 actually. More of a table wine, shall we say. Ha! The randomiser's a useful device but it lacks true discrimination. Should we sip it and see?
ROMANA: Oh, I'd be delighted. Shall we take the lift or fly?
DOCTOR: Let's not be ostentatious.
ROMANA: All right. Let's fly then.
DOCTOR: That would look silly. We'll take the lift. Come on.
Yes, it would be VERY silly....

No, Love City of Death, it's brilliant. Great Monster, great Villain in Julian Glover's Scarlioni/Scaroth playing it in a way reminiscent of the Delgado Master, fab location work and and a story which does something with time travel. Love it.

To cap it all this episode establishes the all time viewing record for an episode of Doctor Who 16.1 Million Viewers!

Here's how many people have watched the last 8 episodes:

DateStoryEpisodeRating
Million Viewers
01/09/1979 Destiny of the Daleks Part 1 13.0
08/09/1979 Part 2 12.7
15/09/1979 Part 3 13.8
22/09/1979 Part 4 14.4
29/09/1979 City of Death Part One 12.4
06/10/1979 Part Two 14.1
13/10/1979 Part Three 15.4
20/10/1979 Part Four 16.1


Huge numbers. Unfortunately the ITV technicians finally went back to work in the week following this episode on 24th October and Doctor Who would never achieve such high viewing figures again. For the record then, this is how the Doctor Who highest viewing figure record changes hands:

Episode #DateStory & EpisodeRating
Million Viewers
1 23/11/1963 An Unearthly Child: An Unearthly Child 4.4
2 30/11/1963 An Unearthly Child: The Cave of Skulls 5.9
3 07/12/1963 An Unearthly Child: The Forest of Fear 6.9
7 04/01/1964 The Daleks: The Escape 8.9
8 11/01/1964 The Daleks: The Ambush 9.9
10 25/01/1964 The Daleks: The Ordeal 10.4
46 21/11/1964 The Dalek Invasion of Earth: World's End 11.4
47 28/11/1964 The Dalek Invasion of Earth: The Daleks 12.4
53 09/01/1965 The Rescue: Desperate Measures 13
58 13/02/1965 The Web Planet: The Web Planet 13.5
387 01/02/1975 The Ark in Space: Part Two 13.6
508 15/09/1979 Destiny of the Daleks: Part Three 13.8
509 22/09/1979 Destiny of the Daleks: Part Four 14.4
512 13/10/1979 City of Death: Part Three 15.4
513 20/10/1979 City of Death: Part Four 16.1

City of Death was repeated on 12th, 13th, 19th & 20th August 1980. It was never adapted as a Target Book: Douglas Adams was keen to novelise his three stories himself and wouldn't let anyone else do them. But then he became busy, and then became famous and the fees Target books would need to pay for his services shot up waaaay beyond the budgets for the range. However one of the central conceits of the story, an alien who's spaceship blows up at the dawn of time starting life on Earth and then influences events to try to avert the explosion utilising a time machine, was recycled by Douglas Adams for his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, probably one of the best things Adams wrote. As we will see this isn't the only Doctor Who story to have an influence on Dirk Gently. Following Adams' death in 2001 City of Death was eventually novelised for BBC Books by James Goss appearing in Hardcover on 21st May 2015 and Paperback 11th February 2016.

City of Death was released on video twice: The first time was in July of 1991 (I can remember buying it on the day of release from Volume 1 in Kingston) and then again in May 2001. A DVD edition was made available in the UK on 7th November 2005.

Sunday 13 October 2019

512 City of Death: Part Three

EPISODE: City of Death: Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 512
STORY NUMBER: 105
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 13 October 1979
WRITER: "David Agnew" (pseudonym for Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, and David Fisher)
DIRECTOR: Michael Hayes
SCRIPT EDITOR: Douglas Adams
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
RATINGS: 15.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - City of Death

"Just about to pop off through time again, Doctor? How very discourteous when I'd gone to all the trouble of fetching the thumbscrews!"

Duggan & Romana walk into the Louvre, with all it's alarms having been immobilised, and find the Mona Lisa gone. Duggan mistakenly sets the alarm off forcing them to make a hasty exit. Kerensky, having recovered, find the room at the back of the cellar with the six Mona Lisas and find the unconscious Count who starts to recover, using the same words that Captain Tancredi is speaking in 1505. Tancredi tells The Doctor of how the Jagaroth wiped themselves out in a war and that the survivors were killed when their spaceship exploded on a primordial lifeless world. Scaroth was splintered through time as identical copies in contact with one another. Tancredi has had the Mona Lisas made by Leonardo DaVinci for Scarlioni to find. Tancredi decides to torture the Doctor for information. The Doctor escapes his guard, writing This Is A Fake on the back of the parchments Tancredi intends to get Leonardo to use and leaves a note for DaVinci. Unfortunately as he is about to leave Tancredi arrives with the thumb screws. Scarlioni recovers and puts Kerensky back to work. Romana & Duggan meet up at the deserted Cafe. The Count has Kerensky modify his machinery, but Kerensky refuses, as Hermon enters with the stolen Mona Lisa. The Doctor tells Tancredi that he is a Time Lord. The Count raves about his achievements in front of his wife, worrying her. Tancredi too is overcome by his other selves communicating with him allowing the Doctor to escape in the Tardis, returning to 1979. Romana leaves a note for the Doctor at the Cafe as she and Duggan wonder if Scarlioni has travelled in time to arrange the copies. They return to the count's château, with the Doctor collecting his note sometime later. Hermon holds Romana & Duggan for Scarlioni while the count tries to persuade Romana to help build his time machine. Romana is convinced Scarlioni could destroy Paris with his machine. Kerensky is killed by Scarlioni using it, who ages him to death.

Somehow, and I can't quite put my finger on it, something is just slightly off about this episode compared to the two that preceded it. Yes the dialogue still sparkles, but somehow , possibly due to the necessity of having to explain what's going on, this doesn't quite work so well. And yet Destiny of the Daleks Part 4's record of 14.4 million viewers falls after just 3 weeks, being smashed by an entire million extra viewers! And we're not done yet.....

And there is A LOT of explanation this episode:

SCARLIONI: Doctor, will you explain to me exactly how you come to be in Paris 1979 and

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TANCREDI: Florence 1505. I am waiting, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Well, I do flit about a bit, you know.
TANCREDI: Through time?
DOCTOR: Yes, I suppose so.
TANCREDI: How, precisely?
DOCTOR: I don't know. I don't seem to be able to help myself. There I am, just walking along minding my own business and pop! I'm on a different planet or even a different time. But enough of my problems. What are you doing here?
TANCREDI: I will tell you. The knowledge will be of little use to you, since you will shortly die. I am the last of the Jagaroth. I am also the saviour of the Jagaroth.
DOCTOR: Well, I mean, if you're the last of them, there can't be that many about to save, can there? Jagaroth?
TANCREDI: You've heard of us.
DOCTOR: Jagaroth. I think it was on one of my trips. Yes, you all destroyed yourself in some massive war. Wait, when.
TANCREDI: Four hundred million years I think is the figure you're looking for.
DOCTOR: Is it really? How time passes. So what are you doing here?
TANCREDI: Surviving. The prime motive of all species. We were not all destroyed. A few of us escaped in a crippled spacecraft and made planetfall in this world in its primeval time. We found it uninhabitable.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, four hundred million years ago it would have been a bit of a shambles. No life to tidy it up. No life.
TANCREDI: We tried to leave but the ship disintegrated. I was fractured. Splinters of my being are scattered in time. All identical, none complete. I am not satisfied with your explanation. How do you travel through time?
DOCTOR: Well, as I was saying
TANCREDI: What is that box?
DOCTOR: What box?
TANCREDI: That box.
DOCTOR: That box? I don't know. I've never seen that box in my life. Ah!
DOCTOR: The original, I presume? Completed in 1503 and it's now what, 1505, and you're getting the old boy to do you another six, yes, which you then brick up in a cellar in Paris for Scarlioni to find in four hundred and seventy four time. That's a very nice piece of capital investment.
TANCREDI: I can see that you are a dangerously clever man, Doctor. I think it's time we conducted this conversation somewhat more formally.
DOCTOR: Oh, thank you.
TANCREDI: Hold him here while I collect the instruments of torture. If he wags his tongue, confiscate it.
DOCTOR: How can I talk if you confiscate my
TANCREDI: You can write, can't you?

While this is going on Count Scarlioni has been acting slightly distractedly in 1979:
SCARLIONI: Kerensky.
KERENSKY: Yes?
SCARLIONI: Where am I?
KERENSKY: In Paris, of course.
SCARLIONI: Paris.
KERENSKY: Yes.
SCARLIONI: A dream. Perhaps a dream.
KERENSKY: Who, who are you?
SCARLIONI: I am who I am, Kerensky. I am the one who pays you to work. Now, to it. Time is short.
KERENSKY: But your face.
SCARLIONI: Do you pick a quarrel with my face, Kerensky? Beware I do not pick a quarrel with yours. I may choose instruments somewhat sharper than words.
KERENSKY: Who are the Jagaroth?
SCARLIONI: So, no dream. The Jagaroth. You serve the Jagaroth. Now work!
KERENSKY: It's the Jagaroth who need all the chickens, is it?
SCARLIONI: The chickens! You never cease to amaze me, that such a giant intellect could live in such a tiny mind.
JAGAROTH : Scaroth!
SCARLIONI: I must think. I must have time to think.
KERENSKY: What have you been making me work for? I thought we were working to feed the human race.
SCARLIONI: The human race. We are working for a far greater purpose, on a scale you could not conceive. The fate of the Jagaroth is in my hands, and you will work for my purpose willingly or unwillingly.
SCARLIONI: You will now see the true end product of your labours. This is what you will now produce for me. Look at it.
KERENSKY: But Count, this machine is precisely the reverse of what we, of what I have been working on.
SCARLIONI: But you will agree that the research you have done under my guidance points equally well in either direction.
KERENSKY: Yes, yes, it does. It means increasing the very effect I was trying to eliminate.
SCARLIONI: Precisely.
KERENSKY: But the scale of this is fantastic. Count, what you are trying to do, this is monstrous beyond imagining.
SCARLIONI: But you will do it.
KERENSKY: No! A thousand times no.
SCARLIONI: What?
KERENSKY: Even if I wanted to, I could not.
SCARLIONI: Oh? Why is that?
KERENSKY: Equipment on this scale, power on this scale, it would cost millions and millions. Even you, Count, could not afford such things.
HERMANN : Excellency! Excellency! The Mona Lisa is no longer in the Louvre!
SCARLIONI: Ha ha! Excellent, Hermann, excellent.
HERMANN: The moment the news breaks, sir, each of our seven buyers will be ready.
SCARLIONI: And how much money will this bring us, Hermann?
HERMANN: About a hundred million dollars, sir.
SCARLIONI: Continue with your work, Professor. Enjoy it, or you will die.
But as yet it's unclear what they're building.

Meanwhile back in 1605:

TANCREDI: I haven't started yet.
DOCTOR: I know, it's just his hands are cold.
TANCREDI: So sensitive. I think we're in for a little treat.
DOCTOR: All this is totally unnecessary.
TANCREDI: You make it necessary. You will not tell me the truth.
DOCTOR: I've changed my mind. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being tortured by someone with cold hands. What is it you want to know?
TANCREDI: Excellent. I want to know how you travel through time.
DOCTOR: It's simple. I'm a Time Lord.
TANCREDI: And the girl? The truth.
DOCTOR: Well.
TANCREDI: Time is running out, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What do you mean, time's running out. It's only 1505. All right, all right. I'll tell you. There is one thing I'd like to know is how do you communicate across time with the other splinters of yourself?
TANCREDI: I am asking the questions.
We get to see at least six version of Scaroth, all played by Julian Glover in different costume and makeup. Scarlioni & Tancredi are the only identifiable ones here:

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SCAROTH: Scaroth. Scaroth.
DOCTOR: Are you all right?
TANCREDI: Continue. The interface of the time continuums is unstable, I know that. Tell me, tell me something useful.
SCAROTH: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: Wait!
DOCTOR: Right-o.
TANCREDI: No, not you. Continue, Doctor.
SCAROTH: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: A moment!
DOCTOR: Is he often like this?
SOLDIER: I'm not paid to notice.
TANCREDI: Yes, I know.
SCAROTH: Scaroth!
SOLDIER: Captain!
TANCREDI: I know. Leave us.
SOLDIER: Us?
TANCREDI: Me. Leave me!
SOLDIER: Sir.
SCAROTH: Scaroth!
TANCREDI: I'm coming. Yes.
SCAROTH: Scaroth! We are here. Together we are Scaroth. I am Scaroth. Me, together in one. The Jagaroth live through me. Together we have pushed this puny race of humans, shaped their paltry destiny to meet our ends. Soon we shall be. The centuries that divide me shall be undone. The centuries that divide me shall be undone.
TANCREDI: The centuries that divide me shall be undone! DOCTOR: The centuries that divide me shall be undone. I don't like the sound of that!
Returning to Paris The Doctor lands in the Galerie Denise René on Boulevard Saint Germain, one of the two new locations we see in this episode.

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Meanwhile The Cobbled Street we see Romana & Duggan running down is Rue Saint Julien Le Pauvre.

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They've just left the cafe: when the Doctor returns there looking for them we get another cameo from author & script editor Douglas Adams!

Playing Tancredi's soldier, who we saw earlier in the episode is an old Doctor Who face, and voice, is Peter Halliday. He was in The Invasion as Packer, the Silurians as the Silurian Voices, The Ambassadors of Death as the Alien Voices and Carnival of Monsters as Pletrac. He has one more appearance to come as in Remembrance of the Daleks as the Vicar. He appeared in two of the earliest television series A for Andromeda and The Andromeda Breakthrough as Doctor John Fleming. He too was in Out Of The Unknown appearing in the sole completely surviving third season episode The Last Lonely Man, directed by Douglas Camfield where he played Patrick Wilson. This episode is also on the Out Of The Unknown DVD set linked to above. He appears in UFO as Dr. Segal in A Question of Priorities, the missing third season Doomwatch episode Say Knife, Fat Man as Rafael Dominguez, The Sweeney episode I Want the Man as Chief Insp. Gordon and the last first season episode of The Tripods as the Interrogator

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Meanwhile Duggan, teamed with Romana for this episode, is played by Tom Chadbon, here playing Duggan, will be back in the first four episodes of Trial of a Timelord as Merdeen. He appears in one of the surviving fourth season Out of the Unknown episodes, The Man in My Head, as Brinson which you can see in the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. Earlier in the year this episode was shown he was in the second season Blake's 7 episode Countdown, as Del Grant the brother of Avon's long lost love Anna. He can be briefly seen s a Stockbroker in the 2006 version of Casino Royale.

Having left the Cafe Duggan and Romana have made the mistake of returning to the Count's Château where they are quickly apprehended!

SCARLIONI: My dear, it was not necessary for you to enter my house by, we could hardly call it stealth. You had only to knock on the door. I've been very anxious to renew our acquaintance. In fact, I was almost on the point of sending out a search party.
DUGGAN: Listen, Scarlioni.
SCARLIONI: I'm speaking to the young lady. You have some knowledge which could be very useful to me.
DUGGAN: You'd better not touch her, Scarlioni.
SCARLIONI: Oh, do be quiet.
ROMANA: I'll look after myself, thank you.
SCARLIONI: Please, do sit down. Now I understand you have some highly specialised knowledge which could be of immense service to me.
ROMANA: Who, me?
SCARLIONI: I'm speaking of temporal engineering. I am told that you are a considerable authority on time travel.
ROMANA: Well, I don't know who could have given you that idea.
SCARLIONI: Your friend the Doctor let it slip.
ROMANA: The Doctor? But he's in er
SCARLIONI: Yes, Florence, sixteenth century. That's where I, we met him.
DUGGAN: Can anyone join in this conversation or do you need a certificate?
SCARLIONI: If he interrupts again, Hermann, kill him.
HERMANN: Sir.
SCARLIONI: Perhaps you'd care to come downstairs and examine the equipment in more detail?
ROMANA: And if I refuse?
SCARLIONI: Oh, must we go into vulgar threats? Let us just say that I shall destroy Paris, if that'll help you make up your minds.
ROMANA: And am I supposed to believe you can do that?
SCARLIONI: Well, you won't know until you've seen the equipment, will you. Bring him.
HERMANN: Yes, sir.

DUGGAN: Can he?
ROMANA: What?
DUGGAN: Destroy Paris?
ROMANA: What, with this lot?
DUGGAN: Yeah.
ROMANA: No trouble. Blast the whole city through an unstablised time field.
DUGGAN: You don't seriously believe all this time travel nonsense, do you?
ROMANA: Do you believe wood comes from trees?
DUGGAN: What do you mean?
ROMANA: It's just a fact of life one's brought up with.
SCARLIONI: You're beginning to appreciate the truth of my words then, are you?
ROMANA: That you can destroy Paris? Yes.
KERENSKY: Why all this talk of destruction? What are you doing with my work?
SCARLIONI: Professor, I shall show you. Would you care to examine the field generator? You will now see, my dear, how I deal with fools.
KERENSKY: No, not that switch!

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Kerensky's demise is an old classic, ageing someone to death, and it's been done at least once before in The Dalek Masterplan 12 when Sara Kingdom dies. Visually impressive we see a fit and healthy Kerensky aged to the point where there's nothing but bone left!

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Sunday 6 October 2019

511 City of Death: Part Two

EPISODE: City of Death: Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 511
STORY NUMBER: 105
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 October 1979
WRITER: "David Agnew" (pseudonym for Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, and David Fisher)
DIRECTOR: Michael Hayes
SCRIPT EDITOR: Douglas Adams
PRODUCER: Graham Williams
RATINGS: 14.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - City of Death

"My dear, I don't think he's as stupid as he seems."
"My dear, nobody could be as stupid as he seems!"

The Doctor, Romana & Duggan are taken to the Count's house where they are questioned. As they are taken to the cellar the Count remarks to his wife that they have a Mona Lisa to steal. The Doctor is interested by the laboratory but locked in an adjoining room which Romana notices is too small compared to the outside. They escape and examine the lab, but hide when Kerensky returns. The observe him experimenting on an egg which he ages into a chicken, before the Doctor introduces himself. The Count, Hermann & The Countess plan the robbery using a holographic replica of the Louvre generated from data taken by the countess. The Professor & Doctor discuss the experiment as the chicken collapses into bones then dust. The Doctor reverses the polarity bringing the chicken back to life, but in the time effect the see the face of Scaroth. Romana discovers another room bricked up at the end of the cell. Duggan demolishes the wall and behind it they find a room that has been sealed up for a long time containing six Mona Lisas. Duggan tells them he knows of seven people that would buy a Mona Lisa, but couldn't while the real one is in the Louvre. Count Scarlioni finds them and holds them at gun point, telling them by the end of the night he will have a seventh. Duggan knocks him out and they all escape. Duggan & Romana go to stop the robbery while the Doctor takes the Tardis to early 16th century Florence where he is captured by one of Captain Tancredi's soldiers. Tancredi has put Leonardo to work on something and when he enters he is revealed to be an exact duplicate of Count Scarlioni!

Ah fabulous again. This episode purrs along like a perfectly tuned car, all the more incredible when you think it was cobbled together over a weekend. The dialogue is incredibly good with some wonderful exchanges like when the Doctor meets the Count & Countess Scarlioni:

DOCTOR: I say, what a wonderful butler. He's so violent. Hello, I'm called the Doctor. That's Romana, that's Duggan. You must be the Countess Scarlioni and this is clearly a delightful Louis Quinze chair. May I sit in it? I say, haven't they worn well? Thank you, Hermann, that'll be all.
COUNTESS: Doctor, you're being very pleasant with me.
DOCTOR: Well, I'm a very pleasant fellow.
COUNTESS: But I didn't invite you here for social reasons.
DOCTOR: Yes, I could see that the moment you didn't invite me to have a drink. Well, I will have a drink now you come to mention it. Yes, do come in, everybody.
DOCTOR: Romana, sit down over there. Duggan. Now, Duggan, you sit there. Do sit down if you want to, Count. Oh, all right. Now, isn't this nice?
COUNTESS: The only reason you were brought here was to explain exactly why you stole my bracelet.
DOCTOR: Ah, well, it's my job, you see. I'm a thief. And this is Romana, she's my accomplice. And this is Duggan. He's the detective who's been kind enough to catch me. That's his job. You see, our two lines of work dovetail beautifully.
COUNTESS: Very interesting.
DOCTOR: Yes.
COUNTESS: I was rather under the impression that Mister Duggan was following me.
DOCTOR: Ah. Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably, and Duggan was trying to summon up the courage to ask you out to dinner, weren't you, Duggan?
COUNTESS: Who sent you?
DOCTOR: Who sent me what?
COUNTESS: Doctor, the more you try to convince me that you're a fool, the more I'm likely to think otherwise. Now, it would only be the work of a moment to have you killed.
DOCTOR: What?
COUNTESS: Put it down.
ROMANA: It's one of those isn't it?
COUNTESS: Yes, it's a very rare and precious Chinese puzzle box. You won't be able to open it so put it down.
ROMANA: Oh, look.
SCARLIONI: Yes. Very pretty, isn't it.
ROMANA: Very. Where's it from?
SCARLIONI: From? It's not from anywhere. It's mine.
COUNTESS: My dear, these are the people who stole it from me at the Louvre.
DOCTOR: Hello there.
SCARLIONI: How very curious. Two thieves enter the Louvre gallery and come out with a bracelet. Couldn't you think of anything more interesting to steal?
DOCTOR: Well, I just thought it was awfully pretty and a terribly unusual design. Of course, it would have been much nicer to have stolen one of the pictures, but I've tried that before and all sorts of alarms go off which disturbs the concentration.
SCARLIONI: Yes, it would. So you stole the bracelet simply because it's pretty?
DOCTOR: Yes. Well, I think it is. Don't you?
SCARLIONI: Yes.
COUNTESS: My dear, I don't think he's as stupid as he seems.
SCARLIONI: My dear, nobody could be as stupid as he seems.
DOCTOR: Oh.
SCARLIONI: This interview is at an end.
DOCTOR: Good. Well, we'll be off. A quick stagger up the Champs Elysees, perhaps a bite at Maxims. What do you think, Romana?
ROMANA: Maxims
SCARLIONI: I think a rather better idea would be if Hermann were to lock you into the cellar. I should hate to lose contact with such fascinating people.
(Hermann moves forward, and Duggan picks up the chair he was sitting in to hit him with it.)
DOCTOR: Ah. Duggan, what are you doing? For heavens sake, that's a Louis Quinze.
DUGGAN: But you're not going to let them lock us up
DOCTOR: Just behave like a civilised guest. I do beg your pardon, Count.
SCARLIONI: Thank you.
DOCTOR: Now, Hermann, if you'd just be kind enough to show us to our cellar, we'd be terribly grateful. Do come along, my good chap.
SCARLIONI: You really should be more careful with your trinkets, my dear. After all, we do have a Mona Lisa to steal.
Lovely stuff.

Several of the cast have Doctor Who form, or will be back later. The most recognisable face in the cast is Julian Glover as Scaroth / Count Scarlioni / Captain Tancredi. He was previously Richard the Lionheart in the First Doctor Story in The Crusade. Julian Glover's acting CV is huge taking in various roles in the acclaimed An Age of Kings including the Earl of Westmoreland in Henry IV and King Edward IV in Henry VI. He was in Out of This World as Dave Sheridan in Botany Bay, the Quatermass and the Pit film as Colonel Breen, The Sweeney as Bernard Stone in Queen's Pawn, Space: 1999 as Jarak in Alpha Child, Blake's 7 as Professor Kayn in Breakdown and By the Sword Divided as Sir Martin Lacey. On the big screen he was General Veers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Kristatos in James Bond: For Your Eyes Only and Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade.

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Glover's real life wife in real life is Isla Blair, who we'll see later in the King's Demons, but here his fictional wife is the Countess Scarlioni played by Catherine Schell who's most famous as Maya in the second season of Space 1999, a series which both Glover & Blair have featured in. Before that she'd made a first season appearance as the Servant of the Guardian in Guardian of Piri. She was also in The Sweeney: Big Spender as Stella Goodman and appears in On Her Majesty's Secret Service as Nancy.

Then we have our mad scientist:

DOCTOR: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
KERENSKY: Who are you?
DOCTOR: Me?
KERENSKY: Yes, who are you? What are you doing here?
DOCTOR: Me? I'm the Doctor. What you're doing is terribly interesting, but you've got it wrong.
KERENSKY: Wrong? What are you talking about?
DOCTOR: Well, you're tinkering with time. That's always a bad idea unless you know what you're doing.
KERENSKY: I know what I'm doing. I am the foremost authority on temporal theory in the whole world.
DOCTOR: The whole world?
KERENSKY: Yes.
DOCTOR: Well, that's a very small place when you consider the size of the universe.
KERENSKY: Ah, but who can?
DOCTOR: Oh, some can. And if you can't, you shouldn't tinker with time.
KERENSKY: But you saw it work. The greatest achievement of the human race. A cellular accelerator. You saw it! An egg developed into a chicken in thirty seconds. With a large one, I can turn a calf into a cow in even less time. It will be the end of famine in the world.
DOCTOR: It'll be the end of you, if you're not careful, never mind the cow. Look.
KERENSKY: Well, there are a few technical problems.
DOCTOR: A few technical problems! No, no, no. The whole principle you're working on is wrong. You can stretch time backwards or forwards within that bubble, but you can't break into it or out of it. It's true you have created a different time continuum, but it's totally incompatible with ours.
KERENSKY: Ah. I don't know what you mean.
DOCTOR: Have you tried this?

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DOCTOR: That's a more interesting effect, don't you think? Did you know when you built that it could do something like that?
KERENSKY: No. What did you do?
DOCTOR: What do you mean, what did I do? I just reversed the polarity. This is very expensive equipment, isn't it?
KERENSKY: Oh, very expensive. The Count is very generous. A true philanthropist. I do not ask too many questions.
DOCTOR: Well, you'd.... What's your name?
KERENSKY: Kerensky.
DOCTOR: Kerensky?
KERENSKY: Theodore Nikolai Kerensky.
DOCTOR: Theodore Nikolai Kerensky, a scientist's job is to ask questions!

Lovely sequence as the Chicken deages and reverts to being an egg!

Making his final Doctor Who appearance, but only his second in front of the camera, is David Graham as Professor Kerensky. He was previously seen as Charlie the Barman in The Gunfighters, but he's best known as a Dalek voice artist in The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Chase (where he also voiced the Mechanoids), Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks' Master Plan on TV plus both of the Dalek films. Nowadays he's best known as the voice of Grandpa Pig in Peppa Pig and the Wise Old Elf in Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom. He has a long association with the Gerry Anderson featuring in Four Feather Falls as Grandpa Ebenezer Twink, Fernando & Red Scalp the Renegade Indian, Supercar as Dr. Horatio Beaker, Bill Gibson & Mitch the Monkey, Fireball XL5 as Professor Matthew Matic, Lieutenant Ninety, Zoonie the Lazoon & Boris Space Spy, Stingray as various voices and Thunderbirds as Brains, Gordon Tracy, Kyrano & Aloysius Parker, the last of which he has reprised for the modern revival Thunderbirds Are Go. He was the voice of the Robot in the missing second season Out of the Unknown episode The Prophet, 2957 in Timeslip: The Year of the Burn Up, Puppet Voices in The Tomorrow PeopleThe Tomorrow People (TV Series): The Thargon Menace and Snork in the 1990 version of the Moomin TV series.

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ROMANA: Why do you suppose the Count's got all this equipment, Doctor?
DOCTOR: He seems to be financing some dangerous experiment with time. The professor, of course, thinks he's breeding chickens.
DUGGAN: Stealing the Mona Lisa to pay for chickens?
ROMANA: Yes, but who'd want to buy the Mona Lisa? You can hardly show it if it's known to be stolen.
DUGGAN: There are at least seven people in my address book who'd pay millions for that picture for their private collection.
ROMANA: But no one could even know they'd got it!
DUGGAN: It would be an expensive gloat, but they'd buy it.
ROMANA: How are we going to move this last bit?
DOCTOR: I think I'm going to need some machinery.
DUGGAN: I've got all the machinery I need.
DOCTOR: Eh?
DUGGAN: Stand back.
ROMANA: What are they, Doctor?
DOCTOR: I don't know.
DUGGAN: They've been here a long time. Get on with it.
DOCTOR: It's the Mona Lisa.
DUGGAN: Must be a fake.
DOCTOR: I don't know what's hanging in the Louvre, but this is the genuine article.
DUGGAN: What?

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DUGGAN: They must be fakes.
DOCTOR: The brushwork's Leonardo's.
DUGGAN: How can you tell?
DOCTOR: It's as characteristic as a signature. The pigment, too.
DUGGAN: On all of them?
DOCTOR: Every one. What I don't understand is why a man who's got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh.
DUGGAN: Come on, Doctor, I've just told you. There are seven people who would buy the Mona Lisa in secret, but nobody's going to buy the Mona Lisa when it's hanging in the Louvre!
ROMANA: Of course. They'd each have to think they were buying the stolen one.
DUGGAN: Right.
DOCTOR: I wouldn't make a very good criminal, would I?
SCARLIONI: No. Good criminals don't get caught. I see you've found some of my pictures. Rather good, aren't they? By the end of this evening, I shall have a seventh.
DOCTOR: Can I ask you where you got these?
SCARLIONI: No.
DOCTOR: Right. Or how you knew they were here?
SCARLIONI: No.
DOCTOR: They've been bricked up a long time.
SCARLIONI: Yes.
DOCTOR: I like concise answers.
SCARLIONI: Good. I came down to find Kerensky.
DOCTOR: Oh?
SCARLIONI: But he doesn't seem to be able to speak to me.
DOCTOR: Oh.
SCARLIONI: Can you throw any light on that?
DOCTOR: No.
DUGGAN: I can.
DOCTOR: Duggan! Duggan, why is it that every time I start to talk to someone, you knock him unconscious?
DUGGAN: I didn't expect him to go down that easy.
DOCTOR: Well, if you don't understand heads, you shouldn't go about hitting them.
DUGGAN: Well, what else would you suggest?
DOCTOR: Duggan! Your job is to stop his men from stealing the Mona Lisa. The other Mona Lisa.

This leads the Doctor to make a trip back to Renaissance Italy to see the Mona Lisa's artist Leonardo da Vinci. We last heard of him during the Masque of Mandragora where the Doctor was looking forward to meeting him in c1492. By about 10 years later for Leonardo, given the time period which he painted the Mona Lisa and that the visit is dated in the next episode, he has met the Doctor, probably more than once judging by the friendly comments the Doctor makes while poking round his rooms, and is working on his great painting The Mona Lisa.

Leonardo isn't the only painter the Doctor has met: The Eleventh Doctor meets Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent and the Doctor. And, according to a scene cut from Silver Nemesis, at some point the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace gets herself painted by someone famous enough for the Queen to have the portrait hanging in Windsor Castle!

DOCTOR: Leonardo? Leonardo? Ah, that Renaissance sunshine. Leonardo? The paintings went down very well. Everybody loved them. Last Supper, Mona Lisa. You remember the Mona Lisa? That dreadful woman with no eyebrows who wouldn't sit still, eh? Your idea for the helicopter took a bit longer to catch on, but as I say, these things take time.

2g 2h

SOLDIER: You.
DOCTOR: Me?
SOLDIER: Who are you? What are you doing here?
DOCTOR: Ah, well, I just dropped by to see Leonardo, actually. Is he about?
SOLDIER: Nobody's allowed to see Leonardo.
DOCTOR: Really?
SOLDIER: He's engaged on important work for Captain Tancredi.
DOCTOR: Captain Tancredi?
SOLDIER: Do you know him?
DOCTOR: No.
SOLDIER: He'll want to question you.
DOCTOR: Well, I'll want to question him, so we can both have a little chat, can't we.
SOLDIER: He'll be here instantly.

2i 2j

DOCTOR: You! What are you doing here?
TANCREDI: I think that is exactly the question I ought to be asking you, Doctor!

That's a wonderful reveal again at the end there: last week we discovered Scarlioni was an alien, this time that there's someone who looks just like him in 16th century Italy!

The week following the broadcast of this episode saw two notable publishing events connected with the show. On Thursday 11th October the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly (later Monthly, and now Magazine) was published. Yes I know it's dated 17th October but British periodical publishing custom has it that the date on the issue is the last day it's on sale rather than the first. Odd, yes, but there we go..... The next day, Friday 12th October, Script Editor Douglas Adams had his first novel publish, the printed adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which, to say the least, did rather well for him.