Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden [DVD] [1979]

Nightmare of Eden's Synopsis
`````````````````````````
Two spacecraft fuse in a hyperspace collision, and with the dimensional instabilities threatening everyone aboard, it's fortunate the Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward) and K-9 arrive to help. But when a crew member is found clawed by a ferocious creature, it seems there's something even more frightening stalking the corridors. But what can this have to do with a zoologist, Professor Tryst, his CET projection machine, and a planet called Eden?

Review
``````
1979's Nightmare of Eden is not as bad as I once thought, the story is certainly above the standard of the day and really is quite a fun studio bound romp. As my title suggests, I believe Tom Baker's still got it, he and Lalla Ward definitely had a great Doctor-Companion relationship and an even better "relationship" outside of the show. Here, Tom is as ever on energetic form, playing the Doctor no differently to when he first showed up in 1974. One thing I always loved about Tom Baker is that even when he is handed a script that is by no means the quality of "Genesis of the Daleks", he still puts in a fantastically energetic performance, still reveling in all the fun and attention he's getting as the titular character.

As for the story itself, it ain't half bad, the whole theme of drug smuggling is a very adult subject, more you're Panorama than Doctor Who. The sets are pretty good and the Mandrels are very well realised, remembering that the budget was still miniscule this late in the series run. Lalla Ward puts in a fantastic performance as Romana, taking a more centre stage performance alongside Tom. John Leeson's K.9. is also very well used in this story, but it is the quest cast that rather steal the show for me, David Daker returns to Doctor Who after a 5 year absence, his last performance being in 1974's The Time Warrior. His acting is on top form here and his portrayal of Cap. Rigg is riveting. Lewis Fiander also characterizes the Professor excellently here, his character having more than one dimension. Overall the casting by director Alan Bromly {Ironically the director of Daker in The Time Warrior} is excellently done. I have no complaints as to the acting side of Nightmare of Eden.

The BBC DVD release looks interesting, the Doctor Who Restoration Team have no doubt done an excellent job in remastering these episodes for release on to DVD. The documentaries look fascinating and I believe we are beginning to see the end of the BBC's budget Doctor Who DVD releases. The upcoming DVD contains,

Commentary with actors Lalla Ward (Romana) and Peter Craze (Costa), writer Bob Baker, effects designer Colin Mapson and make-up designer Joan Stribling. Moderated by Toby Hadoke.

* The Nightmare of Television Centre - A look back at the somewhat troubled production of this story.
* Going Solo - Writer Bob Baker talks about The Nightmare of Eden.
* The Doctor's Strange Love with comedian Josie Long and writers Joe Lidster and Simon Guerrier.
* Ask Aspel - Lalla Ward's appearance on the popular BBC children's show.
* Radio Times Listings (DVD-ROM).
* Programme Subtitles.
* Production Information Subtitles.
* Photo Gallery.
* Coming Soon Trailer.

It's hotting up to be a fantastic year for Doctor Who on DVD, we have had the release of Jon Pertwee's Invasion of the Dinosaurs in full colour, the Revisitation 3 boxed set, the infamous "Daemons" finally seeing a DVD release, William Hartnell's The Reign of Terror's currently missing episodes 4 & 5 being animated for it's DVD release and the much awaited release of Shada, in the Legacy boxed set alongside the "More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS" documentary and a whole load of other special bonus features. We had all better start ordering them now,

Many thanks for your time in reading this review, it's greatly appreciated,

M.B.

The ideas and script in this are actually quite good but get let down badly by production.The great opening moment as 2 ships come out of hyperspace or whatever and have a traffic accident where they become merged was not achieveable visually at the time. It's quite a tricky thing to sell visually & would be difficult now but you simply cannot get from the effects what is meant to be happening.
This of course is adequately covered in the dialogue and nicely Bob Baker has the 2 pilots arguing as if they were 2 car drivers, over whose fault it is. Baker's dialogue shows that space travel is routine very well. The journey they are making is nicknamed "the milk run."
The accident is a backdrop to a story of drug smuggling which despite the drug users being shown laughing for no reason or experiencing withdrawal, never really has enough gravitas or atmosphere.
There's also a Carnival of Monsters type idea, a sort of projector with environments and living things in it.
Mostly the acting is pretty good , despite a wobbly Germanic accent, Lewis Fiander is a believably mad scientist and David Daker (like director Alan Bromly last involved with Who for Time Warrior)gives us a credibly jaded space captain. Special mention for Jennifer Lonsdale who is very good as Della and gives more chracter to her than is in the script. Sadly the monsters the Mandrels who are clearly intended to be menacing, look far too cuddly and muppet like. The costumes restrict arm movement to forearms only, which makes their flailing about look especially comic.
Sets and costunes are actually pretty good except for Lalla Ward who as she says herself in the commentary looks like she's wearing a maternity dress.
Her and Tom ably supported by K9 (who is in an evironment where he fits)as they often did make a story watchable. A strange moment has Romana, (aware deadly drug vraxoin is aboard)unable to work out why the Captain keeps laughing for no reason.
This should have been a good start for Bob Baker returning to Who after the partnership with co-writer Dave Martin (which produced a lot of good Who) had ended but for one reason and another it never catches fire.

The Nightmare of Television Centre is a short documentary focusing on why shooting them on video rather than film, did not bring out the best in models that the makers were proud of, the problems with director Alan Bromly and why he left before the end and it generally paints a pitcure of an unhappy time all round.
Bob Baker discusses how he came to offer a cheap story to the producer that enede up costing a packet, the end of the writing partnership with Martin and his feelings about the production in Going Solo.
The jolly commentary strongly features Lalla Ward, Bob Baker and others presided over by The Moderator-Toby Hadoke. It covers some ground in the doc etc of course but focuses on some other things too like the work of scrpt editor Douglas Adams who Lalla says actually was good at holding Tom down over his sillier ideas! the general impression is that they think it probably could be better done now but was still worthwhile. Lalla mentions encounters with other Doctors at conventions. She wishes she'd worked with Troughton & was confused to see Pertwee at a Who convention dressed as Worzel Gummidge ("had he come to the wrong convention?").Bob Baker reveals an approach to Russell T Davies to write for Who again was rebuffed.
The gem is Lalla Ward's appearance on Ask Aspel where Mr A in training for his later chatshow, interviews guest and shows clips from programmes. I'd forgotten how bad the theme tune was! But Lalla is charming and it's a treat to see the interview & clips of her as Ophelia in Hamlet and in the Duchess of Duke Street. As it was a half hour show I'm guessing some was cut understandably to save clearance on clips of shows that she was not in.
The Doctor's Strange Love is an odd feature where comedian Josie Long, Big Finish Who writers Simon Guerrier & Joseph Lidster point out tgings we could have worked out for ourselves. Divorced from being soundbites in a documentary, fan viewpoints look a bit indulgent. They filmed it in the attic set from The Sarah Jane Adventures and just in case you miss the point keep cutting to exterior shots of the house used as Sarah Jane's home.
A story that is interesting but not very well made with fun extras (plus an odd one) and is probably for big fans of this era only.

Rather unusually for Dr Who we get to deal with a real life problem; drug running.

The story opens with two starships suffering a prang but when the Doctor and Romana turn up we find the navigator's behaving strangely and is Tryst's device, the C.E.T. really as humane as he made out?

The Mandrells show the usual BBC problem with the lack of funding but Tom and Lalla are at the height of their powers as the Doc and Romana and the models of the spaceships were superb, though I'm not so sure about the shots of the Empress and Hecate where they're intertwined.

Th extras were a bit disappointing where the visual efects guy was complaining about being excluded from most of his traditional areas of expertise.