24x2. Paradise Towers
Writer: Stephen Wyatt
Script Editor: Andrew Cartmel
Director: Nicholas Mallett
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: The
Doctor and Melanie arrive at Paradise Towers, a would-be luxury
apartment building that has fallen into disrepair, and find themselves
under threat from the bureaucratic "Caretakers," cannibalistic
"Rezzies," and a mysterious presence in the tower basement that turns out to be Kroagnon, the Towers' misanthropic designer.
Review: The creative team behind "Paradise Towers" certainly
deserve credit for creating a unique setting - there are few scenes in
this serial that could be mistaken for another Doctor Who
installment. The Kangs, Pex, the Caretakers, and the Rezzies form an
effective ensemble cast, and even if most of them aren't the most
complex characters ever to have graced the screen, their idiosyncratic
slang and differing agendas add up to a compelling picture of a
decaying society that has long since stopped playing by what most of us
would consider sensible or civilized rules. The Doctor's role, as the
one who sorts
out the various conflicts and
rallies the inhabitants together to stop Kroagnon's murders, is perhaps
predictable but nonetheless effective: a relatively conventional
narrative isn't necessarily a bad thing when we're still getting to
know this new incarnation, and the script thankfully dispenses with the
misquoted aphorisms that quickly wore out their welcome in "Time and
the Rani." Where the serial isn't so successful is in explaining
exactly how this bizarre situation arose in the first place; all we
learn that the children and elderly were sent to the Towers when a war
broke out and that Pex fled there to avoid the hostilities. But why did
the Chief Caretaker continue "feeding" people to Kroagnon for so long,
and what made him think that Kroagnon was some sort of "pet" who needed
to be appeased? Couldn't he and the other Caretakers - or anyone else -
just walk out the door, or are they somehow trapped in the Towers? For
that matter, just who or what *is* Kroagnon? He's presumably at least
somewhat intelligent, and yet he's portrayed as a dehumanized monster,
at first appearing as a voice that only bellows "hungry!" before taking
over the Chief Caretaker's body, and the Doctor never seems to consider
trying to reason with him before deciding to lure him into a death
trap. This is an imaginative serial, but its slim backstory and
underdeveloped character motivations prevent it from being an entirely
successful one.
Rating: **1/2 (out of four)
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