17x6. Shada
Writer: Douglas Adams
Director: Pennant Roberts
Script Editor: Douglas Adams
Producer: Graham Williams
Synopsis: The Doctor is
summoned by an old friend, the retired Time Lord Professor Chronotis,
who now works as a Cambridge professor and has "borrowed" an immensely
powerful Gallifreyan book which he wants the Doctor to return for him.
The book is also being sought by a megalomanical scientist named Skagra
who has absorbed the mental abilities of a number of famous geniuses
and who hopes to use the powers of Time Lord criminal Salyavin to
render his mind one with the entire universe.
Review: "Shada," needless to
say, has a complex and troubled history. Intended as the final serial
of Season 17, it was left incomplete due to industrial disputes at the
BBC and never transmitted. Now restored with linking narration by Tom
Baker to fill in the parts of the story that were never filmed, it is
perhaps unique as a BBC-produced television feature that is of
questionable status in the canon. Footage from the unused serial was
incorporated into "The Five Doctors" and implied that the events of the
serial were interrupted and never took place. To complicate matters
further, the BBC eventually also produced an animated version of the
story that features Paul McGann's incarnation as the Doctor remembering
that he had unfinished business at Cambridge and persuading Romana and
K-9 to rejoin him to track down Professor Chronotis.
So did the events of this restored serial "really happen" in the
Whoniverse? There's no definitive answer, of course, but either way,
I'd say that the material for a potentially strong installment was
certainly here. The script, like "City of Death," again finds Douglas
Adams portraying the two Time Lords in a more relaxed setting at first,
punting near the campus and sitting down for tea with Professor
Chronotis. Adams' typically whimsical humor is in evidence throughout,
particularly in the dialogue, such as Chronotis forgetting that he has
"a mind like a sieve" and the Doctor's reaction to the invisible
spaceship ("Do you see what I don't see? Neither do I"). One of
the unfilmed scenes that I really wish we could have seen comes at the
end of Episode 3, when the Doctor convinces Skagra's ship that he is
dead and therefore poses no threat, only to discover that he's been a
bit too clever when the ship cuts off his air supply, informing him,
"Dead men do not require oxygen." And Skagra's apparent punishment at
the end - being imprisoned on his own ship while its computer expounds
at length on what a wonderful person the Doctor is - strikes me as an
amusing yet appropriate comeuppance.
"Shada" also boasts several strong guest characters. First, of course,
is Chronotis himself, a loveably absent-minded but intelligent
eccentric who turns out to be the Time Lord criminal Salyavin; while
it's certainly possible to imagine how his powers of thought projection
could be abused, his benevolent manner suggests that, like the Doctor
(who claims to admire him), he probably mostly just fell on the wrong
side of Gallifrey's regressive establishment. Skagra emerges as one of
the more interesting villains, if only by virtue of his motive: rather
than wanting to "take over" the universe (a concept that Douglas Adams
reportedly disliked as motivation for a villain), he wants to become
one with the universe mentally. Chris Parsons and Clare Keightley,
meanwhile, are effective as guest characters who are themselves
competent and intelligent but nonetheless in over their heads. The two
of them, along with Chronotis, have a clever final scene trying to
deflect suspicion from a policeman who's been called in to investigate
the theft of a room (Chronotis' office, which is actually his TARDIS)
and isn't sure what to make of the disappearing police box.
The limits of the restoration become more apparent as the story
progresses and the action increasingly shifts to locations where
filming evidently had not yet been completed (specifically the TARDIS
control room and certain of the spacecraft scenes). In particular, the
confrontation with Skagra in which he fully reveals his scheme to the
Doctor (a scene which I remember being especially striking in the
animated restoration) is lost; I appreciate the concept, and Baker does
the best he can with the narration, but it just doesn't have the same
impact that actually seeing it probably would have. The music, which is
the work of McCoy-era composer Keff McCulloch, also feels a bit
anachronistic, reminding me more of...well, an '80s Who serial,
I suppose. Still, it's hard to fault the restoration in general, as
it's clear that the team behind this release were doing the best they
could with the material available to them, and they admirably resist
the temptation to "update" the special effects.
Because so many critical scenes are lost towards the end, I am
refraining from giving "Shada" a star rating, but it looked like it had
the stuff of a *** or ***1/2 serial from what's left and from what I
know of what's missing. Though it stumbles in a few places (such as the
seeming indifference of the passersby in Episodes 1 and 2 to a floating
sphere and to Skagra's bizarrely flamboyant costume), it likely would
have ended Season 17, and the tenures of Douglas Adams and Graham
Williams on the series, on a high note.
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