19x1. Castrovalva
Writer: Christopher H. Bidmead
Director: Fiona Cumming
Script Editor: Eric Saward
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: While a disoriented
Doctor recovers from his regeneration, the Master attempts to set two
separate traps for the TARDIS crew. First, he kidnaps Adric and creates
a duplicate with block transfer computation, who puts the TARDIS on
course for the moment of the galaxy's creation (where it would be
destroyed). After that fails, he coerces Adric into using block
transfer computation to create Castrovalva, seemingly a calm society
where the Doctor could recuperate. When Adric is freed and ceases his
calculations, Castrovalva begins to collapse, with the TARDIS crew just
barely escaping.
Review: The last two
post-regeneration serials took somewhat opposite approaches: "Spearhead
from Space" temporarily redefined the premise of the series, while
"Robot" focused on introducing the Fourth Doctor within an otherwise
familiar setting. "Castrovalva" is probably more in the vein of the
latter, in that the "hard sci-fi" world of TARDIS anomalies, Zero
Rooms, and block transfer computation continues in the vein of Season
18. But what it doesn't do - and what both "Spearhead" and "Robot" did
do successfully - is to start sketching out the personality of the new
Doctor, because he spends most of the serial thoroughly out of sorts
from the regeneration. Peter Davison does prove himself an able
performer even if he isn't yet playing the role of the Fifth Doctor as
we will eventually come to know it, but the serial does not establish
the sense of wonder and mystery regarding the Time Lords and
regeneration the way "Logopolis" did, nor does it tell a particularly
engaging story in its own right. Tegan and Nyssa are established as
competent characters who take the initative when the Doctor is out of
commission, and there's a somewhat interesting point about how the
individuals created through block transfer computation seem to have
some degree of free will, but otherwise it's really just a story in
which the Master sets traps for the TARDIS crew that eventually fail.
Rating: **1/2 out of four
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