The Horns of Nimon

Dear Gary—

“The Nimon waits for no man.” OK, Gary. Things are definitely on a downhill slope.

However, a Tom Baker Doctor Who, even if not the best, is still entertaining, and The Horns of Nimon is innocuous enough fun.

It starts out rather good in fact in what I consider to be an impressive set of a deteriorating space battle cruiser. “When are we going to get modern equipment?” the copilot complains. This is what I would expect an aging spaceship bridge to look like, dark and cramped with cables and equipment littering the place.

The tense exchange between the weary pilot and bitter copilot also sets the stage nicely. The once great Skonnan battle fleet is now patched together with spit and wire and converted into cargo ships hauling human sacrifices from enemy planet Aneth back to Skonnos to please the Nimon who is Skonnos’ last remaining hope of returning to glory.

“Patience is the virtue of the weak,” the copilot grumbles, the very picture of impatience while the jaded pilot patiently chides him to his duty and goes on to inform him that this is to be their last shipment. “Our part of the contract will be fulfilled,” he tells the disgruntled copilot who immediately starts making rash decisions that overload their computer, knocks them off course, and kills the pilot.

With the steadying voice of the pilot silenced so early, the remaining story takes its cue from the copilot’s buffoonery and later Soldeed’s insanity. Add in the scant, cheap sets once we leave the ship’s bridge and the uninspired guest characters and we have another Doctor Who with its budget and ennui showing.

But that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, because it doesn’t get boring. And I suspect, Gary, that with the steadying influence of the pilot guiding the show, perhaps it could have been boring. Not to say that it would have, it might possibly have risen to heights unknown, but we will never know. Because The Horns of Nimon took another path and it is that path we will follow.

This path is predicated on four things: the copilot, Soldeed, the Nimon, and of course the Doctor.

I’ll start with the copilot because I already have.  This character is so wildly caricaturized and so deliciously despicable. Waving his gun about (“Have you noticed how people’s intellectual curiosity declines sharply the moment they start waving guns about?”) and hiding his cowardice behind a false bravado, cunning but stupid. The copilot is an opportunist who doesn’t think. Quick witted but slow and dimwitted. His mind works to his best advantage but it lets him down every time. In short, he is just plain fun to watch as he self destructs.

Next we have Soldeed. Soldeed has sold his soul, his people, his planet to the Nimon, but he has deluded himself into believing he has the upper hand. Whereas the copilot recognizes the reality before him and changes his tack accordingly, Soldeed recognizes only his own reality and changes fact to fit his delusions.

Soldeed’s counterpart Sezom on the Nimon conquered planet Crinoth remains sane but broken and disillusioned. If this had been the story of Crinoth rather than Skonnos with Sezom taking the lead and not Soldeed, this would have again been a different story much as if the pilot had lived. Sober and serious, perhaps boring, perhaps elevated. We’ll never know. But this is the story of Skonnos, of the copilot and Soldeed, of buffoons and insanity. This is a much different story.

The presence of the pilot and Sezom are grounding, though. They resonate with what once was, what might have been. They provide structure and meaning to the buffoonery and insanity.  

But let’s return to that insanity. Upon first meeting Soldeed we do not know that he is insane; he lets this out a little at a time, building to a mad crescendo.

“Begin at the beginning and end at the end, Sorak,” Soldeed calmly tells the military captain who doesn’t quite know how to relate the bad news he bears. Soldeed can be very calm and ordered in his irrational thinking. Soldeed’s staff and his mantra of “In the name of the Second Skonnan Empire” are the two mainstays of his convictions. Armed with only these he goes to confront the Nimon.

“He speaks of many things,” Soldeed informs Sorak upon emerging from his conference. “He speaks of the great journey of life.”

“Again? What does he mean by the great journey of life?” the sane, practical, and incredulous Sorak wonders.

“Mean? It is . . . it is a metaphor,” the delusional Soldeed replies, trying to bend the truth to his own mad desires.

A still canny Soldeed sees through the deceit of the copilot. “You are a liar,” he tells him. “Your story alters by the second.” He knows the copilot has not the intelligence for his lofty claims. But Soldeed cannot see past his own lofty ambitions. “Our fire shall infest their heavens. It shall be the greatest empire the galaxy has ever seen. An empire of fire, steel, and blood. Skonnos shall rule!”

“I play the Nimon on a long string,” he later tells Sorak, justifying his fawning before the great and bestial Lord Nimon.

As Soldeed’s insanity becomes clearer his acting becomes more unhinged and we see and hear it in every gesture and intonation.  “Three. I have seen three,” Soldeed finally breaks as Romana forces him to face the reality of the Nimon and his “great journey of life.” But he still refuses to admit hard truths. “You have brought this calamity upon me,” he accuses Romana before he pulls the fatal lever that will blow the complex sky high. “You are all doomed. Doomed.”

The exaggerations of the copilot and Soldeed make the blandness around them bearable. The blank and barren sets, the profusion of metal grating, the mute sacrifices, and the insipid Seth and Teka. Seth is harmless enough, but Teka’s incessant questions and unfounded faith in Seth is annoying.

Teka: “What’s going on?”

Seth: “I don’t know.”

Teka: “Why don’t you know?”

Seth’s irritated “I don’t know” reiteration is welcome, but it would be more welcome if Teka was as silent as the other five sacrifices that shuffle around in the background.

I have to put in a word here, Gary, about Romana. Romana plays it serious throughout which works quite well in this mix of hyperbole and mediocrity. She is firm, angry, and decisive as needed, very much taking everyone in hand and leading the way. I love her tallyho outfit, and she has even crafted her own sonic screwdriver (coveted by the Doctor). Romana is beginning to hit her stride.

Next on our list, the Nimon. The Nimon is a lovely Doctor Who monster. Jet black head to toe with bright yellow plastic horns sprouting from his huge head, ungainly platform shoes, top heavy, and almost balletic in his gracelessness. First there is only one, then three with the threat of multitudes to come, swarming across the universe like locusts.

Again, let’s compare what could have been with what is. Romana finds herself on the defeated and depleted Crinoth with the sober Sezom and the horde of Nimons preparing for their invasion. A little of this is taut and terrifying, but I can see where an extended four episodes of this could have been dark and dreary. I think I prefer the Skonnos/copilot/Soldeed version of events. Too much of Crinoth could have shown up the Nimons as laughable; Skonnos allows our suspension of disbelief wider scope.

Finally we turn to the Doctor. The Doctor is just the right blend of jocularity and gravity. The Doctor handing out jelly babies as he soothes the sacrifices and elicits vital information; the Doctor as he tries to swap sonic screwdrivers on Romana while restoring power to the Skonnan ship; “Tell me, Nimon, tell me, are you really terribly fierce?” as the Doctor rescues Romana, Seth and Teka; “Well I hope you get it in the right order,” as the Doctor is told he will be questioned, tortured, and killed; the Doctor, always ready with a quip or an antic to lighten the perilous moments.

There are a few instances of going too far, however. The Doctor giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to K9 and the cartoon boing noises emanating from a malfunctioning TARDIS console for example. And then there is the Doctor on the run stopping in the middle of the Council room and saying, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to say one thing and let me make it perfectly clear, I stand before you desperate to find the exit.” Meanwhile the oblivious council members ignore him and the guards run past him. Too much; too far.

Overall, however, the Doctor hits the right note and The Horns of Nimon works, and again I have to give credit to Romana. Playing it serious, Romana keeps the Doctor from roaming too far into the madcap. Thus the opening TARDIS scene as the Doctor tinkers with the console is funny, but we also feel the danger as they face the inevitability of a crash with no operable defense shields. The two are beginning to work well together.

“Ah, well people often don’t know what you’re talking about,” Romana tells the Doctor; she is definitely settling in to this companion role, and I love the closing exchange between the two:

Doctor: “Well, come on old girl. There’s quite a few millennia left in you yet.”

Romana: “Thank you, Doctor.”

Doctor: “Not you, the TARDIS.”

There are quite a few millennia left, Gary, and quite a few Doctors to go.

As ever . . .