The Caves of Androzani

Dear Gary—

The Caves of Androzani is good. It deserves all of the accolades heaped upon it. With top notch writing, directing, acting, and production values (for the most part) it is easily the best Peter Davison story. I would say that The Caves of Androzani is probably the Citizen Kane of Doctor Who. However, while I can appreciate the quality of both, I would place neither in my top ten of favorites. They each lack a certain emotional connection for me that is important. Having said that, though, I do have to rate it as one of the best there is.

A huge plus for The Caves of Androzani is that Peri is not as annoying as she was in her first serial Planet of Fire, probably because she is sick and subdued for much of this story. She also does a creditable job of conveying her increasing discomfort, both with her illness and with the creepy advances of Sharaz Jek. I even find her somewhat endearing in the opening sequences. She and the Doctor seem to have the most companionable relationship of all of the many and varied Fifth Doctor companion pairings. She does continue her lamentable habit of stuttering out her words, however.

My favorite Peri moment occurs to start our story. “Is this wise, I ask myself?” she asks herself as she lags behind the Doctor who is off and running headlong into trouble. The Doctor would have been wise to ask himself the same question. However, “Curiosity’s always been my downfall,” he admits and never has this been more true than in The Caves of Androzani.

The Caves of Androzani is teeming with bad guys and extremely light on good guys. I suppose arguably Chellak and Salateen are on the side of right, but even that is debatable. After all, Chellak carries out the execution of the Doctor and Peri while Salateen takes great delight in the news that the Doctor and Peri are dying of spectrox toxemia. Neither one is interested in helping the Doctor and Peri unless it suits their interest, and the Doctor and Peri can use all the help they can get.  It is a real spectrox nest our two heroes have stepped into on Androzani Minor.

To headline our baddies we have Morgus. Cold and pitiless Morgus. Morgus would sell his own grandmother to turn a profit. Morgus’ main henchman Stotz, on the other hand, would kill his own grandmother just for the fun of it. I have a hard time deciding which of these two is the most reprehensible.

Next we have our tier two of baddies, the President and Krelper, Morgus Lite and Stotz Lite respectively. The President knows what Morgus is about, or at least is suspicious, but he is more concerned with his image than with the welfare of his people. Although I have to say that even Morgus seems put off when the President contemptuously sniffs, “In my day we had filthy little swine like that shot in the back.” When Morgus pushes the President to his death it is fittingly sterile and aloof. “Yes, yes, I am deeply distressed,” Morgus tells Timmin impassively. “Still, it could have been worse,” he continues. “It could have been me.”

There is nothing impassive about Krelper or Stotz, however. Each man relishes in cruelty. It’s hard to feel sympathy for Krelper, even during the expertly played and difficult to watch scene in which Stotz holds Krelper at knifepoint over the edge of a precarious cliff and forces a poison capsule into his mouth. Except for the fact that Stotz would never get himself into that situation, one knows that given the chance Krelper would do exactly the same to Stotz. However Krelper will forever be the underling because he doesn’t think big like Stotz. Two kilos of spectrox is enough for Krelper; he’s content with his bird in the hand. Living by the sword, he doesn’t have the imagination to foresee the satisfaction Stotz takes in returning to gun him down.

Moving on down the ladder of baddies, we have Chellak and Salateen as outlined previously. These are just men doing their jobs, although at times seeming to take far too much pleasure in carrying out their deadly orders. Included in this row I would add Timmin. She, too, is just doing her job; a Morgus in training. She goes through the channels to take Morgus down, but she revels far too much in her victory and I can’t imagine that life under her rule will be much different.

The bottom rung belongs to the magma beast. This is a totally unnecessary but typical Doctor Who creature that really drags the tale down a notch or two. Thankfully not much is made of him so one can almost overlook him.

I purposely left Sharaz Jek out of the progression of baddies because this Phantom of the Opera/Hunchback of Notre Dame/Beauty and the Beast creation deserves special mention. He is without question a baddie, but he has a poignancy that none of the others possess. “The sight of beauty is so important to me,” he enthuses over Peri as though she were a rare, delicate hothouse orchid. “Beauty I must have,” he goes on to admonish the Doctor, “but you are dispensable.”

One time partner of Morgus, but for his betrayal and deformity one could imagine Jek as a cross between the greedy Morgus and the vicious Stotz. He has had time to brood in his lair beneath the surface of Androzani Minor. Revenge and greed are uppermost, however with the advent of Peri he has a sudden outbreak of tenderness and vulnerability that is both disturbing and touching to witness, culminating in his pitiful and heart wrenching breakdown when Peri sees him unmasked.

It truly is a spectrox nest of trouble that the Doctor and Peri step into on Androzani Minor. Danger lurks on all sides from a wealth of baddies. But in the end it is the fatal spectrox toxemia that is the real enemy in The Caves of Androzani. Morgus and Jek and Stotz and all the rest can fight all they want; the real battle that the Doctor is fighting is against time. With the various wars waging around him, the Doctor is intent on one goal—to get the bat’s milk required to cure Peri.

The Caves of Androzani skillfully builds the tension. The initial capture by Chellak, the execution (which is brilliantly conceived and acted), the rescue that is really just an exchange of captors, the escape, the separation—all are exciting and exhilarating but merely a diversion, with the ultimate pressure cooker of a conclusion waiting in reserve. All of these baddies have been simmering and roiling and now come to an explosive end; death upon death; revenge upon revenge; all interspersed with the inevitable blasé nature of battle. Salateen, confident that his belt will gain him safe passage through the android flank, gunned down, his body left in a heap, stepped over by the advancing army. Challak angrily stripping the mask off of Jek only to back away in abject horror. Jek bolting the door against Challak’s screams as the molten mud overtakes him. Stotz calmly shooting round after round into Jek. Jek, staving off death (“Do you think bullets could stop me now?”), while strangling Morgus. Android Salateen stealthily taking out Stotz from behind. Jek falling dead into the arms of the vacant eyed Android Salateen.

None of this, however, means anything to the Doctor. “I owe it to my friend to try because I got her into this,” he says as he hurtles to his seeming death in Stotz’s ship while Stotz threatens him with a gun. “So you see, I’m not going to let you stop me now!”  From his electrifying crash landing of Stotz’s ship, to his race to obtain the antitoxin, to his bursting into the den of death to snatch up Peri, to his stumbling back to the TARDIS with Peri in his arms, the Doctor is on the most important mission of his fifth generation. All of the destruction and mayhem surrounding him is meaningless; the Doctor is single minded in his goal of saving Peri. It is a thrill ride that is rarely matched in Doctor Who.

I only have a few quibbles with The Caves of Androzani. The magma monster comes first and foremost to mind. I also have to wonder how Sharaz Jek was able to construct such realistic android duplicates of the Doctor and Peri down to the last detail of the celery on the Doctor’s lapel in such a short time. The incidental music, especially towards the middle and end, becomes overly intrusive and heavy handed for my taste. Additionally, I am underwhelmed by the set of Morgus’ office and the costumes worn by Morgus, the President, and Timmin. For all of the wealth and greed supposedly possessed by Morgus, the set and costumes seem cheap and are in stark contrast to the nitty gritty realism of the rest of the serial. Finally, I find the abrupt asides by Morgus to be overly self-conscious and staged. I like the idea in theory, but in practice I wish he had been a bit more subtle about it.

After the fantastic characterizations and action, there still remains the regeneration. The Doctor has saved Peri but at the expense of his own life. There is only enough antitoxin for one.

“Is this death?” The Doctor has given his all, exerted his last ounce of energy. “Feels different this time.” Tegan, Nyssa, Turlough, Kamelion, and Adric—“Adric?”—circle around him giving encouragement. He must not die.

“No, my dear Doctor, you must die!” The Master overwhelms the companions with his melodramatic laugh.

But the Doctor has the last laugh.

Peri: “Doctor?”

Doctor (Colin Baker): “You’re expecting someone else?”

I don’t know, Gary, perhaps I am mellowing with age, but on this last viewing I don’t find Colin Baker as obnoxiously arrogant as I have in the past. Or perhaps it is this:

Peri: “I . . . I . . . I . . .”

Doctor (Colin Baker): “That’s three ’I’s in one breath. Makes you sound a rather egotistical young lady.”

This makes me wonder, did they notice Nicola Bryant’s penchant for stuttering and write this sly jab into the script, or is her irritating speech pattern dictated to her? In either case, I like that they have acknowledged it here. Now if only someone would tell her to please knock it off.

“What’s happened,” a bewildered Peri enquires. “Change, my dear,” the Doctor replies. “And it seems not a moment too soon.”

Given the high quality of The Caves of Androzani, however, it almost seems it is too soon. Or perhaps the story was too late. At least Peter Davison has gone out on a high note, and surprisingly, Gary, I am feeling optimistic for the upcoming serials.