Doctor Who: Series 17, Episodes 5-8 – “City of Death” (1979)

 First, a public service announcement: series 13 premieres on October 31st! While I understand COVID limitations and obviously want people to be safe first and foremost, I still wish we could be getting a full season. But I'll take the Thirteenth Doctor wherever I can get her, and I'm definitely excited to be getting new Thirteen content.

“City of Death” is such a great serial.  Written by Douglas Adams (and it shows,) this is a terrific time-travel romp with a really creative alien plot and delightful character interactions/humor.  In short, it’s a classic for a reason.

The Fourth Doctor and Romana II are off on a lark in modern-day (1979) Paris, but their sightseeing, inevitably, is interrupted by things going all crazy and sci-fi.  There are chronal skips, would-be art thieves with anachronistic technology, and a suave, wealthy man who isn’t what he seems.  Throw in an inspector with a bull-in-a-china-shop approach to life, and we’re in for a great time.

There’s so much fun going on here.  The plot is really interesting and inventive, an intriguing alien plot with the perfect amount of timey-wimey – while it’s maybe a bit confusing on first viewing, the funky time-travel stuff has a strong internal consistency and logic, so it holds together nicely.  The baddies, Scarlioni and the countess, are engaging, and Inspector Duggan makes for a tremendously-fun quasi-companion in the serial.

Then, there’s a huge amount of quintessentially-Douglas-Adams humor.  Basically all of Romana’s interactions with Duggan are perfect.  This is only her second serial in this incarnation, so we’re still learning a bit how to differentiate her from Romana I, but even though her personality is different, she still has a lot of that imperious Time Lady in her.  As such, her impressions of Earth are rather less generous than the Doctor’s (I love their discussion of human vs. Gallifreyan art,) and when applied to Duggan, it’s especially hilarious.  Additionally, I always enjoy a good TARDIS joke, and the art gallery bit here with John Cleese is one of my favorites – it’s apropos of really nothing, there just because, and it’s awesome.  Plus, the dialogue in this story is so fun and offbeat, with, “What a wonderful butler – he’s so violent!” being a standout.

All in all, it’s just a fantastic story.  Both our heroes get some good stuff to do – the Doctor gets one over on Scarlioni in a very clever way, and Romana shows off her technical knowhow – and are just wonderfully entertaining as they do it.