The Caves of Androzani: Part One

Like if I was going to go close second, Damon's would be one of them.

And for me, now you can groan, Jim, Caves of Androzani.

Okay.

Okay, whatever.

Does this feel consistent with the rest of the show?

I reckon because he knew he was going to work on Doctor Who, he's at least seen Caves of Androzani because there's some of that corporate shit in this.

Oh man, like

this is just like him.

Yeah.

There's got to be, there should be some gags in there.

Like there is when, uh, you know, the president falls down the lift shaft in, uh, Androzani or something like that.

You know, like that story is funny.

So I said to BBC, what I'd like to do is I'd like to do Power of Krull as a tribute to Robert Holmes, based upon Robert Holmes's other scripts as well.

I'd like to bring in Androzani, I'd like to bring in Mysterious Planet, all of which came in part from what Krull was doing.

I'd like to try and write a funnier book and using elements of Holmes's work across it as a means of saying this is an alternate take on Kroll, which in no way is canonical, but is also fitting with the idea of a book where all the different takes are also not what we saw on screen.

So, you know, Armageddon Factor is not the Armageddon Factor we saw, but it's a different form of it.

Yes.

Um, Eric Saward delivers Resurrection of the Daleks, and then Robert Holmes returns to Doctor Who in The Caves of Androzani.

Um, they become great pals and spend an awful lot of time together, and then Eric Saward delivers Revelation of the Daleks, which is suddenly very funny, very fast, full of great characters and double acts, and all of those things that you'd probably say, "Robert Holmes." I think Robert Holmes had a pass at Revelation [laughs] of the Daleks, or at least said to him, "Try this.

Maybe-

And, uh, again, some of, you know, some of his stories I think is some of the best in the entirety of, um, Doctor Who, I think.

You know, we've got Earthshock, Caves of Androzani, which was obviously his last story.

But, uh, yeah, I think with Davison there was just something about it.

I mean, didn't quite click with me that it was more of a cricket outfit until later on.

And so we start with best and worst stories.

And the options here are Warriors of the Deep, The Awakening, Frontios, Resurrection of the Daleks, Planet of Fire, The Caves of Androzani, and The Twin Dilemma.

Riley, over to you for best and worst stories.

Best story? Planet of Fire.

So and so did some bad things.

I mean, are we talking like Epstein level bad things or are we talking some questionable acting choices?

No, that's Caves of Androzani.

That one.

That's the th- kind of thing they're avoiding in The Daleks.

They may have changed the shape of the series in terms of making it more adventure-y and a bit more space-y But they're then kind of starting to do in Caves of Androzani exactly what Sydney Newman didn't want them to do, which was bug-eyed monsters in the form of the brain.

In episode two, they are actually bug-eyed.

He is.

[laughs]

"You know what you're doing.

You obviously know what you're doing." But, but the point is that there is a line for me between good Doctor Who and, or successful Doctor Who and less successful Doctor Who, and Caves of Androzani falls on the wrong side of that line because of these kinds of things, and they are traps that you can fall into maybe when they're doing something in a hurry or not focusing.

They're just trying to get it out the door, and they're trying to do the...

The, those stakes just keep building up, and building up, and building up, and yeah, I love it.

I figured that sort of Caves of Androzani, Genesis of the Daleks, those were gonna be the ones that were gonna have the most ticks against them.

But weirdly enough, it is The Time Meddler and The Invasion.

I'm wondering if The Invasion is gonna come out on top, which would be a great... 'Cause it's, I think that's one that everyone would point at and go, "That's an obvious choice."

I think we should have been able to hear it.

A story like Caves of Androzani, which is just brilliant, of course, and sounds brilliant, but again, a lot of, you know, Sharish Jek's lines are pretty much whispered, and again, we're lost in the noise, so I've brought them up a bit.

And again, I don't think that's...

Because he's now more in your face and more intense, and in a modern system, that really sounds great.