Shada (1992) Review

"Err... tea?"

Shada... the Last Of The Recons.

WRITTEN BY

Douglas Adams, the current script editor. Though he influenced every story in season 17(most notably City Of Death), his only previous credit is season 16's The Pirate Planet. I have mixed feelings about Adams and his sense of humor.

PLOT

Receiving a distress signal from a retired Time Lord on Earth, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 head to Cambridge to investigate, where they find that the senile professor stole an ancient artifact from Gallifrey, which is now pursued by the megalomaniacal scientist Skagra, who plots to conquer the universe with his mind...

ANALYSIS

Now, to those of you who may be unaware, Shada is an incomplete story, in the sense that half of it was never filmed due to a strike in 1979. As such, in 1992, John Nathan-Turner(whom we'll be discussing in the next review...) organised for Tom Baker to film explanations for the missing segments, oddly in-character as the Doctor(whilst also having grey hair and wearing one of his ill-fitting pinstripe suits).

In this form, Shada is comprehensible... just. It doesn't help that of all the missing stories, we lost one by Douglas Adams, whose writing was always notoriously complicated. As a result, I constantly went "is that just stupid or did I miss something?"

Fortunately, the parts that I did understand, I was very impressed with. The Cambridge setting gave Shada a uniquely British flair and I loved seeing the Doctor ride a bicycle through London. The idea of a computer switching sides was also really interesting. And of course, we learned more about Time Lord mythology, which is always exquisite.

CHARACTERS

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are at their best in this story, interacting with the old, affable Time Lord professor Chronotis. Together, the trio are absolutely adorable. Although we don't get to see much of Baker on his own, he seems to be fairly serious with lovable comic touches, just the way it should be. For once, his performance is a real highlight.

Lalla also manages fine away from Baker, when she has to manage the professor's TARDIS with Clare. She's both dominating and intelligent.
Oh, and who could forget the moment where the Doctor pins a medal on her for her intelligence and they do the salute and everything. That is one of the cutest things I've ever seen the Doctor and companion do.

Denis Carey's professor Chronotis steals every scene he's in with his wonderful kooky demeanour. He's basically the most lovable grandpa/teacher ever, with a memory so bad(like a sieve!) that the only thing he can consistently remember is to make tea for anyone who walks into his office. I love the way that the Doctor and Romana constantly have to balance their respect and frustration for the old man. The whole idea of a Time Lord pensioner, and the revelation that he used to be as much of a wild card as the Doctor himself is probably my favourite of Douglas Adams' contribution to the show.

Christopher Neame(who, to my surprise, played the terrific villain Jerec in "Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II") is Skagra, who wishes to use the power of an ancient Gallifreyan relic to become the supreme consciousness of the universe. Skagra kind of reminded me of sir Guy Of Gisborne from ITV's "Robin Of Sherwood", both in appereance, ego and lack of temper. It's a shame that most of his appereances weren't filmed, meaning that he appears in the first few episodes and then in one scene towards in the last episode. I definitely would've liked to see more of him plotting and scheming, as all that we see is his stealing the book.

If I ever do another one of these marathons, I am definitely going to count all the wet blanket couples of Doctor Who, because here we have another one: Chris and Clare. Chris is a student interested in quantum theory and so is more intelligent than the average bloke, but ironically it's Clare who is given a piece of the professor's mind and gets to pilot the TARDIS for a while. They were both okay characters(Chris kind of reminded me of Harry Sullivan) and well acted.

One more interesting character was Gerald Campion's Wilkin, who basically represented Cambridge's British discretion, completely accepting the Doctor appearing in three wildly different time periods and professor Chronotis living 300 years. (My personal theory is that he's another incarnation of the Bowler Hat Time Lord from Terror Of The Autons, watching over Salyavin)

NOTES

*I love how in the original story, when the Fourth Doctor defeated the K1 robot, he was somewhat remorseful, but in the exhibit, Baker's supposedly in-character reaction to seeing the robot is "Beat you, c**k."

*I am not a fan of Keff McCulloch's redone Dudley Simpson-esque score. It's just too loud.

*Technically, this is the only story that Graham Williams and John-Nathan Turner produced together.

*The Krargs continue season 17's trend of ridiculous monsters with a guy wearing like a hundred metal tiles.

*The plot point of Skagra's computer falling in love with the Doctor was just hilarious.

*On the other hand, Chronotis' resurrection is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. He just comes back when his TARDIS takes off with some gibberish about paradoxes. Is his TARDIS a paradox machine now(a la The Sound Of Drums)??

*Where exactly is the time rotor in Chronotis' TARDIS?? And shouldn't the console be in the center of the room? I would still totally pick this as my desktop theme though. The Seventh Doctor appears to agree, judging from the TV Movie.

*At one point, the Doctor carries the Gallifreyan book in his bicycle's basket to take it back to Cambridge. It falls out and then Skagra takes it. However, after he abandons the bike, the Doctor doesn't even check the basket!! So did he notice that Skagra took it and if so, why wasn't a bigger fuss made of it? And if he didn't, why on Earth didn't he check?? This might've been explained in the missing segments, though.

*I will admit I was completely lost during Episodes 4 and 5. There was something to do with various spaceships jumping all over the place(at one point, we were on the other side of the universe) and people being held captives in different places... as great as Tom's narration was, I think I would've preferred an actual, 60s recon to this. I might actually try and watch the other versions of Shada one day, just to get a clearer understanding of the story.

*Of course, the Time Lord decides to call himself "Chrono-tis".

*How exactly did the Doctor, Romana and Chronotis hear the voices of those trapped in Skagra's mind trap thing?

*With what "illogic logic" did the Doctor convince Skagra's computer that he was dead?

*What exactly did Chronotis teach at Cambridge and when? Since he wasn't apparently missed, was it a Sunday?

*This story marks the first time a Gallifreyan child is described as a "Time Tot".

BEST QUOTE

The Doctor: "Listen, I can do your part if you can do mine."
Romana: "I'll try."
The Doctor: "You're a hero, remember?"

CONCLUSION

Perhaps the most fitting end to the Graham Williams era, Shada is an incomplete, budget-hacked ball of wonders.