Shada (2017) Review

Yeaaaah, he's still badass and he knows it.

Effectively restored through terrific animation, Shada might actually be better now than it would have been back in 1980. And it would have been a memorable story for sure.

WRITTEN BY

Douglas Adams, his final contribution to Doctor Who. I was not particularly keen on his era of the show(as creative and anarchic as he was, his juvenile style of writing often clashed with other scripts and also tended to get in the way of my investment). However, he goes out on his strongest story by far, which also makes for a great defense of everything he brought to the show.

PLOT

Having developed a method to pull minds out of their brains, the maniac scientist Skagra plots to evolve himself into a superintelligence that could control creation, and intends to begin his infection of the universe by breaking into the Time Lords' forgotten prison planet Shada.

The only way to access Shada is with a key. And that is also forgotten, in a dusty old shelf in Cambridge...

ANALYSIS

Shada is full of charm and wit, and has a leisurely pace, rather like a novel. Adams' faults as a writer are sadly still obvious here, namely his tendency to disguise laziness with zanyness, but he just about gets away with it, as the characters he creates here are as anarchic as himself and the tone stays constant.

Not to mention that unlike the rather soulless and Moffaty City Of Death, this story actually got me interested by delving surprisingly deep into Time Lord mythology whilst keeping Gallifrey itself out of the picture, a terrific way to utilise the Doctor's backstory whilst not having to get bogged down by the Time Lords themselves.
Not to mention that Denis Carey's performance alone makes the Time Lords and Gallifrey seem a hundred times more magical than most stories we've seen of them.

The second half admittedly does tend to drag a bit - and it's a bit of a job to try to follow who's doing what in whose TARDIS - but the chemistry of the actors as well as the originality of the story itself carried me through, at least.

Full props to the animators - it's certainly by far the most fluidly animated episode of Doctor Who yet, and looks gorgeous. The cutting between dusty live-action and colourful animated elements isn't seamless, but it didn't bother me either seeing as how both have their strengths(physical performances versus beautiful special effects)

CHARACTERS

Tom Baker is on excellent form, both in 1980 and 2017. The final scene with his aged self is very touching.

Lalla Ward is also cute as ever as Romana, and I really liked the scene where she gets a medal. It's fun to see how her sense of humour has developed out of travelling with the Doctor(can you imagine Mary Tamm getting a medal?)

John Leeson only has one or two lines as K-9, but it was hilarious to hear him mimic Brierley's more feminine portrayal.

By far the most enthralling performance was that of Christopher Neame(whose credits range from James Bond to Star Wars) as Skagra, mainly because he was the only actor to differentiate his 2017 performance from his 1980 one. The live-action Skagra is brash, bullying and over-the-top, whereas the animated Skagra is stoic and creepy and far more interesting. Whether a deliberate choice on Neame's part or not, the new Skagra improved the story exponentially.

But let's not forget Denis Carey's utterly charming, sieve-minded professor Chronotis, one of the greatest forgotten characters in the show ever. Not only does Carey's portrayal reflect a man who is obviously eager to forget much of his life(just thought of it, but with Salyavin's mental powers, could it be possible that Chronotis was deliberately obscuring his mind to put himself at ease?), but also on occasion showed the steely and manipulative individual that he must have been once, a man not so different from the Doctor himself.

Daniel Hill and Victoria Burgoyne make for decent pseudo-companions for the trip. After all, with such a Time Lord-heavy story, somebody human's got to be around to ask the right questions(and even so, Adams still has Chronotis implant some of his Time Lord knowledge into Clare's head, good grief).

And finally, Gerald Campion(famous for Billy Bunter) and John Hallet are both charming and immediately idiosyncratic as Wilkin and the Police Constable, a further example that Adams had a great knack for characterisation.

NOTES

*You can check out my original review of the 1992 version here.

*Daniel Hill(Parsons) has been married to Olivia Hill aka Bazalgette since 1987. Any relation to 2010s Doctor Who director Ed Bazalgette?

*The plot device of having professor Chronotis resurrected via freezing his destiny is one of the most insane things I've ever seen an otherwise reasonably reasonable show do.

*Despite Neame's enhanced performance, Skagra does noticeably lack any kind of real motivation to create a hive mind. He even mocks universal conquest at one point, yet there doesn't appear to be anything else he's doing it for aside from trying to give some kind of a "purpose" to life(?).

*Thank God that most of the Krargs' scenes are animated, because their real-life foam selves are an embarrassment.

*I'm surprised that releasing all of Shada's prisoners didn't cause Skagra any trouble. Aren't these the most dangerous individuals in the universe? One would think there'd be some kind of a dilemma there.

*Amusingly, my mother and the famous Wife In Space both connected Denis Carey's performance immediately with Patrick Troughton.

*I loved the visual effect of Parsons turning the book's pages also turning the clock behind him.

*The book itself is such a remarkably alien and fascinating thing itself that it alone makes Gallifrey seem much more than it actually is onscreen.

*New spin-off pitch: something from a parallel universe kidnaps Parsons and Clare, and Chronotis acquires a new regeneration cycle to find them and save them. Cue adventures in a skewed universe with a very forgetful lead fighting alien coffeepots or something.

*Skagra's sphere is remarkably similar to that of the Tall Man from the Phantasm films in both its function and appereance(he even carries it similarly), although it is three times bigger. The best part? Phantasm came out in 1979.

BEST QUOTE

"Think of me as a paradox in an anomaly and get on with your tea." - prof. Chronotis, 35 years before The Witch's Familiar.

CONCLUSION

A lovable yarn about space prisons and time-travelling Cambridge rooms made into a pleasing 2017 movie.