Doctor Who Story 105 City of Death by Michael Hayes and written by David Agnew (1979)
18 September 2007A very enjoyable Tom Baker Dr Who romp through Paris and time, trying to figure out what is happening with certain time shifts that seem to be occurring, and only they can see them. This is quite an enjoyable tale, with a great villain, and some fun trips into history, and Lalla Ward as Romana does make a good companion to the Doctor, having another Time Lord along makes him up his scientific game. A must see for any Tom Baker fans.
An alien being on Earth in the past from a race called the Jagaroth attempts to take off from ancient molten Earth, but the ship explodes. The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward) are in Paris in 1979 enjoying a holiday, when they feel time slip, they are not too worried and visit the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, but then another time slip occurs, and The Doctor almost passes out. As he falls, he lands in the lap of The Countess Scarlioni (Catherine Schell), where he grabs a bracelet made with futuristic Alien technology. The Doctor and Romana leave, and are followed by a private detective Duggan (Tom Chadbon). Duggan thinks they are thieves, but in fact thieves working for the Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover) come and take the bracelet, and then take them to meet the Count. The Count has a scientist named Professor Kerensky (David Graham) working on some time experiments, he thinks to solve world hunger, but it is in fact for more nefarious purposes.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
The Doctor, Duggan and Romana are taken prisoner, but manage to escape, and the Doctor talks to the Professor about his experiments, which will only be able to move an object through it’s own time stream, not actually travel in time. Romana finds a room sealed up for 500 years, and inside are 6 original Mona Lisa paintings, and they know the Count is planning on stealing a 7th. Duggan meanwhile knows of 7 very rich people who would buy a stolen Mona Lisa.
The Doctor sends Romana and Duggan to try and stop the Mona Lisa robbery, which they don’t manage, while the Doctor heads back in time to talk to Leonardo Davinci. He finds the original Mona Lisa, and wooden boards set up to paint more, and he runs into the Count, who there is called Captain Tancredi, who is getting DaVinci to paint 6 more Mona Lisa’s.
It turns out the Count is actually Scaroth, the last of the race of Jaggoroth who was in the spaceship when it exploded, and he was sent in many pieces of himself, and scattered through time, and he wants to rejoining his parts and travel in time to stop himself from pushing the button and exploding his space ship. The Doctor escapes back to modern times, but Scaroth captures Duggan and Romana, and gets Romana to help him build a device to stabilize his time vortex so he can travel back 4 million years and stop himself.
The Doctor heads in the Tardis with Romana and Duggan and stops Scaroth, and his ship does explode, which sends out radiation that creates life on Earth.
The Doctor and Romana drop off Duggan, and they take off.
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Quite an enjoyable Tom Baker adventure.
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