The Caves of Androzani
THE GREATEST DOCTOR WHO STORY OF ALL TIME, or so I'm told. I knew going into this that that kind of hype was only going to be a hindrance, but it couldn't be helped. I wouldn't even know what this story was if it weren't all the hype around it. At the end of the day I did like it just fine, but am definitely not in the "GOAT Doctor Who" boat.
I think a part of it is a selection bias on my end. After The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Genesis of the Daleks, this is the third alien faction/civil war Classic Who story I've seen in about 5-6 weeks, and that plot is feeling pretty tired to me now. More than that, this one feels the most jumbled and hardest to follow, in terms of alliances and stakes. Of the three, this one also has the least amount of Doctor in it; the focus is predominantly on the entanglement of different factions, soldiers, politicians, companies, etc. up until the last episode when it's all cleared away.
One of the things I'd heard most often about this story is that Doctor and Peri are dying, and the Doctor is in a race against time where he moves heaven and earth in a desperate bid to save his companion's life. Which sounds fucking great! Except that plot doesn't really come to the forefront until the last episode. The first three eps are mostly about the Doctor strolling around in this alien civil war, while Peri sits around as somebody's captive. Neither just really plays much of a role.
Now the last episode is where things really get dialed up, where basically everyone else dies and the Doctor really does go on a desperate, race-against-time journey to save Peri's life, even at the cost of his own. And that's all pretty good! I just wish the three episodes preceding it were more engaging.
Other pluses: Davison's performance in that last episode, where the Doctor is pushed to the brink, is really great. Also, I liked Peri! I try not to dig too deeply into other people's thoughts on classic Doctors and companions before watching myself, but I feel like what little I did hear about Peri was usually pretty ambivalent or negative, mainly in relation to her fake American accent. But what I liked about her is something that is usually glossed over with many other companions: she's a regular, ordinary person who is now suddenly facing her death. And she's scared about it. Why wouldn't she be? And not even hysterically so, more quietly scared when it dawns on her that she's actually dying. And when she confesses her fear about it to the Doctor in their jail cell (the, uh, first one they get locked up in)...I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something really honest and sympathetic and sad about Nicola Bryant's delivery.
Of course this story is most famous for being the Fifth Doctor's regeneration, and the regeneration sequence itself looks pretty cool, especially for its time. The floating heads around the Doctor is kinda lame, but the Master screaming "DIE DOCTOR DIE" as he laughs, then gives way into this star tunnel graphic, and POP up comes Colin Baker, was all really well put together.
So overall, far from the best Doctor Who story for me -- it's not even my favorite of the dozen classic stories I've been watching -- but still a solid-to-good one. Its first three episodes lean too heavily on this muddled alien civil war stuff that was never really compelling for me, but the last episode caps it all off very well, with a strong performance by Davison and an endearing role by Bryant.
And with his very first words, I can already tell the Sixth Doctor is going to live up to the hype of being a total prick lol
