Welcome to your summer vacation through space and time, all from the comfort of your couch and TV. We’re spending our COVID-19 summer winding our way through Doctor Who history, focusing on one episode from each Doctor’s tenure through to the Capaldi era. (Want to know what we’re watching? Here’s the schedule!)
After an unexpected week’s break due to Tropical Storm Isaias and an internet outage in the TARDIS (you’d think we’d be able to travel through time and get that fixed quicker . . . um, nope), we find ourselves looking at a stalk of celery on a lapel and a cricketer’s kit. Yes, we’ve reached the 1980s and the era of Peter Davison. And oddly enough, we’re looking at his last appearance on the show. “The Caves of Androzani” aired in four twice weekly parts from November 8 to 16, 1984. Although it’s been 35 years, here’s your warning: Spoilers!
1. The Spectrox Must Flow
The Doctor and Peri land on the desert planet Androzani Minor and somehow end up in the middle of a power struggle between warring factions on the planet. The heart of this struggle is the drug Spectrox, which can both prolong life and cause painful death.
If this sounds a lot like the plot of Dune, you shouldn’t be surprised. That film came out the same year this aired, and the influences to Frank Herbert’s novel (now a film) are throughout. (Sadly, no spice worms or Kyle Maclachlan with luxurious hair.)
2. Eat Your Veggies
Throughout the Fifth Doctor’s tenure, he’s worn a stalk of celery on his lapel, but it’s never explained why . . . until this episode.
That stalk is the Doctor’s canary in the coal mine, changing color when it encounters a certain kind of gas (in the praxis spectrum) to signal danger to the Doctor (who is allergic to said gases). The Doctor can eat the celery as a sort of epi-pen to counter the reaction.
I’m rather befuddled that the show waited until now to explain it, but I suspect the writers weren’t sure what to do with it until now.
The celery does make its presence known later on in the modern era with the Tenth Doctor poking fun at it, the joke itself rather humorous on another level when you consider that David Tennant ended up married to Peter Davison’s daughter. (Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor as well did ask for celery after going through a dangerous decontamination process in “Cold Blood.”)
3. The Doctor and Peri
This Doctor is a very human, very genteel Doctor, challenging his captors on the morality of their capture, but also not sacrificing humor or hiding his vulnerability when he finds out he’s going to die as a result of Spectrox poisoning. But at his heart, he’s still a problem solver, doing whatever it takes to save Peri’s life, even as he faces his own painful reactions to the Spectrox.
On the flip side . . . well, I thought we were over this damsel in distress bit of Doctor Who with companions, but Peri here is rather whiny, weepy, and generally annoying. It’s several steps back from the no-nonsense empowered women from Jo Grant to Sara Jane Smith to Nyssa, and disappointing to see. What the show was trying to achieve with this characterization, I have no clue.
4. Four (Episodes)
In our Doctor Who summer retrospective, this is the penultimate of the four episode serials that we will watch together (though obviously not the last of the multi-part stories in the series as a whole). “Vengeance on Varos,” which will be the focus of next week’s recap, actually aired in two installments, and “The Curse of Fenric” (in two weeks’ time) will be the final four part serial we review before launching into the TV film and the modern era, with mainly single episode self-contained stories.
I must admit, these first multi-parters certainly dragged a fair bit in exposition and execution, but “The Caves of Androzani” gets the pacing right. Could be 20 years of television tenure, could be the focus on the basics of what makes Doctor Who compelling, could be a little of both.
5. A Regeneration
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. – John 13:15
Continued belowThe Spectrox poisoning is progressing farther and faster in Peri than in the Doctor (though he is not immune to its effects), but he still has enough strength to get into the Androzani caves to get bat milk necessary to save both of them.
Until just outside the TARDIS, some of that milk ends up in the sand, leaving enough only for Peri. As she revives, the Doctor now wonders if he is facing death instead of regeneration. And it does look like he’s on the precipice of death as voices from his past will him back to the land of the living (except for the Master, who much rather push him towards death).
It’s a very bright and violent regeneration visual sequence (one that if aired today, could come with a seizure warning), culminating in out first look at Colin Baker.
One does wonder what effect the Spectrox poisoning had on the regeneration. We know that a normal regeneration leads not just to a physical change in character, but a mental and emotional one. And this was far from normal, with the Doctor’s body fighting both regeneration and possible death. The final words of “The Caves of Androzani” may prove oddly prophetic for what is to come: “Change my dear – – and it seems not a moment too soon.”
TARDIS Trivia (our “Afterthoughts” section)
- Only two characters do not die during this story, and they both happen to be women.
- A standard practice in today’s Doctor Who, “The Caves of Androzani” is the first regeneration story to feature the new Doctor’s first words. Past installments would only have the new Doctor speak for the first time in their first solo story following the regeneration appearance.
- In what could be considered a twisted farewell present to Peter Davison, this series featured a fair bit of filming mishaps that caused minor injuries for the soon-to-be-ex Doctor, such as a premature explosion that pushed sand into his eyes.
Next week, pull out your cat pins and colorful coats, as we will be visiting with Sixth Doctor Colin Baker and “Vengeance on Varos.” Feel free to share your thoughts on this episode in the comments or on social media with our #12Weeks12Doctors hashtag.
If you want more classic Doctor Who, you can check out the streaming subscription service Britbox (available in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. at the time of this writing). If you’re in the U.S., Latin America, Puerto Rico, and Europe, you can also get your classic Who fix via the free streaming service Pluto TV, which has its own Doctor Who channel!
