| Production Code: 5D
Cast The Doctor - Tom Baker
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The society of the planet Tara is a mix of the feudal and the futuristic, with a rigid social monarchical hierarchy developed alongside a skill in advanced electronics and android making, which is an ability endowed on the lesser orders. Centuries earlier a plague wiped out nine tenths of the population and the peasants, abandoned by the nobles at that time, began building androids to deal with labour shortages. The planet is now troubled by a struggle for the crown and the power on Tara. The rightful heir, Prince Reynart, is facing a challenge to his rule and coronation from his cousin, Count Grendel of Gracht, a suave but deadly villain who has kidnapped Reynart’s sweetheart, the Princess Strella, and is holding her captive to persuade Reynart not to take the throne. The Fourth Doctor and Romana arrive on Tara in search of the fourth segment of The Key to Time and, for once, the quest is simple. While the Doctor goes fishing, Romana identifies and transforms the fourth segment alone – it was disguised as a segment of a Grachtian statue – though her luck does not last. She is attacked by a native Taran bear and only saved by the nobleman Count Grendel of Gracht, who confiscates the segment as an unregistered mineral and insists in the injured Romana accompanies him to his castle. Once there it become apparent that Grendel believes she is an android – an assumption based on her exact physical resemblance to the captive Strella – and Romana too is imprisoned like the Princess. The swordsmen Zadek and Farrah have meanwhile recruited the Doctor to the party of Prince Reynart. He agrees to help repair an android copy of the Prince which is to be used to help him reach his throne and crown by diverting the attention of Grendel’s men while the real Prince slips into the coronation chamber through a back way. This plot looks plausible, but Grendel strikes first, drugging the Prince’s retinue and kidnapping Reynart himself. When the Doctor and the swordsmen recover they decide to change the original plan and crown the android Reynart instead. The party move through the tunnels beneath the royal castle to get to the throne room so that the facsimile Reynart can be crowned, for if he is not there at the correct moment then Grendel may be chosen under the law to claim the crown. The real Reynart was wounded in his capture and has been imprisoned with Romana at Castle Gracht to prevent any legitimate succession. By their elaborate ruse the Doctor and his party succeed in getting the android Prince to the throne room and the coronation begins. However, the android Prince is damaged and it is clear the ruse will not hold for long. K-9 is enlisted from the TARDIS to provide armed support and scanning intelligence that confirms that the Count has the Prince, the Princess, and Romana in his castle. Shortly afterward, Till, Grendel’s manservant, arrives at the Reynart estate and offers the Doctor a chance to collect Romana from the Pavilion of the Summer Winds, a nearby gazebo. It is, as ever, a trap. Grendel knows the Doctor is the man who has deprived him of the throne and has persuaded his android maker Madam Lamia, who is in love with him, to make an android in the image of Romana that is programmed to kill. While this is happening the real Romana manages to escape from Castle Gracht and heads off to find the Doctor. She arrives at the Pavilion in the aftermath of Grendel’s attack, which has left Lamia dead, and helps the Doctor flee; but the situation is soon reversed as Grendel succeeds in destroying the Reynart android and then recapturing the errant Romana. The evil Count now wishes Romana (as Strella) to marry the real King, who will then be killed, leaving Grendel free to take her hand himself and be declared the legitimate King of Tara. Worried by the length of time a siege would take, the Doctor resorts to other means to get his friends back from Castle Gracht. K-9 is used to help them gain access to the castle by means of the moat and underground tunnels. The Doctor reaches the throne room just in time to stop the sham Reynart marriage to Romana. He then engages the Count in a deadly fight with electro-swords, defeating him and forcing the villain to jump into his own moat and swim for his survival. Romana has meanwhile freed Strella and the royal party is united, with Grendel disgraced and presumably on his way to exile. It is a time of reunions: Reynart with his love Strella; and the Doctor and Romana with the fourth segment of the Key and the TARDIS – once K-9 has been retrieved from a boat in the moat.
Analysis by Cuisle First impression of this one, very stylish, and although I particularly dislike Romana always appearing as some kind of fashion plate and asking The Doctor how she looks (as if he cares) the outfit she appears in this time is striking and sets the tone of the episode. It is colourful and stylish. The three main female characters, Romana, Lamia and Strella, between them set a fashion look for the episode, while the men, in a style reminiscent of late 19th century Russia are equally impressive. The sets, interior and exterior are lavish. It LOOKS good. And the plot works, too. Essentially it is the Prisoner of Zenda with Androids, but with pone or two twists in the tale. There is a slight sense of Reynart being too good and Grendel being too evil in the pantomime sense of simple black and white, and we could have lived with a little more grey area. But that is a minor point. Doctor Who has never really dealt with the grey areas. For almost the whole story Romana and The Doctor are separated. Romana is the prisoner of Grendel, being forced to marry Reynart in place of her double, Princess Strella, while The Doctor is helping pass off the android Reynart at the coronation to stop Grendal’s machinations. This actually works very well on screen as it helps wrap the two halves of the story together. With android doubles and amazing look-alikes all over the place, this is a good showcase for Mary Tamm, who plays three roles in all, Romana, Android Romana, and Strella. Of course, the techniques of having an actor play against themselves were worked out in the silent movie era with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, but this was still an excellent use of it, especially when Strella and Romana were in the same room. Given that the episode looked like an old fashioned swashbuckling movie, The sword fight between The Doctor and Grendel was the perfect denouement. The Doctor proves himself, as he always does when swords are used, a very good swordsman. He had a gentleman’s education, after all, One point worth making at this stage in the ‘Key to time’ series is how irrelevant the keys have actually been, especially in the last two plots. In Stones of Blood we forgot all about it until The Doctor snatched the pendant from Vivien at the last moment. In this story it was found, completely UNDISGUISED while The Doctor was still fishing at the start of the episode and forgotten about until the end. Now, on the one hand, sidelining the Key to Time seems a bad thing
to do. But in fat, it isn’t. the actual premise of finding these
keys is not really one that would sustain six whole stories overt
an entire serious. Even in the first season when the story ‘Keys
of Marius’ required six keys to be found, that was only over
six half hours of one story, and even THE N other things happened
in between the search for the keys. It actually works perfectly well
to have the keys sidelined while different and varied stories play
out, in expectation that the final episode will bring them all together
for a showdown with the black guardian.
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