City of Death
Set primarily in present day Paris, the plot concerns a scheme by Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover), in reality an alien called Scaroth, to steal the Mona Lisa to finance experiments in time travel in the hope of averting the accident that killed the remainder of his race four hundred million years previously, which began the existence of life on the planet as well.
They observe the Countess Scarlioni using an alien device to scan the security systems housing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
The Doctor, Romana and Duggan follow him via the TARDIS, fearing that the ship's explosion created life on Earth, and if Scaroth should prevent it, humanity would not exist.
Writer David Fisher had contributed two scripts to Doctor Who's sixteenth season – The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara – and was asked by producer Graham Williams for further story ideas.
The script was mainly set in the year 1928 with the Doctor and Romana, aided by Drummond-esque detective "Pug" Farquharson, on the trail of the stolen Mona Lisa, pursuing Scarlioni from Paris to Monte Carlo where his partner, the Baroness Heidi, is using time travel technology to cheat at roulette at the casino to fund Scarlioni's time travel experiments.
[7] The revised script, now titled The Curse of the Sephiroth, was credited to "David Agnew", a standard pseudonym used by the BBC and which had been previously used on Doctor Who for the season fifteen serial The Invasion of Time.
[9] Adams would later reuse elements of City of Death, along with the unfinished Doctor Who serial Shada (1979; 2003), in his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987).
[4] It proved a difficult shoot as the dates coincided with the May Day holiday period, which meant that many of the locations chosen for filming were closed, necessitating considerable improvisation on the part of the cast and crew.
[12] Lalla Ward found City of Death the most challenging Doctor Who serial she worked on but was pleased with the outcome, saying, "We had to film loads of scenes in the rain and cold... there was no glamour in it at all... it was different from the ordinary stories too and I like the finished result".
[26] The story was repeated on BBC1 across four consecutive evenings from Tuesday to Friday, 12 – 15 August 1980, achieving viewing figures of 6.3, 5.5, 5.6 and 5.9 million viewers respectively.
Les Rogers of Hastings praised the serial's cast and the location filming; less impressed, however, was Paul R. Maskew of Exeter who felt the show was being played for laughs.
[26] Responding to similar criticisms from viewers, Douglas Adams wrote, "If the programme didn't move and take a few risks then it would have died of boredom years ago".
[28] Another viewer wrote that the atmosphere of the primordial Earth would have been poisonous to the Doctor and his companions; Douglas Adams responded to this criticism, citing artistic licence.
[32] John Condor, writing in the fanzine DWB in 1991, hailed the story as "the best blend of kitsch, surrealism, fantasy, and comedy-drama seen in our favourite Time Lord's annals".
[33] Vanessa Bishop, reviewing the serial's DVD release, described it as "imaginatively written, well-performed and beautifully made, City of Death is a story where pretty much everything works".
I don't think I've ever experienced that with Doctor Who up till now... it's the tiny touches of mundanity amid the fantastical that lift the story even higher".
[35] Charlie Jane Anders and Javier Grillo-Marxuach of io9 included it on their list of "10 TV Episodes that Changed Television", citing "the sharp dialogue and clever use of time travel [that] prefigure everything Steven Moffat has done with the series in recent years.
Club reviewer Christopher Bahn described City of Death as the "gem" of the seventeenth season, finding Adams' subtle comedy script "easily the funniest and most quotable the series ever achieved".
[14] However, Doctor Who fandom's initial response was not so positive; John Peel, writing in the fanzine TARDIS in 1979, decried it as "total farce...
[34] Reviewing the serial in 2011, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times awarded it three stars out of five, stating he disliked the smug tone to the humour and Ward's "snooty" portrayal of Romana.
[41] However, after Adams' death his estate allowed Gareth Roberts to write an adaptation of the unfinished serial Shada, which was published by BBC Books in 2012.
[48] A DVD was released in 2005 with special features including commentary by actors Julian Glover and Tom Chadbon, as well as director Michael Hayes, and the behind-the-scenes documentary "Paris in the Springtime".
[51] Ian Scoones' storyboards for City of Death's special effects sequences were published in Peter Haining's book Doctor Who – 25 Glorious Years in 1988,[52] and a Scaroth figure was released by Harlequin Miniatures in 1999.
