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	Doctor Who - City of Death Dr. Who, Tom Baker 20th Century Fox, 1998 average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

DVD features
Thanks to its popularity, the two-disc DVD of City of Death comes with an abundance of typically topnotch supplemental features. The commentary by Glover, co-star Tom Chadbon, and director Michael Hayes, is the longest and most informative of the extras, but it's well-matched by Paris in the Springtime, a 45-minute making-of featurette that offers rare archival interviews with Adams and many of the cast (but not Baker or Ward, sadly) and crew. Paris, W12 offers 20 minutes of studio footage taken from 1/2-inch videotape, while Prehistoric Landscapes and Chicken Wrangler are very different views of the story's special effects (the latter is a particularly amusing glimpse at the challenges of working with live animals). Finally, there's Eye on Blatchford, a wry parody of BBC "human interest" news items, here focusing on another alien attempting to live peacefully in the rural English countryside. Production notes and photos and a batch of well-concealed Easter eggs round out this highly enjoyable set. --Paul Gaita

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Pure brilliance all the way around!

"You have a wonderful butler. He's so violent!" This is one of my all time favorites. The Douglas Adams rewrite blended with the repartee between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward makes for one of the most entertaining Doctor Who adventures of them all. The plot is great and full of mystery, the humor is often side-splittingly hilarious, and Tom Baker has never been better. How can a man planning to steal the Mona Lisa already have six original and authentic ones in his basement? Have the technological advances of all mankind been helped along by an alien who's been stranded on earth since before humans evolved? Why is Tom Baker so zanily crazy? Watch this masterpiece and answer these questions for yourself. Keep your eyes peeled for John Cleese's brilliant cameo.

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"Soon we shall be. The centuries that divide me shall be undone."

Certain storylines of "Doctor Who" reverberated as distinct images in my memory during the years between my youthful enthusiasm in the 80's and my somewhat recent rediscovery of this wonderful show. They stood out clearly from the vague nostalgic haze that the many episodes had become in my mind. They were memorable. One of the more powerful of these without a doubt was "City of Death"--and the decades have done nothing to diminish its power. If anything, like a fine wine it has improved with age.

First off, this story is incredibly well-written, combining an ingeniously creative science fiction concept from Douglas Adams with suspenseful adventure along the lines of a Pink Panther detective tale or else the Da Vinci Code without the mystical edge. Once again Douglas Adams' dry, quirky sense of humor dovetails perfectly with Tom Baker's eccentric characterization of the Doctor, and this humor fits seamlessly into the story either as diversionary tactics by the Doctor in adversity or else simply to offset and counterpoint the enormity of the story's premise: A starship with the last survivors of a planet's race exploding as it attempts to take off in warp from the primitive Earth's surface, killing all but the pilot while sparking life on this planet--meanwhile, the pilot, Scaroth, is split into twelve fragments across the span of human history, where he/they work to impel human civilization forward technologically ultimately so that he can go back to that fateful moment and so undo his race's destruction (retroactively erasing the evolution of life on this planet in the process, of course).

All of that sounds a bit complicated in summary, but the dimensions of the tale unfold gradually and naturally in a finely crafted plotline also involving Scaroth's masterplan to fund his scientific research by selling seven Mona Lisa paintings to private collectors--one stolen from the Louvre, six (genuinely by Da Vinci, no less) in his basement. This in turn allows the writers to cleverly weave into this already masterful tale a subtle meditation on the uses (& misuses) and value of art. And Scaroth is played masterfully by Julian Glover, who brings a sinister sophistication and smooth cruelty to the role along with a wickedly dry sense of humor of his own. He is also a very believable villain whose motivations are understandable if reprehensible to us in their implications. Who wouldn't try to save his own people, after all?

Everything else about "City of Death" fits like a glove, too. The location shots in Paris are very nice indeed--sure, it's good to see that the Tardis can go somewhere on modern Earth besides merry ol' England, but the location of France's artistic capital is integral to the story, too, and thus much more than merely a neat but inconsequential backdrop. Lalla Ward's regenerated Romana has a natural rapport and chemistry with Tom Baker's Doctor that Mary Tamm, for all her fine abilities, just fundamentally lacked somehow, and that comes across especially strongly in this storyline. Even the special effects are excellent and 99.99% believable to the eye, and Scaroth's starship is convincingly alien and yet aesthetically cool in design and is utterly a showpiece of model-making on a slim budget. And the cameo appearance of John Cleese pontificating pretentiously on the artistic merits of the "afunctional" Tardis is a superb little touch.

In short, "City of Death" is a quintessential "Doctor Who" masterpiece, an unforgettable classic--why, it's practically a work of art itself.

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Great show

It's too bad that Douglas Adams died so young because this was a great episode for Tom Baker to star in. The story line is just as goofy as the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was when I read it.


Legendary

Douglas Adams, Tom Baker, and Lalla Ward are all amazing. Definitely check this one out. One of the best episodes of Doctor Who EVER -- and there are a lot, so that's saying something.

If you're a real nerd, the "episode production note" subtitles are full of random facts (Douglas Adams wrote this episode in one alcohol-filled weekend, for example) and quite fun.

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Check It Out

I love Doctor Who. I have all my favourite episodes on dvd....the ones that are out. City Of Death isn't the strongest story by any means, but you know what they say, even bad Who is good Who. The best stories, in my opinion-fact, are Genesis Of The Daleks, Dalek Invasion Of Earth, and Ark In Space. City Of Death does have a few good things going for it ; it stars the second best assistant in Doctor Who history, Lalla Ward as Romana. Very sexy. It also has a great story behind it. I love the cheesy, sometimes flimsy effects and sets. That's why we all love the old, original Who. I highly recommend this dvd !

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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