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(More customer reviews)The Fifth Doctor and Peri's trip to the sandy Androzani Minor turns out to be a fateful and intensely eventful one in this Dune meets The Phantom of the Opera story. They explore a cave mouth and encounter a cache of arms enough to equip a small army. There, they are caught on the scene by the soldiers of General Chellak and condemned to death as gunrunners.
Here's the situation: Spectrox is a drug that can increase twice the ordinary lifespan. Demand for the drug shoots up when Sharaz Jek, a robotics expert who is lusting for revenge against Morgus, the man who'd betrayed him, seized the spectrox mines with an army of androids. The military under Chellak and his subordinate Salateen have been fighting a losing battle against androids, gunrunners led by Stotz, and a carnivorous monster that looks like something out of a Godzilla movie. Public demand has put pressure on the Androzani president to possibly capitulate to Jek's demands and negotiate an armistice. Jek's terms? "I want the head of Morgus at my feet. I want the head of that perfidious treacherous degenerate congealed in its own evil blood."
Well-picked words by Jek, because Morgus is exactly that. A cold-hearted businessman on Androzani Major whose conglomerate controls the spectrox mines as well as other holdings offworld, and speaks in a cold, low, level, emotionless tone. His profitmaking goes as far as sabotaging his own mines when an increase in production leads to lower prices and even closing down plants, leaving many unemployed workers being shipped off to labour camps in the East. As the president tells him, "the irony is while you've been busy closing planets here in the West, you've been buiilding them in the East, so if the unemployed were sent to the Eastern labour camps, a great many of them will be working for you again, only this time, without payment." When Morgus responds with a deadpan "I hadn't thought of that" the president, clearly disgusted, replies bitterly, "Of course you haven't."
But there's also Stotz, played wonderfully by Maurice Roeves, the nasty and violent leader of machine gun-touting gunrunners supplying Jek with arms in exchange for spectrox. So who's Stotz's boss on Andro. Major?
The main objective of the Doctor is not to sort out the situation but to save both his life and Peri's. They are dying of spectrox toxaemia, which they got from accidentally touching raw spectrox, and the antivenin can be found in the oxygenless depths. Unfortunately, he gets caught up in this violent morass between Jek, the military, and Stotz, while his life and Peri's are slowly ebbing away.
The high casualty rate and violence in this story makes Resurrection Of The Daleks like a summer breeze, but with great dialogue, convincing characters, and great acting, this is one of the best Doctor Who stories. And this was Peter Davison's personal favourite of his oeuvre. Christopher Gable as the masked and insanely vengeance-minded Sharaz Jek opposite Nicola Bryant's Peri work as a Phantom and Christine minus the music and opera, especially Peri's shuddering revulsion at being touched by Jek. His infatuation with Peri turns to genuine concern when she's close to death, making him more than just one-dimensional and not exactly a clearcut villain. John Normington as Jek's nemesis Morgus, retains perfect vocal control playing a man whose voice rarely rises above a certain level even when he's mad.
Despite his mere three seasons as the Doctor, Peter Davison is at least noted for having one of the best farewell stories of the Doctors. But his nobility, his urgent and selfless devotion in trying to save Peri, even at the cost of his own life, makes his Doctor the vulnerable Sir Galahad type. Indeed, his own culpable admission that "curiosity always has been my downfall" shows his guilt at dragging Peri into this mess, yet serves as a testament to his moral courage to put things right.
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"Curiosity's always been my downfall." Captured for arms-running on the mining planet of Androzani Minor, the Doctor and Perry are under sentence of death. Then a mysterious masked intruder comes to their aid. But is Sharaz Jek, master android creator, really their saviour? The rulers of the planet are certainly desperate for his head. But then, he does control Androzani's supply of spectrox and it's a substance men are prepared to die for. Originally transmitted 8-16 March 1984, this four part adventure marks the end of the Peter Davison era for Doctor Who and the timelord's sixth regeneration.DVD Features:Audio Commentary:by actors Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant and director Graeme HarperBiographiesDeleted ScenesDocumentaries:on creating Sharez Jek and regeneration sequenceProduction Notes:Optional caption stream
Click here for more information about Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani (Story 136) (1975)
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