The Caves Of Androzani (season 21, episodes 17-20. Originally aired March 8-16, 1984.)
Across all his incarnations, the Doctors character has always stayed true to a few core traits, perhaps none more so than his restless, insatiable curiosity and wanderlust. Hes a traveler, winding his way around the universe on a flightplan drawn up with no grand scheme in mind other than to see the next new thing. He rarely knows where hes going, and rarely plans ahead. He just steps out of the ship and looks around. And from the beginning, that has always gotten him into trouble. Which is only to be expected. Thats the basic setup of the whole show: He arrives somewhere, he gets into trouble, he gets out of trouble, and he leaves. Itd be a pretty boring show without the middle bit. But still: Its a dangerous universe out there. Youd have to be foolish to go out there without a plan, armed with nothing but your wits. And youd have to be criminally reckless to take people with you. One of the things that makes The Caves Of Androzani great is that it cuts to the heart of this problem and brutally critiques it. Here, the Doctor gets himself and his companion Peri into a deadly mess that rapidly shows itself to be much worse than he bargained for, and against which the best he can reasonably hope for is base survival and escape. In the end, he cant even manage that. He saves Peri but sacrifices himself to do so, as Peter Davisons Fifth Doctor collapses, and essentially dies, regenerating into Colin Bakers Sixth.
The Caves Of Androzani enjoys a very high reputation in Doctor Who fandom; in fact, Doctor Who Magazines 2009 readers poll named it the best story in series history. I cant go quite that far, though it would certainly make my top 10 or 15. For one thing, though this is admittedly minor, youve gotta take some points off for the the magma beast, just a sad, sad, weak attempt at the obligatory monster-of-the-week. But what really bothers me about this one is how corrosively cynical and dark it is. And I say this as a fan of corrosively cynical and dark stories in general, and of the cynical and dark mind of Robert Holmes, who wrote this one, in particular. Its the whole point of the story, of course, so in essence Im objecting to Holmes hitting the bullseye. But in the final analysis I just cant buy into the notion that a story this pessimistic is what Doctor Who is about, on a grand scale.
Still, I can see why it won that poll. Its a terrifically propulsive, twisty thriller, well-directed by Graeme Harpertense, raw and very dark. It vividly creates a world that has been corrupted, perhaps irreversibly, by the toxic effects of greed, violence, and unchecked corporate power, and which has poisoned the souls of every character we meetespecially the revenge-crazed maniac Sharaz Jek, a creepy and intense but ultimately pitiable Phantom Of The Opera-like figure vividly played by Christopher Gable. And it made excellent use of the extra dramatic weight that all regeneration stories get as the closing chapters of their eras, really putting the increasingly desperate Doctor through the wringer and making him fight with his every last breath. Davison makes the most of it, giving one of his best performances in a script that gives him a lot to work with.
Originally published Feb. 3, 2013 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.