It is Peter Davison's misfortune that within the first ten episodes of The A-Z of Classic Who we come across three naff stories from his era. It is the way of things it seems. Happily however, Castrovalva is the least naff of the three, and actually has a decent amount to enjoy alongside the naffness. However, negativity is one of The A-Z of Classic Who's keywords, so that is of course where we'll begin in examining the Fifth Doctor's debut story.
Castrovalva's biggest problem is that it is difficult to follow at best and borderline incomprehensible at worst. For a start, a lot of the key concepts come off the back of Logopolis, which was broadcast a good 10 months prior to this story, so probably wasn't at the forefront of most viewer's minds. The idea of block projection isn't explained at all - it's an interesting concept but why Adric can do it, and why the Master's plan involved in, and how it was used in the city of Castrovalva, and why... well you get the idea. The number of unanswered questions throughout the story is ridiculous - what happened with the Master's TARDIS at the Pharos project, why does Adric act weird when he enters the TARDIS but then goes back to being normal when he meets the Doctor, why does the Master need Adric to enter the coordinates to Event One but can do it by projection to get to Castrovalva, why did the Master go to all the trouble of creating a projected city to trap the Doctor if he was so sure his first plan would go so well, why on EARTH does the TARDIS have its own cricket club, etc. etc.
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| Aaaaaarrrrghhh! Cricket! |
They all sound like nitpicks, but it does contribute to the feeling that you never have any real idea what is going on and why - the first and second parts require massive exposition dumps from Nyssa and Tegan to be comprehensible, and the constant parroting of what is essentially just glorified technobabble to justify why things are happening wears thin very quickly.
On the other hand though, there's some suspense to story, and a feeling of genuine intrigue and peril to the story, even if it doesn't make any sense. The score is great, the Doctor's post-regeneration issues are well portrayed, Peter Davison puts in a great performance and the set design of Castrovala's interior is actually pretty solid, although the exterior a bit less so.
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| "Castrovalva!" "It's only a model" |
The story inside the city has a solid idea, but the issue is the execution, where it falls flat on being dragged out for too long, having some fairly weak characters, and the 'who is the Master' mystery being a bit pointless given there's a character obviously played by Anthony Ainley who has a piece of technology that involves projections which is what they've been babbling on about for the entire story.
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| The guy who looks like the Master, sounds like the Master, is played by the same actor as the Master and has similar technology to the Master? No, I think the librarian is the Master! |
What it boils down to with this story is that it has some truly fascinating ideas and concepts which are in the end quite poorly executed. Hardly a first when it comes to Doctor Who to be sure, and to be fair, the ideas surrounding the 'dwellings of simplicity' helping with a failed regeneration translate fairly well into the story, even if most of what the viewer takes from it is from inference rather than any actual explanation.
Also, this is kind of a more minor thing, but I really don't like how The Doctor implicitly trusts and places faith in Nyssa and Tegan - two people who joined the TARDIS crew about an hour ago, and one of whom he hadn't even met prior to this moment, and it does undermine the character moments a bit given the dialogues aren't too believable given the length of time they've been together. I'm sure that's probably a gap that Big Finish can exploit there.
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| First Search: "What the hell is going on in this story?" |
This isn't a terrible story - there's nothing unwatchable, it at least keeps the interest, there aren't any terrible performances and the atmosphere is great. But the plot is weak, unexplained and dependent on annoying technobabble to be comprehensible
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| Nyssa was not a fan of The A-Z of Classic Who's review of Castrovalva |
I probably wouldn't recommend this story on its own, but as the conclusion to the Traken-Logopolis-Castrovalva trilogy, it works to close it out, and with the context of the ideas of Logopolis the story as a whole works a bit better. Even then it's not particularly great, but out of the three naff Davison stories we've done since beginning The A-Z of Classic Who, this is easily the best. It's more substantial and interesting than Black Orchid and less dull and contrived than Arc of Infinity, so thank heavens for small mercies.
Final Score: 5/10. The plot has too much that remains unexplained for it to be higher than just average, but a good atmosphere and some interesting ideas means the story is far from a complete failure.
Next Episode: City of Death
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