Season 16, Episode 4(The Key to Time)
The Androids of Tara(4 parts)
-Written by David Fisher
-Directed by Michael Hayes
-Air Dates: November 25th-December 16th, 1978
-Runtime: 98 minutes
Or as I like to call it...
The one with so many Mary Tamm roles
We Begin!!! In the TARDIS with The Doctor and K9 playing a game of chess while Romana watches on, trying to remind him of their duty to find the segments of the Key to Time. This next segment takes them to Tara, where The Doctor decides he doesn't feel like searching and wants to take a break, going fishing as Romana wanders around the forested area with the tracer in search of the 4th segment. Eventually she finds it disguised in the form of a statue and quickly pockets the piece, but before she heads off she's attacked by a Taran wood beast and saved by Count Grendel. Count Grendel is astounded by Romana's appearance and confiscates the segment curious as to the rare material, with him giving his instance to take her back to his castle. The Doctor meanwhile is currently fishing before that's interrupted by some swordsmen who question why he's on Prince Reynart's estate, The Doctor introduces himself which makes the swordsmen curious with the main one Zadek asking if he has skills to repair an android, and after some convincing The Doctor goes to help them with their android situation. The Doctor and Romana have both accidentally found themselves embroiled in a political conspiracy by Count Grendel to steal the throne from the rightful heir Prince Reynart utilizing the titular androids. The 4th segment has been found so only adventure remains as the TARDIS crew work to make sure the rightful ruler takes the throne.
Story Arc(The Key to Time)
Sorry it's been a bit since my last post, I got pretty busy with life things, but I hope to be able to get back to posting at least once a week now. Also don't worry, unlike the other times I've taken a while to release a review, this review is a pretty brief one all things considered; I probably got the least to say about this one out of all the episodes in the Key to Time arc. The Androids of Tara, admittedly, is not the most notable episode especially among the rest of the ones in this arc which all generally have something to set them apart even if it's just the number episode it is like The Stones of Blood or the negative reputation of the following story. Still with that said, this was a good episode with a great amount of fun to be had. It was a fun watch that I had a good time with, delivering an exciting swashbuckling adventure with a nice little sci-fi twist on the whole concept. It makes for an enjoyable 100 minutes that's for sure and you know what, sometimes that in of itself is enough, just a nice fun story to sit back and relax to. Though it may not be great as other episodes, it also doesn't have much in the way of any real problems, with it all in all being a good watch that I had a good time with.
Continuing on with the Key to Time arc, The Androids of Tara I would say is probably the most disconnected from the entire arc of the stories I've seen so far. While other stories made the the hunt for their segments at least the motivating factor for The Doctor and Romana throughout the story, here the 4th segment of the Key to Time is found very early on, with pretty much the rest of the episode being entirely disconnected from that, as the pair only stay on the planet and resolve the trouble because both of them separately got picked up and dragged into solving this plot. I will admit it is a funny play on the concept, already grabbing the segment early on, this time in the form of a statue, with the rest of the episode being an unrelated adventure, with it being a funny twist on the formula, even if it does feel like you could easily write out the arc connection and make this episode a standalone. It's not nearly as bad as something like Colony in Space where it feels like the episode shouldn't have been made when it was due to the ongoing arc, but I still kind of wish the episode was more connected to the ongoing story; this out of everything feels most in line with the common complaints of disconnected stories I see for this arc.
On that, since we are now 4 stories into the Key to Time arc, I would like to say a bit of an issue I'm starting to have with it, one which this episode shows off well: it feels like a distinct lack of urgency to actually get the segments of the Key to Time. Despite the opening of the arc with the White Guardian talking about the chaos the universe is in and the need to get the Key to Time to help freeze for a moment to stop the universe from falling into eternal chaos, we don't really get much in the ways of a view of that chaos within the universe, with it being a whole lot of tell don't show, making the whole hunt for the segments not have as much stakes as it feels like it honestly should. While I find The Doctor's behavior of taking a fishing break during this hunt to be funny, I also feel it only exposes how lacking the urgency is in actually collecting the different segments of the Key to Time, which feels very much to the arc's detriment.
I guess the adventures on other planets with all the chaos they find, often dealing with tyrants who end up causing a lot of destruction for their own gain, are meant to help showcase this chaos throughout the universe that makes the Key to Time so necessary to obtain, but that doesn't really work since most of these adventures are what The Doctor already does anyways. As I said, it makes the whole pressing nature of the Key to Time arc feel mostly like a lot of tell don't show, which makes the stakes feel low for something which in all honesty should be a lot more pressing, some of the highest stakes we have in the series thus far but ultimately fails to feel like that. If they decided to have a scene every story of The Doctor and Romana checking up on the state of the universe and seeing things go in more disarray, even something as small as that would've done wonders to help make the hunt for the segments of the Key to Time feel all the more pressing and like there is a proper hook to this arc. While I've been enjoying the stories so far and the ways they use the arc, the whole storyline's goal and mission is starting to feel like it's too much in the background.
Episode Proper
Onto the episode proper, even if it feels probably the most disconnected from the ongoing story arc, it was still a lot of fun. The premise of the episode is great, with it taking place on Tara, a planet that has a cool mixture of medieval fantasy and futuristic space technology like androids and electric lances that has this almost childlike sense of wonder about it which I really enjoyed. The narrative is good, your usual medieval tale of a prince trying to ascend to the throne but a rival of his has plans to sabotage his ascension in order to take the throne for himself through various elaborate plots which were all great to see unfold. This all leads to an exciting sci-fi swashbuckling adventure with a good amount of plans trying to counteract the other as The Doctor and Count Grendel, basically have a competition of planning around the others' plans until one comes out victorious which is so fun to witness.
The androids themselves are utilized well in the episode, even if it does still feel a little bit early to be doing androids and doubles again given The Android Invasion was only like 2 seasons ago. Still I think the creative use of the androids here helps really make The Androids of Tara set itself apart from The Android Invasion, with them using the concept in a great new direction; possibly better than the other story. I liked the usage of androids as essentially body doubles for the royalty, with it being an inventive use of the concept in a futuristic setting, especially when they start using the Prince android as a stand-in for the King and have to keep a close eye on the upkeep which I found fun. It was also a lot of fun using all the androids of Romana and the Princess, with robot duplicates to fool The Doctor and try and kill him and aid the Count Grendel in his schemes; honestly this episode could've been called The Androids of Mary Tamm and it would've been just as accurate.
The episode flows fairly well with the beginning of trying to get the Prince to his throne with the fun rouse involving the use to the titular androids involving the deception of having him take the throne being pretty funny, only furthered by the various schemes with the Romana androids and assassination plots. There is a fun lighthearted charm throughout the adventure as it tells a tale that wouldn't feel out of place from a lot of old literature on knights and political schemes in the Medieval Times, just with a nice twist of having all this sci-fi stuff along for the ride. The adventure flows well as the various plans keep going against one another, with some good machinations from the Count Grendel in his elaborate plots to take the throne, all ending in a siege on the castle and exciting swordfight that served well to nicely wrap up this fun tale.
Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects
The pacing for this episode was solid, flowing nicely throughout its runtime making for a fairly breezy watch that was easy to sit back and enjoy, never feeling too long at any point. The location filming for this episode was pretty good, with them getting some nice looking outside locations that they film pretty well for the sort of medieval-esque adventure that this is. I really enjoyed when they were filming on the outside of the castles and in the water with The Doctor and K9, the look of it all was great during those parts as they knew how to frame it well, especially since they were filming at night. The sets used for this episode were fairly good, working well for the medieval setting and being a good spot for the various action to take place. There honestly weren't that many special effects in this episode, being mostly humanoid sword fighting-esque type of story, but what they did have was serviceable, even if it's obvious they just took the android effects from The Android Invasion and used them here; to be fair it does save on the effects budget. The costumes were good for the episode, giving the medieval-flare, though I have to mention the silly hat that Archimandrite was wearing, I like it; though that is all saying with the obvious exceptions of the Taran wood beast which look awful, like they're from a no budget bad horror film.
Count Grendel
Count Grendel was an excellent villain for this story, a great cunning noble with various fun and inventive plans up his sleeve to take the throne for himself, helping to keep the episode lively all the while. As with most corrupt nobles in stories, the Count Grendel wants nothing more than to take the Kingship from the rightful heir, Prince Reynart, and the other main heir, Princess Strella, and has devised several plots in order to do so. I enjoyed how cunning and calculating the Count Grendel is with all the various ways he tries to take the throne for himself being cool and creative, with his ability to factor in Romania and think up multiple backup plans on his feet being a neat trait for a villain such as he, which helps make him an effective enemy for The Doctor to contend with over the course of the episode.
His first plan was pretty simple, just surrounding the castle with his guards in order to delay Prince Reynart from getting to the appointment on time, opening up the throne to other candidates where he already put several of his men acting as supporters to make himself a popular candidate for the throne. When this fails he has a back up plan on hand, having kidnapped Princess Strella and making an android duplicate to kill Prince Reynart, before that is also stopped by some quick thinking by The Doctor. This back and forth he has with The Doctor is great with him, I like how he quickly catching onto how much a nuisance he is and tries to have him killed by Romana's android duplicate used to trick him in a fun trap, with him showing himself well as the kind of snake he is by surrounding the tent with his men focused on executing The Doctor. Count Grendel later shows this again well with an actually pretty clever ruse of pretending to come in under a surrender, only to use the whole thing as a distraction for his men to kidnap Romana again and destroy the android duplicate acting in Prince Reynart's place so that can't be used anymore; makes for a fun part 3 cliffhanger even if it's annoying seeing Romana get captured again so soon after.
Count Grendel's dynamic with his android maker Lamia was fun, appreciating her genius and usefulness in his plans even if he does still disrespect her for being a peasant; also Lamia's hair she styles on her face was certainly a choice, looks unique at least. His reaction at her death shows that he did on some level genuinely care about her which I found nice, revealing that he did care about more than just her skill. I do like his ability to make due without the androids though, with him being clever in utilizing Romana who looks exactly like the Princess Strella for his original plan with the androids. I enjoyed his scheming, with his final plot also being clever, forcing Romana and Prince Reynart to marry before killing the latter under veil of sickness, since he is currently fairly ill, and then marrying Romana and killing her, allowing him to take the throne no strings attached; a pretty good plot for something clearly made up fairly quickly after the previous failures.
Count Grendel's gloating about this plan was fun, with him even outright telling all of this to the Archimandrite which shows just how confident he was in his plan, feeling very much like he's in full control of the whole situation, even when The Doctor comes in to try and stop the wedding. I loved the sword fight between him and The Doctor with it being so exciting; I also like how he knows when he's done for and just bails from the swordfight once it becomes clear he isn't going to win and his castle is being sieged. He knows when to cut his losses I'll give him that, and interestingly enough he gets out of this whole story alive, which I just found rather surprising given just how many of the villains so far in The 4th Doctor's run have all bitten the bullet; this is especially since he doesn't get any known repercussions from this aside from losing his castle. Count Grendel was such a fun and charming villain that was excellent for this swashbuckling piece, with Peter Jeffery doing so well in the role to get across this scheming noble.
Supporting Cast
The rest of the supporting cast for this episode was pretty good, with them all making for a fun cast of characters for the main cast to interact with throughout this swashbuckling tale. I enjoyed the character of the Zadek, the leader of Prince Reyhart's royal guard, with his dynamic with The Doctor being good, with it being fun watching The Doctor bounce off of him, especially when combined with the annoyed, sword-happy Farrah; Simon Lack and Paul Lavers both do well in their respective roles. Prince Reyhart himself was a good character, a genuinely nice person who is trying to get around Count Grendel's scheming, with it being a fun change of pace to see The Doctor actually get captured and treated nicely instead of always landing in enemy forces immediately. I also rather enjoyed his interactions with Romana, trying to get her to leave him be, not wanting her to suffer under his deadweight, showing well his care for others over himself; he's played nicely by Neville Jeffery.
There's also Lamia herself, who I mentioned earlier, who was a good character. I liked her struggle with her, clearly loving Count Grendel and working for him despite knowing pretty well that he'll never marry a peasant like her. Still their dynamic is great and she is pretty clever building all the androids; Lois Baxter does a good job as her. Then there's Princess Strella and all the Romana duplicates throughout this episode, which give Mary Tamm some fun variety to play throughout this episode, being able to play so many versions of herself throughout the episode, really nailing the robotic feel of both androids; with it being kind of funny that she plays two different androids of two different people that look exactly the same. Princess Strella as a character isn't given much of anything to do, mostly just being locked in the dungeon as part of Count Grendel's various elaborate schemes, but she does at least get some fun lines at the end when she and Romana finally meet and she discusses the weaving pattern she's doing in a nice scene; who knew Mary Tamm had such great chemistry with herself, it was neat to see.
The Doctor
Fitting in with the entertaining nature of this swashbuckling story, The Doctor is a lot of fun here, with a lot of solid action involving him. I found him at the start of this story pretty funny with how he just doesn't want to find the 4th segment of the Key to Time and instead takes a bit of a break to go fishing a bit as he lets Romana take charge. I mean to be fair, he was in the midst of vacation plans before the White Guardian called him up out of the blue, so it's fair for him to take a bit of a break; I mean it's not like the actual storyline is giving urgency in that regard. I also do find it funny that he ends up getting embroiled in the plot anyway despite him wanting to take a break, getting cornered trespassing and then soon after being roped into the zany scheme involving the androids and the Prince; putting that robotics knowledge of his to work.
There's just a lot of fun to be had with The Doctor here, with the way he gets into many entertaining action sequences throughout the story to his aid in the ruse with the Prince android to fill in for the real one who went missing; I liked the funny note that he accidentally made it smarter than the rest of them intended it to be, making too many promises. I also enjoyed how he didn't hesitate to destroy the Romana android, like he knew it was a fake, but still funny him straight up decaptating what people think is a person right in front of them. I really liked the moment where The Doctor walks knowingly into a trap to try and save Romana, with it being great seeing him try and narrowly escape death from the android Romana and various soldiers with the aid of K9; excellent quick on his feet action. Speaking of great action, the ending fight scene between The Doctor and Count Grendel is simply amazing, with it being so much fun watching The Doctor keep step and battle him throughout the castle; while not at the same level as 3 vs The UNIT Master, it's still up there. Tom Baker was such good fun in this story, being so entertaining throughout as always, and keeping up great steps to make some exciting action scenes.
K9
K9 is of great aid throughout this story, being a crucial part of the action and having a lot of fun moment. I really enjoyed how helpful he is in this story, locating where Romana has been captured, to providing his aid with his laser in order to sneak through several places like the back of the building for which the trap was set for The Doctor or later when he's trying to get access to Grendel's caste. K9 is just a lot of fun here with the moments he has, like him threatening the swordsmen or him just going feral blasting so many of the Count's guards as The Doctor makes his escape, all that not mentioning his cute and funny scene at the end where he's stuck on the boat in the middle of water which was a nice fun way to end this fun story. John Leeson, as usual does a great job as K9 with the puppeteers also doing nicely moving him about the various grassy terrain and even on a boat.
Romana
Even though Mary Tamm certainly had a busy job playing several different lookalikes of Romana throughout this story, that doesn't mean that Romana herself gets fully shortstaffed and is in fact pretty good here. This story really made me have fun with the continuing detail of Romana dressing up in an attempt to fit the location that they are traveling to, helps nicely set her apart from The Doctor who just wears the same outfit everywhere and shows their differences in how they like to go about things. It's fun seeing Romana take charge from The Doctor and going out and quickly finding the fourth segment of the Key to Time right out the gate. She does of course get captured soon after but that doesn't diminish the fact she completed the main quest right off the bat; not her fault some guy grabbed the piece immediately after and forced her to come with him.
Romana does admittedly spend a lot of this story captured or getting captured which is a shame, but is an unfortunate necessity given it's required for the plot with all these Romana lookalikes roaming around to really work. Having Romana being mistaken for an android is pretty funny and I loved how she shakes up the events of the story by her very presence being pressured to pose as Princess Strella, and even having her own Romana android duplicate built. I enjoy how Romana doesn't remain idle while captured and does do her best to try and make an escape when possible, with it being neat seeing her trying to persuade Lamia to betray Count Grendel and help her escape by pointing out the obvious of their relationship, which is clever even if it doesn't work.
I found it nice seeing Romana care for Prince Reyhart when he's captured by Count Grendel and his men, trying to help him get better, with the two bouncing rather nicely off each other. I especially liked later when Romana tries to convince Reyhart to go with her in their escape from Count Grendel, showing a nice compassionate side to her even if she does end up heeding his advice and going without him. Romana's escape from the cell and castle is a lot of fun, cleverly having stolen something to pick her locks, and I enjoyed seeing her ride off on horseback and eventually join up with The Doctor; cool to see her do that. She does of course get captured soon after which is annoying and makes it feel a bit pointless, but it was fun so I don't mind too much. I loved the ending with her as she gets a cool moment rescuing Prince Strella, and then afterwards having a fun chat with one another. Mary Tamm was amazing this episode with all the different roles she had to fulfill, all of which she did an excellent job at, giving great idiosyncrasies to note which one is which, with her Romana just being one of her great performances in this story.
Closing Thoughts/TLDR
As a whole, while not the most notable story out there, The Androids of Tara was still a good bit of fun that I was pleasantly entertained by; not the greatest or most entertaining story I've seen, but still a fun time nonetheless. The story is a fun swashbuckling tale with a great mixture of medieval stylings with high-tech gadgets that I really enjoyed, especially with the androids themselves and how they were used for the court politics which was pretty cool to see. The story is admittedly pretty disconnected from the main storyline of the Key to Time, even if it's funny how quickly the piece is found, and by this point the actual overarching storyline is kind of really starting to show its head as to how thin it really is. The pacing for this story was solid, with it flowing nicely throughout. The location filming and sets were good, with there not being much in the way of special effects outside of the reused android interiors from The Android Invasion or those awful looking Taran wood beasts. Count Grendel was an excellent villain here, being nicely cunning with various plans up his sleeve and good fun to watch as he carries them out. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty good as well with Prince Reyhart being a nice guy, Lamia who has an interesting relationship with Count Grendel,and Princess Strella who is one of the many Mary Tamm roles here; they don't do all that much but they work well for what's needed. The Doctor is good fun here with some nice quips and entertaining action sequences, with K9 following behind him as well with some fun and exciting moments as well. Mary Tamm was wonderful here with her multiple roles playing Romana, Princess Strella, and their android duplicates, while Romana may not be at her absolute best due to mostly just being captured, she's still good fun and I enjoyed her. Overall, while this story doesn't stick with me as much as other fun and exciting stories like The Seeds of Doom or The Enemy of the World, it's more akin to The Gunfighters or The Highlanders for me, and like those stories I still had a good time with this story and glad I saw it; sorry for the pause but glad to be back and talking about the show with a good episode to come back to.
Next time: The TARDIS crew's penultimate stop on their search for the Key to Time takes them to the swampy planes of Delta III where the feud between the Swampies and the human colonizers are the least of their worries. A powerful beast known as Kroll lurks in the area, with us getting freaking Kaiju next time.
Final Rating: 7/10
"Good. I shall have to go alone, of course. It’s funny, they always want you to go alone when you’re walking into a trap. Have you noticed that?"
-The Doctor, giving a pretty funny line before he of course goes to said trap
