The late Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) co-wrote this enormously popular four-part story from 1979, which pits the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Lalla Ward) against a time-traveling alien (Julian Glover) whose body, fragmented by an accident, spurred evolution millions of years ago. Now restored to his full (and horrific) form, he plans to travel back in time and prevent the destruction of his ship--which in turn would profoundly affect the course of humanity. A terrific blend of science-fiction thrills and humor (well-played by Baker and Ward), City of Death also benefits from its Paris locations and terrific performances by Glover and Space: 1999's Catherine Schell, as well as a pair of unexpected cameos from John Cleese and Eleanor Bron as art critics. The story's high caliber was rewarded with phenomenal ratings (reportedly, the largest ever for Doctor Who), and has remained a fan favorite ever since.

The Doctor as Ford Prefect

This is one of the most enjoyable stories from the old series. Tom Baker's Doctor was already the top of the incarnations (and would remain so) as far as most fans were concerned. Add his truely alien performance of the title character with the witty, off-the-wall comedy of Douglas Adams; and you get a four parter that's always a joy. Great dialogue. Fantastic cast with a John Cleese cameo. Most importantly, it's something that the whole family can watch and enjoy on their own personal level.

This script shows that Adams was more interested in character and concepts than the actual narrative style. If you took the time to think about the story, there are many plot holes and jumps; but that's not what Adams was about. He was about the strange universe and characters romping around in time and space and just what it's all for. Does art become art because someone can place a monetary value on it? Or is it art because it is something beautiful and crafted?

If you like Doctor Who or The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, or both, this is the perfect addition to your DVD collection. Bonuses include interviews with Douglas Adams himself as well as other cast and crew. A documentary on how the story evolved into one of the most (if not the most) popular episodes in Who history. Plus, skits with Tom Baker and John Cleese having fun and showing their comedic chops.

So Dark The Con Of Man

Is there any chance that the upcoming "Da Vinci Code" movie is going to be as fabulous as "City of Death"? Both stories tell us that the world we know is a lie, that the mythology on which we have built our lives is based on a carefully fabricated and jealously protected false premise.

In "City of Death", those mysteries are uncovered by private eye Tom Chadbon, coincidentally dressed as Tintin, and those same mysteries have been guarded by Julian Glover, who was so suave that he went on to play a bad guy in films from three quintessential action franchise movies in the '80s (Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones).

But in "The Da Vinci Code", we just get Tom Hanks again.

This is "The Big Lebowski" of "Doctor Who" scripts: every line is brilliant; even the bits of dialogue that are supposed to be serious exposition are drop-dead funny. The all-star cast of Glover and Chadbon, not to mention the brilliant Doctor/companion team of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, takes this hilarious script -- written by Douglas Adams in one weekend while consuming pots and pots of black coffee -- and play every scene dead straight, right down the middle. The story produced right before "City" was "The Creature From The Pit", which has since been reduced to a cautionary tale about what happens when you don't play comedy dead straight, right down the middle.

As has been written elsewhere, the story is plotted so tightly you could sing it like an opera. Scaroth, the last survivor of a vicious reptilian race, is fractured into 12 identical "splinters" of himself, set adrift in Earth's history and working to advance the human race to the point where a nebbishy Russian scientist can build him a small time machine. Scaroth's prior selves have hoarded the great art treasures of humanity: Gutenberg bibles, Gainsborough paintings, and seven original "Mona Lisa"s, all so that his 1979 self can sell them to buy the technology he needs. Which he will then use to save his people by preventing the cataclysm that, coincidentally, made life on Earth possible.

Because Julian Glover's villain is so suave and assured, he gets the rare "Who" trifecta of getting the final close-up of every cliffhanger. All right, in Part One it's not really him -- it's his stunt double's nose or chin visible through an aperture in the reptile mask -- but Glover's stern visage ends Part Two, and his smiling photo op self concludes Part Three just as he's killed off the Russian scientist in gruesome fashion. His line readings are a primer on how to speak the English language properly.

The DVD restoration team pulled out all the stops for the "City of Death" extras. The story itself didn't need a whole lot of work, so instead they've restored 25 minutes of raw camera footage, which had been recorded onto a kind of videotape that was obsolete the day it was recorded and so managed to avoid being wiped by the BBC, or stuffed under a highway like "The Wicker Man" film cans. The DVD also presents the raw film of the story's model effects -- a spaceship taking off and exploding, and five chickens acting the role of a single bird that ages to death inside an unstabilized time field.

The audio commentary doesn't feature Tom or Lalla, but it does have Chadbon and Glover (a huge addition to the DVD, huge), and director Michael Hayes, commenting on the story. Most prior "Who" commentaries feature aging actors and directors kvelling over lame 1970s relics that "really stand the test of time!" even when they didn't (Exhibit HHH: "The Claws of Axos"). Chadbon, Hayes and Glover are more realistic. They actually compare this story to the production values and shooting schedule 2005 season of "Doctor Who"! They also discuss "Doctor Who" conventions at length. It's great to hear Glover rediscover a role he's not seen in some time; I loved hearing his delight when he realiezd that Kerensky's death scene prefigured his own in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".

My favorite extra is the making of documentary. This is not just your standard press-kit where talking heads praise the performance of each and every cast and crew member. You've gotta raise the bar for "City of Death". So DW book author Jonathan Morris, who wrote the dead-on Douglas Adams homage "Festival of Death", wrote the script. Two writers from the 2005 DW series comment on what makes the story work, at the same time that Hayes, Chadbon and Glover tell us why they loved making it so much. The narration is hilarious, and the reconstruction of David Fisher's original and abandoned script, via pretty color illustrations, is nifty.

We learn how Adams took a complicated, wide-ranging script and, over the course of one weekend, stripped it down into a story that utilized just a few sets, a minimal cast, 13 filmed minutes of actors jogging through Paris -- and turned it into one of "Doctor Who"'s shining moments, that one story where everything just fit together perfectly.

Followed by "The Creature From The Pit".

Doctor Who - City of Death (Episode 105)

Big fan of doctor who I have most of them this one has nice filming in paris.A good story line of the doctor.