City of Death

I'm on a Classic Doctor Who kick, and when I saw this series on Amazon Prime streaming, I almost giggled.  I have been wanting to rewatch it forever.  I haven't seen it in years and years, and it is one of the best of the classic DWs.

There are so very many things that make this one good.  I hardly know where to begin.  There's the fact that this was the first series to be filmed outside the UK.  Therefore, the locations aren't cheesy backlots.  They make much of that.  You get to see lots of Paris, and it really makes a difference somehow.

The setting, though, isn't nearly as great as the dialogue in this one.  Tom Baker's DW years always had good witty repartee between the main characters.  I think that if it wasn't there, he was sort of ad libbing it as he went.  This series was mostly written by Douglas Adams (and if you don't know who he is, turn in your Geek Card now) and it just sparkles like a gem in bright light.  Everybody is clever.  The baddies are clever.  The secondary characters get good lines.  And the Doctor and Romana, well, the Doctor and Romana absolutely scintillate.

There is so much to love in this.  You get science fiction and time travel but bound up with the most human of things, quite literally, in some cases.  There's great art and artists, too.  In fact, the Mona Lisa becomes a key touchstone of the whole thing, something that probably endears this episode to me even more since I have such a fascination with that piece of art.  (I know.  Me and half the world.  But still.)  There is even a brief John Cleese cameo I had totally forgotten.

It is, then, in every possible way, perfect.  If you've never seen Doctor Who before or only watched the new series, this is a good place to start.  There are other episodes I like better to be sure.  The Pyramids of Mars  and Sutekh's absolute Egyptian camp cannot be defeated for first place in my heart of hearts, but this one with its charm and its wit are probably running a close second.