Nightmare of Eden

Nightmare of Eden
by Bob Baker
Originally Broadcasted: November 24th-December 15th, 1979

The Doctor and Romana arrive on the luxury space liner Empress, which has just collided with a private ship, the Hecate. Whilst investigating the crash, the Doctor and Romana come across a strange planet recording machine, the Continuous Event Transmuter (CET), and the terrible drug vraxoin. Even worse are the dreaded Mandrels now prowling around the ship. It's up to the Doctor to find the drug smugglers and keep the Mandrels at bay...

Nightmare of Eden is part of the series of Doctor Who that was criticized for its weak stories and overuse of humor, but this story stands above the two worst of that season (The Creature from the Pit and The Horns of Nimon) as a surprisingly good one. It has a very different feeling to it, unlike any other story in the Tom Baker era. In fact I'd dare to say it would have been more at home in the Sylvester McCoy era of the show. Written by famed writer Bob Baker, in his only writing gig without his writing partner Dave Martin, Nightmare of Eden goes surprisingly deep into drug trade and addiction. We see the captain of the Empress very obviously high off vraxoin, and the drug trade itself is a pivotal part of the storyline. That's a ballsy move for a "children's TV show," but it proved to be an entertaining and more importantly different storyline. The Doctor explicitly mentions many times in the story just how bad the drug is, just to prevent any kid from possibly finding it cool. I was genuinely surprised on who the drug smugglers actually were, especially Tryst. Whose shown as a bumbling Germanic scientist, whose taken up drug smuggling to help finance his scientific experiments. The CET was an interesting idea, where whole planets could be recorded on tiny crystals inside this machine. Of course, it didn't work as well as intended. That's what led to the only let down of Nightmare of Eden, the Mandrels, who are just about the least terrifying monsters in the history of Doctor Who. It's so obvious that they are men in suits when they flail their un-terrifying arms around. They look like ballet dancers legs with a fat stomach. Weird. And it doesn't help that the serial was badly over-lit, which doesn't help an already bad looking monster look better. Tom Baker was on fine form in this story, throwing in many of his own gags. This was his season to shine, as he was pretty much given free reign by Producer Graham Williams and Script Editor Douglas Adams. Oh, and let me just mention how much I love this Romana. There's just something about her that I really like, and she's pretty too! Nightmare of Eden is a story with a poor stigma to it, but is actually surprisingly good. Definitely worth a watch!

Luke's Rating: 8/10