City of Death
Encyclopedia
Pre-production
Writer David FisherDavid Fisher (writer)
David Fisher is a British professional writer for television. He was born in 1929.He wrote the scripts for four serials of Doctor Who. He first contributed The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara during that show's sixteenth season, and The Creature from the Pit for the seventeenth season...
had contributed two scripts to Doctor Whos sixteenth season – The Stones of Blood
The Stones of Blood
The Stones of Blood is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 28 to November 18, 1978...
and The Androids of Tara
The Androids of Tara
The Androids of Tara is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 25 November to 16 December 1978...
– and was asked by producer Graham Williams
Graham Williams
Graham Williams was a British television producer and script editor, whose best known work was on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who....
for further story ideas. Fisher submitted two proposals; the first of these became The Creature from the Pit
The Creature from the Pit
The Creature from the Pit is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 27 October to 17 November 1979.-Synopsis:On the planet Chloris, metal is scarce....
while the other, The Gamble with Time, concerned a plot to rig the casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
to finance time travel experiments. Williams asked Fisher to rework The Gamble With Time as a Bulldog Drummond
Bulldog Drummond
Bulldog Drummond is a British fictional character, created by "Sapper", a pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeile , and the hero of a series of novels published from 1920 to 1954.- Drummond :...
spoof. Fisher's draft script centered around Scarlioni, a member of the Sephiroth race, who had become fractured in time in an accident. The script was mainly set in the year 1928 with the Doctor and Romana, aided by Drummond-esque detective "Pug
Pug
The pug is a "toy" breed of dog with a wrinkly, short-muzzled face, and curled tail. The breed has a fine, glossy coat that comes in a variety of colors, and a compact square body with well-developed muscle. They have been described as multum in parvo , referring to the pug's personality and...
" Farquharson, on the trail of the stolen Mona Lisa, pursuing Scarlioni from Paris to Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
where his partner, the Baroness Heidi, is using time travel technology to cheat at roulette
Roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after a French diminutive for little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number or a range of numbers, the colors red or black, or whether the number is odd or even....
at the casino to fund Scarlioni's time travel experiments. Other settings included Paris in 1979, Leonardo da Vinci's studio in the year 1508 and prehistoric
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
Earth. At this point, production unit manager John Nathan-Turner
John Nathan-Turner
John Nathan-Turner was the ninth producer of the long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, from 1980 until it was effectively cancelled in 1989...
had worked out that the production team could afford to film on location in Paris with a stripped down crew. This necessitated a rewrite to Fisher's scripts to move the action to Paris and, for cost reasons, to drop the 1920s setting. K9
K-9 (Doctor Who)
K-9, or K9, is the name of several fictional robotic canines in the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who, first appearing in 1977...
also had to be removed from the script as the cost of bringing the robot dog and his operators to Paris was prohibitive. However, Fisher was going through a divorce at this time and his personal situation meant that he was unable to perform the rewrites. This meant that script editor Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
, aided by Graham Williams, had to perform a complete rewrite of the story over the course of a weekend. According to Adams, Graham Williams "took me back to his place, locked me in his study and hosed me down with whisky and black coffee for a few days, and there was the script". The revised script, now titled The Curse of the Sephiroth, was credited to "David Agnew", a standard pseudonym used by the BBC and which had been previously used on Doctor Who for the season fifteen serial The Invasion of Time
The Invasion of Time
The Invasion of Time is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 4 February to 11 March 1978...
. The serial was subsequently retitled City of Death on 8 May 1979.
The idea of making six copies of the Mona Lisa to be sold to private collectors, after the real Mona Lisa is stolen, bears a striking resemblance to an alleged exploit of Eduardo de Valfierno
Eduardo de Valfierno
Eduardo de Valfierno, who posed as a Marqués , was an Argentine con man who allegedly masterminded the theft of the Mona Lisa. Valfierno paid several men to steal the work of art from the Louvre, including museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia...
.
Shooting
Assigned to direct City of Death was Michael Hayes who had previously directed the Doctor Who serials The Androids of TaraThe Androids of Tara
The Androids of Tara is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 25 November to 16 December 1978...
(1978) and The Armageddon Factor
The Armageddon Factor
The Armageddon Factor is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 20 January to 24 February 1979...
(1979) and had produced and directed A for Andromeda. He had prior experience of filming in Paris having worked there on adaptations of Maigret
Maigret
Jules Maigret, Maigret to most people, including his wife, is a fictional police detective, actually a commissaire or commissioner of the Paris "Brigade Criminelle" , created by writer Georges Simenon.Seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories about Maigret were published between 1931 and...
(1960–63) and other Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
stories for the BBC. Location filming took place in Paris between 30 April 1979 and 3 May 1979. It proved a difficult shoot as the dates coincided with the May Day holiday period which meant that many of the locations chosen for filming were closed, necessitating considerable improvisation on the part of the cast and crew. Model filming was conducted at Bray Studios
Bray Studios (UK)
Bray Studios is a film and television facility at Bray, near Windsor, Berkshire, England. The films Alien and The Rocky Horror Picture Show were shot there...
between 8 May 1979 and 10 May 1979. These concentrated on the shots of the Jagaroth spacecraft taking off from the prehistoric Earth and were overseen by Ian Scoones, a veteran of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. Following rehearsals, production moved to BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
where the remaining scenes were recorded in two blocks; the first between 21 May 1979 and 22 May 1979 and second between 3 June 1979 and 5 June 1979.
Cast notes
- Tom Baker found filming in Paris to be a very different experience to what he was used to in the UK where crowds would gather to watch the filming and meet the stars. Doctor Who was not shown in France at the time and so the cast and crew were largely ignored.
- Lalla Ward found City of Death the most challenging Doctor Who serial she worked on but was pleased with the final outcome, saying, "We had to film loads of scenes in the rain and cold... there was no glamour in it at all... it was different from the ordinary stories too and I like the finished result". Seeing her costumes as an important part in creating the role of Romana, Ward clashed with costume designer Doreen James, rejecting the silver catsuit James had designed for her for the story. Ward came up with the idea for the schoolgirl costume she wore in conjunction with Tom Baker, recalling, "I thought it would be fun to wear something that little girls probably hated wearing because it might cheer them up... I didn't bank on the fact that I'd also get loads of letters from their fathers saying 'Cool School uniform!'".
- Julian Glover was a well established character actor who had previously appeared in Doctor Who as Richard the Lionheart in The CrusadeThe Crusade (Doctor Who)The Crusade is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from March 27 to April 17, 1965. The story is set in Palestine, near Jerusalem, during the Third Crusade.-Plot:...
. Glover was reluctant to don the Jagaroth mask created for scenes where Scarlioni had shed his human disguise as he felt the mask would impede his performance. As a result, he is doubled by Richard Sheekey in many of these scenes. - David Graham had provided DalekDalekThe Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Within the series, Daleks are cyborgs from the planet Skaro, created by the scientist Davros during the final years of a thousand-year war against the Thals...
voices in many William HartnellWilliam HartnellWilliam Henry Hartnell was an English actor. During 1963-66, he was the first actor to play the Doctor in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
Doctor Who serials between 1963 and 1966 and had played the part of Charlie in The GunfightersThe GunfightersThe Gunfighters is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, set in 19th Century America on the days leading up to the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral...
. - Tom Chadbon was cast as Duggan on account of his resemblance to the Franco-Belgian comicsFranco-Belgian comicsFranco-Belgian comics are comics that are created in Belgium and France. These countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs, an abbreviation of bande dessinée in French and stripverhalen in Dutch...
hero TintinTintin (character)Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....
. He would later return to Doctor Who in the role of Merdeen in the serial The Trial of a Time LordThe Trial of a Time LordThe Trial of a Time Lord is a fourteen-part British science fiction serial of the long running BBC series Doctor Who. The serial, produced as the twenty-third season of the Doctor Who television series, aired in weekly episodes from 6 September to 6 December 1986...
. He also played Gordon in the audio play No More Lies. - Peter Halliday had previously appeared in the Doctor Who serials The InvasionThe Invasion (Doctor Who)The Invasion is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in eight weekly parts from 2 November to 21 December 1968...
, Doctor Who and the SiluriansDoctor Who and the SiluriansDoctor Who and the Silurians is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in seven weekly parts from January 31 to March 14, 1970. The story is the first appearance of a recurring family of Earth-dwelling reptiles...
, The Ambassadors of DeathThe Ambassadors of DeathThe Ambassadors of Death is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in seven weekly parts from March 21 to May 2, 1970.-Plot:...
and Carnival of MonstersCarnival of MonstersCarnival of Monsters is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 27 January to 17 February 1973....
. He returned to Doctor Who in the serial Remembrance of the DaleksRemembrance of the DaleksRemembrance of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 5 October to 26 October 1988....
. - Douglas Adams knew John Cleese and Eleanor Bron through his connections with Monty PythonMonty PythonMonty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
and Cambridge Footlights. On learning that both would be working in BBC Television CentreBBC Television CentreBBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
on the day the art gallery scenes were to be recorded, he persuaded them to make a cameo appearance in a short scene written for "two Englishmen". Cleese and Bron agreed on the condition that there be no pre-publicity regarding their appearance; Cleese wanted them to be credited as "Helen Swanetsky" and "Kim Bread" but the BBC declined, failing to see the joke. During recording, Cleese and Baker also recorded two short comedy skits for the BBC Christmas tapeChristmas tapeIn relation to British television, Christmas tapes are unendorsed videotapes compiled by technical staff for their personal amusement. The name originates from the 1950s, when the material was filmed at the staff's Christmas parties where impromptu sketches were carried out...
. Bron later returned to play Kara in Revelation of the DaleksRevelation of the DaleksRevelation of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 23 March and 30 March 1985...
. She also played Ileana de Santos in the audio play Loups-GarouxLoups-GarouxLoups-Garoux is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Plot:...
.
Outside references
Douglas Adams would later reuse elements of City of Death, along with the unfinished Doctor Who serial ShadaShada
Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season , but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming...
(1979; 2003), in his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by "the author" on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".The book was followed by a sequel,...
(1987).
Broadcast and reception
City of Death was broadcast on BBC1 over four consecutive Saturdays beginning on 29 September 1979. At this time, industrial actionIndustrial action
Industrial action or job action refers collectively to any measure taken by trade unions or other organised labour meant to reduce productivity in a workplace. Quite often it is used and interpreted as a euphemism for strike, but the scope is much wider...
had blacked out rival broadcaster ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
and as a result, the serial scored very high ratings, averaging 14.5 million viewers over the four episodes; 16.1 million watched the fourth episode, the largest audience ever recorded for an episode of Doctor Who.
Audience appreciation ratings were taken for the first two episodes of City of Death and both episodes attained a respectable score of 64%. Listings magazine Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
published two letters from viewers regarding City of Death. Les Rogers of Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
praised the serial's cast and the location filming; less impressed, however, was Paul R. Maskew of Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
who felt the show was being played for laughs. Responding to similar criticisms from viewers, Douglas Adams wrote, "If the programme didn't move and take a few risks then it would have died of boredom years ago". Several viewers wrote to point out the discrepancy between the start of life on Earth of 4,000 million years ago and the date given in City of Death of 400 million years ago. Graham Williams replied, "The good Doctor makes the odd mistake or two but I think an error of 3,600 million years is pushing it! His next edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica
Encyclopedia Galactica
The Encyclopædia Galactica is a fictional or hypothetical encyclopædia of a future human galaxy-spanning civilization, containing all the knowledge accumulated by a society with quadrillions of people and thousands of years of history...
will provide an erratum". Another viewer wrote to point out that the atmosphere of the primordial Earth would have been poisonous to the Doctor and his companions; Douglas Adams responded to this criticism, citing dramatic licence.
City of Death was voted into seventh place in a 1998 poll of the readers of Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine is a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
to find the best Doctor Who story; the magazine commented that it "represented the height of Doctor Who as popular light entertainment for all the family". John Connor, writing in the fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
DWB
Dreamwatch
Dreamwatch was a British magazine covering science fiction and fantasy films, books and television programmes.Published monthly by Gary Leigh and then Titan Magazines , it was a leading genre entertainment magazine, competing with SFX and Cinescape in the genre magazine market.-Overview:The...
in 1991, hailed the story as "the best blend of kitsch, surrealism, fantasy and comedy-drama seen in our favourite Time Lord's annals". Vanessa Bishop
Vanessa Bishop
Vanessa Bishop is a British writer who wrote in the review section "Off the Shelf" in Doctor Who Magazine. She has also written short stories based on the BBC Television series Doctor Who.-Work:...
, reviewing the serial's DVD release, described it as "imaginatively written, well-performed and beautifully made, City of Death is a story where pretty much everything works". Reacting to the serial, as part of Doctor Who Magazines ongoing "Time Team" feature, Jacqueline Rayner
Jacqueline Rayner
Jacqueline Rayner is a best selling British author, best known for her work with the licensed fiction based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who....
said "you're suddenly, almost violently, made aware this is happening in our world... with people just getting on with their business and two Time Lords walking through it. I don't think I've ever experienced that with Doctor Who up till now... it's the tiny touches of mundanity amid the fantastical that lift the story even higher".
However, Doctor Who fandom
Doctor Who fandom
The long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who has developed a large fan base over the years.Doctor Who fans are sometimes referred to as Whovians, most often by the American press. The usage was more common among fans in the United States during the 1980s, when the Doctor...
's initial response to the serial was not so positive; John Peel
John Peel (writer)
John Peel is a British writer, best known for his books connected to several television series. He has written under several pseudonyms, including John Vincent and Nicholas Adams. He lives in Long Island, New York and his wife is a U.S...
, writing in the fanzine TARDIS in 1979, decried it as "total farce... I simply couldn't believe this was Doctor Who... the continual buffoonery is getting on my nerves". A similar view was held by Gary Russell
Gary Russell
Gary James Russell is a freelance writer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media...
who, reviewing the VHS release in 1993, said, "City of Death, like most Douglas Adams material is overrated and misses the mark for me, falling between the stools of good pastiche and bad parody and making fairly unsatisfactory viewing". This line was countered by Vanessa Bishop who called it "the Doctor Who story it's alright to laugh at... we must now accept that City of Death is funny - because if we didn't the Crackerjack
Crackerjack
Crackerjack was a British children's comedy/variety BBC television series. It started on 14 September 1955 and ran for over 400 shows, first in B&W and later in colour, until 21 December 1984.-Presenters:...
-style sleuths, scientists and all... would leave it knocking about near the bottom of all the Doctor Who story ranking polls" and, responding to the criticisms about the levels of comedy, that "it's precisely these things that make it seem so special".
In Print
City of Death is one of the few Doctor Who serials from the series' original run (1963–1989) not to have been novelised by Target BooksTarget Books
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...
. Target approached Douglas Adams on a number of occasions with a view to commissioning a novelisation, offering their standard advance of £600; Adams replied saying, "I don't want to be embarrassing but I do have a tendency to be a best-selling author". Target, concerned that their regular authors would seek better terms, refused to change their offer. Several years later, Target editor Nigel Robinson
Nigel Robinson
Nigel Robinson is an English author, known for such works as the First Contact series.Nigel was born in Preston, Lancashire and attended St Thomas More school....
offered an advance of £4,000 – double what was the standard advance at the time – but Adams again declined. Adams was unwilling to allow another author write the novelisation. An unofficial novelisation was written by David Lawrence and released on a not-for-profit basis by the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club
New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club
The New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club , New Zealand's national Doctor Who fan club, was founded in January 1988 in Christchurch by Andrew Poulsen, Scott Walker and Kay Lilley. Since 1991 the club's administration has been based in Auckland. The club is currently run by Paul Scoones and Rochelle Scoones...
in 1993.
Ian Scoones' storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s for City of Deaths special effects sequences were published in Peter Haining
Peter Haining
Peter Alexander Haining was a British journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk...
's book Doctor Who – 25 Glorious Years in 1988 and a Scaroth figure was released by Harlequin Miniatures in 1999.
VHS and DVD and releases
- The serial was released on VHS videotapeVideotapeA videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
in April 1991 with a cover by Andrew Skilleter. It was re-issued on VHS in 2001. - A DVD of the serial was released in 2005.