Doctor Who: Shada

Douglas Adams Shada has arrived a little bit later than advertised. Actually 37 years later.

The uncompleted Tom Baker Doctor Who story has been lauded since it remained unfinished from 1980. Now the BBC has reconstructed it by animating the missing sequences, reuniting the living actors and including a new bonus scene at the end.

The production crew wanted something epic like the City of Death broadcast in early 1979. The story had extensive location shooting in Cambridge and Tom Baker was in his pomp.

Shada is a prison planet created by the Time Lords. The evil genius Skagra wants to create a universe with his mind controlling it. He needs to get there to release a notorious prisoner whose mind control functions he requires.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Romana visit an old professor friend at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. Professor Chronotis has called out to the Doctor but cannot remember why. However a mislaid book creates danger, Skagra is after the book which contains coded Time Lord secrets.

First let me get the shallow stuff out of the way. Just how gorgeous was Victoria Burgoyne in this who plays Clare Keightley, the girlfriend of Chris Parsons.

I do feel that at six parts the story is overlong. I much preferred the shorter webcast that starred Paul McGann. Some of the Cambridge scenes were there just to show off the fact that they were filming in and around the university buildings. Christopher Neame is rather one note as Skagra. The special effects for the orb and the invisible spaceship were not wholly convincing. (It does not help that Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home, did a parked invisible space ship better in 1986 and my mind kept going back to that.)

However it is a joy to see Tom Baker again in a new story of Doctor Who. It just reminds me how much I loved his Doctor as a kid and he just makes it look so easy, never mind that in later years I read just how difficult he was to work with.