Romana and the 4th Doctor in Paris! Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin discuss this Parisian romp that featured excellent guest stars and light-hearted, witty dialogue with some very timey-wimey elements.
Jimmy Akin Podcast
The City of Death - The Secrets of Doctor Who
The Secrets of Doctor Who is brought to you by the Star Quest Production Network and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit sqpn.com/give. You're listening to the Secrets of Doctor Who, where we discuss everything about the hit BBC series, Doctor Who, and today we're discussing the fourth Doctor story, City of Death. I'm Dom Betanelli and joining me today is Jimmy Aiken. Hey Jimmy. Howdy Dom. Folks, we would love it if you would go as soon as you can right now, in fact, pause the show and go to Apple Podcasts and write a review or Spotify, leave us a star rating, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or whatever it takes to help us share the podcast, including share it with your friends, help us grow this community and reach more listeners. And before we get started with today's show, I do want to recommend another show on the Star Quest Network. You are sure to enjoy, called The Secrets of Technology, which you can find wherever fine podcasts are found or at sqpn.com/technology. And I've listened to that show and I just want to let you know, as listeners, you will find out all kinds of secrets of technology, like how to have a dimensionally transcendental police box and how to make that police box travel through time and all kinds of interesting things like that. It's Gallifreyian technology really, it's what we discuss. So Jimmy, can you give us a recap of City of Death? This week, we reach the final chapter of Secrets of Doctor Who and The Trilogy of Death. The fourth doctor and the second Romana go to Paris in 1979, where they meet an extremely aggressive punch throw and detective named Duggan who investigates art crimes. But the real problem is with Count Carlo Scarlione. He's planted to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and he plans to sell it and six other copies that are all originals he had Leonardo paint back in the 1500s. Because it turns out that the count lives in 12 different time periods. Originally, he was Scaroth, a member of a nearly extinct warlike race called the Jaggeroth. 400 million years ago, he landed on Earth, but in trying to take off his warp drive exploded and fractured him across time, kind of like an evil Clara Oswald. And his 12 selves have been working across time to push the technological advancement of the human race so that by 1979, he'll have the tech he needs to travel back in time and stop himself from pushing the button that fragmented him. The problem is that the explosion of his ship was a key moment in the development of life and if he stops himself, the human race will have never existed. So the doctor Romana and Duggan follow him back in time to stop him. Because of the tech he's using, the count has only two minutes to stop himself from pushing the button. And with the most important punch in history, punch happy art detective Duggan knocks him unconscious and prevents him from altering history. So the human race and all life on Earth is safe. The end. Your overall impression on this one, Jimmy? Well, for the conclusion of our death of our trilogy of death, I thought this was a good story. And for what that's a reference to previous to this, we had done the third doctor's green death. And previous to that, we had done the second doctor's seeds of death. So by a happy coincidence of our cycle through the doctors with the second third and fourth doctor, we got a trilogy of stories that had the word death in the title. And I enjoyed this. This is a this is a good one. This is considered one of the most popular of the Tom Baker stories ever. Some consider it the best Tom Baker story. I'd still probably want to go with I mean, in terms of mythological value to the show, I'd still put Genesis the dialects ahead of this. But in terms of fun to watch, this is more fun to watch than Genesis of the dialects, which is a six parter. So it kind of has that slow middle act. Whereas this is just four parts and it's bang, bang, bang, bang, everything's happening real quickly. Except for the fact that they were filming on location in Paris, which was the first time they really did that. And whenever a TV show in this era of television, doesn't matter whether it's American or British, whenever they film in a famous place, we have to have lots of montage footage of the our main characters walking around in front of famous landmarks. So that kind of drags it down a bit with music. Yeah. I mean, Colombo did that. Dr. Who did that? Everything where you if you go to a famous city, you got to show us your main characters walking around in front of famous stuff for a long time. And it's the same kind of music. I don't even know. It's like this walking music that yet in this 70s early 80s sort of thing. If you if you've seen it, if you watch it, you'll know what I mean. If you've seen any of that. So yeah, I agree with that. That I mean, I love the fact that we're on location. This is the first time they ever filmed outside the UK for Dr. Who and they were really excited. But yeah, it was it was very much of its era. Yeah. And they didn't originally plan to film it on location. They they were planning to recreate Paris in the studio. And then they pointed out that's going to be really expensive. It's just cheaper to hop over the English Channel and film in Paris, right, which will ferry or a or a plane at the time, no, or a tunnel. Yeah, I guess not at the time. Yeah. So I like this one too. It was it was really good. I saw some things where it regularly appears this this story appears in the top classic who of all time, the top 10, you know, various various polls put it in various places. But I think it was really great. I really love the the chemistry between the doctor and the amount of two. It's more relaxed than I think I've seen Tom Baker or any doctor with any companion. It's much more companionable. Sorry, there's a little bit of a pun there, but I guess I should intend that pun. You know, right from the beginning when they're on top of the Eiffel Tower and, you know, just sort of moving around the city and kind of bantering. And it's it's fun banter. We see that again in Shada. That's the other Romano two story that I've seen so far when we talked about Shada and it's it's similar there too. So I really did like it. One thing that struck me about this story is of any Tom Baker any classic, I mean, there may be some exceptions, but of any classic Doctor Who story, this is either the most timey whimey or one of the most timey whimey stories ever, because we have we just have so much going on here that is way beyond show up in the TARDIS and have an adventure. I mean, Count Scarlione. So first of all, when the Doctor and Romano show up in Paris, there are these time fractures that cause little time loops to happen that they notice. And so that's a minor timey whimey element, but it's there and it's more than what we normally get. And then it turns out that there are the seven copies of the Mona Lisa and the Doctor goes back in time and writes, this is a fake in felt tip marker on six of the canvases. Even though they're all painted by Leonardo, he writes, this is a fake on six of the canvases. So it will show up in an x-ray and that and that's timey whimey. You know, you've got these with these seven copies, they're all real. They've been hold up. They've been six of them have been walled away for, you know, 400 years. But but that's another timey whimey element. Then it turns out that that the count is Clara Oswald. He's fractured it through time and there are 12 of him living in different time periods, pushing the technological development of the human race forward. And so this is just way beyond the standard timey whiminess of a normal doctor who episode in the classic era. This is up there with blink and stuff like that. Yeah, I thought originally it was going to be that Scaroth, who became Scarlett only lived the 400 year million years from that moment. And you know, some like he's maybe an immortal, you know, species or something like that and caused humanity to be created and to become a civilization also that he could develop technology to the point where he could get home again. That wasn't the case. They didn't do that, which is probably better anyway. Yeah, it's also kind of complicated. Yeah, it's also kind of like Kurt Vonnegut novel. Is it sirens of Titan where you have like an angel or an alien stranded in orbit around Titan, I guess, and they're pushing over the course of human history. They're like pushing humanity forward to get to a certain point. Right. I mean, the lots of sci-fi has done things where alien species basically creates life on Earth to, you know, 2001, a space odyssey. Star Trek did it with the progen-, not progenitors. Okay, progenitors. Yeah, you know, so it's a common thing. I mean, this is sort of like it where in these very particular time periods, you know, ancient Egypt, Renaissance, whatever, Scaroth, Scar, I'll just come to Scar Leone because I know that easier. He causes advancements. So, you know, because we do see in history that in certain periods, time, you know, technology jumps, you know, industrial age, Renaissance, it's, you know, each and each and each of that sort of thing. So, you know, it's an interesting guy, you know, approach to the story. So, Scar Leone is played by Julian Glover, the actor who may look familiar to folks. He was on Dark Two before as King Richard the Lionheart in the first Doctor story, The Crusade. Only he was nicer than. Yes, King Richard. We don't have video of that. So, it's all, it's, it's, tell a snap in audio remains of that, of that story. But he's also, if you recognize him from other things, he's General Beers and Empire Strikes Back, and he was Walter Donovan in, ironically, The Last Crusade, the Indiana Jones movie. So, a good actor. I think he did a great job in this. And then his, his playing The Countess was, oh, what was her name? I just had it just a second ago. Catherine Shell. Yeah, who I remember as a kid watching the, the British or English sci-fi show, Space 1999. Yeah, she's, she's Maya the Metamorph. Yes, in season two, a early, very young crush on apparently one of my first sci-fi crushes. She's, she's great. I just, I enjoyed her in this. She did like, the, the guest acting in this was, was really great. And I think it really lent into the, the overall quality. By the way, speaking of, speaking of sci-fi crushes, Romana has a new costume in this episode. And so she's not wearing a trench coat and a scarf to imitate the doctor. Like she was last episode when she was introduced. Instead, she's wearing a, basically a school girl uniform. Yeah. And she, she, Lala Ward, the actress, picked that because she thought it would be nice to wear something that little girls hate and kind of redeem it. But what she didn't know is that for some males of the species, the school girl costume is attractive. So she got these letters from dad's going, wow, school girl, school girl costume. And you got some more sci-fi crushes. The, the, I was very cute. The hat especially. There were plenty of times when she's holding onto that hat, but I thought it was going to blow away. They must have, that's pretty good. She looks like, she looks like Madeline from those French children's books. Exactly. Exactly. Which I read many times to my girls. So there is an interesting early on the Dr. Romana sitting in a cafe and debating computer pictures versus human art while they're sitting around. Which I thought was very prescient. That is actually a very current debate going on in our society. So I thought that was very interesting to see them doing that. Yeah, it's 40 years ago. It's not super gallifrey in technology. It's just, oh, you're just 40 years ahead of the curve on Dr. Who. Exactly. We're having that debate right now with mid-journey and stuff like that. Exactly. Jettitive art and all that sort of stuff. So they go to the Louvre. They visit the, the Mona Lisa, which is not at all like where the Mona Lisa is today in the Louvre because it's this very small, they get that the proportions right, but it's really far away. They keep you really far back from it. This is, I think this predates the attempt to steal it and that was I think in the 80s or 90s. Well, there was an attempt to steal it that was successful in the early 20th century and then it got brought back. But there were more recent attempts to like damage it and stuff like that. Right. Right. By the way, when they're in the cafe, the doctor tells Romana not to turn around because a man is doing a sketch of her. That's what sets off the conversation about computer art. And she does, so she turns around and the guy gets outraged and rips out his sketch and throws it in the trash and stalks off. But then when they get it out of the trash and look at it, look at it, the doctor in Romana see it before we do. And the doctor says, well, for a portrait of a time lady, that's pretty good. And when we finally get to see it, it's like got Lala Ward's hat and a long blonde hair. But in place of her face, there's a cracked clock face. And so for a time lady, it's like, okay, that guy was psychic or something, but that makes sense. I was wondering about that if that was going to be an element of the show, but I guess not. Nope. Yeah. So, Scarlione has this scientist in his basement, Dr. Kerensky, who is get developing time travel technology. But it's very primitive and it can only really just turn back the clock on very particular items within its purview with and it's inside the machine. Actually, actually, the way Kerensky is doing it is it turns time forward at first. The doctor later reverses it to turn it backwards. But what Kerensky is doing with it is he'll like put an egg on a stand and then progress the egg into an adult chicken. And then if he lets it go too long, the adult chicken turns into an adult chicken skeleton. So it runs time forward rapidly inside of this bubble, but that's a separate time continuum than the external time of everyone watching it. The most amazing thing it does, though, is it turns that egg into an adult chicken without any food input. So you can raise an adult chicken without any chicken feed. And that's the most amazing thing about this. And in fact, Kerensky at one point thinks that's what he's doing is creating a new food source to get rid of hunger in the world and that sort of thing. And that's why they don't explicitly say this and maybe they do and I missed it. But the reason the whole, the count is basically one of these wealthy art thieves, you know, that he's he and his wife, and the whole right. Yeah, exactly. And he's he does it in order to raise funds for the science to pay Kerensky the millions and millions of dollars it takes to do what he's doing. And so he's been playing this long game, for instance, like with the Mona Lisa paintings, the duplicates, and I thought it was clever, which is you if you steal a Mona Lisa or Rembrandt or whatever, you can't ever like display it anywhere because everyone knows that was stolen. You know, that's if it's the real thing, then that's the stolen thing. So anyone who steals this sort of art has it, you know, hidden just for them to appreciate just to look at and say, I own this, which is bizarre and immoral. But knowing that, you could sell genuine copies of the Mona Lisa to six different billionaires. And none of them would know that be the wiser that someone else also has a genuine copy of the Mona Lisa that has been stolen, which is an interesting premise, I have to say that that's very clever. So you get instead of getting the millions that you would get for one Mona Lisa, you get the multi millions for seven of them. Yeah, I do like that. I'll go ahead. I'm sorry. Just a thought about the Mona Lisa's. Anyone who looks at it would these these six copies are being kept in a damp seller for hundreds of years. They are walled off, but yeah. Yeah, but they would be corroded and just like as opposed to the one that's being conserved in a museum under controlled conditions, you know, museum quality archival conditions. So I mean, you can't look too closely at the at the premise. But anyway, you were going to say, Jimmy? Well, I was just going to make a comment on the direction because normally I'm not I don't I don't even notice direction. I'm not a big fan of directorial technique. But I did notice some really creative stuff and British television tends to have more creative direction than American television and American television, you have long establishing shots, medium shots, and then close ups for dialogue. And you just you have that pattern of long, medium close up close up close up close up close up, medium close up close up close up close up and that's it. As you know, conversations and things happen. But in this they they have some more creative stuff they wanted to start with like a shot of the doctrine Romana at the top of the Eiffel Tower and then pull back to reveal the Eiffel Tower. But they couldn't do that because they couldn't they they it turns out they were filming over I think it was the May Day holiday and the Eiffel Tower was closed and a bunch of the stuff they wanted to film out was closed. So they had to jigger things on the fly. But the one shot that survived that was really creative was we're walking down the it's in one of the montages of the doctrine Romana walking down a street in Paris. And we see so you know the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and all these famous landmarks are very important. And we see a shot of of one of these landmarks. And then it turns out we're looking at a rack of postcards. And then we see someone's hand come in come from off screen and yank one of the postcards out of the rack creating an open space. And through that open space we see the doctrine Romana walking towards us. And I just like that's such a creative they didn't have to do that. You know they could have just used a long shot of them walking. But this added more visual interest. This was good directed. You know speaking of which you know and we talked before about filming on the streets and having these montages. One of the things is back then especially these productions didn't shut down city streets and you know have everything controlled and everyone in a shot is an extra and every car is being driven by a production member. They were filming clearly filming organically on the city streets just walking through crowds crossing the street you know dealing with the traffic. I mean it was it was I had to it's you you're risk taking there you have your your stars crossing Paris traffic which I've walked through Paris. It's it's like it's like Roman some ways you take your life in your hands. I'm gonna say I don't know if it's as bad as Roman traffic but it's not not nearly as bad. The French drivers are a little bit better than than Italian drivers. But I just thought it was interesting to to see that contrast with today where everything is controlled. You know in fact today you'd probably have a green screen behind them because you wouldn't bother you know you know going to all the effort of being on location. And you know what that does is sometimes you have people walking along the street kind of turning and looking and smiling at a camera like you know or doing the whole time baker like or whatever it was but clearly you know breaking the fourth wall in it. But you know it's just it's fun. It's it doesn't have everything you have to absolutely perfect. In this case doctor who was not at this time broadcast in Paris. So they actually had less trouble with the crowds here than they did doing location shooting in England because nobody knew who they were. Okay. Okay. I keep forgetting it back then you know stuff wasn't broadcast internationally with every you know from the beginning. So I want to talk about Duggan for a minute because Doug. That's what I wanted to do. Yeah. Now the thing is this script was it was originally written I forget who by but if you look at the credit the name is who's credited is right in the script the name is a fake. It's a it's a pen name that was used for when the production crew itself ended up doing the script. There was some guy and we do know his name. I just don't know it. Who wrote an initial version but it needed a bunch of rework and he couldn't do it. So he turned it over to the production crew to do it instead. And the head script editor at the time was Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which was in fact published around the same time as this episode. And so Douglas this script was heavily redone by Douglas Adams and another guy. And you can really tell it's got Douglas Adams style humor all over it. Oh yeah. And one of the ways that manifests is in the character of Duggan who is this art detective. And you would think an art detective is going to be a very laid back genteel educated guy. And Duggan is anything but he's he wants to bust heads. He wants to punch people and break glass and do all kinds of stuff. He's over the top and he reminds me of the character pecs from the Paradise Towers in the Seventh Doctor's Time who's a sort of proto action superhero guy and and is just entirely focused on physical action. And that's the way Duggan is. Duggan is just over the top punching people breaking glass. There's there's one point. I'm sorry. He basically punches everybody that Doctor talks to in the midst of coverage. Exactly. He also like at one point he and Romana break into the Louvre and then they when they're leaving after they've set off an alarm Romana's like how do we get out of here? And he said he turns off camera and says see that window? And he goes running and crashes through it. And so he breaks away out. And then when they they meet up at a at a coffee shop, he Romana uses her sonic and Romana has a sonic in this. She uses her sonic to open the door. But Duggan comes up and just punches up through the pane of glass in this guy's private property and opens the door and comes in. And Romana says, you should go into business with a glazier. You'd have this perfect symbiotic relationship with you breaking the glass and him restoring it. And and as she's explaining that he takes a bottle of wine and smashes the top of it off so he can pour her some wine and then drink out of the broken wine bottle himself. There's a there's a nice bit where we're just now we've seen him in in in the background following the doctor. Because when the doctor and Romana initially visit the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, he he spies them and he starts following them. And then the doctor and Romana are sitting at a table at a outside a cafe. And the doctor says, you know, I think something very funny is going on. You remember that man who was following us? And Romana says, yes. Well, he's standing behind me poking a gun in my back. And then we pull back to reveal Duggan is doing that. And that's how he he meets our characters. But there's another line. And there's so many great lines in this. I had to restrain myself from writing them all down. But there is another great line where the doctor and Romana are being and and Duggan are being ushered in to the Count's home in Paris. And the Countess is there. The Count is not here at the moment, but the counter is there. And the Counts ultraviolet, violent Butler Herman, who has no problem murdering people, is shoving them into the room. And the doctor comes into the room. And the first thing he says all in a rush and see so happy is, I say, what a wonderful butler. He's so violent. Hello, I'm called the doctor. That's Romana. That's Duggan. You must be Countess Scarlione. And that's clearly a delightful Louis Quinn's chair. May I sit in it? I say, haven't they worn well? Thank you, Herman. That'll be all. And the Countess says, doctor, you're being very pleasant with me. And he says, well, I'm a very pleasant fellow. And just the dialogue is so awesome at that point. But I think, yeah, what a wonder. I love that line. That was one of the two things. I mean, I remember to bunch, but the two most memorable things I had remembered about this were the tardis in the modern art museum, which we'll get to. Yeah. And the line, I say, what a wonderful butler. He's so violent, except I think that applies even better to Duggan. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that was that was the letter I wrote down when the possibilities for my side off today was what I have another one. So don't worry about that. But yes, that stood out for me as just classic. The combination of Tom Baker and Douglas Adams is just so great. I think it's maybe one of the things that makes the fourth doctor so beloved is that humor that comes off so well between them. The physical humor that that Tom Baker doesn't is acting, but also in the writing. So the author of the original scriptwriter was David Fisher. And it was the original story was set in 1928. And it was focusing on the theft of the Mona Lisa. That was really the focus. And they pursue Scarlione from Paris Monte Carlo. And there was going to be this whole subplot where the Countess was using her fancy bracelet to rig the roulette tables or something in Monte Carlo. So yeah. And so it was very James Bondi, I think it sounded like in that sense. But apparently there was another draft where they were going to set it in Las Vegas, which would have been weird too. Yeah, I guess that's she would have been also like if she was going to be using the Countess has this alien technology bracelet. She doesn't know it's alien tech. She knows it's technological. She doesn't know it's alien. She's human. She does not know. Scarlione is an alien, which is really creepy. I mean, he's wearing a plastic mask to look human over this weird looking convoluted green head with one eye. And she's been married to him for years. I mean, just I don't want to think about their love life too much, but exactly. Wow. Yeah, that's horrific. But anyway, she's got this bracelet. And in this story, what she does with it is she uses it to scan all of the security measures around the Mona Lisa so they can create a hologram simulation of the Louvre and then figure out how to defeat the security measures before they go in for real. But in this other draft, they were going to, I guess, have her use it to manipulate betting tables like roulette roulette tables in Monte Carlo. And then I guess she could have done the same thing in the Las Vegas draft. Right. Right. It would have felt, like I said, like a lot like a James Bond of this era, because this is a lot better James Bond movies. Yeah. So the other thing I noticed is people wave guns around in Paris without police taking notice, like, you're just hanging out in a cafe and just waving a gun around, taking people like, and everyone's just a phlegmatic around them, you know, whatever. I was surprised at how so the count himself, Scarlione, I mean, Julian Glover is playing him as this standard upper crusty, very suave, debonair, polite, charming villain. And that's a mastery. Yeah. We've seen this trope before a lot on Doctor Who, but he's also and like any such villain, he has these cold turns, you know, where he'll switch from being charming and polite to just being totally callous. But he seems counter productively so to me because there's early on, you know, the doctor has stolen the Countess's fancy bracelet. He ran into her at the Louvre and lifted it from her because he knew what it was. And so he realized there's an alien on Earth trying to steal the Mona Lisa and he stole her bracelet. And she, of course, discovers that it's gone and tells, tells the count about it and he freaks out, but they figure they'll get it back. And they send these two goons who have no lines, but they send these two goons with guns to get it back. They show up in the restaurant, they point guns at the doctor and Romana, the doctor gives them the bracelet back. And then the goons bring it back to the count and deliver it to him. And he says very well done. And they leave and he says not quite well done enough. And he tells Herman to kill him. And it's like, dude, what on Earth did your goons do to deserve being killed? They just did what you want. What more? What more did you want him to do? So he's just really counter productively homicidal. You don't kill people who are working for you and do your henchmen. Yeah, that's just bad news. I mean, that's a number not only are you cutting off valuable labor that you know, you can continue to benefit from. But once you're out, once your henchmen realize you're killing them, they're going to kill you. You're hiring murderers. You don't want to give the murderers a reason to murder you. Exactly. Yeah. Again, like a Bond villain in some ways, some of those Bond villains were that bad killing off their henchmen. So there was a point where the doctor is talking to the Countess and she shows him a hidden stash of stolen artwork or very new scripts and brings it. Yeah, and brings out a literal manuscript of Hamlet, where the doctor has a few nice things to say, which including that he he recognized the handwriting, not because he recognized the Shakespeare's handwriting, but he says he wrote this down. He was the writer on behalf of the dictation from Shakespeare, which I thought was funny and introduces that whole problem because when the 10th doctor visits with Shakespeare in the future with Martha Jones, why doesn't he remember and all that sort of stuff that just the paradox there? Well, some of it can be explained by the doctor's different faces. Right. Right. Exactly. And maybe the doctor is just telling stories here. You never know whether the doctor is actually telling in the truth or not at times. I did think it was really funny. The Countess brings out an Egyptian papyrus with the drawings. Because the doctor warns the Countess that she's married to an alien who is greenhead and has green skin in one eye. Right. So she unrolls it and we have Isis and Toth and Rod. And then we have Greenhead guy, which is totally unlike all the others, but it's like, wow, that is one Egyptian god. I don't remember seeing any two paintings or that sort of thing. And that's her husband in the Egyptian. Yeah. So by the end of the story, by part four, she turns on her husband. She realizes he is an alien and he is up to no good. And she holds a gun on him. And he kills her. He turns out that bracelet she's wearing is more than just an art security scanner. He's got a ring that turns it fatal on her. And so it electrocutes her or something. And he just kills his wife, which is not good. One other notable thing about this character is she's a cigarette smoker, but she's this high upper crust. She's using an extra long cigarette holder. And she's smoking through basically every scene, almost every scene she's in. I don't think she's smoking in the Louvre, but at home, she's smoking in every scene. And she's looking very swab and sophisticated with her extra long cigarette holder, except it doesn't look right to me. Now, I know people in other countries hold cigarettes differently. So this could be, you know, I'm just mistaken, but it looks to me like she's not experienced in how to hold a cigarette holder, because she just holds it funny. And this is something I've noticed with people with actors who are sometimes playing smokers and they don't they don't smoke, or at least they don't smoke this themselves. Like I can instantly spot I'm a pipe smoker. So I can instantly spot a fake pipe smoker on screen, because of how they handle the pipe. You know, I was watching one movie. I forget the title of it, but there was one guy in it who was playing a pipe smoker, and he took the pipe and scratched the back of his neck with the bit. And it's like, no one would ever do that. And so, and this to me feels like the same thing. I don't know. Catherine Shell may or may not have smoked, but if she did, I don't think she smoked with a cigarette holder, because of the way the weird way she holds it in this. So in the end, the count ends up getting killed by his violent butler by accident, because he he is a he's teleported. Yeah, he's got to his Romana has built the count innocently built to count a two minute thing that will allow him to cross the time barrier. So when he gets back to the past, he'll have two minutes to stop himself from pushing the button. And Romana built that for him because she didn't realize this is a pivotal moment in the history of life on earth. You know, this is the first time she's ever been to earth. And so he's got two minutes, but then at the end of those two minutes, he'll teleport back to 1979. So after after Duggan punches him, he he's knocked unconscious. He does teleport unconscious back to our time. And then he's still standing in the time bubble in the modern time machine, but he's got his mask off. So he looks like a horrific alien monster and Herman the Herman the violent butler comes down and sees him and thinks there's a horrible alien monster in the lab and throws something at him in the time bubble, which causes an explosion. Right. And so he's ironically killed by one of those henchmen that tends to treat so poorly. And then all of the Monalises are destroyed in a fire, except presumably one of the ones that has this is fake on it. Yep, they tell us that. Yeah. Hopefully no one ever x-rays the real Monalise to see. But then the doctor has that philosophical question as of, you know, if it's the only one remaining in it was painted by Leonardo at the time, you know, is it fake or is it real? And of course it's real. He's just it's a copy of the original one he made. Yeah. So and then let's get to the famous scene at the end where so the doctor in Romada when they landed in Paris, the doctor landed in a modern art gallery and sort of left the TARDIS there to be among the pieces of modern art. Right. So this is not the Louvre where we see classical art. This is a modern art museum. Right. And we do see him like, you know, breaking into the gallery after dark in order to get in the TARDIS and travel back to Florence in the 1500s and that sort of thing. So at the end, when the doctor and Romada and Duggan are racing to go back to 400 million years ago, we see the TARDIS in this gallery. And there's John Kleece famous from from Money Python and an actress who apparently is well known at the time, but I didn't recognize her. Her name is Eleanor Braun. Okay. And they're they're remarking on the the art work of the the police box and doing the usual thing that people do when commenting on modern art. They're talking about how it's remarkably disconnected from its function because it's no longer functioning as a police box. So it's lost its function. But by being placed here in this context, it becomes a work of art. And then the doctor Romada and Duggan pile into it and it vanishes. So it it it ceases to be a work of art. And and Eleanor Braun and John Kleece are just like exquisite, absolutely exquisite. That's one of the more famous little clips that you'll find out there that to see it. I remember the first time I said, I saw them like, because I saw it out of context. Is this a money Python skit or is it a doctor who thing or? So it was fun to see that John Kleece showing up in this. And you know, in the end, the doctor and Romada go off on another venture leaving Duggan behind at the Eiffel Tower. Duggan could have been a companion, I suppose, that would have been an interesting, you know, the punching detective to travel on. But I think it's it's fine to have he's better. He's better is a one note as a one off, you know, companion for this episode, having the doctor cause he's so over the top with the with the punching and the glass break in and everything. Yeah, that's true. So any other notes on this one, Jimmy? Well, I really liked how the doctor and Romada are just enjoying each other's company in this. This is the first use of the term time lady, even though even though Romada one had been with us for a season, they hadn't come up with the term time lady yet. There's just like I said, a lot of great Douglas Adams diet comedy dialogue in this. There's one bit where they have just found the six Mona Lisa's that have been stored for 400 years. And the count stumbles across the doctor and Romada and Duggan and says, Oh, you're you you've gotten into this bricked up room. Care to shed any light on. Can you shed any light on that? And Duggan is holding a lantern and says, I can and smashes the count with the lantern, knocking him unconscious. And and I thought that was a nice clever comedic quip in, you know, relevant to the action. Unfortunately, not all such knockouts are as good. There's one where the doctor is back in the 1500s with this ridiculous guard who's got with this guard who's guarding him. And he he he takes a Polaroid photograph of the guard and then gets the guard to come close to look at the at the Polaroid. And then he just like gives him a a super soft uppercut to his chin and knocks him out. And it looks completely unrealistic. So I don't know, I guess maybe since it's a kid show they didn't want Tom Baker being too violent with the guy, but it it looks completely unrealistic. There's also a scene back in the 1500s where the 1500s version of Scaroth, who's called count 10 credit is having the guard. He's about to have the guard torture Tom Baker with thumb screws. And so he's got Tom Baker's thumbs in the thumb screws. And as soon as he reaches towards him, the doctor cries out in pain. And the count said the captain says, I haven't started yet. And the doctor says, no, his hands are cold. If I'm if I'm going to have my if I'm going to if I'm going to be tortured by someone with thumb scooters, I don't want someone who's hands are cold. My big criticism from a scientific point of view is the time in about 400 million years ago. That's not when life began. We have evidence that life was on earth at least four billion years ago. In fact, it's so early. It's like very quickly after the earth surface solidified there was life, which is a significant argument actually for for panspermia, the idea that life originated elsewhere. And you know, simple cells got on earth really fast. Either that or life forms really fast under the right conditions. So just speaking from a scientific perspective, as opposed to a religious perspective where there are no limits. But here, and then after that, life was single, sold on earth for basically three and a half billion years. And then around not exactly 400, but around that time, you started getting the development of complex multicellular life. And you had the Cambrian explosion and things like that that led to more advanced organisms. But here they presented as if life began 400 million years ago. And it's like, no, that's off by an order of magnitude. This is something they could just fix on the dialogue level and say, you know, you could either change the number to four billion years, or you could change what you're talking about. And it's like the explosion of of Scaros warpship led to the Cambrian explosion of life or something like that. So this is fixable, but it's scientifically inaccurate the way they presented it. How was the universe? 13.8 billion. Okay. Yeah, if life, if from a scientific point of view, if life can form so easily under those conditions, it leads to the idea that maybe there's lots of everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe on Gallifrey do. Anything else after that? Nope. All right. So that is City of Death. And now, as before we sign off, we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons and make it possible for us to create the secrets of Dr. Who, including Sean K, Mark B, Noreen G, John A, and Michael C, their generous donations at SQPN.com/give, make it possible for us to continue the secrets of Dr. Who and all the shows at Star Quest. And you can join them by visiting SQPN.com/give. So we'd love to hear what you thought of City of Death. You can let us know by commenting on the show at SQPN.com. The secrets of Dr. Who Facebook page sends an email to Dr Who at SQPN.com. Visit the Star Quest Discord community at SQPN.com/discord or watch the Secrets of Dr Who on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/Star Quest Media and leave a comment there. We'll be back next time when we'll be discussing the fifth Dr. Story, not a death one. Frontios. Frontios? We'll have to find out when I watch. Until then, Jimmy Aiken, thank you for joining me in sharing the Secrets of Dr Who. Thank you. And I hope the listeners have enjoyed the Secrets of Dr Who and the Trilogy of Death. And once again, I'm Don Betanelli. Thank you for listening to the Secrets of Dr Who on Star Quest. And remember, it is a very pretty painting.