'Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden' (1979)


My daughters have gone off on holiday, for a week, with their Mum so I started off the Bank Holiday weekend doing three of my favourite things; book shopping, reading a good book and watching a little 'Doctor Who'. My fourth favourite thing (ordering and eating a pizza) will kick in just after I finish writing this post.

I'm going through a phase, right now, where I'll come across a 'Doctor Who' DVD (nope, still not doing Britbox...) only to find that I already have it. Which is weird as I don't think I have that many but anyway... I pretty much jumped on 'Nightmare of Eden' when I saw it then, and that was my afternoon pretty much booked solid when I got home ;o) Having watched it though... I'm kind of half and half about the whole thing.

Two spacecraft fuse in a hyperspace collision. Fortunately the Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive to help. But when a crewmember is found clawed by a ferocious animal, it seems there's something even more frightening stalking the corridors. The answers lie with zoologist Professor Tryst, his CET projection machine, and a planet called Eden – the home of the ferocious Mandrels...

We open on the 'space collision' (such as it is, this is the BBC in 1979) and the sight of the two ship captains doing the equivalent of swapping insurance details while trying to lay the blame on the other party. I loved this, it's the future and we're in space but still trying to protect our no claims bonus … Never change humanity, never change ;o)

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that we're not so much about the 'space collision' here as we are about what it has uncovered, a drug smuggling operation and a particularly nasty drug at that. With killings happening on board, there are loads of questions (that branch out into even more questions) to keep things interesting. And it is intriguing, don't get me wrong, it just feels like everything is a little subdued and no-one seems to be really into it. There's a real discordant note to the plot then and it's difficult to shake. This isn't helped by the introduction of the Mandrels who may well be ferocious but are also verging on the adorable with their big green eyes and grabby hands that may well ruin a security guard's day but you also can't help but think that they're looking for a big ol' hug...I would absolutely buy a Mandrel plushie, that's all I'm saying at this point.

Fair play to 'Nightmare of Eden' for tackling the issue of drugs and addiction, you can see what they were going for and they really weren't that far off the mark. That air of things being a little subdued though... That drags the story off in one direction and those cute Mandrels do their level best to pull 'Nightmare' in another direction entirely. I'm not sure that 'Nightmare of Eden' really knew what it wanted to be and that's a bit of a shame.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)

Image
I always have these vague ‘reading resolutions’, for the New Year and without fail, they all come to absolutely nothing. I still read loads, just none of the books that I meant to… This year is panning out slightly differently and I think I’m going to enjoy it. All the books that were originally ‘out of sight, out of mind’, in the loft at my old place, are now all over my new place and wherever I look, I’m constantly discovering books that I totally forgot I had but now quite fancy reading. Books like ‘Cursed City’ for example… I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it… Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel...
Read more