Dragonfire by: Ian Briggs and directed by: Chris Clough

 

Dragonfire stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie, and Sophie Aldred as Ace with Edward Peel as Kane, Patricia Quinn as Belazs, and Tony Selby as Sabalom Glitz.  It was written by: Ian Briggs and directed by: Chris Clough with Andrew Cartmel as Script Editor and John Nathan-Turner as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Mondays from 23 November to 7 December 1987 on BBC1.

 

Those reading my reviews for Season 24 will see how chaotic the production schedule was and props have to be given to script editor Andrew Cartmel for bringing together 10 episodes worth of scripts and dealing with getting John Nathan-Turner’s opening commission to screen.  For the final six episodes the decision was made to split the block into two three episode serials, one to be filmed on location and one to be filmed in studio.  For the three episodes set in studio, Cartmel turned once again to the BBC Script Unit for up and coming writers, meeting with Ian Briggs who had an idea for a story set at an intergalactic shopping center.  Cartmel suggested setting it on an ice planet and commissioned Absolute Zero in March 1987, asking Briggs to focus less on farce and more on character drama, leading to the development of the villain Hess (later Kane) with new titles to be considered: Pyramid in Space and The Pyramid’s Treasure.  John Nathan-Turner asked Briggs instead of using a new character in the role of crooked treasure hunter, to use Sabalom Glitz from The Mysterious Planet and The Ultimate Foe while Cartmel worked with Briggs and the producer to develop the character of Alf, later Ace, as a companion to replace Bonnie Langford’s Melanie.  The title was amended to Dragonfire as a pyramid in space was deemed unsuitable.

 

Chris Clough was contracted to direct this along with Delta and the Bannermen continuing the trend from Season 23 where the last two stories produced would keep the same director.  Clough’s direction for this serial in particular is wonderful.  Doctor Who generally has issues where sets, especially sets for serials produced in the 1980s, have a tendency to be overlit, but Dragonfire’s setting of Iceworld is suited for the harsh and bright lighting of the period.  Clough lights the sets generally in the color that dominates them.  The ice wall sets are stark white, the restaurant and market are in these neon and blues, the deeper tunnels are darker blues and yellows, and each lighting decision is genuinely interesting.  The limitations of being entirely studio bound means that there are some sets that you can tell are reused, but Dragonfire is a script that when it requires model footage that footage is excellently shot.  Dominic Glynn’s score should also be noted as a very interesting addition, much of it riffing on the Doctor Who theme in subtle ways which becomes a very nice parallel to how Glynn’s final score for the show in Survival will develop.  There are some particularly effective musical moments whenever Ace gives a part of her backstory.

 

The plot of Dragonfire is honestly an odd beast.  On the surface, it is kind of a standard treasure hunt style story with the Doctor and Mel arriving on Iceworld, the Doctor not telling Mel that he has heard rumors about the dragonfire treasure in the tunnels deep below the surface.  Sabalom Glitz hopes the treasure will pay off his debt to Kane, an alien prisoner with his own private workforce, who secretly is setting him up to take the treasure for himself believing it will take him off the planet.  Joining along because she seeks a thrill is Ace, a 16-year-old from Perivale, 1987, whisked to Iceworld in a chemistry experiment gone wrong that summoned a time storm.  Sophie Aldred makes her Doctor Who debut here and going back to watch that debut is odd because while the template for what the character will become, and the seeds for her television arc are there, she’s shallower here.  Briggs writes her in an attempt to write a teenager and there are scenes where the false bravado and uncertainty play really well, especially in the final episode, but she just isn’t quite there yet.  She’s paired with Mel for much of the serial and Langford and Aldred have great chemistry doing a good cop, bad cop routine of sorts: Mel’s the squeaky clean professional while Ace is the rebellious teenager.  Speaking of templates, the Doctor’s characterization is almost a template for the darker Seventh Doctor of Season 25 and 26 here: he comes to Iceworld with his own motives and manipulates the villain Kane into suicide after the discovery of his race going extinct not long after his initial imprisonment.

 

The supporting class are also wonderfully played.  Edward Peel’s Kane is a nuanced performance while the script does not necessarily give all the necessary backstory plus the destruction of the character is delightfully gruesome.  Patricia Quinn as Belazs makes an interesting parallel to Ace, being pressed into Kane’s service at the age of 16 and now nearing middle age.  Quinn as an actress also delivers perfect levels of camp which makes whenever she’s on screen enjoyable, doubled with Tony Selby’s Glitz.  Selby somehow still plays Glitz as a lovable rogue despite the character doing heinous actions including selling his crew to Kane for some spare change and losing all the money he had in a gambling problem.  Selby and McCoy make a great double act for much of the first episode while Langford and Aldred are paired together.  The design of the dragon, physically portrayed by Leslie Meadows, is also a great costume, though below the head it becomes more and more humanoid which is a bit of a shame.

 

Despite all of these great performances and ideas, Dragonfire does suffer from problems.  The tone is very odd with random tangents into philosophy which are greatly performed but don’t seem to add to anything, a lack of Kane’s backstory until the very end feels almost like an afterthought, and of course the cliffhanger.  Part One ends with a double cliffhanger, the good one and the bad one.  The good one is Ace and Mel encountering the dragon for the first time, but instead of going to credits we go to the bad one, the Doctor for no reason going over the railing of a cliff and sliding down his umbrella.  There’s also these almost comedic bits like a little girl waltzing through the sets at odd points that feel as if Briggs is trying to be tense as if he is going to kill a child but it doesn’t come across like that, instead coming across as a way to fill the episode length.

 

Overall, Dragonfire brings perhaps Doctor Who’s most rocky season to a close with an at least satisfactory adventure.  While it suffers from weird tonal issues and not quite fully exploring its themes and ideas, the performances are a delight from everybody involved, Chris Clough is a great director, and there is this great sense of things to come from the show.  Season 24 is a season that does not rank amongst my favorites and the fan reputation is harsh for a reason, it is not a totally unredeemable season and makes it out slightly better despite a troubled production all around.  It secured the show’s life for two more years which would be its best years and Dragonfire is the good if somewhat unsatisfying prologue to that brilliance.  6/10.