N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
It’s hard to overstate quite how good City of Death is.
It’s also difficult to pull out one or two choices of quotation. Such is the high quality of the dialogue, it’s tempting simply to paste the whole transcript here and be done with it. I’ll settle for one little conversation in Part Four:
COUNTESS
Long enough.
DOCTOR
Long enough. I like that. Discretion and charm. So civilised. So terribly unhelpful.
COUNTESS
Discretion and charm. I couldn’t live without it, especially in matters concerning the Count.
DOCTOR
There is such a thing as discretion. There’s also such a thing as wilful blindness.
There’s wit in the exchange, but it also leads on to the Doctor making a point that piques the Countess’s curiosity about her husband. And there’s the rub. Yes, City of Death is funny, but it’s never at the expense of the plot. Even Duggan’s thuggery is essential!
“Stealing the Mona Lisa to pay for chickens?”
Duggan, City of Death: Part Two
With the streets of Paris filling in admirably for Doctor Who‘s running-up-and-down-corridor scenes in between the witty banter shared between the excellent supporting cast, this is one of those occasions where absolutely everything gels perfectly. (This somewhat belies the last-minute nature of Douglas Adams’s re-write of David Fisher’s script.)
And although it’s a somewhat misleading viewing figure skewed by the concurrent ITV strike, there’s something rather fitting that more people watched the final episode on transmission than any other Doctor Who episode – before or since – as it’s the culmination of a perfect piece of serial television.
“The centuries that divide me shall be undone.”
Scaroth, City of Death: Part Three
I would have been one of those sixteen million, I’m sure. When I watched City of Death back in the 90’s, I remembered it fairly well from my childhood. With the curious exception of The Deadly Assassin, I’ve realised that this makes it one of my earliest Doctor Who memories.
I could go on and on about the things I love about City of Death: Duggan, the Mona Lisas, John Cleese and Eleanor Bron in a Modern Art gallery, the sketch of a Time Lady … but I’ll conclude simply by recounting the words of Steven Moffat: this is ‘what Doctor Who would look like if it was written by a genius’.
Finally, my son has decided to break from writing down his thoughts on the stories. He’ll still be watching them with me, so I’ll be sure to pass on any remarks he makes (as they’re usually more interesting than mine).
