Mawdryn Undead | Sophisticated Idiots

For a show about time travel, it's bonkers how rarely the business of leaping between different periods is a plot device in Classic Doctor Who.

The Ark. The Face of Evil, if we’re being generous. And perhaps the multi-Doctor stories.

Mawdryn Undead bucks this trend.

Time travel is the beating heart here, compelling our be-celeried hero to repeatedly flit between eras – albeit a tight six-year window straddling Callaghan-Thatcher utopia.

It’s an undeniably great concept.

But perhaps inevitably for an era that’s light on confidence, the showrunners lose their nerve – and all this fascinating timey chicanery gets overshadowed by a torrent of distractions:

• A new companion

• A traitor in the TARDIS

• The return of a character who’s much-beloved (by some – more on this later)

• Back to Black (Guardian)

• A (presumed) regeneration

• Davison’s sideburns

• Anniversary shenanigans

Of course, this final point is the crucial one for this 20th season, which is consumed by giddy excitement as it races towards the anniversary love-in of The Five Doctors.

If The Five Doctors represents a Classic Who orgy, then Mawdryn Undead is the foreplay. (The, ahem, orge-douve?)

And it’s suitably fumbling.

The fault doesn't lie entirely with the tsunami of self-referential nods and winks. But nor is the Nostalgia Overload completely blameless either.

For instance, if the Brigadier turning up at all is distinctly random, his arrival is oddly devoid of fanfare. He’s just suddenly there on camera, impersonating a grouchy old codger. And with a smooth top lip to boot.

Now, don't bash us over the head with a rock, but we've never quite shared the love for the Brigadier so we're hardly dancing up and down the Brendon corridors when he pitches up.

Mind you, at least fandom's favourite Surly Soldier is more fun to be around than the character we endured in the 70s, his edges no doubt softened by retirement.

Even devoid of his moustache, the Brigadier's having a merry old time yomping up hills and swigging daytime brandy.

He manages some memory lane larks with a Doctor he’s never met and with whom he has zero chemistry, via references to past companions, counting beans and polarity-reversals (it's almost as if an anniversary party is nigh).

The Brigadier also revels in being both a massive chauvinist and a fat-shamer of children.

But that's nothing compared with Nic Courtney's obvious glee at harking back to his Inferno-esque parallel-universe frolicks. Albeit with less fascism.

This is all fine and dandy.

So, if it’s not the callbacks to the show’s history that prevent Mawdryn Undead from fulfilling its potential, what's the issue?

We wonder if the new brat in Team TARDIS can help us identify the snag...

Traitor in the TARDIS is a great idea
Unbelievably poor acting abounds
Run off the road in cartoon fashion
Laughably terrible score
Ol’ parallel time trick
Up that sodding hill again
Grating boarding school clichés
Hairy-cheeked Peter Davison

Let’s not mess about here – Turlough is an absolute clotpole.

He’s the kind of guy who escapes from his bed (cos boarding school is a prison *raises eyes to heaven*) but gets fully dressed before fleeing, right down to the tie.

We have no desire to spend more than five minutes in the company of this smarmy oik. Unfortunately, precisely 98% of Part One is devoted to his whining and sulking.

In a not-entirely-unrelated observation, the opening episode is one of the most breezily appalling we can remember in all of Who. Certainly until a certain Colin B rocks up with his OTT histrionics and Peri-throttling hands.

The opener is usually a strength of the classic series but there's an unmistakable whiff of fan-made parody about Mawdryn Part One. Even for a mid-season story when there should still be some cash knocking about, the first episode looks like it’s been produced for 20 quid.

And the budget veneer runs deeper than the WordArt green effect signalling the Black Guardian's arrival: the Carry On joyride scene is swiftly followed by a hasty run-through of every item listed in the Big BBC Book of Boarding School Stereotypes 1983.

If a slide-whistle played continually across Episode One, it wouldn’t feel out of place.

With Mawdryn Undead focusing so heavily on one new companion (whom we despise) and a returning one (whom we were never enormous fans of), there's not much room for the other two unfortunates left hanging around the TARDIS twiddling their thumbs.

At least Tegan is given the privilege of being patronised as “attractive and spirited” – Nyssa isn’t afforded enough screen time to even be objectified in such lavish terms (wait till Terminus, Nyssa, your time will come).

From Nyssa's early scenes, we thought we’d missed a subplot from a previous story in which she's possessed by some nefarious being.

It came as quite a surprise when we realised this is her Actual Acting. The kid who plays her later gives a more convincing performance.

To give Mini Nyssa her full dues, the chilling scenes when she and Tegan appear in childlike form immediately after the rapid ageing are the highlights of this story.

We’re well aware we haven’t mentioned the Doctor yet, apart from his sideburns.

As usual, Peter Davison’s entirely overshadowed. We do, however, love the idea of Mawdryn and co trying to nick his remaining regenerations.

Before we get accused of being Maudlin (Undead)...we will always applaud Doctor Who for trying. After all, we're Devotees to Experimentation.

So we sustain our eager clapping for the duration of this story, and try to ignore the fact the most likeable character here is chugging spirits and urging a schoolboy to be beaten.

This serial possesses all the ingredients to be a standout. Yes, it's the Fifth Doctor Years, so it doesn’t execute any of them well enough to be especially memorable.

But there's a surefire sense of adrenalin about Mawdryn Undead that's utterly transfixing - stealing a classic car for a joyride is a bucket list aim we're yet to achieve but we imagine it conjures similar emotions.

However, let's not overthink this story too much. It set out with two clear aims: 1. to toast Nicholas Courtney in the anniversary year and 2. to introduce the jeopardy of a traitor in the TARDIS ranks.

These boxes duly ticked, let’s move on swiftly.

And keep our fingers crossed that the Turlough plotline will unfold over this trilogy in a way that justifies us having to suffer the whining sonofabitch in this one.

Other stories referenced here which we've reviewed: