The Masque of Mandragora - Episode 1

The first episode of ‘The Masque of Mandragora’ is the start of the fourteenth season of Doctor Who and also the third with Tom Baker as the Doctor. It is also the penultimate adventure for Elisabeth Sladen and this is a story that I haven’t really thought that highly of in the past. I have often thought that it’s a rather dull story.

Sad of me I know but I quite like the change in font used to list the title and episode number. That not the only thing that’s new in this fourteenth season. I think that it’s a nice opening scene with the Doctor and Sarah wandering through the TARDIS corridors. It ends with Sarah and the Doctor walking into the second control room. This is the first time that we have seen anything other than the bright white console room. It’s a nice relatively small console room and has atmosphere and character in the sort of way that the main room just doesn’t have.

Something of interest is that the location scenes were filmed in Portmeirion which is where they filmed the original version of ‘The Prisoners’. The location work is just as good as it was when Douglas Camfield directed the previous story. Rodney Bennett returns to the show and uses what he does very well.

Federico is like Chase in the previous adventure, its clear that he is a nasty piece of work from the moment that we see him. Giuliano comes across as the exact opposite of Federico. It seems at first like this is just going to be a family dispute. This continues a bit more before Federico is talking to the Doctor. I like the line when the Doctor says he cant see Federico’s future because he doenst have one. This is the 47^th episode for Tom Baker as the Doctor and whilst at times during the previous story that he was a bit cross more times than would be expected of him but here he’s a lot more calm and confident than he has seemed in the past.

The way that the episode ends is one of those that slightly frustrates me because it ends with the Doctor about to have his head lopped off but the camera focuses in on the sword and it ends just before it goes in. I always think that this sort of thing is rather silly cause we all know that he makes it as the departure of a Doctor always makes the news so it wasn’t going to be his last episode and I cant even think of a reason why I should really be worried about that. The only reason that anyone would have to tune in the next week is to see how he gets out of it. I like this opening episode as it has a fresher feel to it than the previous stories. Whether this good feeling will continue for the rest of the story will be seen but I am looking forward to find out.