The Masque of Mandragora - Episode 4

This opening story hasn’t been the best as far as I am concerned. I think that it’s fair to say that it’s been a bit of a damp squib. Louis Marks might not be the most successful writer in the show’s history but I think that he has written solid stories in the past. Sadly this isn’t one of his best. Despite not really caring or understanding what was been talked about. I did find the performance and directing to be enough to find some good stuff in it.

I remember during some of the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton stories where I would have quite happily skipped that story if I wasn’t so determined to watch/listen to every Doctor Who story. Whilst I haven’t felt like whilst I have been watching the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker era, I came pretty close during this story. I think the main stumbling block has been that it is a classic case of style of substance.

The idea of a ball featuring in the final episode does make it seem like it’s a final episode because it’s such a grand thing and its done very well indeed. The BBC has a reputation for doing good costumes in period dramas and that is definelty the case during this episode and in fact the previous episodes. I got the feeling that this episode doesn’t have much of a fast end of episode pace to it that I would expect. I still like the ball that happens but I think that the pace doesn’t really change in this episode compared to the previous ones.

The way that the whole thing was dealt with was rather good but I wasn’t really bothered by what happened to the mandragora helix. This episode wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been but I still think that this story was a disappointment. The next story is the final one to feature Elisabeth Sladen and it’s a shame that her penultimate story is such a weak one. I was watching the extras and this story was due to the success of ‘Pyramids of Mars’ which is a pseudo historical story. The difference between that story and this one is that the Mars story was a more traditional Doctor Who story that had something to it and this one this one doesn’t and so it wont go down as one of the finest Tom Baker stories.