The Horns of Nimon - Episode 3

Well this is the first episode of the 1980’s. There that will be the last time I bang on about the last or second to last or first episode of a decade until at least the end of the classic era. This is the episode where the Doctor finally meets the Nimon. For some reason this is a short scene and then they are separated for the rest of the episode. The thing about this episode is that nothing really happens until the very end of the episode. I think that the appearance of several Nimon is perhaps a good move because thinking that there is just a solitary nimon doesn’t quite work and I still have a problem with the look of the creature. Kenny McBain says (in the information text) that he didn’t want them to just look like a bloke in a costume. Sadly he doesn’t quite make this happen as it seems the walk is designed to make sure the headpiece doesn’t fall off.

Soldeed is still highly enjoyable in this episode and just seems to be having the time of his life as he is roaming around. The addition of Graham Crowden was used as one of the selling points which is fair enough but the second was the costumes and sets. When this is one of the selling points of the entire serial then you know that there isn’t much going on. Not even the monsters are used which shows how memorable they are. K9 gets captured by Soldeed which is a great moment and my enjoyment went up even more when he was in bits.

The cliffhanger wasn’t great but neither was it terrible and that pretty much sums up the episode. There were things that worked and things that didn’t but more importantly the humour in the episode was reigned right back and there were a few gags here and there but it was nowhere near as bad as in the previous episode. The performances from Tom Baker and Lalla Ward were quite good. Tom Baker didn’t really get the chance to be as annoying as he was in the last episode and there seemed to be glimpses of the old Doctor today. Lalla Ward was her usually strong self though I thought that there was a moment that was a bit silly for Romana when the Doctor mentions the term positronic circuit which sees Romana throw her arms in the air and say “of course”. One more thing about the performances is that I liked how Seth tries to dodge fighting the Nimon in front of Teka. This was a clever moment and was one of the few things in the serial that made sense.

There is just one more episode of this serial left and one more episode before we venture into the John Nathan Turner era.