Doctor Who: Classic 17x2: "City of Death" Parts 1-4 | Reaction!

[@Tyrconnell]

John Cleese and Eleanor Bron happened to be working in Television centre the day of filming and Douglas Adams persuaded them to appear in the art gallery scene. It was in the original script but was intended to be played by 'Two Englishmen'.

[@robvanriot]

The quintessential Tom Baker Doctor Who story. You can cram Genesis or Talons in your cakehole, this is the one for me! It's goofy as hell but the whole cast seems to take delight in it, and that's what makes it fun.

[@glenmcculla6843]

So cool that Julian Glover has battled Indiana Jones, James Bond, Luke Skywalker and the Doctor.

[@ftumschk]

...and Saladin, when he played Richard the Lionheart in the Hartnell story "The Crusade".

[@glenmcculla6843]

@@ftumschk And Quatermass, when he played Colonel Breen (also: all these characters are Scaroth splinters)

[@sirbruce70]

Julian Glover and Catherine Schell are both Bond actors - the former played the villain Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981) and the latter the Bond Girl Nancy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Both also have big sci-fi and fantasy connections; Schell later played Maya in Space:1999 and Glover in many roles: General Maximilian Veers in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and the voice of the giant Acromantula spider Aragog in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Another Doctor Who connection: Julian Glover's son, Jamie Glover, played William Russell (Ian Chesterton) in An Adventure in Space and Time (2013). City of Death is widely considered one of the best Doctor Who episodes of any era.

[@moat9]

David Graham, here playing Professor Kerensky, previously played Charlie the bartender in the first Doctor serial The Gunfighters (as well as several gigs voicing Daleks). His highest profile role was probably as the voices of Brains, Parker and Gordon Tracy in Thunderbirds.

[@TheZodiacz]

I wonder how the old fellow is these days, he's fast approaching (July) his 98th birthday.

[@kemmdog4444]

“ What a wonderful butler, he’s so violent.” Best line.

[@ItsShaz1]

I love that line.

[@Darren79]

For the filming they had the usual 16mm film camera. They had permission for various locations but hadn't realised it was a public holiday so the places they used were closed (the cafe had to be shot out of sight). One incident, Tom Baker set off the alarm to the art gallery exterior when pressing against the door - the cast and crew legged it and left the production manager there to explain when the police turned up.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Julian Glover has appeared once before in "Doctor Who" as King Richard in the William Hartnell story "The Crusade" in 1965 he also played an Imperial officer in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980).

[@julianblake3140]

And Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only

[@richardlemin7840]

JJ: I’ve mentioned before that in 1980, I met John Bay, who played the Earl of Leicester in “The Crusades.” Wonderful man!~Dad

[@kierenevans2521]

14:30 Paris is also called the City of Love which is Cité de l'amour, while City of Death is Cité de la mort. So it's a pun in french. 24:35 Yep, that's a common thought. 35:20 It's interesting as it's the same composer (Dudley Simpson) and Douglas Adams heavily rewrote both of these.

[@josefschiltz2192]

Cleese: "To me, one of the most curious things about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism." Eleanor: "Yes, I see what you mean. Divorced from its function and seen purely as a piece of art, its structure of line and colour is curiously counterpointed by the redundant vestiges of its function." Cleese: "And since it has no call to be here, the art lies in the fact that it is here." - The Doctor unlocks the TARDIS, enters, Romana and Duggan bundle in behind - - dematerialises.- Eleanor: - marvelling - "Exquisite . . Absolutely exquisite."

[@josefschiltz2192]

Catherine Schell was Maya in Space 1999. Earlier she was in a Hammer film called Moon Zero Two and the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service with George Lazenby as Bond. Later, The Return of The Pink Panther with Peter Sellers. 26:30: Yay. Spot on, Richard! Alex. The TARDIS does all the translating and, just as with everything else the TARDIS does, it does it imperfectly. Remember, the Stone Age man with the Wessex accent? The Italian soldiers that sound like they're from the east end of London?

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

City of Death had a somewhat troubled production with a number of different writers working on it until it became what was broadcast on TV. It's credited to "David Agnew", which is a pseudonym and wasn't a real person. This was actually originally a script by David Fisher, the same guy that wrote The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara from the previous season, but he was unable to complete work on it due to problems in his personal life at the time. This meant that the incumbent producer and script editor at the time, Graham Williams and Douglas Adams respectively, basically had to lock themselves away in a room together and complete the story over a weekend. Considering all these problems, it's astonishing City of Death turned out as brilliantly as it did and how it's considered by many to be one of the absolute greatest Doctor Who stories ever. It always, without fail, lands in the top 5 of lists and polls. Graham Williams admitted in interview later on that Douglas Adams basically did 98% of the work and you can certainly tell. This has his fingerprints all over it, from the hilarious, quip laden, witty dialogue, the brilliant and vivid characters, the ingenious and watertight plot and plot structure. It's quintessential Douglas Adams. This is the absolute peak of what Graham Williams wanted to achieve with Doctor Who and it took a genius like Douglas Adams to help him achieve that. No other story celebrates Doctor Who as this great romantic adventure better than this story, it's just so much fun. Possibly the most rewatchable Doctor Who story ever. Viewers definitely agreed because this story achieved an average of over 16 million viewers across its four episodes, the highest in the show's history. The story that perhaps best describes the impact and influence City of Death has had on Doctor Who is something RTD once said about why he felt confident about bringing the show back in 2005. Basically, in preparation for the first series, he and Julie Gardener (one of the executive producers at the time, who is now also returning alongside RTD for his new era) were watching a bunch of classic Who stories and it was after watching City of Death that they became convinced that Doctor Who in the 21st century could really work well. They essentially took the basic tone and style of City of Death and applied to modern Who. That's why so much of modern Who's dialogue is so witty and comedic in comparison to most of classic Who. City of Death is an absolute comedic masterpiece and I adore it.

[@paulrichards4452]

I adore this story. One of the best Classic Who stories. The humour here works so well alongside the more dramatic moments. This is the earliest memory I have of Doctor Who. The one eyed alien stuck in my memory. 10/10.

[@kemmdog4444]

Duggan looked like Tin Tin.😊

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Tom and Lalla were clearly in love by the time of the location filming.Watch them in the wordless parts of those scenes,especially when holding hands❤❤🎩

[@Jamestopboy]

Your father is right. Leonardo da Vinci was a brilliant friend of Francis I of France, who purchased what can only be described as (and I quote myself) "a metric fuck tonne" of his paintings after Leonardo died.

[@jonathanmurphy3141]

Yes, during my Bachelor’ of Fine Arts degree, and Art History classes, we learned about Leonardo’s death in France. He was painting more on panel, not fresco, which like The Last Supper has to be on the wall. Or, his sculpture like “the horse” -so certain paintings he had at his death, were taken by the French King. It annoyed me, during the three visits to The Louvre, when I lived in Europe (1989-‘92) that people would crowd only Mona Lisa, and not the other five paintings by Ld’V in the same room. Some think they only need to see like six objects of Art in that museum, and leave.

[@lemonfreshrob]

Absolutely a classic, with a sparkling script. One of my favourite lines is always the "I don't think he's as stupid as he seems." "My dear, *nobody* could be as stupid as *he* seems." Plus the Cleese and Bron cameo is, well, exquisite. They definitely milked the Paris location shooting. The guy who later became producer costed it out and realised it would be just as cheap to physically go to Paris and film as to mock it up in studio so they made sure they got their money's worth...

[@stickytapenrust6869]

18:40 - broadcast TV cameras hadn’t really got that much smaller by the late 70s. There were some handheld colour cameras but their picture quality wasn’t considered good enough for them to be used as the main option in TV studios until the dawn of the 1990s, when CCDs replaced pickup tubes. So big studio cameras like EMI 2001s and Link 110s (both used on this serial, as some scenes were shot in one studio at Television Centre, the others in another studio) were the order of the day in 1979.

[@KeplersDream]

The original idea was to film the story in England and just recreate Paris in the studio, until it was pointed out that it would be cheaper to take a basic unit out to the actual Paris. Douglas Adams wrote the scripts over one weekend, so that he and Tom Baker would get the chance to go out on the booze in Paris.

[@sabalomglitz6478]

No writer's room....writer :Douglas. Script Writer:Douglas that's all.

[@KeplersDream]

Like other TV companies, the BBC had a tradition of the VT staff compiling a tape of bloopers and specially recorded skits (and often much nudity) for the annual xmas party. One deliciously off-colour sketch was filmed during the recording of this story and involved Tom Baker and John Cleese, both in costume. Cleese goes up to Tom and tells him about his nephew, who's a huge fan and also blind, and asks for Tom"s autograph. Neither of them have a pen and look around for one, before Cleese says "Never mind, I'll just tell him you signed it." These tapes were never meant for public viewing, but I managed to get hold of a VHS copy back in the 90s. Unfortunately I lent it to a friend who never returned it 😡🤬

[@ftumschk]

Eleanor Bron wasn't in Monty Python, but she was a member Cambridge University's "Footlights" comedy revue troupe with Peter Cook and others. She was the "Eleanor" who inspired a certain Beatles song... no prizes for guessing which.

[@craigkelly4728]

I recall seeing a documentary on Doctor Who involving Tom Baker and the other companion actors in his era where they are all on stage or most of them at least with microphones answering audience questions with individual actor interviews in between apparently Mary Tamm who played Romana 1 left because she felt as if her characters her take on Romana could not develop any further so she left the act and had Lalla ward replace her to give a fresher different personality to the character to avoid the character being to samey found the documentary randomly on KZbin quite obscure thing

[@bananasaregood8655]

‘I will change it!!’ (THUMP) Funniest villain defeat in doctor who history😂😂

[@RoundTheArchives]

'City Of Death' notes : Part One: Viewing figures = 12.4 million. Chart position = 50. Part Two: Viewing figures = 14.1 million. Chart position = 44. Part Three: Viewing figures = 15.4 million. Chart position = 34. Part Four: Viewing figures = 16.1 million. Chart position = 16. Transmission dates : 29 September, 6, 13, 20 October 1979 Studio sessions : May / June 1979. Studios : TC3 & TC6. Working titles : 'The Gamble With Time' / 'Curse Of The Sephiroth'. 'The Gamble With Time' was a David Fisher story set in 1920s France and costings by Production Unit Manager John Nathan-Turner indicated that location filming in Paris could be achieved if a bare minimum of cast and crew were to be used. However, David Fisher was going through a divorce at the time, so rewrites fell into the lap of Douglas Adams & Graham Williams who re-used the departmental pseudonym 'David Agnew', previously seen on 'The Invasion Of Time'. The filming did not go as smoothly as planned as there was a public holiday in France and some planned locations were shut, along with the odd encounter with policemen... As noted last time, the crew were also visited by Ken Grieve and Douglas Adams who went off for a massive pub crawl. There was tension between Lalla Ward and the costume designer Doreen James, who would not return later in the season as originally planned. John Cleese wanted to be credited under the name 'Kim Bread' for some reason and recorded some extra material with Tom Baker for the traditional BBC Engineering Department Christmas Tape. This tape also has an overexcited Dalek trying to get intimate with some video equipment, but you'd better look that up yourselves... 🙂 Parts Three and Four would set new records for viewing figures for the series, but the ITV strike would soon end, bringing things back down to earth a bit for the rest of the season...

[@ftumschk]

For those who can't grasp how much viewing habits have changed, just look at Part Four. Despite getting the highest ever audience for an episode of Doctor Who - an impressive 16 million viewers - it barely made the Top Twenty most watched shows on TV that week, at 16th place. And this was in the Tom Baker era, when Classic Who was at the peak of its popularity. In general, Classic Who was doing well if an episode made the Top Fifty, with some not even making the Top Hundred.

[@Jaketherobonrd]

Ok I’ve been waiting for this reaction for a long time... City of Death. This Doctor Who story was the one that really scared me the most when I was 7 or 8 years old. I couldn’t watch this story for many years because I was so so terrified of the monster in the story Scaroth, especially the Cliffhanger for part 1, that bit really terrified me the most. It wasn’t til i brought the story on dvd years later, i finally watched it at my nans house. Today I think it’s a brilliant story and a great watch. Also its the first time this show was filmed outside of the UK, but in Paris. And the John Cleese cameo is brilliant!!

[@whobp8]

1)This is the first Doctor Who story to have filming done outside of the United Kingdom. 2)Regarding your speculation about their obtaining necessary filming permits, in many cases they did indeed "shotgun it" as you speculated. 3)Catherine Schell was indeed a Bond girl, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, she was also on Space:1999 and in Return of the Pink Panther. 4)Well done recognizing Julian Glover from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He's also in a Bond film, as the main baddie in For Your Eyes Only. He's also in The Empire Strikes Back (briefly) as an Imperial officer, plays Grand Master Pycelle on Game of Thrones and was the voice of Aragog, the giant spider in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (which also featured John Cleese) You've previously seen Glover playing King Richard the Lionheart in the Doctor Who story, The Crusades. 5)This story is credited to David Agnew, but that's a pseudonym, the original story idea was David Fisher's, but it was heavily rewritten by Douglas Adams and producer Graham Williams. Adams later reused elements of the plot for his book, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Adams most famous book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, came out in print for the first time between the broadcasts of episodes two and three of this story 6) The original title for this story was A Gamble With Time. It was changed for the reasons Richard speculated about, a play on Paris being called City of Light or sometimes City of Love. 7) Episode Four of this story has the highest viewing figures of all of Doctor Who, at 16.1 million people, this is partly due to a strike that had disrupted programming on the rival ITV network. 8) Da Vinci spent most of his time in either Florence or Milan. He was in Rome relatively briefly, he went to France when he became the court painter to King Francis I and ultimately died there. 9) The Prado, which you were struggling to place, is in Madrid. 10) The reason we see Scaroth after seeing the chicken revert to the egg is because he was standing in that spot a little bit earlier and time is running backwards in that spot 11) Carol Cleveland was the woman who frequently appeared in Monty Python sketches. Eleanor Bron was with the Beatles in the movie Help!, in the original version of Bedazzled with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and in Alfie with Michael Caine.

[@ftumschk]

Re (2) they'd actually secured permission to film inside an art-gallery (I guess doubling as the Louvre interior) and at a Parisian café but, when the crew arrived, they found to their dismay that the museum was locked and the café closed and shuttered. Presumably, that's why these scenes were shot in the studio instead of on location. By pure coincidence, I'm listening to the audiobook of JNT's memoirs, and he's just discussed The City of Death.

[@flaggerify]

I expected you to like this a lot more, especially with Julian Glover in it. They went to the trouble of filming in Paris but you kept nit-picking about people looking at the camera and it having no French people (maybe the Tardis was translating?) I was surprised Scaroth's splintered selves didn't remind Alex of Clara.

[@thevirgologychannel6215]

Yeah, the nit-picks are peculiar. Budget is usually the reason for most production decisions. Also it’s just that British Tv audiences in the 70’s didn’t really demand as much nuance. They had 3 TV channels and no access to rewatch to go over the minutiae. It was broadcast weekly and then gone until a possible repeat. It odd to compare the decisions of show then to how a show is made today. It’s a very different landscape.

[@dmaul1973]

@@thevirgologychannel6215 They do seem to keep applying modern televison standards on shows made over 40 years ago and not being able to buy into the stories which is a shame as this is one most fans like.

[@BulbasaurRepresent]

They did like it though? Richard said it was one of his favourites he had seen from Baker.

[@flaggerify]

@@BulbasaurRepresent I didn't say they didn't like it.

[@coloneljackmustard]

Catherine Schell was in Return of the Pink Panther with Peter Sellers.

[@jonathanmurphy3141]

“Zoot Aleur!” Indeed! Omelette du’ Fromage! Yes, the production team took a basic film unit, and only Tom, Lapland, and the actor playing the Detective, and ran around Paris for like 2 days. There are a few other “Classic Who” that went on locations in Europe, but they were rare, like every other season. Modern Who has done more filming around the world Glad that you noticed Julian Glover, early on. He had already been in Who as King Richard, in “the Crusades” back in 1965.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Have you guys seen "Fawlty Towers" with John Cleese you should do a future reaction to that if you haven't seen it it's a great series its funny and it stands the test of time.

[@ftumschk]

This is possibly the one and only time that two members of the nobility will play the female leads in the same Doctor Who story. Catherine Schell (full name Katherina Freiin Schell von Bauschlott) is the daughter of a Hungarian countess, and Lalla Ward (aka The Honourable Sarah Ward) is the daughter of Viscount Bangor. Lalla's great-grandmother was the first recorded fatality in an automotive accident, having been run over by a steam-driven car in the mid 19th Century. Yes, "The City of Death" is a veritable goldmine of trivia :)

[@josefschiltz2192]

Yes, her great-grandmother was Mary Ward. A brilliant illustrator. Talent in drawing seems to be in Lalla's lineage. She produces wonderful illustrations as well as a selection of ties for Richard Dawkins, her ex-husband.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

The Randomiser was seemingly quickly forgotten when it came to the next season lol🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

As others will have said the show's first genuine foreign location work❤️🎩

[@sabalomglitz6478]

The Creature...The Pit...oh this will be epic.... :)

[@fandelapin2971]

16:44 Actually I'm french and a filming school student. To shoot in the streets it is like in the US : we need autorisation because we are not allowed to film people if they don't want to. So we block the street to be sure only our actors appear on the screen. This is the only way to be legal. But i guess back in the 80' the legislation must have been softer + the doctor who production maybe didn't want to spend too much money on that (they would have to hire people to block the streets) I think it's really funny the people who look at the camera. It reminds me of the movie of la nouvelle vague (french new wave) where everybody was looking at the camera

[@eddhardy1054]

53:03...Sorry guys but the tour guide in the 'Louvre' was British too (Pamela Stirling).

[@kemmdog4444]

Makes you wonder if the Silence were watching Scarlioni during all of his splintered lives.

[@ItsShaz1]

Very intriguing.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

The 15th century guard was the incompetent Head of Security in 1968 The Invasion 🎩

[@Darren79]

This story started life as a script by David Fisher (Stones of Blood, Androids of Tara) - his script involved gambling in a casino in Paris, they realised it wasn't good for a kids show to be showing gambling so it needed a major rewrite. Fisher was having troubles in his home life so it was down to Adams to rewrite the script - producer Graham Williams locked him in his study for a weekend and plied him with coffee. It contains quite a bit that Fisher's script did.

[@alexthehunted]

This episode is the most viewed story in doctor who of all time with 14 million viewer mostly due to rival channel itv was on strike at the time

[@williamhuebler68]

Title is a play on city of love - Paris In French it is ville de l'amour Whereas city of death is ville de la mort So in French it is a pun.

[@ftumschk]

The title plays on another Parisian alias (City of Love), _Cité de l'Amour,_ homophone of _Cité de la Mort_ (City of Death)

[@kIdeoCash_TMG]

The time machine in the lab was made from parts of the spaceship that exploded - that why the image of jagura was there

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Funny enough the French actually were not familiar with "Doctor Who" at that time they never heard of the show so no one knew what they were filming which is probaly why you get people looking at the camera infact Doctor Who did not come out in France until 1989 so 26 years after its television debut in the UK.

[@kemmdog4444]

This is one of or the most watched Doctor Who story in history.At the end nearly 17 million people watched this when it was broadcast.

[@julianblake3140]

ITV was off air due to strike at the time though

[@kemmdog4444]

@@julianblake3140 Exactly

[@kemmdog4444]

@@CardiffOneOne Exactly

[@kierenevans2521]

IIRC ITV was only on strike for the first two eps, it was back for rest and the viewing numbers for parts 3 and 4 are higher than parts 1 and 2.

[@kemmdog4444]

@@kierenevans2521 Exactly

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Prado is in Madrid.Uffizzi is in Florence and may be the big Italian Gallery you may be thinking of🎩

[@nicholasthornley9708]

Great to see a quick cameo by Eleanor Bron, as everybody knows I'm the last person on earth who would ever spread idle gossip or tittle-tattle, but I believe John Lennon gave her one.

[@ItsShaz1]

City of Death, quite possibly my favourite Tom Baker story. It’s certainly an enjoyable watch with a brilliant story, a pleasant change of location (Paris) and a wonderful villain.

[@soupdragon1971]

Best Tom Baker story IMO, possibly the best in Classic Who. If I'd been a bit older I might have felt a little differently as I know a few of the earlier Baker stories are considered some of his best. All the elements are here for me - great plot (actually using time travel in multiple ways) mostly thanks to Douglas Adams, well placed humour, in depth characters, very memorable villain, skilled actors, authentic locations, good special effects (poor David Graham spent an entire afternoon of filming hanging over that support) and novel makeup. In more recent years my growing nostalgia can also be added to the list. So well done in fact, modern Doctor Who has tapped into some of the elements in multiple stories (The Impossible Astronaut and the Zygons in the 50th anniversary come to mind). Okay to be fair, there are a few big plot holes. There is actually a very funny short comedy film on the DVD as an extra where some of these are addressed. The Doctor seems to keep missing Leonardo in particular (he was going to meet him in the Masque of Mandragora too). Clearly the studio scenes are filmed in England as some of the extras are dressed in what would be considered very stereotypical French outfits unlike their counterparts on location.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

To the father:Do we really need to see the Jagaroth being warlike to believe they are?🤔🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Father is closer than son in the Mona Lisa theories🎩

[@jayanderson9375]

Do you guys ever rewatch these reviews? When you look back with knowledge you didnt have the first time in light of what you’ve learned, does it make you cringe?

[@donburks4464]

catherine schell was a Bond girl (on her majesty secret service and she also had a major role in the scfi series Space 1999 the person playing duggan was also one of two actor who the scathroth voice

[@tl1110]

I think you'll find that Diana Rigg was the Bond girl in that film.

[@donburks4464]

@@tl1110 Catherine schell played the character Nancy and yes Diana Riggs was in it too

[@neilmcdonald9164]

The son is doing what so many millennial reactors do on KZbin:expecting characters in science and fantasy to behave like logical real humans (Never apply logical thought and action to such shows it'll spoil too many stories lol)🎩👍

[@alexthehunted]

I've been looking forward to this one

[@neilmcdonald9164]

And,yes,there is no way,Duggan could have heard the doctor from the top of the tower.K9 wasn't used in this story as he didn't work well on uneven surfaces like the streets of Paris (How could they explain then K9 only being in interior scenes?)👍🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Have met Julian Glover (The Count/Scaroth),lovely man...and yes he was in Indiana Jones 3🎩

[@joshuajoshua2732]

I thought Romana II looked really cute in a schoolgirl's outfit very alien. I also thought Duggan would had made a great companion but it just wasn't meant to be.

[@MrPaulMorris]

There was no logical reason for the costume but this (then) teen certainly appreciated it. 'Cute' is an apt description and, presumably, Tom Baker felt likewise considering their future relationship, although, considering it's brevity, perhaps cuteness wasn't quite enough!

[@oldwebshooter]

This was the second time Julian Glover had been in Doctor Who. Perhaps you didn't spot him previously?

[@MuchWhittering]

This is genuinely my favourite story of all time, and I think that's a common opinion. Episode 4 actually has the highest viewing figures of any Doctor Who episode ever, including NuWho. Season 17 as a whole did well, because ITV was taken off air completely by a strike for several months, so your options were BBC1, BBC2, or *shudder* talk to your family. Supposedly the BBC tried to talk them out of filming in Paris, but they won out by saying "if you can think of a British treasure as valuable as the Mona Lisa, we'll do it here". So this is the 2nd and final "David Agnew" script. It was originally "A Gamble with Time", set in 1920s Monte Carlo, but when they got the chance to film in Paris, it was shifted to the present day. The writer, David Fisher, couldn't do the rewrites, so legend goes that Douglas Adams and Producer Graham Williams locked themselves in a room for a weekend to finish it. So most of the final script is Douglas Adams. The poster of the exhibition they see about the 3 million years of history was real, they found it while out filming so decided to include it since it was relevant. Tom Baker has said it was a relief filming in France. The show didn't air there at the time, so no-one knew who they were and didn't have the public stopping them as a result. This is likely where Tom Baker and Lalla Ward's romance began to blossom. According to the DVD production subtitles, Tom Chadbon (Duggan) used to go out to bars at night after filming, while those two "got an early night". By bad luck, the week they picked to film was a holiday in France, so they struggled to get locations, such as the various cafés, and they were denied permission to film at the Louvre. In episode 4 when they rush back to the TARDIS, they actually set the alarm off at the building they unofficially decided to film at. The John Cleese and Eleanor Bron cameo in episode 4 was unplanned. They were next door filming, and they were added in at the last minute. Supposedly it was Lalla Ward's idea for her to wear a school uniform. She realised her mistake when she started getting fan letters from all the dads in the audience. This is the only story where I've read the novel. It has some good lines, like how Romana "really hops the TARDIS translation circuit will teach her the French for "please get my uncle out of that straight jacket". As people have mentioned, Count Scarlioni's actor was King Richard in The Crusade, so a lot of people like to have the headcanon that he's one of Scaroth's bodies. Kerensky was Charlie the Barman in The Gunfighters too. 10:49 So fun fact, X-Rays have revealed the Mona Lisa used to have eyebrows but they've faded over time. Makes sense then that the Doctor's never noticed, he probably saw it when it was newer. When Romana wires a plug in episode 4, she's wiring a British plug, despite being in France. 14:35 It's actually a play on City of Love. De l'amour vs de la mort. 27:30 Romana was figuring out that there's a secret room, she'd noticed the size of the room didn't match up.

[@sabalomglitz6478]

This was the very first overseas filming in Who history and they wanted to show off that they were inbParis and got the money on the screen.

[@sabalomglitz6478]

Due to TV strike this serial has the distinction as the highest audience figures in the 60 years of the show.

[@davidbull7210]

Is anyone going to be French in this? No, just the background natives. The rest is filmed at good old Tv Centre. Catherine Schell was a Bond girl, in OHMSS with George Lazenby

[@domsquared9878]

Julian Glover was indeed Walter Donovan in the Last Crusade, he also played King Richard in the First Doctor story the Crusade, and Alex yes you’ll also know him as Grand Maester Pycelle in Game of Thrones

[@MuchWhittering]

He's also in The Empire Strikes Back.

[@domsquared9878]

@@MuchWhittering oh yeah!

[@derrenlodge6502]

Catherine Schell was in Space 1999,that's where you have probably seen her.

[@BulbasaurRepresent]

This story is so, so good. Probably my favourite of Tom Baker, and that's so weird considering it's during what I consider to be his worst season. One moment I absolutely love is when the six other Mona LIsa's are discovered. Instead of the Doctor questioning how they were there, how they could possibly exist, he instead asks - "If you've got six Mona Lisa's, why go through all the trouble to steal a seventh?" It's that kind of thinking I love to see from Doctor Who.

[@moreau1755]

This only goes to show that the Doctor has an honest mind. It's a classic scam - you have multiple buyers who are all willing to purchase a famous, one-of-a-kind, high value, very recognizable item. So you sell each buyer a fake version of said item. However, to convince the buyers that they've got the real item, you have to steal the real one. Because the buyers believe they've got a stolen item, they won't be showing it around and so are less likely to learn the truth. If you're extra smart, you tell the buyers that the museum or gallery that lost the item is planning to save face by putting a fake on display and claiming they got the original back. That way, after you've sold your fakes, you can tip off the authorities where the find the original, and once they recover it while they'll still try to track down the thieves, it'll become a lot lower priority. The difference here is (a) they are all "real" Mona Lisas, and (b) Scaroth intended to sell all of them, including the stolen one. However, using the theft to convince the other buyers that they were getting the original was still necessary - he'd get nothing for the duplicates if the original was still in the Louvre.

[@KeplersDream]

One theory about the title City Of Death is that Paris is the City Of Love, in French cité l'amour, which sounds like cité la morte. I don't know if this is confirmed, but I want it to be true.

[@eddhardy1054]

Not sure why the fixation with the accents. OK so in reality Julian Glover is English but a lot of European aristos would send their children abroad to be educated and any sent to the UK would probably acquire an English accent. Catherine Schell for instance is actually the daughter of a Hungarian baron.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Great reaction as usual gents...but as often with this channel,much overthinking of things (especially in the last 10mins)🎩

[@richardlemin7840]

Neil: Our motto - “Hold on… let me overthink this.” ~ Dad

[@kathrynshore4756]

It dose explain why Leonardo needed to borrow paint from his weirdo neighbour it also means that the one in SJA has this is a fake underneath it

[@Nebluviona]

très bonne réaction !

[@richardlemin7840]

Nebluviona: Merci!~Dad

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

Idk whether the description is a genuine criticism or not yet (I haven't watched the full reaction yet), but I'll answer the question anyway. Scarlioni was having Leonardo Da Vinci make him copies of the Mona Lisa, so he could sell it to multiple people under the pretense that it's the real one without them knowing. Obviously, the more painting he could sell, the more money he could make. However, he still had to steal the real deal to make his hoax believable! Otherwise people would just question where he got it from. It's all literally explained in the story itself: DOCTOR: Every one. What I don't understand is why a man who's got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh. DUGGAN: Come on, Doctor, I've just told you. There are seven people who would buy the Mona Lisa in secret, but nobody's going to buy the Mona Lisa when it's hanging in the Louvre! ROMANA: Of course. They'd each have to think they were buying the stolen one. DUGGAN: Right. This really isn't rocket science guys, it isn't that hard to get your head around. Y'all have been watching Doctor Who for long enough (especially you Alex) to be able to understand this stuff better by now.

[@7thHourFilms]

I argue that watching Doctor Who so long has deteriorated my brain. Well, either that or JoJo. THAT SAID, yeah that's a good point lol!

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

@@7thHourFilms Lol, I'm just happy that I've finally got you to admit y'all got something wrong tbh!😅 Now let's go down the list of the dozens of other times.....😂

[@somthingbrutal]

i think if you are just one alien stuck on earth you would have to worry about money

[@neilmcdonald9164]

It was common in UK tv in those days to not bother with attempting foreign accents.You were just meant to assume people were foreign.British tv viewers didn't care much about reality about foreign settings or characters (We had only got rid of blackface in a show called Black and White Minstrel show the previous year).🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Occasionally,a foreign character speaking mostly English would throw in a few foreign words-often the same ones- every other sentence to "remind" you they were foreign!...Carol Cleveland was the Monty Python lady you were thinking of🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

We're he not a one eyed alien,the counts father could be Italian and his son English Catherine Schell was inll Space 1999 and WAS briefly in bond OHMSS as one of the many girls in Blofeld's clinic...oh come on the cafe is OBVIOUSLY a set as is the counts house🎩😄

[@joshuaverran9443]

Not everything needs explaining the more you guys over analyze this show the less you enjoy it it's not brain science it's just a fictional TV show as for the titles it does not matter it takes nothing away from the story. I didn't find Destiny of the Daleks boring at all you don't need music for everything.

[@chrisbrooker7260]

As I’ve gone through these reactions with a mix of incredulity and annoyance I’ve been pondering quite what it is about these reactors that get on my nerves so often. I’m usually quite fine with people criticising Who episodes I like, but something about these guys frequently sets my teeth on edge and I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, they’re expecting it to be logical, conform to some rigid canon… and it’s just the wrong way to watch classic Who. You need to be alert to the dialogue, the (often very clever) writing, the performances, even the making do with what you’ve got that the show often did so well. And all with a sense of being written and acted by people who were much happier after a boozy pub lunch…. In contrast, These guys are oh so American. They just seem to miss the point so often and then fixate on silly criticisms of stuff that really shouldn’t matter And btw, the title is really just a witty play on (French) words. As you say, it didn’t need any deeper analysis than this

[@neilmcdonald9164]

I am Facebook friends with Catherine Schell and the doctor is not a fool,he's just pretending to be,obvs🎩

[@alexthehunted]

As much as series 17 sucks city of death is an all time classic

[@neilmcdonald9164]

The theory sounds like nonsense...because it's implausible folks🎩

[@jayanderson9375]

She was Way! Pregnant

[@jayanderson9375]

I liked Romana two better, more personality