MAW Holmes@MAW_H Headachy.. sinusy... might just head over to 1970s Paris for the #CityOfDeath tweetalong with @TygerWhoCame2T...
Bob McCow @BobMcCow I think it's marvellous.
James Cooray Smith @thejimsmith So do I!
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker not seen this one for ages!
50dw50@50dw50 i have bought City of Death for a number of friends who are interested in classic Who its a fun introduction
PART ONE
29th September 1979
We open on the dry, cracked surface of a barren planet, under a red sky. As we pan across the landscape, we arrive at an arachnoid looking spaceship, whose spherical cockpit is supported by three segmented legs.
Beautiful painted sky. Lovely model work here, there's nothing "only" about that model.
Inside the cockpit, the pilot urges caution whilst his passengers implore him to take off without delay. Save us, Scaroth, you're our only hope!
Is it a test ship, or are the rest of the Jagaroth in need of a rescue? They're in quite the hurry for him to ramp up the power against his better judgement. "The Jaggaroth are in your hands... er... flappy gloves. Whatever." It's all in the (visible) wrist.
"Power three is too severe!" Scaroth's warnings fall on deaf ears. I know someone who'd disagree with that assessment anyway...
Love that rotating section on the Jaggaroth ship as it takes off.
On takeoff, though, the engines start to warp the ship itself.
Scaroth's prediction proves to have been bang on.
Literally.
Great fade from the falling sparks to the blossom.
We're now in Paris in the spring time.
There we join the 4th Doctor and Romana. She's styled like a public schoolgirl, with a navy skirt, silk blouse tied with a red ribbon, and a straw hat. As usual he's all teeth and curls, with his long coat and even longer scarf. They decide that Paris is marvellous, although she says it's not exactly as he described it. He's still prepared to go so far as to say that it's the only place in the world where one can relax entirely.
The Doctor waxes lyrical about what Romana is happy to call Paris' "bouquet". You see, what Paris has is an ethos, a life, a spirit all of it's own. It has... a bucket.
Like a fine wine, you do need to pick a good vintage, but as the TARDIS' recently installed Randomiser lacks true discretion, they're in 1979, which is apparently more of a table wine.
Deciding to sip it and see, there's some debate as to whether they should take the lift or fly. Has the TARDIS arrived at the very top of the Eiffel Tower? Romana can't possibly mean that Time-Lords can fly... can she?
The Doctor suggests they take the lift so as to avoid being ostentatious, anyway.
From the lift, it's off across town on the Metro. The Doctor knows a little place that does a wonderful bouillabaisse. Whether you're talking philosophically or geographically, they're going to lunch!
MAW Holmes@MAW_H I do try and use that one every now and again, to the usual bemused looks, sadly...I'd imagine Paris has changed quite a bit since the last couple of times he's been there, mind you. [The Reign of Terror] [The Massacre]
Not sure Tom was really aware of the cameras throughout most of season 16 and 17 top be honest.
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker cameras schmameras!Deadly Dudley outdoes himself on this one. Lovely work as they jaunt around Paris.
Albeit Noone 😎🎸@AlbeitNoone My favourite music of the entire show is in this story.
Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 every time I go to Paris I have that wonderful tune by Dudley Simpson in my head
Steve Powner @StevePowner Love the music to this story just perfect, everything about this one is great Tom and Lalla such a team.Paris looks amazing, great stuff on the rainy pavements.
Hmmm, does that poster remind you of anything... Jaggarothy?
Isaac Dakin@IWhittakerDakin love them walking by Notre Dame 
Romana's just had a proper gawping at from one of the local passers-by!
While the Doctor and Romana continue their sight-seeing, we swing across town to an imposing chateau, whose large wooden doors have gorgon heads carved on the doors.
A head covered in writhing tendrils, eh? Rings a bell.
The Chateau's cellar is kitted out in advanced scientific equipment. There, the Chateau's elegantly dressed owner, Count Carlos Scarlioni (Julian Glover) is waiting for a progress report.
His pet scientist, Theodore Nikolai Kerensky (David Graham, one of the original Dalek voices, as well as that of Thunderbirds' Brains!) is warning that his research has hit a brick wall that only more moolah will break through.
"Will a million francs ease the immediate cash-flow problem, Brains?"
It will, but there better be more where that came from!
The Count has some quite incredible resources to draw on when he needs to raise funds, telling his reliable butler/henchman, Hermann, to sell "one of" his Gutenberg bibles. Hermann's not wrong to raise an eyebrow at the instruction to get it done discreetly. They're not exactly 3 for a fiver in Smiths.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H Kind of like Hustle mixed with Time Travel... something like a "Time Heist" he thought, suddenly losing some enthusiasm... Kerensky will be ready to fire up another test in two ticks.
Tom's reading a Target of a Pertwee 6 parter. "Bit boring in the middle."
MAW Holmes@MAW_H "Here's another chapter with me in a coma! What rot!"
Jon Arnold@The_Arn Destiny of the Daleks I’d imagine. I read it that quickly!The Doctor's clocked a beardy stalker sketching Romana, and tells her to stay still, but she wants a look-see, and can't resist turning around - ruining the sketch.
First Beardy Arty Type throws a wobbler...
(Bit rude!)
...then the whole world throws a wobbler!
Time skips a groove...
...and Beardy Arty Type does the stroppy time warp again.
As they look down to see the sketch, time catches up with itself.
"For a portrait of a Time Lady, that's not at all a bad likeness." Looks nothing like her! Rubbish.
The face of the clock is cracked - like a crack in time, get it? A worrying thought occurs to the Doctor. "Damn, I think I forgot to put the bins out."
Seems it's Brains' experiments giving the Doctor the wibbles.
Whilst the experiment has impressed the Count, he now needs to see rapid progress. "The fate of many people is in our hands."
Patience is obviously not his strong suit, he wants to see the next experiment the same day. The Professor is baffled by the urgency. "Time, Professor, it is all a matter of time."
As the Doctor and Romana shake off their twinges with a breath of fresh air, the Doctor suggests that they're more sensitive to changes in time because of their travels, but Romana pours scorn on this, calling it "portentous".
The artist's Time Lady sketch seems to have regenerated since they were indoors.
Romana doesn't know much about art, but the Doctor thinks he knows what she'll like.
Isaac Dakin@IWhittakerDakin "Forget the time slip! We're on holiday."
They head for the Louvre, which the Doctor calls "one of the greatest art galleries in the galaxy." He'd go as far as to place it above the Academia Stellaris on Sirius Five, the Solarium Pinaquotheque at Strikian, and even the Braxiatel Collection.
The Louvre looks weird without the glass pyramid, doesn't it?
Not as weird as the Mona Lisa without her eyebrows, mind you.
Romana gives the Doctor the Moaning Lisa Blues. "Is that all you can say, no eyebrows?"
As the Doctor clocks a man in a raincoat seemingly stalking an aristocratic woman who's also got one eye on the painting, Romana is at least prepared to concede that the Mona Lisa is "quite good."
"QUITE good? That's one of the great treasures of the universe and you say quite good?" He doesn't care who's listening and declines to limit his hyperbole to just 'the world' as per Romana's hissed correction.
As he continues to wax lyrical, a tour guide approaches with a party of museum patrons, giving a brief history of the famous painting.
Once she's actually able to get the Doctor's attention, she asks him to move on. You'll have to wait another year or so, pal.
As Lalla intervenes, Tom has another flashback to last night at the BBC bar...
This time round we see things a bit more from the tour guide's point of view.
Not tonight, dear, I've got a headache.
Tom's fooling in the Louvre is great.
50dw50@50dw50 hard to imagine that he would spend the next season looking like he was attending his own funeral he is so joyous in this!Mark Walker@Mark_Walker Tom falls into suspicious attractive woman's lap, who expertly throws him on the floor.
Fair do's.
atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan I do love the line "the whole world took a funny turn".The man in the mac follows as the Doctor and Romana make their exit, but these shenanigans have not been entirely lost on the glamourous woman, who dispatches a hired goon (Who stalwart Pat Gorman!) to shadow them.
The Count's happy, anyway.
The Count orders food for Brains but does him over on the booze. Half a bottle, which is then cancelled. Spoilsport.
"Two at once? Theodore Nikolai Kerensky, you dog!"
The Prof just wants a bit of shuteye, but the Count will only concede a vitamin pill.
The man in the mac follows the Doctor and Romana around Paris' tourist traps, while the cameraman hides behind some postcards.
The Doctor and Romana don't seem overly concerned to have suffered two time slips in close proximity, or at least not concerned enough to cut short their day tripping.
They're giving Mac Man a right old run around.
The Doctor and Romana regroup outside the cafe.
There, the Doctor reveals he's put something in Romana's pocket that he pinched off the arm of the glamourous woman.
It's a micro-meson scanner! Yeah, course. That's what I was going to say. She was using it to get a complete report on all the alarm systems around the Mona Lisa, meaning she's after pinching it. Seems Mac Man must have been on to her, then.
"It is a very pretty painting."
Romana's concern is that this scanner is definitely not the product of Earth technology in 1979.
The Doctor's concern is more that Mac Man has caught up with them and has a gun in his back.
"Alright you two, back to TVC to film some interiors."
"Two glasses of water, make them doubles!"
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker Can't beat a double water!Turns out that the glamorous woman is married to Count Scarlioni. Very clever undercurrents between the Count and Countess.
Mac Man is a detective named Duggan, who has - annoyingly for them - showed a spark of intelligence by switching his attention from the painting to the Countess.
The Count hits the roof when he learns that the Countess has lost the bracelet.
The Countess promises that the bracelet is being discreetly recovered even as they speak.
Love it that Tom hangs the bracelet on the gun barrel.
Duggan thinks they were the Doctor's thugs.
Romana outed as rubbish snooker player:
"Ever heard of Scarlioni's angle?"
"No, I was never any good at geometry."
This week's Doctor Who has been brought to you by the number 5 and the letter H and Scarlioni's Angle!
Duggan makes to leave, thinking they're crazy when they explain why, unlike "everyone on Earth", haven't heard of Count Scarlioni.
He returns when the Doctor asks if he think they're crazy enough to want to steal the Mona Lisa, or interested in someone who might, anyway.
Lisa P & Andrew T @lisacartman There a good pub name for you! We're off for a swift pint down the 'Scarlioni's Angle'...Terrible pub; the Count only lets you have half a bottle!
The hired help dutifully return the Count's bracelet...
...which is good, but not good enough. They know too much, so Hermann is ordered to dispose of them.
The Count begins to wonder about the man and woman who pinched the bracelet, and what their interest in the painting might be.
He sends the Countess after Hermann to find out - it seems the goons may still have their uses after all.
Duggan thinks Scarlioni is so clean he stinks.
They're "invited" back to the Chateau.
Some overlooked beautiful touches here from Catherine Schell as she lets out a jealous streak when told Scarlioni's in the cellar, implying she thinks there's something going on between the Count and the Professor, wink wink. Well, one wink, anyway.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H "Proper acting" that is (and she's great...!)In the cellar, the Count strides purposefully towards a mirror on the desk.
By the time the Countess is at the door, she finds it locked, and calls out to interrupt the Count's me time...
The Count lifts his hands to his face - and pulls it off! Turns out the real Count only has one eye. Like what that blowy-uppy fella at the beginning of the episode had. Scarlioni is none other than Scaroth - last of the Jaggaroth!
Cliffhangeroth!
Rather begs the question how Scaroth sees through the mask.
PART TWO
6th October 1979
The Doctor and Romana are bustled into the Chateau for a quick tête-à -tête with the anxiously waiting Countess.
As Hermann announces that the guests have arrived, she hastily hides the bracelet in a puzzle box.
Tom makes his grand entrance...
This whole scene is just genius, from the "What a wonderful butler, he's so violent!" through to "I think a rather better idea..."
"I say, what a wonderful butler, he's so violent! Hello, I'm called the Doctor. That's Romana, that's Duggan. You must be the Countess Scarlioni and this is clearly a delightful Louis Quinze chair. May I sit in it? I say, haven't they worn well? Thank you, Hermann, that'll be all."
When asked about stealing the bracelet, he explains that it's his job: "I'm a thief. And this is Romana, she's my accomplice."
Accomplice. I like that, from now on all companions/assistants should be referred to as accomplices instead.
"And this is Duggan. He's the detective who's been kind enough to catch me. That's his job. You see, our two lines of work dovetail beautifully." So smart, and a classic Adams bit.
The Countess wants to know why Duggan was following her.
"Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably..."
"Don't you recognise me, I'm well known TV personality Tom Baker, ah-ha!"
Steve Powner @StevePowner One of the best scenes ever in Doctor Who, you can see how this influenced the new series. Tom Baker is brilliantAlthough Duggan's not got the patience, Romana takes the time to fiddle with the Countess' box.
Contrary to what the Countess thinks, Romana has it open in no time.
The Count arrives, but is less than forthcoming about the bracelet's origin: "It's not from anywhere, it's mine."
Tom ratchets up the insanity so Glover matches him with increasingly silky smoothness. Perfection.
It's all gone a bit Hustle now; or maybe Mission Impossible, considering Scaroth's rubber mask.
The Doctor claims to have taken the bracelet because "it would have been much nicer to have stolen one of the pictures, but I've tried that before and all sorts of alarms go off, which disturbs the concentration."
"So you stole the bracelet simply because it's pretty?"
"Yes. Well, I think it is, don't you think it is?"
"My dear, I don't think he's as stupid as he seems."
"My dear, NOBODY could be as stupid as HE seems!"
The Doctor thinks a bite to eat is in order, but the Count thinks it'd be a better idea for Hermann to lock them in the cellar.
Duggan nearly commits a total fox pass with an antique chair, much to the Doctor's chagrin.
Scarlioni returns the bracelet to the Countess, telling her that she must be more careful with it in future.
Marched down to the cellar at gunpoint, the Doctor is immediately very interested in Professor Kerensky's device.
Hermann is more interested in locking them into a small store room, and leaves them with a lamp and a box of matches. Or match.
"There's only one match."
"Then get it right."
The Doctor starts on the lock but the sonic screwdriver never copes well with wood. "It was useful against the Daleks on Skaro."
Always makes me laugh when Duggan starts battering the sonic screwdriver.
John Mark Frankland@JMFrankland I think it's a shame Duggan didn't stay on as the Doctor's scientific advisor. What a great team they would have made. Definitely! Puts me in mind of a rather more jaded and overzealous Harry Sullivan; I think it's a great dynamic.
50dw50@50dw50 like a Leela in a flasher mac!
The cellar/laboratory's a lovely set actually. Goes a bit unnoticed, but it's great.
While Romana just gets on with business, the Doctor tries to get Duggan to see that there's more going on here than just some aristocrat with designs on the Mona Lisa.
Duggan doesn't care, but just as he's about to make his way back upstairs, the Professor appears.
The former prisoners conceal themselves and watch as the Prof selects an egg to be his next test subject.
Brains has basically devised the most elaborate, expensive way to boil an egg. Bet some of the white's still runny. Urgh.
In a matter of seconds, a chick hatches and ages through to adulthood.
Before the Prof can be too wrong footed by his sudden appearance, the Doctor has introduced himself, and opined that what he's doing is "terribly interesting, but you've got it wrong!"
Having retrieved his bracelet with its scans of the Louvre, the Count's plans can move forward. Hermann slots the scanner into a projector device.
Luckily, Scarlioni is happy enough to begin without the Professor.
The Doctor points out the flaw in the Professor's experiments. He can stretch time backwards or forwards within the bubble, but can't break into it or out of it. Doesn't exactly explain the earlier hiccups, though, does it?
It does seem to be a problem that they can only play about with the subjects personal timeline within a bubble of a few seconds, mind you. RIP Chicken.
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker REVERSED THE POLARITY! Take a drink everyone! 
The Doctor has shown him how to reverse the time within the bubble. What came first, the chicken or the egg?
As they leave the machine running longer, they find out that it's the Jaggaroth, actually.
Duggan persuades Brains to have a little lie down.
What's Romana found behind the square window?
The Doctor appeals to Duggan to knock the "knocking people on the head" on the head. "If you do that one more time, Duggan, I'm going to take very, very severe measures."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"I'm going to ask you not to."
Scarlioni has a sonic knife. Crikey.
The second line of defence is an array of infrared beams, but the Count's device refracts light, bending the beams out of the way so that the picture can be slid out without breaking them.
The perfect crime!
They're not even in the Louvre at all, it's just a projection. With that holographic technology, I'm going to assume that the Count's rubber mask is basically a blank canvas to project a realistic face onto.
He accepts the Countess' congratulations by telling her that he comes from "a family of geniuses."
From the measurements of the staircase, Romana has deduced that Scarlioni has the (Norwood) builders in and bricked up a hidden room.
Must be in Adams' script: "Duggan barges the wall. Special FX: It wobbles visibly."
What's behind door number 3?
Only another bloody Mona Lisa! Not an eyebrow amongst them.
The Doctor recognizes Leonardo Da Vinci's brushwork: all six are genuine!
So that's the plot: steal the original, then sell "the Mona Lisa" on the black market to seven different buyers! The Doctor kicks himself for being slow on the uptake. "I wouldn't make a very good criminal, would I?"
Scarlioni arrives to register his agreement. "Good criminals don't get caught."
"Can I ask you where you got these?"
"No."
"Right. Or how you knew they were here?"
"No."
"They've been bricked up a long time."
"Yes."
Another gem of a scene this.
"I like concise answers".
"Good."
"I came down to find Kerensky, but he doesn't seem to be able to talk to me."
"Can you throw any light on that?"
"No."
Duggan is no fan of Adamsesque dialogue, and takes his cue: "I can!"
The Doctor can't help noticing that every time he starts talking to someone, Duggan knocks them unconscious.
The Doctor and Romana tiptoe upstairs, only for Duggan to come crashing after them. Lucky timing, though...
...as he's spotted a gun-wielding figure behind the curtain.
A priceless Ming vase is sacrificed to knock the Countess out for, er, the count.
The Doctor leaves Romana and Duggan to check out the Louvre while he breaks into a rather more boutique art gallery, where he's left the TARDIS.
Talk about the horse's mouth; The Doctor's off to see Da Vinci about all the Mona Lisas. But we're not fooled; K9's not in there.
Another lovely flourish from Dudley Simpson as we arrive in Renaissance Italy. Lovely bit of cello. Definitely one of his best scores this. Too many by this time are tired and generic but this is very memorable.
"You remember the Mona Lisa? That dreadful woman with no eyebrows who wouldn't sit still, eh?"
atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan Da Vinci was such a genius. Paintings. Helicopters. Maths. Boom mikes :) The Doctor is immediately at the sharp end of trouble when a soldier demands to know who he is and what he's doing there, particularly as no-one's allowed to see Leonardo whilst he's engaged on important work for Captain Tancredi.
"You. What are you doing here?" asks the Doctor, grimly.
"I think that is exactly the question I ought to be asking you... Doctor!"
One of, if not THE, best villain "Doctor!" cliffhanger utterances from Glover there.
PART THREE
13th October 1979
"Look at the size of that recap!"
"Yes, Jamie, that is a big one!"
Romana and her companion, Duggan, arrive at the Louvre to find the Mona Lisa's already gone walkies. Smashing.
The Professor regains consciousness to find Scarlioni, like his her upstairs, is out for the count.
Scarlioni seems to be talking in his sleep, asking the Doctor how he can possibly be in Paris in 1979...
...and also in Florence in 1505.
Unhelpfully, the Doctor is only willing to say that he "flits about in time", and chats some waffle about "just walking along minding my own business and pop! I'm on a different planet or even a different time. But enough of my problems. What are you doing here?"
"Well if you're the last , there can't be that many of them about to save..."
The name does ring a bell, though. The Jaggaroth were all supposed to have died in a massive war.
Scaroth is surprised the Doctor has heard of them; it was 400 million years ago. But of course, they weren't all wiped out: Scaroth survived, but was splintered through time.
Tancredi finally asks after the ruddy great Police Box lurking in the back. The Doctor tries to pass it off as just some of Leonardo's random tat.
He teases his deduction that the plan is to get Leo to knock up a bunch of Monas Lisa to flog after a nice theft in a few hundred years' time.
Scaroth decides the Doctor is a dangerously clever man, and that "the instruments of torture" need fetching so that the conversation can be conducted "more formally."
He instructs the soldier to cut out the Doctor's tongue if he wags it.
"How can I talk if he..."
"You can write, can't you?"
Wonderful delivery from Glover again.
The Doctor tries to get the Soldier on side. "You don't believe all that, do you? Jaggaroth spaceships?"
The guard says he'll believe anything - he used to work for the Borgias.
I see your point...
The guard has several time splinters himself, you know.
The Doctor decides on a different tactic and gently takes a Polaroid instant camera from his inordinate pockets.
Flash! Ah-ah!
The Doctor shakes it like a Polaroid camera...
...then gives the guard a comedy uppercut.
THIS BLOG IS A FAKE.
The Doctor hastily writes "this is a fake" on all the boards - in felt tip pen!
Then he leaves Leo a note in mirror writing telling him to just paint over the writing.
He's not quite quick enough, though, as "Tancredi" has returned with the thumbscrews.
Back in 1979, Scarlioni comes to.
Scarlioni is momentarily confused as to his whereabouts.
Brains picks a quarrel with Scaroth's face...
When Kerensky asks who the Jaggaroth are, Scarlioni tells him that he serves the Jaggaroth, but Kerensky can't get his head around all this. "It's the Jaggaroth who need all the chickens, is it?"
The Professor thought they were working to feed the world, but the Count's purpose has a more singular focus. The fate of the Jaggaroth is in their hands.
It doesn't matter to Scaroth whether the Professor serves him willingly or unwillingly.
Duggan is also picking quarrels, first with a door...
...then with a bottle.
"You know what I don't understand?"
"I expect so."
BURN.
The Count unveils plans for a new machine; one that reverses the effect the Professor has been working to achieve.
The Count points out that the effect they have achieved could quite easily go either way, which we know from the Doctor's earlier fiddling.
Kerensky protests that even if he was willing to do this, it would cost "millions and millions!"
Hermann's arrival is rather good timing, then: Thanks to 1505 Scaroth's coercion of Leonardo, and the theft from the Louvre, 1979 Scaroth has himself a nice little collector's item...
...and hence all the funds he'll need. The Professor's only choice, if you can call it that, is to get on with the work, or die.
Back in 1505, the Doctor cries out, as Scarlioni points out that they haven't even begun to turn the screws yet.
"I know, but his hands are cold."
"So sensitive. I think we're in for a little treat!"
The Doctor decides to come clean and admit he's a Time Lord.
"What do you mean, time's running out, it's only 1505!"
The Doctor's curious as to how Scaroth communicates across time with his splinters but is slapped down with a good old fashioned "I'm asking the questions!"
In 1979, the Countess crows at their new found wealth. When Scarlioni says the wealth is not the be all and end all, she thinks he's referring to the achievement.
But stealing the Mona Lisa doesn't even make Scaroth's top ten. "Can you imagine how a man might feel who has caused the pyramids to be built, the heavens to be mapped, invented the first wheel, shown the true use of fire, brought up a whole race from nothing to save his own race?"
The Countess is sceptical, but he goes on: all he asks is a single life, and through that, the life of his people...
His gloating is interrupted by Jaggaroth Facetime, as his other splinters seek to establish a psychic connection across time.
In 1505, Tancredi has a funny turn as the group try to add him.
The Doctor knows a chance to escape when he sees one.
With the soldier distracted by the Captain's distracted wailing, the Doctor switches the thumbscrews onto his sword while he dives into the TARDIS.
"Me, together in one. The Jagaroth live through me. Together we have pushed this puny race of humans, shaped their paltry destiny to meet our ends. Soon we shall be. The centuries that divide me shall be undone. The centuries that divide me shall be undone."
Watch out, it's the Morbius Scaroths. They don't really count, you know. Can't wait for the anniversary special The 12 Scaroths in 2029.
Tancredi continues to cry out as the Doctor makes his getaway.
With the group chat ended, 1979 Scaroth realizes that the Doctor can help him with his time experiments. "The Doctor has the secret. The Doctor, and the girl." Sounds like bad news for Romana.
The TARDIS has returned to the art gallery. I'm assuming both the randomiser and the Black Guardian were in the same union as the striking ITV workers in 1979.
"The centuries that divide me shall be undone. I don't like the sound of that!"
When Romana casually remarks that his coffee will get cold, Duggan wakes with a start, and a crash of crockery, naturally.
He laments his failure - he was hired to investigate anything odd going on in the art world, and the Mona Lisa has been stolen right under his nose!
Romana reasons out Scarlioni's plan, but isn't quite there yet, as she supposes Scarlioni has already travelled back in time in order to persuade Leonardo to rustle up the Monas Lisa.
Duggan: "I used to do divorce cases."
"Know anyone that might need that in the next few years?" No comment.
Having left a note for the Doctor, Romana and Duggan leg it back to the Chateau.
A little behind their curve, the Doctor is on his way to the Louvre.
That's Director Michael Hayes as the voice of the policeman that brings him up to speed on the theft. RIP.
Inside he asks the tour guide if she's seen Romana and Duggan, but she can only recommend he talks to the police.
"No time, I've got the human race to think about - the human race!"
"4 Pan Galactic Gargleblasters, please!"
"Sir, this is a coffee shop."
"Alright, then, 6!"
"Are you sure this bar tab is mine? Could've sworn I only had a few light ales, you know..."
He was halfway through the window, she was outside, that is a clock, and that is chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry dear boy!
"My dear, you there was no need for you to enter my house by, well, one can hardly call it stealth..." LOVE IT.
The Space Pirate @SpacePirateOz · Script, meet character. Character, meet actor. You're all going to get along famously!Steve Powner @StevePowner Can anyone join this conversation or do you need a certificate? Duggan is wonderful.Romana is invited to lower her hands. Duggan isn't.
Scarlioni cuts to the chase, telling Romana that the Doctor dobbed her in for her time travel expertise in 1505.
He's a very reasonable sort of villain. So polite.
"Well, can he? Destroy Paris?"
"With this lot? Yeah, piece of piss."
Of course, now he knows Romana can build time machines, Brains is surplus to requirements.
"No! Not that switch!" aaaand... cue the disco dance of death!
Dance, Brains, dance!
Great squeamish reactions from Lalla and Tom Chadbon as Romana and Duggan helplessly watch the Professor age to death.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H "That's how you do science-fiction dying, luvvie... Watch and learn...!" (Or maybe someone just cut his strings?)
Liam South@YourUltimateFoe This scene in the recent novelisation is absolutely terrifying.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H Interesting that in the book it's seen from the Kerensky PoV (though why he doesn't starve escapes me)-Also secondary character cliffhanger!Gone the way of the chicken, Brains ages to death...
The glorious comedy eye gesturing from Glover as he makes Romana watch the Prof die. "Eh? Eh? 'Owz about that, eh?"
PART FOUR
20th October 1979
20th October 1979
Duggan calls the Count inhuman, which Scarlioni takes as a great compliment.
Romana asks why she should care if he destroys Paris when she's from another world but caves immediately when the Count orders Hermann to kill Duggan. "Ah, so you do care. I think you've answered your own question. Not a very clever bluff."
Duggan is returned to the cell, to be kept as an insurance policy.
Scarlioni explains the accident that splintered him across time, to live twelve separate but connected lives.
He's not just looking to restore himself, though, he wants to go back in time and stop himself from pressing the button that caused the accident in the first place.
His twelve selves have pushed the human race to advance technologically to the point where his machine could be built by the late Professor Kerensky.
Now he just needs Romana to build him a field interface stabiliser so he can complete his plan.
Upstairs, the Doctor has arrived (at gunpoint) to see the Count.
Faced with her silence, the Doctor says he knew a taciturn boy that turned out alright, by the name of Shakespeare.
When he asks if she's ever read any, she slides up a panel in the wall to reveal a secret library, and pulls out a centuries old bound edition of his work; a folio.
This folio has the Doctor's fingerprints all over it, and in fact his handwriting - the bard had sprained his wrist writing sonnets!
"To be or not to be, that's the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and..." He'd told him that was a mixed metaphor but he would insist!
The Countess might think he's mad because he says he met Shakespeare, but he questions where she thinks the Count came by the Folio. "How much do you really know about him, eh? I think rather less than you imagine."
When Hermann arrives to inform the Count, he's already expecting the Doctor.
Scaroth's rubbish at assembling flat pack furniture so gets Romana to do it for him.
The Countess is only prepared to say that she's been married to the Count for "long enough." It seems the Doctor is starting to lose patience. "I like that. Discretion and charm. So civilised. So terribly unhelpful."
She objects to his contention that she's been wilfully blind.
"You see the Count as a master criminal, an art dealer, an insanely wealthy man, and you'd like to see yourself as his consort. But what's he doing in the cellar?"
The Doctor has trouble convincing the Countess that a one eyed alien could see through that mask. Although...
Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 "you mean he wasn't getting up to kinky 50 shades stuff in the dungeon with the professor all along, Doctor?"
verypete lambert@Prof_Quiteamess "An Alien? I simply assumed he was a flaming homosexual millionaire. They are my very favourite kind of husband." Hermann arrives to take the Doctor to the cellar, and although she tried to laugh it off, the Doctor's mentioned of a "a man with one eye and green skin" does ring a distant bell.
She returns to the vintage editions and pulls out a rolled-up scroll.
She unrolls the papyrus, and sure enough, there he is: Scaroth in ancient Egypt.
Lovely work on that parchment of hieroglyphs. Good show, props folk!
Ushered down at gunpoint the Doctor once again acts like he owns the place and asks what Romana is making for the count. "A model railway? Gallifreyan egg timer? I hope you're not making a time machine; I shall be very angry."
"Ah, there you are, Duggan. Are you behaving yourself?"
He tells the Count that if he's thinking of going back in time, he'd better forget it.
"And why do you say that?"
"Because I'm going to stop you."
So impactful when Tom suddenly gets quietly serious.
The Count begs to differ, telling him that "if you do not, it'll be so much the worse for you, for this young lady, and for thousands of other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person." One of my favourite lines that. So Adams.
Although the Doctor tries to convince the Count that that sort of blackmail won't work on him...
...it's all a bit academic, as Romana's work is complete.
Scarlioni tells Hermann to lock them in the cellar. He's off to say his goodbyes to the Countess, then they can wave him off from their cell.
Of course, while he's looking forward to reassembling the pieces of his mind, the Countess is preparing to give him a piece of hers.
He wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition.
"What have I been living with all these years?"
Scaroth voices the ugly truth at the heart of their marriage of convenience.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H A marriage of inconvenience..."It has not been difficult keeping secrets from you, my dear. A few fur coats, a few trinkets, a little nefarious excitement."
MAW Holmes@MAW_H handbags and glad rags.Scaroth no longer feels the need for his mask...
...or the Countess.
He uses a switch in his ring to activate a previously unsuspected function of the scanner bracelet, as its' energy source overloads, killing her.
"Goodbye, my dear. I'm sorry you had to die. But then, in a short while you will have ceased ever to have existed."
Romana is kicking herself now she knows it was the Jaggaroth she was helping.
The Doctor explains to Duggan that previously Scaroth could only move time backwards and forwards in the bubble, but couldn't get in.
When he tried to reverse it, it caused the time slips.
The Doctor explains his trick with the felt tip on the boards; the Count wouldn't have been able to sell his bricked up Mona Lisas.
They break out of the cell, courtesy of Duggan, only to be confronted by Scaroth on the verge of victory...
Isaac Dakin@IWhittakerDakin Need your wall knocking down? Just ask Duggan.Scaroth isn't too worried to see them, as he's got what he wanted.
He knows Romana's built in a limiter that will snap him back here after a few minutes, but that's all the time he needs to rewrite the time line anyway.
Scaroth scarpers...
...and the machine explodes behind him...
...meaning the Doctor, Romana & Duggan have to leg it for the TARDIS.
They'll have trouble getting across town in rush hour!
Luckily the art gallery isn't too far away, but they only have minutes to make it to the TARDIS.
It might be rush hour, but perhaps a taxi could save them a precious few minutes.
"Is no one interested in history!"
MAW Holmes@MAW_H Hands up any of us have shouted this at traffic...
In the art gallery two wannabe art critics (Eleanor Bron and John Cleese!) are very taken with a particular piece. Hang on, are they talking about the TARDIS?
"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."
"And since it has no call to be here, the art lies in the fact that it is here."
It soon isn't here, as the Doctor, Romana, and Duggan all pile into the TARDIS and it dematerializes.
For a moment they appear lost for words, then...
"Exquisite... absolutely exquisite."
Cleese's 'perfect' hand gesture is icing on the cake that often goes unmentioned here.
Art gallery cameo countdown 1. Tom in The Day of the Doctor; 2. Cleese 3. Nighy.
Back to the dawn of the human race...
They've arrived in what the Doctor says will be the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
How are they breathing?
The Doctor takes out a telescope, clocks the Jaggaroth ship and then points it out to Romana.
Jason McLaughlin@jangomac72 love how Ian Scoones ship design bares no resemblance to the one in the studio cos he liked to do his own thing.
The Doctor has a scrabble around in the sludge nearby and hands a dollop to Duggan.
"You see that amniotic fluid? That's you, that is."
Lol at him wiping his hands on his scarf.
They're soon confronted by the arrival of Scaroth, but the Doctor is determined to have one last try to talk him out of it.
Scaroth is determined to stop his earlier self pressing the button. "You've pressed it once. You've thrown the dice once. You don't get a second throw."
After seeing the primordial soup, the Doctor has realized just how important this is. "The explosion that you in there are about to trigger off will give birth to the human race - the moment your race kills itself, another is born!"
"What do I care about the human race? Scum!" Hard to disagree sometimes.
Still committed to changing history, Scaroth lunges forward, only to be met by Duggan's flying fist.
Duggan expects a telling off, but as Scaroth fades away to be returned to 1979, the Doctor tells him that it was the most important punch in history!
MAW Holmes@MAW_H Although obviously, kids, we would never condone resorting to violence in order to resolve your disagreements...
Of course, with history assured, that means the Jaggaroth ship's imminent fate is sealed, so having lit the blue touch paper it's time to retire to a safe distance.
The friends make it back to the TARDIS, and 1979.
History follows its familiar pattern...
...and the Jaggaroth ship explodes, just as it was always meant to.
Scaroth regains consciousness back in 1979.
Hermann wastes a good bottle of wine throwing it at Scaroth and despite Scaroth's best attempt at Venusian Aikido...
...the Chateau goes up in flames, killing Scaroth.
So it's fond farewells back where we started, atop the Eiffel Tower, where Duggan is still unsure as to the final fate of the Mona Lisa.
The one that's now sat in the Louvre is the only surviving copy - one of the duplicate copies! It may be 100% genuine Leonardo, but it has "THIS IS A FAKE" written underneath the paint in felt tip pen!
The Doctor's conscience is clear. "Serves them right. If they have to x-ray it to find out whether it's good or not, they might as well have painting by computer!"
As to where the Doctor and Romana come from, "I suppose the best way to find out where you've come from is to find out where you're going and then work backwards."
"Well, where are you going?"
"I don't know!"
And with that, they're off!
Still puzzled, Duggan wanders over to a souvenir kiosk.
There he buys himself a postcard of the Mona Lisa as a memento of his crazy Paris adventure.
MAW Holmes@MAW_H "ceci n'est pas un carte postale..."When he returns to the view, the Doctor and Romana are already below waving at him. Despite what we thought at the start of the story, surely the only way they could have got so far away so quickly is if they'd actually flown!
BYE BYE DUGGAN!
Thanks to the Doctor, Romana and Duggan saving history, we'll always have Paris!
Steve Powner @StevePowner #CityofDeath is just wonderful I never tire of watching it pure #drwho joy Bye Bye Duggan! 
This week on "Duggan Detects...", Duggan Detects Wagon Wheels!
Next week on "Duggan Detects...", Duggan Detects Squirrels!
Coming Soon... An Unearthly Child
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