Nightmare of Eden

"Nightmare of Eden" is far from perfect as a Doctor Who story. The sets are dreadful, the acting is something else and it has that same feeling of Doctor Who going about its business in its sleep that the rest of Season 17 suffers from. As we all know, this can be fun, but it does lead to an unfortunate lack of dramatic urgency. However, what sets Bob Baker's script apart from its fellows is that he seems willing to embrace this in the story itself; underneath its unusually heavy drug dealing theme are a number of issues concerned with just why the Doctor does what he does.

The series had become lost in its own reason for being by this point. The Doctor and his companion turned up on a planet, sought out a crisis, and solved it with a dazzling speed and wit. It's what Doctor Who was about, so it's what they did. Therefore in "Nightmare of Eden" the Doctor and Romana stride out the TARDIS in search of the inevitable problem that will await them, without so much as a mayday call or a broken-down TARDIS to contrive their stay. Like Sapphire and Steel on a mission, or Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day", they know what they have to do so they promptly set about doing it.

This actually works rather well when it comes to the Doctor having to explain away the reason for his presence to Rigg. After a stunningly witty exchange on the subject of the Doctor supposedly working for a defunct Galactic Salvage and Insurance ("I wondered why I hadn't been paid"), he effectively tells the Captain he can't be bothered making up any more stories and then asks, in response to Rigg's question on whether or not he can trust him, "yes, but who's helping who?". It's an important point that most stories overlook. In almost every situation the Doctor winds himself up in, it's the planet that stands to gain the most from the Doctor's presence, something which passes over the heads of the legions of people who want to lock him up for being a spy. Here he actually uses this as a valid reason for being given the benefit of the doubt.

Shortly afterwards, he strides away with a jaunty "I don't work for anybody - I'm just having fun!". It's the most blatant indication of both the series self-awareness and the Doctors nonchalance about his adventures. He does this in his sleep, and he's become so good at it that he's really very unlikely to fail. But at the same time, there's a comforting and slightly post-modern thrill to be had in knowing that the Doctor is there because he wants to be. This hero isn't bailing Earth out because he can't get away, or sorting out an interplanetary war just so he can get his TARDIS back. He's doing it because it's his vocation ("I save planets, mostly" was his self-appointed job description in "The Pirate Planet" a year earlier) and because he likes doing it. The line about having fun sums up the series greatest strengths and weaknesses at this point in its lifetime, all at once.

There are still serious things the Doctor stands against though, even if he is here mainly for the ride. There's a nice line about bureaucrats being "worse than murderers... they just wrap you round and round in red tape until you can't move" and his disgusted shunning of Tryst's justification for the drug trafficking near the end is justly lauded. But "Nightmare of Eden" is mostly subtly "about" being the Doctor. Sorting out the problem is achieved with a jaunty 'hands behind the back' indifference, professionalism almost bordering on smugness ("Romana! I want you to rebuild this machine in two minutes thirty seconds!"). Of course if you go on doing something so well for so long you will inevitably get bored soon enough, and the end wasn't far away for this Doctor. But for a while, saving the Universe was all in an enjoyable days work.