The Masque Of Mandragora is the 86th serial and the first of the 14th season. It first aired September 4 1976 and there were 4 episodes. They were written by Louis Marks and directed by Rodney Bennett. Marks had written a Doctor Who back in 1964 when he penned Planet of Giants. He wrote a 2nd serial in 1972 with Day Of The Daleks and his 3rd in 1975 with Planet Of Evil. He was picked for today's serial because he knew a lot about the Renaissance. He didn't write any more stories for the series after TMOM.
When the first episode opens we see the Doctor and Sarah Jane are walking about the Tardis. Lots of hallways and a gag or two. They come upon the back up control room, a much smaller space with wood paneled walls and a smaller control system. In the reality of the program producer Philip Hinchcliffe had wanted to downsize the sets to save space. One of the results was to a redesigned control room. It would be used for the rest of the season and the old one restored after that. The Doctor turns on the system in the back up room and they see a Helix in the view screen. They accidentally get into the Helix and a bit of it gets into the Tardis when they pop out into the void for a look round. They leave, the Tardis drops them off in 15th century Italy, the bit of Helix escapes. There's some court intrigue, and murder, going on and the Doc and SJ get right up in that.
The castle location shooting was done at the resort of Portmeirion in Wales. They mostly shot in the wooded areas. In the village the camera angles were very carefully selected so you can't see the more modern stuff. They disguised a lot of the location with props and small fake walls. Portmeirion is probably most famous for the Patrick McGoohan show The Prisoner. I hadn't ever hear that Doctor Who was shot there and I didn't know that Siouxsie & The Banshees used the location for their video, The Passenger. It's not that good a version of the song and as a video it's a bit uninspired. For a better version of the song you'd want to listen to the Iggy Pop version. Producer Philip Hinchcliffe hadn't known that The Prisoner had been shot there until he was talking to the people at the resort. He had been a guide for American tourists when he was college age and Portmeirion was one of the stops.
Those columns are fake and not part of Portmeirion. The owner wanted the production to leave them, at least until he found out they would just fall over in a slight breeze. The Doc and Sarah Jane dash about getting up in everyone's grill. They find a bad cult that had been taken over by the escaped Helix. That needs setting to right. There's the usual getting caught and escaping. The court stuff is pretty old hat but it's a nice change from the endless alien invasions. The effects are fairly good and the studio sets look pretty good. The villains are fairly evil and they get crushed like bugs so that something. All in all a bit of fun.
I enjoyed the commentary by Tom Baker, actor Gareth Armstrong, Producer Philip Hinchcliffe and Production Unit Manager Chris D’Oyly-John. Poor Tom is showing his age, he complains about his eye sight going and his forgetfulness. There are the usual gang of featurettes: The Secret Of The Labyrinth talks about the serial with several of the cast and crew. There's a short on the Tardis called Bigger On The Inside. The Now And Then short has a nice visit to modern day Portmeiron. Beneath The Masque is short fluffy bit on the serial. I could use less of those types of shorts and would like ones packed with more info about the show. There's Trailers, Radio Times Billings, Production Subtitles and a Photo Gallery.
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