Castrovalva is the first serial of the 19th season and it first aired January 4 to 12 1982. It's the 117th serial and the first full appearance of the new Doctor. Peter Davison starts his three year cycle on the show. He's got three pals in the Tardis, Matthew Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka. Janet is an Australian who producer John Nathan-Turner thought would help get a larger Aussie audience. Christopher H Bidmead had quit as script editor but he did provide the script for this serial. The new script editor would be Eric Saward for the first part of the season followed by Antony Root. The show moved a twice-weekly schedule on Monday and Tuesday. This serial was the fourth Peter Davison did but it aired first. It was directed by Fiona Cumming.
The story picks up from where it left off the last season. The Doctor falls off the radio telescope tower and is so damaged he has to regenerate. The security men show up, grab everyone, and load the Doctor into an ambulance. Tegan steals it with Nyssa in the passenger seat. They get the Doc into the Tardis but poor Adric is still in the hands of the security men. The Master shows up, blasts the security men and leaves. Tegan and Nyssa grab the stunned Adric and the 3 companions take off in the Doctor's Tardis. The Doctor has some trouble with the regeneration.
We get to see a lot of the Tardis and learn more about it's working. There's a zero room that seems just the thing for the Doc's recuperation. Adric gets trapped by The Master who sets the Tardis to travel back in time to the Big Bang. There's some blather and smoke before the gals get the Doctor to help. He figures out that they can save power by jettisoning some mass. Sadly the zero room was part of that mass. The computer files tell them that they should take the Doctor to Castrovalva where he can recover.
They arrive on the planet and get separated, the Doc is picked up by the city guards while the gals get into the city by climbing up a hill. They get some help from the elderly Portreeve. There are some nice sets and costumes. Not so nice is that Castrovalva is really a construct that the Master controls. No one likes being tricked by a bully and the Doctor, now feeling better, soon kicks the Master's ass. Adric is rescued and the new Tardis gang leave for their next adventure.
I enjoyed this more than I had enjoyed the last of the Tom Baker episodes. Peter Davison does an ok job as the new Doctor. At the least, he brings some new energy to the production. The story was good enough and it moved along fairly well. The commentary has Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Christopher H Bidmead and Fiona Cummings. They have a nice time and tell a few stories. I was amused. The extras lead off with a Peter Davison appearance on Swap Shop with Noel Edmunds and a visit to the Blue Peter show. There a short interview with Fiona Cummings on directing the serial, one with Peter Davison on his becoming the new Doctor and another on the large number of companions. The first series started with 4 companions but by the time Tom Baker took over it was down to 1 most of the time. There's some deleted scenes, some continuities and trailers, info text, theme music video, photo gallery, Radio Times Listings and the 1982 Doctor Who Annual. The easter egg is a Doctor Who float in a parade.
There's a bit of an MC Escher connection in this serial. I had an interest in Escher many years ago. I had a couple of books on him back in the 1970's but got rid of them in one purge or another. I haven't really looked at his drawings in a long time. Occasionally you see his work in the world, while you're out and about. Here's a bit from the Wikipedia about connection between the show and the artist:
Castrovalva is the name of an early lithograph by the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, and the design of the city in this serial reflects the impossible nature of many of Escher's later works. The story centres on the mathematical principle of recursion, a concept portrayed in much of Escher's artwork. Escher's lithograph depicts a town in Italy atop a steep slope, a setting similar to that of The Curse of Peladon, but there is nothing in the print itself to suggest the paradoxes of this story.
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