Dragonfire is the 148th serial and it's the last story of the 24th season. It first aired November 23 (the 24th anniversary) and ran through December 7 1987. Sylvester McCoy is the 7th Doctor and Bonnie Langford is Mel. It would be the last appearance for Mel and the first appearance of Ace. Sophie Aldred plays Ace, I found her annoying but other's seem to like her. The script was written by Ian Briggs and it was directed by Chris Clough. John Nathan-Turner is still the producer and Andrew Cartmel is the script editor.
The Tardis stops on the icy world of Svartos where the evil Kane rules with his frozen hand of death. Kane is a being who is so cold that his touch will kill you. The Doctor and Mel meet up with Sabalom Glitz who had been in a couple of previous stories. Glitz has tried to sell Kane some rotten produce and he owes Kane money for it. Glitz's ship has been impounded by Kane's minions and later Kane blows it up.
Kane secretly feeds Glitz a map that points to treasure in lower caverns of the planet. The map has a transmitter so Kane can keep an eye on Glitz. The treasure is really a power source that's hidden in a creature who's design looks like it was ripped off of the alien in Alien. They mention that the creatures design was intentional in the commentary. That's him below. There's a lot of ice corridors for everyone to run about on. The creature is somehow Kane's jailer but he turns out easy to kill by a couple of Kane's minions. There are a few puzzling script choices but that's not something to uncommon on this show.
Glitz and the Doctor head into the caverns and hunt out the Dragonfire. Mel and Ace hang out together. Kane and his minions have their bit of business going on. Patricia Quinn, who played Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, plays one of Kane's officers. She's tired of being under Kane's thumb and wants Glitz's ship to escape. She doesn't get her wish, dying from the icy cold hand of death at the end of Kane's arm.
Kane reveals that the city is a spaceship and once he's no longer in control Glitz takes it in replacement for his destroyed ship. Mel decides to go with him and the Doctor offers Ace a ride home. There were a few complaints about an effect in the show. When Kane kills himself by opening the window to the sun his face is melted by the heat. It's very much like the scene at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark when the German Officer Toht gets melted. They actually tried to get Ronald Lacey, the same actor who played Toht but he was working on something else. They got Edward Peel and he's pretty good as the evil Kane. Over all it was an ok story but I'm mostly finding the pair of companions to be annoying. I'm not sure how much Ace will grow on me. Time will tell.
There's a commentary, moderated by Mark Ayres, with Sophie Aldred, Edward Peel, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, composer Dominic Glynn and Chris Clough. There's a making of, some deleted scenes, an interview with Josie Long, Joe Lidster and Simon Guerrier who chat about the story, a bit by current effects supervisor Danny Hargreaves looks back at the changes in special effects over the years, a photo gallery, isolated score, info track, a coming soon trailer for Death To The Daleks and the Radio Times listing.
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