Monday, 3 February 2020

Who Reviews Dragonfire by Matt Rabjohns




“Do you feel like arguing with a can of deodorant that registers nine on the Richter’s scale?!!”

Now let’s get the infamous out of the way at the beginning with this story. One cannot help but be baffled by the cliffhanger to part one. The Seventh Doctor for no readily apparent reason choosing to hang from his umbrella from a high perilous frosty slope is an image that one most certainly remembers well from this story. It’s just totally weird and inexplicable and for this reason does strikingly mar what is otherwise a solid and entertaining story. It must go down as the worst cliffhanger of the classic era, because there is absolutely no reason given in the script as to why the Doctor does this. Is it indicative of the chaos happening behind the scenes? Maybe. But one wonders how a flaw as big as this can be allowed to be placed in the story so bizarrely. Perhaps the only good thing about this scene is the absolutely incredible amount of facial expressions we get from Sylvester as his hands slide down the umbrella to its tip! Right that’s the major quibble out of the way, now let’s get back to the good points of the story.

Sophie Aldred gets her memorable debut as Ace McShane. And what an indelible and immediate impression she makes. Her verbal slanging matches with Sabalom Glitz throughout the story are a treasure and comedic delight. Male chauvinist bilgebag being the prime example of her wonderful language. Grade A hundred Percent Div is high up on the scale too. But despite her nitro nine cans and her sometimes loud mouth, we do get the glimpses of her true, insecure and unsure self. Sophie showcases just how fine an actress she is in that she is a young teenager in Ace, but yeah, she has a massive heart in there. Its clear from her debut scene that here is the next companion! And what a brilliant companion she turned out to be.

It is also a delight to see Tony Selby return as intergalactic Del Boy Sabalom Glitz. For once the production office saw some good potential in an awesome character and brought him back again, and he’s just as good the second time round. Perhaps it’s a bit of a shame that he isn’t assisted by Dibber this time, but I suppose one cannot have everything ever! But Tony is a brilliant actor and gives a brilliant performance and totally makes Glitz his own. Honestly, I think there is severe potential in the character and I can’t believe Big Finish have never thought of a spin off with Glitz and Dibber. That would be such a laugh.

Edward Peel is delightfully nasty and vicious as the unhinged Kane. He gives his character such a zeal and vein of cold evil and he is nothing less than a constant delight to watch on screen. And Kane’s melting faced ending is a superbly achieved effect for the makeup team. It’s very very unpleasant and striking for all the right reasons.

Patricia Quinn as Belasz is one of my favourite characters of the McCoy era. Patricia is such a fine actress, and she gives all she has in giving the best performance as the unsatisfied Belasz. One is almost saddened to see her so easily defeated and killed by Kane. But her character drives the show for two episodes. Her scenes with Tony Osoba’s Kracauer are nicely performed and never less than totally convincing.

Shirin Taylor must be given a mention too. Her affronted customer display with Ace is brilliant and a wonderfully comic moment in the story. But even more charming is the delightful Miranda Borman as Stellar. She is hands down my favourite character in this story. She doesn’t feel like a tacked-on character even though she isn’t integral to the main plot thrust of the story. But in her sparkly little blue dress and her totally innocent voice she is wonderful to watch.

The design of the Dragon itself is a triumph. I can’t help but think that this wonderful Dragon Jailer design was used as the basis for the aliens in Independence Day, as they don’t half bear a very close resemblance to it. Some superb design work was displayed during the McCoy era and that’s no lie. Mind you it’s pretty obvious in this story that the snow is just little blobs of polystyrene, sadly no attempt is made to mask its distinctive sound so it rather mars the effect somewhat. But one can’t expect £1,000,000,000 stuff from a tightly budgeted TV show.

Some of the directorial decisions in this story too seem a bit skew-wiff at times too. Such as when Mel and Ace are trying to escape from Glitz’s frosty crew and come to the stairs, we’re meant to believe that Mel trips onto the stairs and is stunned but it looks more like Bonnie Langford sits on the stairs and just moans from where I’m watching. Then there is the scene of the not even a drip of coffee that Ace hands to Mel which is cringingly poorly done.

Dragonfire is often derided and jeered at and I’ve often seen it stated as one of the worst stories from the whole history of the show. I am not sure it’s quite as bad as all that, but this is certainly, at least from my viewpoint, the weakest story of the McCoy era. But it does have a lot to recommend in it as I have already stated. This story could still stand head and shoulders over a sizeable chunk of the modern era of the show. At least aside from the aforementioned dumbfounded cliffhanger to part one, and a few iffy directorial slants, there is a whole lot of good on show.

The goodbye to Mel as a companion seems just a little too rushed and easy too for my liking. Although there is some nice dialogue given to the Doctor in this scene. And his grin towards Ace as she joins him on his travels is wonderful and just bodes well for the future. Dragonfire has a few faults along the way, but it’s not an out and out disaster of a story. It’s never going to be an out and out classic, but as an introduction for Ace things could have been a lot lot worse.

Ace would still go on to become one of the most fondly remembered companions of the classic era, so it is only fair that Dragonfire gets a mention. After all, it is her debut story. The first of many more to come.



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