I have seen the word Pantomime used so often to describe the Horns of Nimon, and so, if this story actually does feel like a pantomime, then it is certainly the most enjoyable pantomime I have ever set eyes on.
The Horns of Nimon does suffer from having a bad reputation for being little more than a load of light hearted twaddle. I find this notion actually, highly insulting to the whole production team who worked together to produce this story. As I find there is still so much to enjoy about this story, and for me it is nowhere near the bottom of the pile in terms of story quality.
In fact, as a whole, I find Season 17 comes in for a lot of punishment. It is said this is the season where Tom Baker was just let loose and not kept under a leash and his performances become more and more laughable as the season goes on. This too is absolutely untrue as Tom never fails to be the Doctor we always have loved in the role. True, there may be just a tad more humour than there has been for many a season, but this is no bad thing in my book. And the humour does not outweigh the darker and grimmer moments of the story that, believe it or not, do still crop up in abundance in this story.
If there is one totally over the top aspect to this story then it is definitely Graham Crowden as Soldeed. But Graham Crowden I feel has to be commended for his totally mesmerizingly awesome OTT display. His cry of “Lord Nimon, Lord Nimon, it is I...Soldeed!” is enough to make anyone peel out in waves of laughter. But his performance is so laughably hilarious that it is impossible not to delight in it. The story most certainly would not be the same without his hilarious turns. He makes for one of the most recognisable and brilliant baddies of the whole season actually.
Two other characters who are slammed and berated so often too are Seth and Teka. And again, I cannot truly see why this should be. Both Simon Gipps-Kent and Janet Ellis do what they are called to portray for the story. Two extremely naive and frightened people on their way to be sacrificed to the Nimon. Janet Ellis in particular is wonderfully naive, even to the point of idiocy. But the way she plays Teka is so adorably endearing that one cannot help but feel so much sympathy for their actually horrible predicament. The only shame is that the rest of the Anethans to be sacrifice remain silent and so have little value at all but to just be ever present and silent non entities. But this is really the only problem I can find with this story.
Another superb performer is Malcolm Terris as the Skonnon Co-Pilot. He is so sharp and nasty and callous to his Anethan captured sacrifices that you literally cannot wait for him to suffer an ignoble end. It is one shining goof of the era that his otherwise superbly over the top performance in his final scenes when reduced to a quivering wreck when facing the Nimon that Malcolm has to suffer the indignity of his trousers crotch splitting so he dies with a gaping hole in his trousers! But despite this hilarious goof the scene is still ludicrously amusing and his earlier harshness and severity is now totally eroded as soon as he faces his horned masters.
I for one actually really like the design of the Nimon too. The twin sharp pointed horns and squashed flat fronted face are actually very bull like and look good on screen. But their voices are really, really effective. There is a sibilant menace to their tone that makes you know that yes, these creatures are certainly a deadly threat indeed.
But amidst all the other OTT and outlandish performances, there is one wonderfully restrained and even touching performance. That of John Bailey's Sezom. He plays his character with such an intensity that he almost seems to stick out like a sore thumb. He is most assuredly the finest performer in the story and one feels very, very sorry for him when he gives his life to help Romana evade the Nimon. But I cannot be sure that this wonderful performance doesn't at least in some little way seem at odds with the rest of the “pantomime”. But on its own merits, it's a wonderful little performance just as memorable and touching as Timothy Bateson's performance as Binro in The Ribos Operation.
And this story is an excellent one for Lalla Ward's Romana. She is for once given the limelight over the Doctor and it's great to see a like-minded companion of the Doctor being shown to be completely to stand her own in a story against any belligerent foe. And her run-ins with both Soldeed and the Co-Pilot are some of the best scenes of the story.
But Tom Baker as the Doctor too gets to be his usual brilliant self. There are countless moments of his usual Doctorish-ness and alien-ness that permeate this whole adventure. He is never less than wholly entertaining as the bohemian Time Lord and a delight to see on screen in every single outing he ever had.
Anthony Read's script is actually clever and very engaging. True there are some notably zany performances, but that doesn't mean that the story isn't still immensely enjoyable. Because that is most certainly what the Horns of Nimon is. Nothing short of being the best pantomime broadcast that I've seen put to screen!
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