Rate and Discuss: Paradise Towers

[SiHart]

Mel fancies a trip to the wonderful Paradise Towers, but doesn't find Paradise. Instead there are cannibalistic old ladies, Kangs, Carteakers and Cleaners on the loose...

What are your thoughts on Paradise Towers?

Si xx

[Llordllama]

I really liked it (despite it being a bit of a rip off of Paranoia RPG). Even the Candyman didn't put me off it. I'm trying to work out why, was it the panto feel coupled with the dark background? Was it the cold medication I was taking when I first watched it? Who knows. But quite enjoyable indeed - best of the season by far!

[duncan]

The Candyman wasn't in Paradise Towers. He's in the Happiness patrol the following season.

I don't need to repeat what I said about Time and the Rani. I'll just say that this has to be, for me, THE worst of all classic Who. If I could give it a zero, I would. I really do not like the characters, the production or the really poor acting of nearly all concerned.

[SiHart]

Paradise Towers isn't perfect- a long way off, but it should have been. This is one story that would have benefitted from the Tone Meetings the new series has. As it stands no-one quite knows how to play it, so the production pulls in too many ways and it doesn't quite work.

So you've got a quite brilliant script, full of clever wordplay and invention, with a streak of black humour running through it and a whole lot of menace. But the lightning director doesn't quite get that and everything is a little too bright (though there are some good shots early on of the corridors in the dark)... the set designer obviously gets what's going on and makes lots of distinctions, but then they're saddled with a cold and uninviting pool, that should have looked amazing. The costume designer goes for camp over functionality and so no-one can take the actors seriously... and the actors can't be taken seriously because they're hamming it up because it's Doctor Who and it doesn't matter, it's all just a bit of a laugh... add on some miscasting (the Kangs should have been younger, Pex should have been more musclebound hunk) and you've got a bit of a mess.

It's shame because it should be great. It shoudl stand as one of the most inventive and brilliant Doctor Who stories ever. Richard Briers can play manacing really well (ever seen that Morse episode with him in, he's deliciously unlikeable in that) and he should have been given more guidance, reigned in and they never should have alowed his Kroagnon in pt 4 to get to the screen in the way it did.

There's some wonderful bits- the Doctor baffling the Caretakers with the rulebook ploy, the Cleaners with the trucks with legs sticking out the back, Tabby and Tilda turning menacing at the end of pt 2 (great cliffhanger that), the moments where the Kangs honour those made unalive... I just wish it was the version I can see peeking through. The version with so much potential...

Si xx

[Llordllama]

Oh good lord, have I misremembered this whole episode...

[SiHart]

I think you have Gaz!

Si xx

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Struggled a bit to come up with a rating for this one. For me season 24 is split into two bits. The bit where it started to become imaginitive and engaging and actually really quite good, and Time and the Rani. Maybe this is to with Andrew Cartmel actually having a bit of say in the scripts after that, maybe it's a coincidence, I don't know.

When I watched the series thtough in order a couple of years ago, I remember how much a breath of fresh air this was. Just the central idea of the villain being a crazy architecht who wanted to kill people who lived in his creations to retain their purity... well maybe it's not THAT imaginitive, but it's probably the most imaginitive idea to be in the series since Colin Baker took over the role. After seemingly endless stories of rebels and revolutionaries running around in corridors with guns, and Pip and Jane totally ruining everything, this really was great. And it gets followed up with shape changing aliens crashing to earth in a bus to a 50s soundtrack etc. It really is very refreshing.

However, am I scoring it as compared to the past few seasons, or as compared to all other Doctor Who? And also, despite the idea being really refreshing, it's pretty shodilly acted and directed, and the music is rubbish. And Mel's in it.

I ended up going for a 7, but that's probably how it feels after slogging through Saward's turgid period. It might be more a 5 or a 6 really.

[Andrew Curnow]

Si's absolutely right, when he says it could, should, be so much better.

But that aside, I still love Paradise Towers far more than is good for me, and despite all its many faults. Despite everything, it is fresh and new and exciting, no continuity, no reference to any other stories, just 'an adventure in time and space'.

For one thing, the set design is really very impressive and certainly makes the Towers look tremendously real. The 'on location' pool doesn't work, alas, but the studio bits are great, really 'solid looking'.

Great imagination on display - the 'futuristic' speak, the funeral ceremony, the whole notion of a tower block at war within itself - and some great sequences. Also some very quotable lines, and I still quite often say "Bin liner" in that particular way...

But above all, McCoy is just superb, whether he's "Mayhap"-ing with the Kangs, or greeting them with a "How you do", or interrogating the Chief Caretaker, or fooling the guards... He seems, to me, as effortlessly in charge of the role in only his second story, as Tom was back in Ark in Space.

And anybody who gives this a bad vote? Well, there's an appendix 3 subsection 9 death waiting for you...

[Stuart Wallis]

I agree with points raised by Si and Andrew. Sylvester was excellent - stole the show. A mixture of this and his portrayal in Remembrance was how he should have done it. As far as the story as a whole goes, it's lots of potentially good ideas let down by bad execution.

[Larry]

haven't voted - simply because I've only seen it the once and that was 20 years ago on it's original broadcast.

[SiHart]

But above all, McCoy is just superb, whether he's "Mayhap"-ing with the Kangs, or greeting them with a "How you do", or interrogating the Chief Caretaker, or fooling the guards... He seems, to me, as effortlessly in charge of the role in only his second story, as Tom was back in Ark in Space.

You know what Andrew, you're right. After the tentatviveness of Time and the Rani, McCoy is really good in this. He gives one of his best performances I think.

Si xx

[MacNimon]

Sylvester was excellent - stole the show. A mixture of this and his portrayal in Remembrance was how he should have done it. As far as the story as a whole goes, it's lots of potentially good ideas let down by bad execution.

Again, sorry but I simply can't agree with this comment. I felt that Sylvester was pretty awful, and again he wasn't helped in the slightest by Bonnie. Fair play to them for trying something a bit different, and in another era this may have been pulled off more successfully. But like TATR, this was a part of a period where the series badly needed quality and consistency, and neither of these 2 stories delivered (for me) on either of these counts. In fact, at the time, this story actually made me make a conscious decision not to watch any more of this particular season for the first time ever. I had missed episodes before, but until this point had never made a conscious decision to stop watching the series.

A slight improvement this time for trying something different, let down big time by an awful cast (Richard Briers being the exception) and amateurish production.

2/10

[Stuart Wallis]

Hmm... I'd have to disagree with you on Richard; it appeared as though he was taking it seriously at the time, which was apparently confirmed by a radio interview I heard some years later where the interviewer mentioned the story, and he just laughed and they changed the subject. Otherwise, I'd agree with you, the cast were generally at best childishly am-dram.

[Rob McCow]

Not all of the cast are am-dram; you could hardy accuse Clive Merrison of being below par! Though you might be able to level that complaint against Richard Briers, I think his portrayal of the Chief Caretaker is rather fun.

The Kangs on the other hand are straight out of drama school. The way they speak sounds totally unnatural, but again it fits the story in an odd kind of way.

The whole story has a claustrophobic, heightened-reality feel to it that could only have existed on the BBC in 1987. The only break-out from this feel are the scenes in the swimming pool that totally fail to match the rest of the production. Plus it's not very luxurious, in fact it's horrible! They should have gone to a proper big swimming pool, like Centre Parcs or something. That would have looked great if it was all deserted.

[SiHart]

Richard Briers was a bit Ham-dram...

Si xx

[Stuart Wallis]

Not all of the cast are am-dram; you could hardy accuse Clive Merrison of being below par!

On reflection, I might just agree with you there.

[Terry Leptil]

It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen Paradise Towers but when I saw it I liked it. It’s fun even though it feels as though it was written for Colin Baker. It’s my favourite story of the season. (I have a friend who says Paradise Towers is his favourite Sylvester McCoy adventure.) 9/10