6 episodes: The Cannibal Flower, The Mockery of a Man, A Light on the Dead Planet, Tabon of Luxor, An Infinity of Surprises, The Flower Blooms. Approx. 196 minutes. Written by: Anthony Coburn. Adapted for audio by Nigel Robinson. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Joe Kloska.
THE PLOT
A mysterious signal draws the TARDIS to a seemingly dead world, a cratered planet with only one distinctive feature: an incredibly tall, crystalline building. The ship is pulled into the building's courtyard, where its power immediately begins to drain away. With escape impossible, the travelers are left with only one option: exploration.
They discover an army of robots inside the structure: The simplistic "Mark One" servitors, and the more complex "Derivitron" robots. The Derivitrons greet them as "Masters of Luxor," and see that they are given food, baths, and fresh clothing. Then they are taken before "The Perfect One" (Joseph Kloska), the leader of the robots - who is himself a robot, though one with a nearly perfectly human appearance.
The Perfect One's ambition is to become fully human. To that end, he experiments on any living subject who finds his way to the structure, originally built as a prison for criminals on the planet Luxor. All of these prisoners have been male, leaving him intrigued by the possibilities posed by Barbara and Susan: Women, who give life. He decides they will be the key to giving him true life... by draining their life force completely!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Initially dismisses Ian and Barbara's suspicions of the robots as primitive and unenlightened. He insists that there is no reasonable grounds to suspect any malice at work. That attitude fades fast when the robots begin evading direct questions, but he is still shocked and outraged when he discovers that they have actually destroyed living beings. As a scientist, he sees the work done by the masters of Luxor as a perversion: "They have become drunk with their science," he proclaims scornfully. When he and Ian discover Tabon (also played by Joseph Kloska), the man who indirectly created The Perfect One, the Doctor pushes him to action. He first calls the scientist on his past cowardice, then dangles the carrot in front of him that if The Perfect One was based on him, then some of Tabon's own traits can be exploited to defeat it.
Ian: When Susan marvels at his apparent fearlessness early in the story, Ian confesses that he is actually very frightened - He just keeps control over himself. He briefly loses that control when he and the Doctor encounter the hibernating Tabon. Despite the Doctor's call for restraint, Ian refuses to wait for the scientist to wake on his own and begins shaking, then slapping the man, fearful that any delay will be the difference between rescuing Barbara and Susan and arriving too late to help them.
Barbara: The early parts of the story see a slightly "off" characterization. Barbara talks about how the structure "feels" wrong - Something that would actually seem more suitable coming from Susan. That, and a few other bits (talking about Luxor's "evil society," for instance) can likely be put down to this being a very early script, with the characters not really fully set yet. The latter half of the story sees her much more in character, protective of Susan and pushing their attempts to find and exploit weaknesses in the robots.
Susan: Much more active here than in most 1960's scripts. In a rare switch in the division of regulars, she goes to explore with Ian at the start of the story while Barbara stays behind to help the Doctor try to repair the TARDIS. Susan gets to be observant and useful, noticing the cameras watching her and Barbara inside their cell. She also briefly transforms into Emma Peel in Episode Six, wriggling free of her bonds and tripping up robots to free Ian in an action scene that I couldn't make myself picture as being remotely convincing. Still, I suspect Ford would have been very pleased at having such an active script had this been produced at the time - It's a far cry from Susan catching "plot convenience" fever in order to get recaptured in The Reign of Terror.
THOUGHTS
The Masters of Luxor was originally intended to be the series' second story. Story editor David Whitaker had issues with the script which could not be resolved in time for that early production block, so it was pushed back and another set of finished scripts were moved into place. Those were Terry Nation's scripts for The Daleks, and the rest was history.
Rewrites continued on The Masters of Luxor, which grew from its initial four episodes to the six presented in this audio. But Whitaker continued to feel that the script had problems, and the story kept getting pushed back until it was finally dropped altogether. I actually think it was the correct decision. While there are several good elements in this story, and I did largely enjoy listening to it, I don't believe it would have been terribly well-regarded had it been produced for the television series.
It does get off to an excellent start. The first episode is particularly good. It's an episode which features only the regulars, allowing us to follow them into this foreboding environment. I always enjoyed these types of first episodes. The Daleks, The Space Museum, The Mind Robber, The Ark in Space... Some of these stories ended up being very good, others not so much - but in every case, that first episode with the regulars exploring and confounded by a strange environment proved to be atmospheric and highly effective, and that proves to be the case even in audio form here.
The capture/escape/recapture formula becomes repetitive as the story moves along, but the strength of the production brings the structure to life, maintaining a genuinely unsettling atmosphere. Then the Doctor and Ian escape from the structure and meet Tabon... and that's when the momentum begins to stall. With the focus shifted away from the robots and the machine-laden trap of the building, the atmosphere subsides noticeably, and continues doing so right up to the end - an ending which isn't nearly strong enough to pull together all the various threads of the preceding five episodes.
What really stands out about this serial are the elements it has in common with The Daleks, the story that ended up replacing it. Both are long stories, one a six-parter and one a seven-parter. Both feature futuristic structures, and both take the first episode to follow the regulars around these structures before filling htem with guest characters. Both stories even feature a midpoint escape, with the escaped regulars sneaking back into the structure through a tunnel in the last part of the story.
The Daleks, however, made better use of almost all of the above. The Dalek/Thal conflict made for a more compelling backdrop than the Tabon/Perfect One angst; The Perfect One isn't even aware that Tabon is alive, so there is no pre-existing conflict before the Doctor and his party arrive, whereas the Daleks and Thals had been at war for generations when we met them in The Daleks. The mid-story split between the "capture/escape" strand and the expedition strand kept The Daleks fresh throughout its run, whereas here the story seems to stall around Episode Three.
Big Finish continues to show a strong feel for the Hartnell era, and the production evokes the early black-and-white days of Doctor Who wonderfully. Toby Hrycek-Robinson's score could be right out of the early 1960's, being both effective in supporting the drama and just right for what would have been heard in the series at that time. William Russell and Carole Ann Ford do a splendid job as always, and this story really showcases how well Ford does both at recreating Susan and at bringing Barbara to life. The scenes in Episode Five, in which Barbara and Susan confuse the robots by reciting nonsense and singing hymns, are edited so that Ford's Susan voice is layered on top of her Barbara voice, their lines overlapping, and these scenes truly feel like there are two different actresses in the room: Credit to both the editing and to Ford's ability to both lower and soften her voice for Barbara's line deliveries.
An excellent production of a flawed but interesting script. Had this been a television serial, I would probably award it about a "5." Given the strength of the audio presentation, however, I'm going to bump it up just a little to a solid:
Overall Rating: 6/10.
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