6. "What Do You Mean Time's Running Out? It's Only 1505!" (City Of Death)
While Tom worked well under producer Philip Hinchcliffe for his first few seasons, he was less happy with his successor Graham Williams and fan consensus holds that his rapidly expanding ego lead to a lazier performance style in the later years. This is true to an extent, but only in those stories that are clearly beneath Toms talents (The Power of Kroll, anyone?). When he was given a tight script with an ingenious premise, like Douglas Adams City of Death, he could still work wonders. Its hard to pin down just one great moment in this serial because its obvious that the Paris location shoot - and his burgeoning romance with co-star Lalla Ward - brought out the best in him. What a wonderful butler - hes so violent! is one of them, as his sprint through Paris. Is no one interested in history? For a concentrated burst of Fourth Doctor goodness, though, the torture scenes are brilliant. With the villainous Count Scarlioni briefly absent, he tries to pal up to the torturer - only to discover that the man works for the Borgias (Toms double take is priceless). The next scene sees him yelp in pain as thumbscrews are applied because he cant stand a torturer with cold hands". The dialogue is perfect because its been written to take advantage of Toms natural verbosity, surrealism and flip attitude, which rather makes the case that his extended reign as the Time Lord was more of a pro than a con.
I am Scotland's 278,000th best export and a self-proclaimed expert on all things Bond-related. When I'm not expounding on the delights of A View to a Kill, I might be found under a pile of Dr Who DVDs, or reading all the answers in Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. I also prefer to play Playstation games from the years 1997-1999. These are the things I like.
