Classic Doctor Who - Season 24 - Paradise Towers (1987) - Review

Starring: Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford, Richard Briers & Howard Cooke

Written By: Stephen Wyatt

Directed By: Nicholas Mallett

Recently I saw someone point out that it's kind of remarkable how many times something's supposedly killed 'Doctor Who' or how it's seemingly always sunk to some kind of new low. It seems that at any one point, almost every story is the new worst, or 'X' has killed 'Doctor Who'! Heck, go on YouTube and make those sorts of claims about the Jodie Whittaker era and you'll probably accumulate quite the sizeable audience. Everyone has periods of 'Doctor Who' that they're not as fond of, and for me Season 24 is the show at its weakest. I realize I'm hardly being very original in saying that, but it is genuinely how I feel. Amid the tripe and pantomime antics of this run however, 'Paradise Towers' is the one story that while far from good, I do have a soft spot for. So allow me to offer up a lukewarm defence... 

The Doctor and Mel land at Paradise Towers, a once luxurious apartment complex now fallen into a state of disrepair. The two find a power struggle at play within the building, between the authoritative rule-worshipping Caretakers, and rival gangs of youths who call themselves Kangs. Amidst the conflicts between these various groups, the corridors are stalked by robotic cleaning machines: automatons being put to a much more sadistic use. With people being picked off by the cleaners, and the Chief Caretaker in collusion with some kind of mysterious entity inhabiting the basement, it falls to the Doctor to break a cycle of death.

I'd love to put myself in the mindset of someone in 1987, who'd never really watched 'Doctor Who' before and who turned on to BBC 1 to be greeted by an episode of 'Paradise Towers'. God it must've been surreal. Even by the standards of this ridiculous show, 'Paradise Towers' is a lot. There's no disguising the fact that it's silly and OTT to the extreme, whether it's Bonnie Langford going full Bonnie Langford, Richard Briers dressed like a cosplay Hitler, big cumbersome robots trundling down the corridors, or a bright yellow robot crab in a swimming pool... there's no end to the madness. Plenty of people will watch this and deem it a write-off in a way that I can completely sympathize with. When I said I wanted to offer up a defence of it, I should clarify that I don't think it's some unsung masterpiece, far from it. But I do think that if you're able to approach it with the right mindset, you can have a lot of fun with 'Paradise Towers'. I'll happily admit that it's one of the most entertaining 'Doctor Who' stories I've ever watched. For all its mistakes, there are few stories that make me laugh quite as much as this one.

Buried underneath all of its surface level failings, I can see the glimmers of what writer Stephen Wyatt might've been aiming for. It's been said before that High Rise, a novel which features residents of a tower block descend into violent anarchy, was a significant influence on 'Paradise Towers' and you can see where attempts at a kind of social commentary have been made. After all, the Kangs are disaffected youth gangs living in conflict with the Caretakers, said Caretakers being obsessively dedicated to their rules and who are inept in their position of power - it doesn't take much to spot the political parallels. There's also a lot of potential in the Kangs - they've developed their own idiosyncrasies, painting the walls with caveman-like images, and even naming themselves after banal everyday items like Fire Escape and Bin Liner. Of course this being 'Paradise Towers', the execution is where it falters. Beyond the obvious differences in the colour of their hair and clothes, there's no other discernible factors that set apart the rival groups of Kangs - they're just rather lazily labelled Blue Kangs or Red Kangs.

There is at least one inhabitant of Paradise Towers that turns out to be a rather lovely surprise. Pex isn't exactly well remembered, but I honestly quite like him. His introduction is hilarious as he literally smashes his way into the story through the front door of two old ladies. At first he appears to be a pastiche of various clichés associated with the masculine action heroes of the 80s - physically muscular, a bit of a meathead who prefers to destroy things, and basically claims he's here to save the day. But we eventually learn that Pex is more of a coward, who should be away fighting in war but was too scared to go. The rest of the story acts almost as a redemption tale for him, and I strangely found it works. Whenever the Kangs start mocking him, my brain just goes "Aww" and wants to see him do well. However, Pex is firmly eclipsed by a certain Richard Briers as the Chief Caretaker. Briers bares a lot of the criticism levelled at 'Paradise Towers', but that's little surprise when he's sporting a Hitler moustache and uniform and hamming things up to such an absurd degree. Briers' performance here is often cited as a career low, and while I'm not familiar with enough of his work to comment on that, his decision to ham it up so much is a big part of why I find this story so enjoyable. Briers clearly knows he's going over-the-top but it seems like he's having fun with, and so am I. By the time Part 4 comes along, and the Caretaker is possessed by the spirit of Kroagnon... I become lost for words. We chuck in the campy Hitler impression for a mindless zombie, and while you can still laugh at the ridiculousness of what you're watching... I have no idea how such a performance made it past filming and onto broadcast. It's nothing short of incredible. 

This brings us neatly to some other various naff things about 'Paradise Towers'. I don't think I'd be upsetting anyone if I said that the cleaner robots are pretty rubbish (pun not intended). Rather like the Sontaran's robot in 'The Sontaran Experiment', it's all too clear that these cleaners couldn't apprehend a thing if they tried. The intent was to make them out as extremely strong and deadly with their claw arm and whirring blade, but instead it looks pants. Amazingly, they still aren't the most questionable robots in this story. See, part of the reason the Doctor and Mel came to Paradise Towers was so that Mel could take a dip in a swimming pool (incidentally, I quite like how the Kangs call it "the pool in the sky" on account of it being on the top floor). However, this pool is guarded by... a bright yellow robot crab that tries to pull Mel under the water and drown her. The scenes with this menacing crab are brief, but you do have to wonder the reasons for its inclusion when it presents itself as such an obvious target for ridicule.

This is what's most annoying about 'Paradise Towers' - it all feels as though various aspects of its production just aren't gelling together. I'd bet that just reading Wyatt's script is a vastly different experience to watching the finished product, as like I've said there is some grim stuff in here. A personal highlight of this one is Tabby and Tilda - two sweet-looking old ladies who befriend Mel. It gets revealed that these two have some dark, violent tendencies as they end up restraining Mel and prepare to kill her. There is something darkly funny about watching the two get dragged down their own rubbish chute and killed. But then you remember the much more light-hearted backdrop these two characters are set against and the result is more jarring than anything. I have a feeling that if 'Paradise Towers' had entered production during almost any other season of 80s 'Who', perhaps given to Colin Baker or saved for Sylvester McCoy's subsequent runs, it would be a stronger production overall. As it is, it feels almost obliged to fit in with the light entertainment trappings that was the vision for Season 24, and is weaker for it.

Now although it may be weaker, to reiterate this is still Season 24's high point for me. For all its failings, one thing I couldn't possibly call it is boring and I'll gladly sit through repeat viewings. It manages to just about pull through in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, and even at its worst it's mostly harmless. If you ever find yourself introducing someone to Classic Who, under no circumstances should you show them this. There are ways to introduce people to something you love that they may have trouble stomaching, and 'Paradise Towers' is the kind of story that you need to have an established love of the show to enjoy. But once you have that, I reckon you'll likely have a good time with this one.

Paradise Towers

5/10