Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!: Paradise Towers

 You know it! You love it! You can’t live without it!

 

It’s another post of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!

 

For this edition, we advance to the 1980's and an adventure with the 7th Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.

 

From the recent slate of new episodes on Disney+, you may wonder, “Who the heck is Mel?”

Mel Bush was a companion of the 6th and 7th Doctors played by Bonnie Langford and today’s post looks back to one of her exploits with the Doctor back in the day.

 

From 1987,  it’s Paradise Towers. 

 

Mel wants to take a vacay at the luxurious Paradise Towers, an architectural marvel. 

 

It’s really tall and there’s a pool on the roof.

 

Whee?

 

The TARDIS arrives and….

 

Yeah, Paradise Towers has seen better days.

 

Dark, dank and defaced with graffiti, it is home to roving gangs called Kangs who are belligerent, untrusting and ruled by arcane rituals.   

The Rezzies are residents who huddle in their apartments.

And may be cannibals.  

 

The facility is overseen by Caretakers, preening officious bureaucrats.

They never abbreviate anything.  

"Caretaker number three four five stroke twelve subsection three, make your report."  

"Caretaker number three four five stroke twelve subsection three reporting."

 

And robot cleaners that eat people. 

 

Mel thinks if they can just get to the pool on the roof, everything will be fine.

 

The pool on the roof is not all that.  Your average motor lodge motel has a better pool.

The Doctor runs afoul of the Caretakers who naturally assume the Doctor is the enemy and sentence him to death.

Or more precisely to the "three two seven appendix three subsection nine death."  

Kroagnon, an incorporeal entity who is the insane architect of Paradise Towers is up the evulz.  

End goal: kill everybody.  

Yeah, let's keep it simple.  

Besides the chance to introduce Andrea to Mel when she was a young companion, Paradise Towers offers up some comparisons and contrasts to this year's episode Dot & Bubble.

In both you have a self contained environment with young people outside the control and oversight of adult authority. As opposed to the sanitized for your protection world of Dot & Bubble, Paradise Towers sees a world in decline.  The Caretakers aren't actually taking care of anyone, just dutifully following their rule books.  The Residents are insular and unwilling to help.  The Kangs are in an pointless existence, caught in a spiral of distrust and ritual.  

It's the Doctor's task is to stop Kroagnon from killing everyone and he can only accomplish that when he convinces these disparate groups to trust him and to work together.

Which is not the outcome the 15th Doctor got in Dot & Bubble.

When the Doctor and Mel leave Paradise Towers, they leave it with the potential to be a better place, an actual good place to live. If everyone will work together. 

One of my criticism of this era is that I recall Mel being so annoying. God, that voice! Yikes! But I will admit I found Mel to be a more effective companion than I remembered.  

The seams of the show's strained and shrinking budget are on display here. Sadly, the budget would take more hits through this and the series' next two years.  

After playing the buffoon in his first episode, Sylvester McCoy's Doctor begins to take himself a bit more seriously, setting the stage for the darker edged take on the Doctor that McCoy will explore in the next two seasons. 

And that is that for this edition of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!

Look for another installment in about a month.