Is 'The Horns of Nimon' So Bad... It's Good?
Doctor Who's big, fat Greek misadventure is actually one of Romana's best stories.
Plot Summary
The Doctor and Romana must defeat a mythical horned creature at the center of a high-tech maze before it bamboozles and entire planet.
Notable for:
Ended up being the season 17 finale even though it wasn’t intended to be (because Shada was never finished).
Final story produced by Graham Williams.
Final story that Douglas Adams contributed to.
First (and only?) appearance of Romana’s sonic screwdriver.
Final story with David Brierley as the voice of K-9.
Final story with the “time tunnel” credits and diamond logo.
K-9 coughs, apparently a reminder of the “laryngitis” explanation for his voice changing.
The time rotor in the Doctor's TARDIS is removed for the first (and only?) time.
Based on the Greek myth of the minotaur. Seth = Theseus, Nimon = Minotaur, Soldeed = Daedalus. Plus all the labyrinth stuff.
Romama’s dressed in red, traditionally thought of as a color that enrages bulls.
Pete commentary:
This script has Douglas Adams’ fingerprints all over it. There’s just so much silliness — Soldeed’s performance, Teka constantly admiring Seth (even though he has given zero reason for her to do that), the Doctor using mouth-to-mouth on K-9 — that clearly there’s an intent to camp things up.
This gives the script some permission to subvert Doctor Who tropes. Nice line when the Doctor says: Oh no, not again. How is it wherever I go in the universe there are always people like you pointing guns or phasers or blasters? Now don't do anything hasty. It's just a flying visit. Take me to your leader.”
Lala ward shines as the “straight man” in all this — firing off lines that we’re supposed to take seriously in between all the ridiculousness.
Spinning the TARDIS to get kicked away instead of crushed… that’s a weird interpretation of physics.
There’s a lot of exposition in this, and the cure for it seems to be to switch to “shouting” mode as often as possible.
Graham Crowden is hilarious as Soldeed. There’s a reason it’s the most infamous performance in Doctor Who. Every line is ridiculously OTT, though the most notorious (other than his final laugh, which was apparently not scripted, and is in the final shot because he couldn’t contain himself) is when he literally goes, “Bwah-hahahahaha” after he regains consciousness and escapes. Like, what are you doing? He only laughs when they realize he’s gone, so he seems to be gloating at that, but how does he even know?
Structurally, The Horns of Nimon is similar to Terminus, with a group of passengers shipping off to a centralized location where those people will be sacrificed or meet their destiny. At first, the Doctor needs to deal with the issues on the vessel, then all the action moves to the location, where there’s a big beast at the center of everything!
The Nimon plan is pretty good, though it’s fairly similar to The Pirate Planet from the year before. Also, why does their plan turn the planet they’re currently on into a ticking time bomb? That seems to make the whole endeavor a whole lot riskier than it needs to be.
How is it the Nimons were able to conquer all of Crinoth and kill everybody except for one guy, who happens to be the chief dude who was fooled, and he’s just wandering the hallways of the capital? Where does he sleep? What does he eat? Best not to think too hard about it.
Malcolm Terris as the Copilot definitely understood the assignment. And that assignment was to yell, “Weakling scum!” as often as possible. Definitely the character you love to hate, and it’s immensely satisfying to see him outsmarted by both Soldeed and the Nimon
There’s a lot of shooting in episode 4! Although you need to head-canon why the Nimon’s don’t fire off shots from their horns more often (I guess because they need to bend over?), not all of it’s bad: K-9’s save of the group by shooting the Nimon is a moment of genuine surprise.
K-9 is bathing in patriotic ribbon: it’s red, white and blue.
The Doctor actually gets shot in episode 2, and there’s no effect? The script says the shot hits the anomalizer, but it’s really hard to tell.
Soldeed thinks he’s smart, but too vain and power-hungry to question the Nimon or his motives. The scene with Sorak is good at showing who he is, but who he is is contrived to ensure the Skonnosians are total patsys.
“You meddlesome hussy!” Just when you think Soldeed can’t top himself, there’s another line like this lol
The ending feels so “normal” that it’s almost a Star Trek ending, with everyone gathered on the bridge, reflecting, and having a good laugh. The Doctor’s reference to painting the ship white feels like a non sequitur (though it isn’t since it plays off the Greek myth of Theseus forgetting to show a white flag) that it’s kind of the perfect closer.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace understood that Soldeed’s performance was OTT from his first scene. She repeated “No! Trace!” and giggled.
Four Questions to Doomsday
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Planet of the Dead evokes a similar sense of off-balance randomness, but in that case it was more controlled. Four to Doomsday did some fun things with gravity (in that case, zero-G), plus it had a proper villain, like The Horns of Nimon.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? Say, the Nimons aren’t totally blind, find and kill the Anethians and capture the Doctor and Romana. Huge numbers of Nimons come to Skonnos, and the population can’t resist. Do they capture the TARDIS, get the Doctor to help them spread across time and space?
Can Soldeed’s plan succeed? The Nimons never intended to give him anything. Perhaps he re-acquires the staff from Seth, then uses it to force the Nimons into submission. Maybe he only lets a few on the planet, then turns them into his personal army.
Where's the Clara splinter? On Skonnos, convincing Sorak to put K-9 back together (why does he do that?).
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? I can’t think of a story that’s more Zarbi.