“The Horns of Nimon” is an adventure of the seventeenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired between the end of 1979 and the beginning of 1980. It follows “Nightmare of Eden” and it’s a four parts adventure written by Anthony Read and directed by Kenny McBain.
The story
The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) is carrying out major maintenance on the Tardis in a region of space that’s supposed to be empty, instead nearby there’s a black hole. In the same area a spacecraft of the Skonnan Empire fails and the Tardis collides with it.
The Doctor and Romana II (Lalla Ward) go on the Skonnan starship, where the co-pilot is the only member of the crew survived. They also find a group of kids who have to be sacrificed to the Nimon in exchange for new technology that would bring the Skonnan Empire back to its former glory. The two Time Lords repair the engines but the co-pilot kidnaps Romana and the Doctor must fix the Tardis in time to be able to rescue her.
Extras
This DVD contains a limited amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Times Listings, a trailer about the next “Doctor Who” DVDs to be released and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.
There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonist Lalla Ward and actors Graham Crowden and Janet Ellis.
Peter Who – Partners in Time. A history of the symbiosis between “Doctor Who” and the TV show “Blue Peter”, which was fully kept in the archives allowing the recovery of some clips from “Doctor Who” episodes now lost. It has nothing to do with “The Horns of Nimon” and is probably more interesting to British fans.
Read the Writer. The author of this adventure Anthony Read remembers its production.
Peter Howell Music Demos. A demo music composed by Peter Howell that accompanies the start of the second episode of this adventure.
There’s also an “Easter egg” but it’s nothing special.
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“The Horns of Nimon” is an adventure that was produced because there were no other scripts available and this could be shot with limited expenses rather than for a real confidence in its potential by producer Graham Williams.
In the course of the seventeenth season, the adventures “Destiny of the Daleks” and “City of Death” were expensive and Graham Williams wanted to save what he could to produce “Shada”, which was supposed to be the season finale. Unfortunately, a strike at the BBC prevented the completion of “Shada” and “The Horns of nimonic” unexpectedly ended the season.
At the end of the season Graham Williams abandoned “Doctor Who” production and was replaced by John Nathan-Turner, who made some changes to the program. Among other things, “The Horns of Nimon” is the last adventure to feature the titles with the famous tunnel and the music arrangement by Delia Derbyshire.
“The Horns of Nimon” has a plot based on the story of the Minotaur with various references, starting from the labyrinth, and the names of various characters from that myth. This basic story is combined with the initial part, where the Doctor is doing maintenance work on the Tardis, with the elements of the Skonnan Empire and the Nimon plans.
Tom Baker is over the top more than ever, in contrast with Lalla Ward, who plays Romana with a straight face. The Doctor is just one of the over the top elements in “The Horns of Nimon”, where the Nimon is supposed to be a scary villain but eventually his appearance and behaviour are a bit ridiculous.
The Skonnan Empire perfectly represents this adventure: his representatives want to look strong but actually their ship can barely fly. Similarly, the crew and actors of “The Horns of Nimon” would make it look convincing as an adventure but what comes out is a sort of pantomime at times played in a mediocre way with a poor villain.
The Skonnan Empire is potentially the most interesting element of “The Horns of Nimon”. In the past the Skonnan were powerful but they decayed and reached the point where the planets they dominate don’t rebel just because they don’t realize how battered their oppressors’ starships are. The Nimon promised them advanced technology and the Skonnan dream of new glory.
The co-pilot of the starship encountered by the Doctor and Romana is a perfect petty fascists who shows strength when he’s carrying a gun and faces unarmed people. Instead, he chokes when he has to justify his failures to his superiors and tries to make up stories to show he has some skills.
Despite some interesting elements, “The Horns of Nimon” has a bad reputation but in the end some of its most negative elements make it unintentionally funny. In fact, watching it I can’t help laughing not only at Tom Baker’s performance but also at other actors’ performances. It’s therefore an adventure with a mediocre production but fun to watch after all.
Despite its negative reputation, in 2002 Big Finish produced the audio adventure “Seasons of Fear” – available on Amazon UK
In Region 1 countries “The Horns of Nimon” DVD was published on its own. I’m not sure if anyone in those countries might be interested in “Blue Peter” so probably the main extra has little or no relevance to them. I think this DVD is good only for the fans who appreciate this adventure and the ones who want to have the complete “Doctor Who” DVD collection.
In Region 2 and Region 4 countries this DVD is part of the “Myths & Legends” box set, available on Amazon UK
