I gave a rewatch to Dragonfire (1987) last night to see if i really wanted to get the season 24 blu-ray set that's out soon.
The answer is a big fat NO.
When i first saw the final story of the seventh Doctor's first season i really liked it. It seemed to have all the classic Doctor Who ingredients that i felt were missing from the first three stories of the season and this was easily my favourite.
However after buying and rewatching Dragonfire on vhs and dvd it's shortcomings are there for all to see. For a start it's not my favourite of the season anymore. Delta and the Bannerman took that honour many years ago, but it remains the second best story, although when it's competition is Time and the Rani (Great effects, locations and fun Tetrap monsters but awful everything else) and Paradise Towers (Just generally awful from start to finish) then it's not saying much.
For all that works well about Dragonfire - The dragon itself which appears to have nicked it's body from the Xenomorphs from Alien and Aliens, Patricia Quinn as Belazs, the welcome return of Glitz (Tony Selby), Kane's messy death - there are dozens of things that don't.
Ace (Sophie Aldred) is terrible. Her dialogue is cringe worthy at best, why they picked her over Ray (Sarah Griffiths) from Delta as the new companion to take over from Bonnie Langford's Mel i'll never know. Then there's the episode cliffhangers. Part one is well documented and the reasons behind it are bullshit. The production team say the Doctor climbed down a cliff face and got stuck dangling as he was edging towards the next level. Watching part two, Glitz just walks below him and helps him down. Why not just drop, Doctor? It was only about seven foot. There's easily room to drop onto the ledge because he and Glitz lounge on rocks once he's down with their legs outstretched in front of them.
Meanwhile Kane (Edward Peel) has a "Nothing in ze vurld can stop me now" moment in the cliffhanger to episode two as he looks into the camera and growls "At last, after 3000 years the Dragonfire shall be mine". Aside from this face palm moment Peel is pretty good.
However... For someone searching for the Dragonfire for 3000 years it's embarrassing that the Doctor should show up with a carrot juice drinking health freak, an annoying rebellious teen who swear PG style, and a comedy sidekick in Glitz and find the Dragonfire within an hour. You have to wonder what Kane was doing imprisoned on Iceworld for 3000 years. All he seems to have done was build a supermarket.
It might not be so bad if these were all that was wrong with Dragonfire you could forgive it, but it isn't, there's so much more that can be pulled apart whilst watching. Having said that, it still works, sort of, as a fun romp but pales in comparison to every seventh Doctor story that would follow it.
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