The Horns of Nimon

 

History has been wilfully unfair to The Horns of Nimon. 

Dig up your John-Marc L’Officier programme guide, or just google the Radio Times Archive. 

The Horns of Nimon, Episode One: 22nd December 1979 

The Horns of Nimon, Episode Two: 29th December 1979

The Horns of Nimon, Episode Three: 5th January 1980

The Horns of Nimon, Episode Four: 12th January 1980

A few days before Christmas Eve; a few days before Hogmanay; Twelfth Night; the first week of Spring Term. 

Panto season. 

Did you really expect to see a story about minotaurs in space treated with high seriousness during the Christmas Holidays? And do you suppose that the extreme silliness of the story was an unfortunate mistake? 

Look at any one of Soldeed’s scenes, if you can bear it. Look at his big entrance in Episode One. The Nimon have promised a new fleet of ships for the failing Skonnon empire; and one of his minions asks “are we on the brink of having the promise fulfilled." 

“I believe we are” says Soldeed. “I dooo believe we ARE!” And then he raises his arm, stares manically into camera and says “The second Skonnon empire WILL be borrrrn!”

Or look at his excruciating death-scene in Episode Four. His dialogue is somewhere between a chant and a howl; the sort of fake weeping that Stan Laurel used to indulge in. “My drer-heams of CON.......Quest” he yodels, sticking his fingers in his cheeks. Zapped by his own rod-of-power, he collapses against a wall, whimpering “You are all doomed!” before expiring in a fit of maniacal giggles. 

This cannot be failed seriousness: this must be deliberate spoof. The actor must be taking direction: “This is a daft skit about monsters in fright masks. You aren’t just playing a Doctor Who bad guy: you are playing every Doctor Who bad guy. There is going to be a scene where you, the good guys, and the monsters are hiding behind consoles in the baddies control centre and if you do it right, kids up and down the country will be shouting ‘he’s behind you’ into their TVs. Just have fun. Be as broad as you like. It’s panto season. Basically pretend we cast you as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Babes in the Wood.”

Or take a look at the actual script. Soldeed says things like “You meddling fool” and “After him, you fools, you dolts.” The Starship Pilot calls his co-pilot “You blundering fool” and “You blundering idiot”. The Co-Pilot calls the cargo of slaves “weakling scum” no less than five times. Soldeed’s counterpart on the the planet Crionth gets barely five minutes of screen time, during which he gets to say “It’s too late for me” “I’m done for” and “I’ll hold them off for as long as I possibly can.”

This must be deliberate. 

Or take a look at the costumes. The Skonnos soldiers' helmets are moulded in strange, non-euclidian shapes with guffaw-inducing plumes. One wishes that Tom Baker could have snipped them off with a pair of over-sized scissors, like Harpo did to the Freedonian soldiers in Duck Soup. 

The story is a half-hearted checklist of Doctor Who tropes. Alien invaders. Endless corridors (that all look the same). Priests who know very well that their god isn’t really a god, with silly robes and a Skeletor style sceptre of power. Six aliens representing an invasion force. A corpus of ineffectual rebels with floppy blond hair. 

I think that Williams, Adams and even Baker realised that, after Nightmare of Eden, the game was up. Doctor Who was done for: The Horns of Nimon was the Last Chance Saloon. Why not go out in a blaze of dreadfulness? Since whatever we do, you will accuse us of cardboard sets and overacting bad-guys, we will damn well build the set out of cardboard and tell the bad-guy to overact. 

I admit that this defence has been overused. If a movie is derivative, someone will always claim it as a loving homage; if a movie is dreadful, some apologist will say it is an affectionate parody. Even Plan Nine From Outer Space has its advocates. 

But after all, it was December. No-one complains that the village hall production of Jack and the Beanstalk failed to treat the Brothers Grimm with due reverence. No-one treats the Star Wars Holiday Special as a peculiarly inept attempt to make the Empire Strikes Back. 

The Horns of Nimon is a perfectly dreadful Doctor Who story and an all but unwatchable piece of television.

But you can’t blame it for that. It was clearly supposed to be. 

If you enjoy my writing about Doctor Who, please consider supporting my Patreon.