Inspirations - The Horns of Nimon

In the opening TARDIS scene of last week's story - Nightmare of Eden - Romana is tidying up the ship's storeroom whilst the Doctor reads Beatrix Potter to K9. One of the items she is seen holding is a huge ball of string. A label attached explains that it was a present from Theseus - perhaps suggesting that the Doctor gave him the idea which helped him find his way through the Labyrinth.
Entirely coincidentally, the following story - The Horns of Nimon - is based wholesale on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
The legend goes that the city of Knossos on Crete demanded tribute from the city of Athens. King Minos of Crete had commissioned from his architect Daedalus a complex maze - the Labyrinth - in which dwelt the Minotaur, which was half man, half bull. The tribute was composed of 7 boys and 7 girls, who were to be fed to the monster every 9 years. Failure to pay would result in Knossos waging war on Athens, and Minos had the superior forces.
In his efforts to become king ahead of his brothers, Minos had asked Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull which he would sacrifice to the sea god. However, Minos decided to keep the animal, which angered Poseidon. He caused Minos' wife Pasiphae to fall in love with it. She had Daedalus build a wooden cow in which she would lie so that she could mate with the bull. The resulting offspring was the monstrous Minotaur.

Theseus was the son of the Athenian king, and he decided to put an end to the tributes. He took the place of one of the youths so that he would be sent to the Labyrinth. His father said he would look out for his homecoming. If his ship showed a white sail then he would know that his son had been successful. A black sail would mean he had failed and was dead. In order to negotiate the Labyrinth without getting lost, Theseus was given a ball of string by Ariadne. She was Minos' daughter, but had fallen in love with the Athenian prince.
Theseus succeeded in killing the Minotaur and returned home with Ariadne, creating a pact with Knossos so that it would never again threaten attack against Athens. He was so in love, however, that he neglected to make sure his ship showed a white sail. His father, King Aegeus, saw a ship with a black sail come over the horizon and, in a fit of grief, threw himself into the sea which was then named after him - the Aegean.
The Minotaur is generally depicted as being like a huge man, with a bull's head. However, Dante features the creature in his Divine Comedies and has it more like a Centaur, with a man's head and torso on a bull's body, with four legs. Some Renaissance painters also depicted it this way.
The creature had featured twice in Doctor Who before, as well as that reference in the previous story.
The Second Doctor and companion Zoe had encountered it in the Land of Fiction, so it was straight from Greek myth, like the Gorgon they also met in a maze of tunnels. It vanished when they refused to accept that it was anything but legend. Later, the Third Doctor and Jo Grant encountered a different Minotaur in ancient Atlantis. Here it was a Councillor and friend of King Dalios who had asked the Chronovore Kronos for the strength of a bull, and the fickle god-like alien entity had made him half-bull. A link to Crete was in the original script for The Time Monster but the scene was deleted where Dalios mentions Minos of Knossos as being a relative of his.

The Horns of Nimon was written by Anthony Read, who had only recently relinquished the role of script editor on the programme. His tenure had seen a move towards literary inspirations rather than the movie ones of his predecessor, Bob Holmes. Read had commissioned Underworld, which was based on the legend of Jason and the Argonauts.
This story opens with the TARDIS disabled in space as the Doctor overhauls the console. Gravitational forces draw it into the orbit of a spaceship which has broken down nearby. This ship belongs to the Skonnon Empire (named after Knossos) and has come from the planet Aneth (Athens). It contains a cargo of young people (the tribute) who are to be handed over to the Nimon (Minotaur). This bull-headed alien has taken up residence on Knossos and is offering to return the Empire to glory in return for the young Anethans, and a supply of energy crystals. Among the young people is a boy named Seth (Theseus) who plans to destroy the Nimon and free his planet from enslavement by Skonnos. Waiting for the tribute to arrive on Skonnos is the leader Soldeed (Daedalus), who is the one who has welcomed the Nimon to his planet. Only one Nimon exists on the planet, and it dwells in the Power Complex, which has two huge antennae which look like bull's horns. The complex is like a maze inside (or Labyrinth) as the whole building is one vast machine whose walls move around like the switches in a printed circuit. (This was how Read had visualised it, but the model doesn't really do the concept justice).

The Doctor and Romana help the Co-pilot of the Skonnon ship, but he repays them by flying off home with Romana now among the tributes. The Doctor and K9 patch up the TARDIS and give chase. Once in the Power Complex, the Doctor discovers the Nimon scheme. They are a race of parasites which jump from planet to planet, laying waste like locusts. One of their number is sent on ahead to form a bridgehead - promising the natives whatever they wish in return for a number of the energy crystals (hymetusite) and a supply of young people. The youngsters are killed - their life-force digested by the Nimon - whilst the hymetusite is used to power the wormholes which they use to travel from world to world. Each victim planet is abandoned just before it disintegrates - totally drained of all energy. Romana is accidentally transported to the planet which the Nimon are about to abandon - Crinoth (named after Corinth). She meets the last survivor, a man named Sezom, who had been Soldeed's opposite number there. Sezom has adapted his staff to use as a weapon against the Nimon, after adding a piece of crystal known as jacenite. Now, this is a Biblical reference rather than a Greek mythological one. Moses was famous for his staff - using it to part the Red Sea and strike rocks to produce water.
Sezom helps Romana get back to Skonnos where Soldeed finally realises he has been tricked, as he sees three of the creatures together. Seth kills him using the staff, but not before he triggers a power overload which will destroy the complex. After it blows up, the remaining Nimon are stranded on the dying Crinoth. The Doctor and Romana watch as Seth flies back to Aneth, and the Doctor mentions that he is glad that the young man remembered to repaint his ship white, as he forgot to remind Theseus about the sails - a reference to the fate of King Aegeus.
(Unfortunately, the models are so badly lit that the spaceship doesn't look any different to the unpainted ones seen earlier in the story).

There are four things which have to be spot on to make a good Doctor Who story - the writing, the direction, the design and the performances.
Sadly, three of these are a let down here. The Horns of Nimon has the dubious distinction of being the second worst rated of all the Tom Baker era stories, if we go by the DWM 50th Anniversary poll. The worst will be arriving in just a couple of posts time. Anthony Read should not shoulder any of the blame for this. On paper, this is a very good story.
He was frustrated by the director's decision to play for laughs. The story was broadcast over the Christmas period of 1979, leading many to see it as a pantomime. Just as an example, a very silly set of weird noises is played in when the Doctor is trying to get the TARDIS to work - not unlike the sound effect for Colonel Bloodnok's Stomach in The Goon Show.
Some aspects of the design are impressive, whilst others don't work at all. One of the characters, Soldeed's chief guard, has a costume which looks like it was modeled on the Sydney Opera House.
The Co-pilot, played by Malcolm Terris, actually splits his trousers at the posterior on screen during his death scene. Unfortunately, this also happens to be part of the cliffhanger - so we get to see the trouser split all over again in the reprise the following week - just in case we missed it the first time.
As mentioned, the spaceship models aren't well done - as they decided to use them in studio using video and CSO rather than have them done on film.
The Nimon heads are confusing. It was originally intended that the bull masks would be just that - masks covering another alien face beneath. This idea was dropped - so they just look like masks rather than their heads. Dancers were employed to play them, but they were put into massive platform soled footwear which limited their mobility.

The worst aspect of the production is the performances of the guest cast - and chief villain is the chief villain, the normally reliable Graham Crowden (Soldeed). On the DVD commentary he mentions an anecdote where he was once described as a ham actor - but one beautifully cooked. Crowden had actually been approached to play the Fourth Doctor, but turned it down as he did not want to make any public appearances, and wouldn't commit to more than a year in the role.
He totally overacts as Soldeed, making silly faces and silly voices. The worst of his performance comes with his death scene - though he could be partially forgiven as he honestly thought it was a rehearsal rather than the actual take, and there was no time to do it again.
Terris - another actor who is normally very good - also overacts, making the Co-pilot a pantomime villain. He even has a catchphrase - calling the tribute youngsters "weakling scum" at every opportunity.
Lalla Ward is also on the DVD commentary and she tells the story of when she, Tom Baker and Crowden went to the cinema together to see Ridley Scott's Alien, which had just opened as they were recording this story.
Baker clearly wasn't very impressed as, during one of the quieter scenes, his distinctive voice boomed out across the auditorium "Why don't they just lure the alien to the hold and BORE the thing to death?!".
Future Blue Peter presenter, and mother of popstar Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Janet Ellis features in the story as Seth's clingy girlfriend Teka. She got talking to the VFX boys and mentioned that her dad was looking for work, having just left the RAF after a number of years. He was taken on by the VFX department and worked on a number of later Doctor Who stories. Ellis co-presented a feature on Blue Peter about the monsters which were about to appear in Season 23, in which she introduces her dad emerging from the L1 Robot.

We didn't know it at the time, but this story was to mark the end of an era in so many ways. There was to have been one final story for Season 17 - the six part Shada, written by Douglas Adams. This would be the final story for Graham Williams, and for Adams, as he was now extremely busy with the various formats of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Shada had its location filming completed, plus one of the studio recording blocks, when it was hit by industrial action. Once the strike was over, priority was given to the more prestigious Christmas shows, and Shada was eventually formally abandoned. Williams had been trying for some time to get his Production Unit Manager, John Nathan-Turner promoted to associate producer, as he had often gone above and beyond his job description to help Williams out. This request was continually knocked back, but with Williams going - and no-one else interested in taking over - JNT was offered the chance to produce Doctor Who from Season 18 onwards. As an untested producer he would have a more experienced person looking over his shoulder - none other than Pertwee era producer Barry Letts.
JNT would want to make his mark on the show by instigating a number of changes. Out would go a lot of the more overt humour. Also out was Dudley Simpson as sole music contributor, with the Radiophonic Workshop being asked to take over with more contemporary synthesised music. The title music would change along with the incidental scores. The actual title sequence would be remade, as JNT felt that the existing one now showed an image of Baker which was nearly 7 years old. David Brierley resigned as K9 voice, when he was told a requested on-screen appearance would not be guaranteed in the new season. With Shada incomplete, Brierley only actually voices K9 in two stories, as the metal mutt has lost its voice in Destiny of the Daleks, and is entirely absent from City of Death.
Next time: JNT's big changes are rung in with a story about some reptilian gangsters...