Not a lot, if numerous polls are anything to go by. Its reputation partly lies on the massive viewing figures it enjoyed - but people forget that ITV were on strike for many weeks, and there were only three channels in 1979. I read a comment on FB last month knocking Ncuti's debut for failing to match the figures achieved by this story. The concept of 'Context' is totally lost on some people...
The series has always had a problematic relationship with Paradox. It is usually simply ignored, and only occasionally used as a plot point. Letts and Dicks came up with the Blinovitch Limitation Effect to help get round certain aspects of it. The Master had to convert the TARDIS to maintain one in the Series 3 finale. The Twelfth was happy to talk directly to the audience about one.
We have one here in City of Death, and it's a big one.
If Scaroth prevents the human race from ever evolving, then how could he manipulate them to arrive at the point where he can go back in time to do the thing which will prevent their evolution...?
The prehistoric scenes see absolutely fantastic model work - but a really horrible fake-looking studio set.
The sky on the model shots is streaked with cloud and atmospheric, whilst in studio it's plain yellow.
Are those supposed to be distant mountains? If so, the perspective doesn't work. There's no sense of space at all.
Apparently there wouldn't have been any land surface to walk on at that time - and you would not be able to breath. Adams picked this up later and when he adapted bits of City for one of his novels he had the characters wear protective gear.
That old chestnut: how does Scaroth manage to fit into that mask when his head is much bigger? (This was in the days before tissue compressors and farting side-effects, though it's not as bad as the Foamasi).
Why did he wear a mask in the first place (when he isn't wearing one in ancient Egypt)?
Why take his mask off at the end of Part One? (Is it that old foreknowledge of a cliff-hanger coming up?). Why do it just when he knows his wife is looking for him?
And where did he get all the masks anyway - especially in ancient times?
He must have squandered a great deal of money swanning about like a rich playboy, because after thousands of years he ought to have amassed far more money than even 7 Mona Lisa's are worth.
Even in 1979, the sums being talked about aren't vast.
Why isn't he a king or a President?
Why employ a scientist, when he must have technical skills of his own far in advance of someone like Kerensky? If he does want to run the risk of involving a human scientist, why not a whole team of them?
It's never fully explained how the splinter thing works. Presumably they all came into being at different points in history simultaneously. If so, how exactly do they know what their future self will need / want, if they're experiencing their particular time zone for the first time?
Did any splinter have to hang around millions of years waiting for the human race to evolve, or did they somehow all manage to conveniently land up within the relatively narrow confines of human history?
Shouldn't the Count have checked the cellar to make sure his paintings are alright? They could have been eaten by mice or something, and bang goes his millennia-old scheme, to save his entire race from extinction.
(And even if he had been successful, what difference would it have made to the Jagaroth? How important was this one spaceship? Wouldn't they have just blown themselves up anyway, if that's what they're like as a species?).
Hard to say if they're supposed to be intentionally funny, or its just badly directed, but why does no-one bat an eye-lid in the café when men start brandishing guns?
Why do the henchmen wear stupid big black hats, when they're clearly not fashionable (we see enough of the Parisian men in the location filming). Why don't they just wear T-shirts with "I am a Henchman" and make life simpler for themselves.
Duggan is written / played far too broadly. Seriously, would multi-millionaire art collectors ever think of employing someone like him to investigate for them? He clearly doesn't know the meaning of "discretion".
And finally, the less said about the love life of the Count and Countess, the better...
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