Nightmare of Eden

So far as im writing this, its my favorite Old who story, like its so bad its great.

A decent story where the likability and energy of the leads makes for a good time despite some odd moments. The drug-smuggling mystery is mostly interesting for the how of the drug-smuggling rather than the who. The story in many ways harkens back to Carnival of Monsters with its fantastic machine, though with a few unique twists on that story.

Overall, an enjoyable if flawed story.

Really infuriating - namely because there's such a great story buried in here not allowed to fully break through! Bob Baker's story feels almost like a retooling of the Invisible Enemy: spacestation / cruiser under-siege; wacky scientist with high concept device; Doctor & co. going into aforementioned conceptual device to further the plot. Unfortunately as with the Invisible Enemy, there's little tension, a muddled pace, horrific guest star performances, bored regular cast and special effects so poor as to detract from the overall experience.

This only highlights the aspects of the story that're fantastic - the focus on drug-smuggling and its effects on relationships and individuals is deftly handled with a brief tackling of the nature of addiction, even light philosophical and economic debate on libertarian defences of illicit substance production! The sci-fi here as well as the drug theme is rather hard for Who: ships manifesting within each other, crystallised 'electronic zoos' and oxygen dehydration. Some great satire too in the bureaucratic police agents and even post-modern satire, with space tourists meeting grisly ends.

Despite this checklist of awesome concepts, hilarious satirical potential and hard scifi, the serial as a whole is too unfocused to make coherent use of the elements at its disposal. Without some major rewrites, coffees for Tom Baker, better set design, lighting & a straight-jacket to reel in the disparate tonal shifts, Nightmare of Eden just falls foul of an average ranking.