City of Death - Definition and Overview

City of Death is a four-episode serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It first aired in 1979 with Tom Baker as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, and Julian Glover as the villainous Scaroth, and featured cameos by Eleanor Bron and John Cleese.

The story is set in Paris, and was the first Doctor Who serial to feature footage filmed on location in a foreign country.

The script is credited to "David Agnew", a pseudonym for Graham Williams and Douglas Adams - then respectively the producer and script editor of the series - who wrote the script themselves when a script commissioned from another writer failed to meet with their approval. Thanks to Adams' involvement, the script is full of witty dialogue and several Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references.

City of Death is considered by many Doctor Who fans to be the greatest Doctor Who serial of all time, although this is by no means universal and other fans have produced scathing reviews.

Adams re-used part of the plot for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

External links

• Cast and Crew list, on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/episodeguide/cityofdeath/castcrew.shtml)