City of Death

City of Death is the second serial of the seventeenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor. It was produced by the BBC and first broadcast in four weekly parts between 29 September 1979 and 20 October 1979 on BBC1. The serial was written by "David Agnew" – a pseudonym for the combined work of David Fisher, Douglas Adams, and Graham Williams – and directed by Michael Hayes.

City of Death features the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companion Romana (Lalla Ward). Set mainly in Paris in 1979, the plot concerns a scheme by Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover), in reality an alien called Scaroth, to steal the Mona Lisa to finance experiments in time travel in the hope of averting the accident that killed the remainder of his race four hundred million years previously, which began the existence of life on the planet as well.

The original storyline devised by Fisher was heavily re-written by script editor Adams, aided by producer Williams. It was the first Doctor Who serial to film on location outside of the United Kingdom; the production team worked in Paris during April and May 1979; studio work was completed in June.

Broadcast during a strike that took ITV (the BBC's rival) off the air, City of Death scored high ratings. The fourth episode was watched by over sixteen million viewers, the highest UK television audience ever attained by an episode of Doctor Who. Although retrospectively regarded as one of the best serials from the series' classic run, initial reception was not as positive, with criticism of the humorous tone.^[1] In September 2009, it was ranked as readers' eighth favourite story (of 200-to-that-date) in Doctor Who Magazine issue 413.

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