The Renaissance Man is an odd one, and I don’t mean it how I normally do in terms of “hard to talk about for reasons” but I mean it in that it’s intentionally an odd one! Full of surreal humour and scenes and some fun back-and-forth between The Doctor and the villain of the day it was a definite step up from Nerva if nothing else, but what’s it like now, divorced of the “shiny new Tom Baker audios” feel? Let’s take a look!
The Doctor (Tom Baker) is making good on his promise to better educate Leela (Louise Jameson) by taking her to a famous museum, the Morovanian Museum, but when they arrive they’re on what appears to be a medieval-style British village complete with an older lady humourously chasing away a dog. They do soon make it to the museum proper and meet its owner in Reginald Harcourt (Ian McNeice), as well as his daughter Lizzie (Daisy Ashford), her fiancée Christopher (Anthony Howell) and their maid Beryl (Laura Molyneux) and butler Jephson (Gareth Armstrong). They are soon shown to the museum but several odd things happen: items appear and then later vanish, paintings do the same, the books in the library are no older than 50 years and the Doctor suddenly gets a toothache around the same time a lady commits suicide in armoury. When The Doctor and Leela arrive Lizzie and Christopher are there but when The Doctor suggests looking at the security footage they don’t have any idea what he’s talking about and can’t see the camera clearly hanging on the wall. As if things weren’t odd enough already Harcourt and Jephson arrive as police officers with seemingly no knowledge of who The Doctor and Leela are, only for a short while later Harcourt to appear as himself again, and calling his time as an officer a “hobby”.
Our lead duo go on the run and meet a gentleman called Henry Cranforth (John Dorney) and through him The Doctor figures out what’s going on: the museum has a system where it takes the knowledge from those in it and “saves it” as actual physical items as well as in the head of its owner in Reginald Harcourt. The Doctor says this makes him a “true Renaissance man” in a rare “saying the name of the story in the story” bit but that it also makes him extremely dangerous. Just as he says that Reginald appears and says he’s going to arrest The Doctor and Leela for the murder of Cranforth as he gets his gun out and shoots Cranforth dead…
It’s a fun story, though I will admit while Part 1 has a good slow build Part 2 seems quite rushed, like they didn’t want to sacrifice the build but didn’t want to cut any of the story either.
The Continuity:
It’s well laid out and everything, but I still can’t help but find this cover rather dull…
Not much really. The Doctor mentions having a tooth pulled once in the past, which is a reference to the First Doctor TV story “The Gunfighters”… that’s about it!
Overall Thoughts:
“The Renaissance Man” is a fun story, with good set up and some crazy scenes in Part 2, but sadly those scenes are often rushed and the ending is a bit sudden. Still more good than bad though, one I wouldn’t say no to putting on again a ways down the road.
As you might imagine The Doctor and Leela don’t get arrested and instead flee, leading to a long run-around where they enter different rooms of the museum only to be greeted by a different time period and versions of the Harcourt household in different period-accurate roles. The Doctor does eventually get captured though and meets with Harcourt, who wishes to absorb his colossal Time Lord knowledge, a feat the Doctor says can’t be done. Our titular Time Lord also reveals that being a true “Renaissance Man” is more than just learning facts but experiencing emotions and living the actual moments and so proclaims that Harcourt isn’t in fact the titular person but instead merely part of the museum’s system: it’s library. Jephson reveals this as the truth and that he’s the actual Renaissance Man but Harcourt refuses to believe it.
The Doctor then reveals he’s been intentionally feeding incorrect data into the database which is causing the system to strain and with a few extra nuggets the whole museum system breaks down and requires a reset, which seemingly includes destroying the physical place as well. The Doctor and Leela escape as Jephson pleads for help from Harcourt, who refuses as he is part of the system that’s being rebooted, so the Renaissance Man is killed as the museum collapses. The Doctor and Leela leave in the TARDIS, with a final scene showing us that the museum is back to normal with its fictional cast back as they were intended, though the Renaissance Room is now empty…
Hogan Reviews 