The DW News page is reporting the sad news that former DW writer Louis Marks (Planet of Giants, Day of the Daleks, Planet of Evil, the Masque of Mandragora) has passed away.

http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/

RIP.

Doctor Who greats have been dropping like flies recently. Very sad but a sign of how time moves so quickly.

That's sad - Louis Marks' Masque Of Mandragora is surely one of the most literate and sumptuous Who stories ever. Using his specialist knowledge (he'd studied Rennaisance Italy at Oxford) this story deftly borrows elements from all sorts of restoration dramas and revenge tragedies, and contains some of the most expressive language ever used in Who. Just brilliant.
RIP Louis.

"Sumptuous" is a great word for Masque of Mandragora.

Day of the Daleks is the first "old" DW story that I owned. I used my holiday money to buy it on VHS, when I was about 10yrs old. I haven't seen it for a few years now (it's sat on the shelf in the spare room, with all the other DW), but I bet I am still word perfect. I watched it so often, and have a deepseated love for it. We never forget the first, do we?

Thanks, Mr Marks.

Though he only did a few stories, they're all memorable ones, usually dealing with grown-up ethical issues.

Sad to hear of this.

G

It's great to hear all the "Mandragora" appreciation here-I also
felt it was somewhat neglected (perhaps because the surrounding stories were all so good as well?). Mr. Marks'
death is certainly a sad day for British drama.

Mandragora's great, despite a cop-out ending, but you're right: the stories that surround it are so big and spectacular, even something as classy as Mandragora fades into the background a bit.

Season fourteen also contains four stone-cold classics (Robots of Death, Deadly Assassin, Talons of Weng Chiang), a leaving story (Hand of Fear) and a new companion story (Facer of Evil). It's hard for Mandragora to be noticed alongside that lot, even if it might be the stand-out story if it were in any other season.