Mindwarp

Thoros Beta.

I know this is a story that cops a lot of flack, mostly for being too over the top and camp, but seriously folks, what’s not to love about Philip Martin’s ‘Mindwarp’. In a nutshell it’s a creepy, scary and foreboding story featuring the return of Sil (Nabil Shaban), Brian Blessed and has the most dramatic, spell-binding, spine-tingling ending to any Doctor Who story EVER.

End of story. The death of Peri is so chilling, so shocking that some of the issues with parts three and four should just be overlooked for this amazing moment. The brain of Lord Kiv is transplanted into Peri. Nicola

Brian Blessed as Ycarnos.

Bryant produces one of the most evil voices I have ever heard. The Time Lords deem it’s their right to kill Peri. The Doctor is pulled out of time before he can save her. This all links up to the very start of ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’. It’s mindblowing stuff.

The wonderful Nabil Shaban returns as Sil.

The adventure starts with a beautiful use of ‘paintbox’, early computer-generated effects where the ocean is made pink and a ringed planet is hoisted into the sky above. The sets are low-lit and moody, the mentors – creatures like Sil, are very well done indeed. The show looks terrific. The first two episodes are great. It’s not a rocket-fast start but it’s a slow peeling of the environment, exploring, getting into trouble, culminating in the Doctor connected to a machine that is frying his brain.

The second episode sees a changed Doctor, a traitor, one with his own interests before others. The question is, are we seeing the truth? Remember that this is all coming from the matrix, and the Doctor starts to wonder if the matrix can lie. We, as an audience, are confronted by a very disturbing interrogation scene where the Doctor interrogates Peri on the rock of sorrows whilst the tide comes in. Is this really what happened? The Doctor said it happened, but not the way we are shown.

The third episode it gets a bit wobbly. Perhaps not quite enough story to fill four full episodes? I’m not sure but Ycarnos (Brian Blessed) is joined by Alphan rebels led by Tuza – to be honest a terrible performance by actor Gordon Warnecke, and this subplot is not as compelling as the rest of the tale to be honest. The rebels are dressed like Mexicans and despite makeup appear rather too clean for rebels living and hiding in caves desperate to overturn their oppressors.

Kiv (played by star of ‘The Young Ones’ Christopher Ryan), the Lord of the Mentors, has his brain transplanted into a different type of mentor – this one is brown. The final episode seems to have the Doctor turn back to the side of good after he eats some of Sil’s marshminnows. He rescues Ycarnos and they head to save Peri, but in the midst of confusion, they are separated and the Doctor is pulled into the TARDIS and the fate of Peri is not a good one.

Brian Blessed is simply wonderful as Ycarnos. I have seen him in a few things, including ‘The Black Adder’, and this role was simply written for him and

The stunning ending.

no-one else. I don’t find him too much, he has some wonderfully humorous turns, and some nice tender moments as well. Nicola Bryant’s performance is her best as Peri and the Lord Kiv without a doubt.

The story suffers only from Tuza, the third episode sagging a little, and the consistent and un-relenting crosses to the court room. I don’t mind the crosses, but they needed to be cut way back there are far too many in this story, as there were in the first. Philip Martin produced an amazing, chilling script, and director Ron Jones produced his best (and last work) for Doctor Who easily.

9/10

The Mysterious Planet

The trials beigins.

The Doctor and Peri arm in arm

After a hiatus of some eighteen months and a wonderful song urging the BBC to bring back Doctor Who, the 23^rd season saw the show’s return in 1986. This season would be one big story, cut to 14 25-minute episodes sadly. The Doctor is on trial for his life for meddling in the affairs of other planets, and we are shown 2 four-episode stories for the prosecution, led by the Valeyard (wonderfully played by Michael Jayston) who strangely is very keen for the Doctor to be found guilty. Then another four episode story follows as the Doctor’s ‘defence’, and finally 2 episodes to wrap everything up. Although I am reviewing the four separate stories within a story it is important to understand the context, and whilst the Doctor, Valeyard, Inquistor (Lynda Bellingham) watch the stories on the Matrix screen along with a bunch of Time Lords, we often cut back to them for comment.

I think the format and set up is where things went wrong. The idea of the trial is not in itself bad. I wonder if the stories needed to be shown on the matrix screen, if they couldn’t have been recounted (ok wouldn’t work for the third story) and we flash back to the action. There are other ways it could have been done, the first story could lead to the Doctor being taken out of time and then they could refer back to another story. However, we do get perhaps the most impressive and cinematic opening shot and model shot of the first 23 years of Doctor

Glitz and Dibber.

Who to open episode one and the camera sweeps over the space station and the TARDIS is drawn in.

‘The Mysterious Planet’ is Robert Holmes’ last full story for Doctor Who. It is a story which leaves a lot more questions than answers. It sees violence toned down considerably from the previous two years, which Eric Saward felt was the one big change that was expected from the powers that be of the BBC. The only issues I had with the violence was when the Doctor used it in situations where there was an alternative. There’s a couple of instances in ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ – not when he kills the Cyber-controller though, that seemed justified to me.

Drathro

‘The Mysterious Planet’ as a story, without the constant court-room interruptions which really interfered with the story, mostly for no good reason, is ok. It’s solid, but leaves you with more questions than answers. At times it seems that the purpose of the trial is to silence the Doctor for what happened on Ravolox – the Earth-like planet the story is set on. Oh wait, it IS Earth! But it’s not in the right place. What has happened to Earth?

Joan Simms.

The Doctor and Peri seem to be much more chummy now, which is nice. Peri experienced a bad feeling about Ravolox though. The assertion by the Valeyard that the Doctor is responsible for the deaths in this story appears to be very false though, as the chain of events that results in the deaths and destruction of Drathro is down to the black light

converter being destroyed, which was thanks to Dibber.

Again we have wonderful Holmesian characters in this story. Glitz (Tony Selby) and Dibber are somewhat roguish criminals after the secrets that are stored on Ravolox. We have Queen Katryca, played by the lovely Joan Simms. She certainly does not hold back! Then there is Balazar, the reader of the books. He has some of the best lines in the story and contributes to the humour. Finally we

have Tandrell and Humker, a blond double act who are very funny with good, fast lines, but I feel the direction didn’t capture them as well as it could have.

The direction is a bit lacklustre for this story, which I think is the main issue. It also lacks action. Nicholas Mallet directed this story, his first Doctor Who story, and perhaps he wasn’t perfectly suited to the show. The music is provided by Dominic Glynn who does a great job (although at times the mixing isn’t great and dialogue gets drowned out by it). Glynn also did the new version of the Doctor Who theme, which I immediately loved. It’s very spooky and moody.

‘The Mysterious Planet’ has its faults. The courtroom stuff certainly impinges on the flow of the tale. It sets up questions such as ‘what secrets was Dratho guarding’ and ‘what was Earth doing so far away from where it was supposed to be’? It was a fun if light start to the season.

6.5/10

Timelash

The Doctor faces the Borad

‘Timelash’ is a much-maligned story which people regard as being right up there with the worst Doctor Who stories of all. Whilst it is easy to see why, I think there are some good ideas in there which with a bit of work on the script and much higher production values could have turned into a solid story.

Paul Darrow as Tekker.

The premise, that Herbert George Wells got his ideas for writing science fiction from travelling with the Doctor is a great place to start your writing. The writer was Glen McCoy, a pretty inexperienced writer whose original script apparently was full of Daleks and thus was rejected. He did a first and second draft but Saward admits he didn’t give him more of a guiding hand and tried to make the scripts workable himself.

The thing is, the story fails in the areas Doctor Who, if it’s going to fail, seems to always fail in. Yes, the sets and the look, but story-wise the characters are very undeveloped, the Doctor and Peri are back to snapping and yelling at each other and we have far too much of the story set in the TARDIS. In fact the TARDIS scenes in general are just ridiculous. Half the first episode is spent strapping the Doctor and Peri to the console.

The guest characters are incredibly one-dimensional and it’s a good thing there was good spirit on the set because that goes some way to saving the story a little. At least no-one was half hearted. I felt like there were lots of little things in there that could have had time devoted to them which would have made interesting subplots which could have affected the outcome. The original Maylin for example, he is forced to divert energy to the Borad from the hospital where his wife lies critical. Paul Darrow as his replacement, Maylin Tekker, injects as much energy – some of it OTT, but better than underplaying by a long way – but even his character is just basically evil.

An Android gets his hands on the Doctor.

Herbert’s role could have been expanded. In fact the Doctor could have met him at the very start and they could have got rid of the horrid TARDIS scenes completely. The sets, as described in the script, are matte, but the bright lighting does little but show how cheap they are. The Borad though is a pretty neat creation by the effects team. The face looks rather good and if he, unlike the Master, didn’t just reappear when we all thought he much be dead, then he might be considered a decent villain today.

Herbert George Wells and the Doctor.

The second and third endings are to be honest a bit tedious and feel tacked on. The Bandrils fire at the planet. The Doctor manoeuvres the TARDIS to get in the way of the missile. The complete explanation we get it ‘it’s a neat treat. Might show you sometime. Almost as infuriating as the Master’s reason (his non-reason) for turning up again in ‘Mark of the Rani’.

Peri is dreadfully written in this one with very little to do other than scream. That was very disappointing. But I didn’t mind the story, it just seemed really really amateur that’s all. They obviously had to save money in this one, and it shows, but the script need major reworking too. Still, it has it’s enjoyable moments.

3.5/10

The Two Doctors

A little fishing for Colin.

I am not sure why they decided to bring back Patrick Troughton for a story in the middle of the 22^nd season, but I am glad they did. ‘The Two Doctors’ is the longest story of John Nathan-Turner’s era as Producer, and a curious tale. Split into three parts, it would have been a six-parter if it was in any other season. It was a little long, but probably still too much material for 2 45-minute parts.

Troughton faces Shockeye with a cucumber!

We open with Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines (also returning for the tale as Jamie) in the TARDIS control room. Peter Moffat cleverly has it start in black and white but slowly fade to colour which was a nice touch to open the show with. As a team they still prove to ‘have it’. Patrick Troughton’s wig never made it to the location filming so sadly he has grey hair for the story, but he also has some great moments when arguing with Dastari, played by Lawrence Payne (who was in ‘The Gunfighters’ many years ago).

The relationship between the sixth Doctor and Peri also seems to have softened again, and despite the odd bicker, there is a bit more humour in their relationship which balances it all out. We also have some great guest cast – Lawrence Payne I have

mentioned, but Blake’s 7 stalwart Jacqueline Pearce was great casting as Chessene, but the one who steals the show is John Stratton as Shockeye, an Androgum (a race of violent butchers who love to eat). His mixture of comedy and bloody-mindedness is great.

The story is a stretch for three 45-minute episodes as I mentioned. The second half of the second episode drags and is filled with a lot of running around by Jamie, Peri and the Sixth Doctor of the house in Spain and not much else. Spain? Yes, they shot this one in and near Seville. Actually I think the location works quite well, much more effective than Amsterdam was  in ‘Arc of Infinity’. I think it’s very well shot – Moffat had his detractors and he has directed a few stories than didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but his eye for good location shots cannot be questioned here in this story.

The wonderful Joh Stratton with Jacqueline Pearce.

The Sontarans. Were they thrown in just to give a bit more body to the story? Probably, but at least they are more menacing and less incompetent than they were in their last outing, ‘Invasion of Time’. The cast is completed by Oscar Botcherby (James Saxon) and Anita (Carmen Gomez). Oscar is a classic Holmes’ style character. An out of work British actor, he quotes Shakespeare and has a love of moths. He is lovingly portrayed by the actor too. He meets a grizzly fate at the hands of Shockeye’s knife near the end of the tale, which is a strange scene where he is basically left with Anita at his restaurant in Seville as the Doctor takes his 2^nd self back to the house.

A wounded Sontaran,

Black humour. There’s a fair bit of it in ‘The Two Doctors’. A lot of talk about eating humans and indeed Jamie is being tenderised in the final episode for Shockeye to feast on. Chessene has an awkward but telling moment too when she reacts to the Doctor’s blood. Holmes was a vegetarian I discovered by listening to the commentary on the DVD. The story is not very ‘pro-meat’ it must be said. But the dark, black humour is a great touch and one that worked well.

The soundtrack too gives the story a very ‘different’ feel to it, especially the stuff filmed in Spain which has a very Latin tone. And best of all we have Patrick Troughton, perhaps past his best (especially in episode two where he is tied to the operating table for the entire episode, bar a brief moment he is paraded in a wheel chair) but still wonderful on the screen.

Troughton becomes an Androgum

The strongest thing though about the script is the writer. Robert Holmes writes rich and interesting characters, and a very solid plot line that is never too complicated for the viewer but is nevertheless interesting. There is betrayal, black humour, contrast and everything else you’d expect in a Robert Holmes script. He understood the programme. He probably wrote it standing on his head. It’s not the fastest paced story, it has its faults, but it’s a good tale nonetheless.

7.5/10

Mark of the Rani

Pip and Jane Baker contributed this story, with an historical setting set in the Luddite Riots and including George Stevenson, the man who invented the steam train. We see the introduction of a new villain (ess) in the Rani, a Time Lady played by Kate O’Mara, and the return of the Master from what appeared to be certain death in ‘Planet of Fire’.

The story is very solid, and has the feel of a more traditional story than those of recent times. It has its issues and its embarrassing moments – principally in the second episode where Luke Ward is turned into a tree which then saves Peri by moving its dodgy rubber branch from the dame fate – but it is basically a tight and enjoyable tale. Pip and Jane Baker, a husband and wife team, seem to write well for the time its set, no doubt Eric Saward also had a strong hand in parts of the script too.

Anthony Ainley and Kate O'Mara

Having said that, the Master was definitely superfluous to requirements in this one. We do get a great dynamic between Anthony Ainley and Kate O’Mara, that’s for sure. It’s even a little bit humorous at times, but it does prevent the writers from exploring the Rani character further. As a new villain, I as an audience member would have liked to know more about her and see more scenes with her opposite Colin Baker.

Thankfully the Doctor-Peri relationship has cooled down somewhat by this stage, and they clearly care a lot about each other. The use of George Stevenson as a character was well written and realised, thankfully because it was possible that it just would turn out cheesy and pointless. The direction is strong, and the location, in a sort of open-air museum I think, was just perfect. You couldn’t asked for a better place to shoot and hence it all feels very authentic.

The cast help sell that too, it’s solid all the way across and features some pretty special beards too! I really enjoyed seeing the interior of the Rani’s TARDIS, which I thought was well done. What wasn’t well done was the dinosaurs. They were fine when stuck in a jar with some sort of green liquid, but the final scene when the TARDIS is hurtling through time and they fall and grow was, along with the tree-incident, the main effects-failure of the show.

The story features a large amount of location filming, which is what makes the setting so convincing. To be able to use the trolleys and train tracks, and to see the whole town functioning, is the highlight of this story.

7.5/10

Vengeance on Varos

Peri, meet Sil!

Philip Martin, the writer of the very existential ‘Gangsters’, approached Eric Saward to write a script for Doctor Who. After a lot of wrangling and trying to convince John Nathan-Turner, Martin turned in the very interesting script for ‘Vengeance on Varos’.

Nabil Shaban as Sil.

It’s a strong story, violent at times but probably not to the same level as some other recent stories such as ‘Attack’ and ‘Caves’, and it’s the sort of story which asks a lot of questions. We find the Doctor and Peri going to the world of Varos which is ruled by television to some extent. A society which broadcasts live from the ‘punishment dome’ all that happens in there – a place where those deemed to be criminals are tortured and killed by various ‘entertaining’ methods. The ultimate in reality TV.

The Governor (Martin Jarvis) asks the populace to approve pretty much any decision he makes, and if they disapprove enough times, he eventually is killed and replaced. Philip Martin calls into question the way people watch TV and what that

Martin Jarvis, Jason Connery and Colin Baker.

might look like in the future. Considering reality TV these days and the way it’s heading, it’s not actually that far off the mark. It also, to a lesser extent, questions democracy. In some ways allowing the people to vote on every decision their Governor makes is basically mass democracy on all levels. At the same time we have the elite, people in positions of power who are living well on the work of the masses living in cubicles. It’s a very interesting society, one that we get a decent glimpse at. Martin has done well to create a world the viewer can imagine more fully than we see on the screen.

Peri gets turned into a bird creature. Thankfully, it didn't stick.

For all of that, there are plenty of faults in ‘Vengeance on Varos’. Again we have a whole lot of bickering in the TARDIS between the Doctor and Peri. It’s a long time since we had a story without a TARDIS scene or two. At times the story gets quite dull. This I put down to the director, Ron Jones, more than anyone else. I think the music is rather good, so the director needed to inject more energy at places because it does fall rather flat in places.

On the flip side of that we have the wonderful Nabil Shaban as Sil, a green slug-like creature from the

planet Thoros Beta. He is on Varos negotiating on behalf of the Galatron Mining Coporation, and despite being clearly evil he also provides a bit of comic relief with his strange laughing and calls of ‘Water me!’ It’s a magical performance perfectly cast. Actually the whole cast is well chosen.

Once we get into the story and the arguing between the Doctor and Peri dies down a bit, Colin Baker begins to come into his own. A bit more levelled-headed in this tale, it’s his best so far. Peri (Nicola Bryant) has a hair-raising time throughout nearly being turned into a bird which is… an interesting idea at the very least! Her performances are becoming more solid with each story.

So there you go. Two forty-five minute episodes which make a pretty decent story.

8/10

Attack of the Cybermen

Maurice Colbourne and Terry Molloy plan a robbery.

‘Attack of the Cybermen’ should have been the story to give Colin Baker a foot in as the Doctor. A cracking story to start season 22 and ‘The Twin Dilemma’ could be forgotten or forgiven. Does ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ achieve that? Not quite. But it’s a decent story.

The Cybermen are back to start the season off with a bang! We have 45 minute episodes now instead of 25 minutes, which I particularly liked. The episode is exciting, directed by Matthew Robinson who also directed ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’, this is obviously the type of story he was suited to and it’s a pity he didn’t direct further for ‘Who’.

Nicola Bryant as Peri - pretty in pink?

However, the story suffers from relying so much on the past of the show, involving lengthy explanations and a plot that unfortunately is extremely convoluted and pretty much doesn’t make sense. The Cybermen have a time machine which they stole, and have gone to Telos to destroy the planet. I think. Meanwhile some sort of force is living in the sewers in 1985 a year before Mondas approaches Earth, resulting in Mondas’s destruction. Remember that Mondas is the Cybermen’s home planet. Now Cybermen history is quite convoluted. Does ‘The Invasion’

Lytton and Griffiths come face to face with the Cyberleader.

predate ‘The Tenth Planet’? In theory it does, probably set in the late 70s. ‘The Tenth Planet’ is 1986. So are these Cybermen on Earth in 1985 left over from ‘The Invasion’. They use the Doctor’s TARDIS to return to Telos. What year is that? Is that in the future or Earth year 1985? Must be the future because Mondas still exists and the Cybermen didn’t need a new planet before it was destroyed. Right?

Cybermen aboard the TARDIS!

Okay, so then what are the Cybermen up to back in time in the London sewers? That’s not explained. Lytton is the one who draws the Doctor to 1985 with his distress beacon. But somehow he has been contacted, on Earth, by the Cryons (native inhabitants of Telos) to come and save them from the Cybermen by stealing their time machine. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a way of thinking about it that works. To enjoy this story, and it is quite enjoyable, you need to just give up on trying to join all the dots and make the chronology make sense.

The rather 'plump' Cybercontroller.

Lytton, as mentioned, is back, also from ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’, also a Saward script. Maurice Colbourne gets a more substantial role in ‘Attack’ and becomes an interesting character. Colin Baker still is very shouty at Peri at the start, and much of the first episode is wasted on repairing the chameleon circuit, which does provide a fair bit of comedy  throughout the story but is hard to see as much more than time wasting. Nicola Bryant’s Peri gets a decent run and her accent has improved, and the guest cast includes Terry Molloy (who played Davros in ‘Resurrection’) as well as Brian Glover as Griffiths, who does a great job.

Lytton and Griffiths embark on a mission.

The sets are pretty good, the Telos stuff (exterior) is done really well. The film is treated to make it look as cold as ice and another great move from the director. I don’t mind the Cryons – a lot of races appear to be male only, so to have one female only makes a nice change. No, I don’t know how the species propagates. I can understand why people don’t like them so much, but I thought the contrast with the Cybermen was a good move on behalf of the director.
The Cybermen design is much the same as ‘Earthshock’, however their boots are lace-boots and that quite

Peri meets the Cyrons

frankly spoils the illusion. Why they needed Michael Kilgariff back for the Cyber-Controller (he was in ‘The Tomb of the Cybermen’) I don’t know. No offence, his acting is fine but age has not been kind to him, reprising a role from 1967. In particular, he has put on a fair bit in the girth department.

The pacing is poor. Perhaps my biggest issue along with the plot convolutions. As nice and moody as episode one is, there is a fair bit of time wasted trying to link Earth with Telos. The Doctor and Peri phaff about for a good long time, and the result is the last 20 minutes is incredibly rushed, especially the

Flast (Faith Brown)

ending. Colin Baker does a great job in the second episode, growing into his Doctor, softening a little (just not towards Peri).

What the story lacks in plot, it makes up in action and excitement. It’s not a bad story by any means. Sometimes, though, I find it much easier to point out the faults than what’s good. We live in a cynical age.

6.5/10

The Twin Dilemma

Whilst not the worst Doctor Who tale in my opinion, this was probably the worst-considered story in the show’s history. Why do I say ‘worst-considered?’, well, the opening story for any new Doctor needs more careful thought and planning than the standard story. They need to remember that first impressions on television count, and the production team needed to put its best foot forward, which clearly did not happen in ‘The Twin Dilemma’.

The Doctor chooses his clothes. Maybe he should have left that to Peri?

Firstly, a lot of the blame must fall fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Eric Saward. To get an untried writer in Anthont Steven to write the first story for any Doctor is risky at best. Whitaker wrote Troughton’s first tale, trusted writer, Holmes Pertwee’s, Dicks’ Tom Baker and Bidmead Davison’s. It’s a wise move to have your opening story in trusty hands. So then I gather Saward did a lot of rewriting this messy convoluted script but really he should have scrapped the lot and written from scratch, would have been better.

Still, costuming was not the strong point of this tale.

SO let’s look at the new Doctor. I am a few stories along and I like Colin’s Doctor, and I understand what John Nathan-Turner was going for, but surely they just took it too far in the opening story. To make him unlikeable is one thing, but when you have the Doctor attacking his companion in the opening episode viewers are likely to recoil in horror, any viewers unsure of the series may have chosen that exact point to switch off.

Maurice Denham as Azmael

Colin Baker gets a coat of many colours, one he hated and certainly is the most ‘out-there’ costume of all. I can’t see anyone going further than that ensemble. Bright yellow trousers didn’t help, but somehow I feel like the costume works! Crazy I know. The script outdoes the tastelessness of the costume by a long way.

One of the twins with Azmael and an annoying Jacondan.

Firstly, the main protagonist is a giant slug. Is it any surprise that the effects’ team couldn’t achieve that convincingly? Not really. Also, the last story of the season is often effected by budget issues, which again impacts the sort of start Colin Baker receives. Add to that the police costumes which are dreadfully cheap-looking, the fact that the story is set on three separate planets and has a race of aliens as well, not to mention space ships and more, it’s little wonder this story looks nearly as cheap as ‘Time-Flight’. It was just stretched far too far. The Jacondans have wigs and beards made out of feathers and frankly look ridiculous.

And as for the yelling, it’s just too much. It could have been toned down by 50% and still been hard to take, but they just went all out. There is no godly way Peri would stay with the Doctor after these episodes. Are they just going to shout at each other adventure after adventure? Then we have Hugo Lang, police officer from Earth who decides to stay on Jaconda to help out despite not really talking with any of the locals or really know what’s been going on for the bulk of the story. And the less said about the twins, the better.

Mestor (centre) one of the least convincing Who-monsters EVER.

Professor Edgeworth/Azmael (Maurice Denham) however is a wonderful character and well played by the aging actor. That worked well. The ins and outs of the plot, the plan to blow up a sun to spread gastropod eggs across the universe, works less well. To go all the way to Earth to kidnap the twins for their mathematical prowess so that Mestor can work out how to explode the sun perfectly is what really makes in convoluted.

There are glimpses of good stuff in the four episodes, but sadly it does come across generally as amateur hour. It needed a lot more money thrown at it, some script reworking and a lot of toning-down.

2/10

The Caves of Androzani

John Normington as Trau Morgus.

‘The Caves of Androzani’ is Peter Davison’s last tale -  a story rated the best in a survey of all Doctor Who stories. It is a story full of action, brilliantly directed by Graeme Harper from a script by Robert Holmes, his first contribution to the series for five years. All pieces fell in to place to make one of the most exciting and probably the best action-style Doctor Who stories of all time.

Is it perfect? There is no such thing as perfection, let’s be honest. It features a pretty average monster, and perhaps it is somewhat lacking in a little bit of humour (but that is

The Doctor and Sharez Jek.

merely the style of the story) but all in all it’s very hard to fault. The only thing is, does making it hard to fault make it perfect? I had a lot of issues with ‘The Seeds of Doom’, but I still gave it 10/10. When I put the two stories alongside each other, I definitely prefer ‘The Seeds of Doom’ despite its polystyrene snow and dodgy monster.

In essence, this is a very different Doctor Who story, seeing the Doctor and Peri caught up in events and basically just trying to survive the four episodes and little more. And that’s not a bad thing, but an approach rarely taken in Doctor Who. It starts with their arrival on Androzani

Sharez Jek is taken with Peri

Minor, a planet with frequent mudbursts and almost nothing to recommend it. The Doctor appears to have chose this planet, so my main question is why? That is never explained. Neither is Peri’s accent in the first few scenes which briefly becomes British at times (note her pronunciation of ‘glass’).

But I am sorry, because this really is a brilliant and gripping story. The characters are interesting, you care about those you are supposed to, especially the wonderfully portrayed (Christopher Gable) Sharez Jek, perhaps some of the best ‘behind the

Jek and Morgus fight.

mask’ acting television has ever seen. And then we have John Normington as Trau Morgus, even with his asides directly to camera he is one of the coldest and therefore most chilling villains in the shows’ 21 years to this point. Perfect casting.

It’s a brutal story, perhaps the most violent since ‘The Deadly Assassin’ back in Tom Baker’s third season. I wonder about its suitability for children. As part of an adjustment to aim the show more at adults though it’s great. Possibly Peter Davison’s best performance too, the Doctor’s determination to save Peri (Nicola Bryant) really adds another dimension to the character. Also, I thought the music was excellent too.

Problem is when a story is near perfect, it’s very hard to find something to write about!

The Doctor saves Peri in his final moments in the guise of Peter Davison.

9.5/10