For “Doctor Who” to survive in the world of 21st-century television, Russell T Davies and the production team realised the new series would have to appeal to a broad spectrum of the viewing public.

Gone were the days when you could chuck “hard science-fiction” such as “Warriors’ Gate” at the viewing public on a Saturday night, and expect to succeed. In fact, let’s be honest, had 95 per cent of the old series adventures appeared in this time slot, “Doctor Who” would have gone the way of “Celebrity Wrestling”.

That’s not to say the old series was bad – far from it. But it was of its time, and though the new series has the same title, has the Doctor and companion, and has the TARDIS (even if it is a superTARDIS now!) it feels likes a totally-different show. It has to be. And, for me, yes, it’s GOOD different.

Die-hard fans may not be happy that it’s so far removed from the old series, and you can’t see many, if any, of the episodes from the new series fitting into previous seasons, even allowing for the obvious improvements in budget, sets and special effects.

The first thing which struck me about “Aliens of London” and “World War Three” was the excellence of the pre-credits sequence. The standard had been set in “The Unquiet Dead” – and the revelation that Rose had been away from home for 12 months rather than 12 hours, as The Doctor had told her, was a real surprise. And a clever twist.

It’s difficult to escape spoilers for anything these days, but it genuinely accentuates your enjoyment of the programme if you don’t know what’s going to happen beforehand. And this was a case in point.

Even more so than in “Rose” and “End of the World”, writer Davies’s great strength, characterisation, was very much to the fore. Again, as with his two previous episodes, I felt this aspect of the script was stronger than the actual story – although this was a better yarn than Episodes One and Two, but then it did have a second episode, which is a big help!

However, there were some truly-classic “bits”. Can you imagine any other Doctor being slapped by an irate mother? Camille Coduri (Jackie) put some real venom into her slap – just as you’d expect of someone who’d lost a year of their daughter’s life. How many times have you seen a slap done badly on TV? Not a bit of it here – totally believable. This is probably why the Doctor “doesn’t do domestics” – protective mothers pack a mean punch!

This was one of my favourite exchanges of the whole series – and there were many.

Doctor - “I AM a Doctor!”
Jackie - “Well, stitch this then!”

Wallop. Priceless.

Exploring the effect travelling through time and space has on the families and friends of companions is a new – but welcome – diversion for Doctor Who. Davies’s decision to keep bringing Rose and the Doctor back to a base on Earth has proved to be the correct one, and Jackie and Mickey (Noel Clarke) are immensely-likeable characters in their own right. And there is a warm feeling of “coming home” after your travels, for the viewer as well as Rose.

Contrary to a lot of opinion, I quite liked Mickey in “Rose”. Most of us imagine ourselves to be like the Doctor or Rose but, in reality, deep down, most of us are like Mickey. Work, TV, friends, sleep. Play it safe – and run a mile if there’s danger. I’m pleased he was able to play a key role in saving the world.

Both Coduri and Noel Clarke (Mickey) really grabbed their share of the limelight here, Clarke especially. His closing exchange with the Doctor (in which he “accepted” Mickey and offered him a role as a companion) was nicely done. I had felt the Doctor was too dismissive of him too quickly in “Rose”. Hopefully, Mickey will change his mind about time and space travel in “Series Two” – he has to have at least one trip in the TARDIS!

Talking of great characters, what about Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North? Is that her full name? The rat-a-tat exchanges between the Doctor, Harriet and Rose in the cabinet rooms were an absolute delight, and a tribute to Davies’s dialogue. Genuinely funny. I would imagine the actors were thrilled to see quality like that on the page before them.

Penelope Wilton (Harriet) was another great choice from the Casting Department – who, like the rest of the production team, make very few mistakes. And she was far too good a character not to make a return, which I believe she does in the 2005 Christmas special.

It goes without saying that the spaceship crashing into Big Ben and then the Thames was a work of art – trouble is, we now expect these high standards from the special effects teams (and it was heavily trailed) so it maybe didn’t have the impact (pardon the pun) it deserved.

Blowing up Downing Street was also, er, an explosive piece of television. Although, on a serious note, as this series was filmed before this summer’s real-life London bombings, I just wonder if that takes the option of such dramatic scenes out of the equation in future.

The downsides of the story? Well, it was stretching things to believe Mickey could use the computer in his bedroom to launch a missile on Downing Street. A hint of “WarGames” – not “THE War Games”, you understand! – about it. Then again, we are talking about a world which baby-faced green monsters want to sell off for scrap – so maybe it wasn’t that far-fetched. And, hey, it’s a TV programme, it doesn’t all have to make perfect sense!

And what of the baby-faced green monsters themselves? My first impression was “not for me”. They didn’t have the menace of a Dalek, a Cyberman, a Sontaran, an Ice Warrior. The farting aspect didn’t do a lot for me either – not being a fan of the puerile or the totally silly - even though it was reasonably explained. And, although the computer-generated versions of the Slitheen moved slickly around the screen, there was a “lumbering” element to the non-CGI creatures (the people in rubber suits) which suggested you could escape them by breaking into a brisk walk.

However, having already brought back the Autons and with the Daleks to come, it was perfectly understandable that Davies would want to create his “own” monster, and the Slitheen have grown on me. I fully expect them to return in Series Two or Three (maybe the Doctor’s much-discussed visit to an alien planet will be Raxacoricofallapatorius?) as they looked like an expensive production, and I’m sure there will be natural encouragement from the budgetary number crunchers to re-use elements of Series One.

Making the Slitheen a family rather than a race was a novel touch, though, and their reason for being on Earth was well thought out. And I was glad that the pig in a spacesuit didn’t turn out to be the alien! I had visions of the programme being slaughtered in the Press.

There was one irritation at the end of “Aliens of London” – terrific cliff-hanger but, to have the trailer for the next episode even before the closing credits, was plain daft. We know that the Doctor isn’t going to die, but at least give us 30 seconds to consider it!

Going back to my original point about “Doctor Who” appealing to a broader spectrum, I would say I found “Aliens of London”/“World War Three” an enjoyable romp, but I think there was more in most of the other stories for my own tastes. This was probably one for the kids, and there’s no disgrace in that. Giant, green, farting aliens trying to destroy the world – stuff of playground legend. And you know what they say – “children are the future” . . .

Frontier In Space has the dubious distinction of being the only serial of Doctor Who that my sister has watched all the way through, and that was only because she was too ill to move. She passionately hated it, finding it boring, but it's actually a pretty decent story and probably second only to The Green Death in the programme's tenth season. However, it does tend to go round in circles a bit: I can tell you that over the course of the six episodes one or more characters gets incarcerated in a prison cell no less than seventeen times, including the lunar penal colony. Still, over-the-top lazy writer's devices are what the Jon Pertwee era is all about (more on that when we get to Planet Of The Spiders).

The first thing notable about this episode is the superb quality of the special effects, which is not something you can say very often about a Barry Letts production. This is particularly evident in the model shots of spacecraft flying about which, although looking slightly Thunderbirds-esque at times, certainly pass muster. As well as this though there is very little CSO present in this episode, being used only to create the television footage in the President's office. This is good, as the quality of the CSO is one of the most consistently poor aspects of Letts's time as producer. This may sound like I'm setting Letts up for a rough ride during the course of my reviews (for future reference, this is my first Pertwee review). Wait and see.

The opening scene with the freighter crew is obviously designed to set the story, but even though it lays on the exposition very thick it gets by by following the first rule of plot development: the characters actually have a reason to be talking to each other. There they are, two crewmembers of an unarmed ship that as far as they know could be attacked at any moment - why shouldn't they discuss the threat? The first scene with the Doctor and Jo shows Pertwee arguably not trying, stroking his lip and scratching his neck less than a minute after emerging from the TARDIS. However, Jo's characterisation improved considerably over her tenure (in inverse proportion to UNIT's) and so she's much less annoying here than she used to be, although the thought of a Katy Manning DVD commentary still fills me with horror. The pulsing spacecraft fills the episode with a sense of mystery - something common then but rare now in these days when everything has to be jammed into a forty-five minute space - which is always a good start.

Dudley Simpson's electronic score is very intrusive; Simpson often produced good work when using conventional instruments (which do feature in this story), but his output when using squeaky early-1970s synthesisers was rarely up to much. Still, there have been worse scores for the show, both by him and others.

The story is set in the 26th century, but I could have sworn it was 1973. More to the point, 1973's idea of what the 26th century would look like, viz, the fashions of 1973 but in spandex, perspex and a lot of other things ending in ex (I've watched Dalek a lot recently). The location work is well shot but the buildings they chose look so 1970s that the effect is spoiled, with what looks like a concrete leisure centre doubling as Earth control. It's like watching Doctor Who done on the set of Get Carter. Pertwee was right though when he said that the Draconians were great looking aliens, even though their 'honourable foe' characterisation seems slightly dated now having been done a billion times in Star Trek. It has to be said that Peter Birrel looks like he's struggling under his make up and his acting is very stagy; he is eclipsed in his scenes by Karol Hagar, playing his secretary. Louis Mahoney as the newscaster presents a largely successful attempt to show a wider universe (half 1984 and half The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) beyond the confines of the serial's sets and locations, once you get over the shock of seeing a non-Caucasian in 1970s Doctor Who.

Back in space, the Doctor and Jo are locked up (a state in which they spend most of the episode). The mystery of the attacking Draconians is explained early on, which is rare, but done to set up a conspiracy storyline rather than a mystery. However, showing the Ogrons before the dramatic reveal as they burst through the airlock door does spoil the effect a bit, as well as making it fairly predicable that the Daleks are going to turn up at some point (it was stated by Vorg in only the previous story Carnival Of Monsters that the Ogrons worked for the Daleks). That said it is a nice twist to see them again and they are excellently designed monsters, looking like a cross between an ape and Little Red Riding Hood's gran. Also, their mercenary status and idiot characterisation make them more original than the usual "resistance is useless" job.

Episode two has a long reprise which is followed by the Doctor and Jo getting locked up; an appropriate beginning for an episode that goes nowhere. However, there is some funny dialogue to introduce the concept of a mind probe, although the "pink horse with yellow spots on" sounds like an insult from Arnold Rimmer. The argument between the Draconians and the humans ends as it began, with stalemate, and their refusal to believe the Doctor means that the third party storyline takes ages to get going. By the time of episode three not much has changed, but the dialogue is well written and just about hold sup across the serials' six episodes, saving the story from feeling overlong.

The mind probe looks like a little pork pie on a dish, but it's a great scene and it showcases the excellently characterised General Williams, who completely blots out what he doesn't want to hear even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Pertwee's face is a picture as the probe blows up, although shouldn't it take his brain with it?

The Doctor's relocation to the lunar penal colony is a good trick for preventing the story faltering along its length; changing the setting keeps the story fresh. Events are moved on further by the introduction of the Master, supposedly revealing himself to be the aforementioned third party. Having these plot points paced gradually over the story helps the plot no end as it means that we don't get one or two scenes of "what's happening Doctor?" hackery, and it also means that viewers at the time weren't required to remember everything that had happened six weeks previously. Having said that, the "only politicals get the moon" scene is not exactly subtle.

Professor Dale is very well acted by Harold Goldblatt. He reminds me sometimes of a less irritable version of William Hartnell's Doctor; in fact, he even performs a tribute to Hartnell by fluffing a line. On the subject of acting I should say that Roger Delgado is terrific in what turned out tragically to be his last appearance, especially as he had ended his last performance in The Time Monster hamming it up in a manner worthy of Anthony Ainley: the scenes where he confronts Jo for the first time and later when he blackmails the prison governor into relinquishing the Doctor are a joy to watch.

Episode four ties with episode two in seeing someone locked up the most times, with five counts of a character being shut in a cell. I should note that a boom mike shadow appears in the first cell-scene in this episode, and doesn't the Doctor say that he lost his sonic screwdriver in the penal colony? This would explain the new-look screwdriver from season eleven onwards. Glaring stock footage of the moon landing is used for when the Master's ship takes off but the model work generally is, as always in this story, excellent. Also, the Master reading War Of The Worlds is a nice touch, the kind of subtle self-referentiality that Russell T. Davies can never get the hang of. The spacewalk scene shows some very dodgy science but is visually impressive, although the Doctor does appear to swing about when supposed to be floating in the void - almost as if he's suspended on wires. He pulls out his oxygen pipe, but conveniently it only starts to propel him when he's pointing it in the right direction.

On my video episode five has the alternative Delaware arrangement of the theme music, so this seems an appropriate time to talk about it: it's awful, and it shows Barry Lett's thoughtlessness that he ever truly believed anything would ever top the original version - a mistake made by John Nathan-Turner ten years later, who when trying to make the show as modern as possible failed to realise that modern doesn't stay modern forever. It's hard to believe that the two versions of the music were actually made by the same person, which just goes to show what can happen when too much equipment is available; Delia Derbyshire really had to work to make the original, and that makes it what it is. The first time I heard the Delaware version, I thought I'd been slipped something.

The Draconian court is seen for the first time this episode, and obvious parallels are drawn up between the two camps: Draconia has the warmongering prince and the moderate emperor, while Earth has the aggressive General Williams and the rational president. The legend of the Doctor is a very Terry Nation style piece of work, and in fact one that would be repeated by Nation in the very next story. The raid by the Ogrons on the stolen ship is simple but effective, although the Doctor fires a gun without any qualm at all which is something very hard to equate with his character. I suppose something about the Ogrons brings out his violent side.

The Ogron planet is revealed, and it's a quarry. There are many clichйs about Doctor Who, and the one hardest to defend against is that quarries were used left, right and centre to provide alien planets. It has to be said though that most of the time (like now) the script did call for a barren wasteland, with the exception of The Three Doctors which just showed the production team not trying in the locations department. The final episode is largely set here, and there is some nice continuity as monsters from the last season are paraded before Jo. Back on Earth, the American calling for war when the audience knows it is unjustified may be a commentary on Vietnam, or maybe that's just me getting too analytical.

Typical of an episode set in a quarry, the visuals pall slightly in this episode: there are obvious wires in the spacewalk scene, and the Ogron eater looks like a soiled mattress. Is it me, or is the Doctor's scanner the same prop that was later used in The Mark Of The Rani? There is a well staged action scene though, that leads to the big reveal the Daleks are the masterminds behind the whole plot (in deference to this I have hidden a "bad wolf" reference in this review. Try and find it, conspiracy lovers!). Pertwee seems very unconcerned that his least favourite monsters have returned, and like I said earlier the presence of the Ogrons makes it less of a surprise than it could and should have been. Their voices are excellent: very smooth, but also totally electronic and tinny (although I prefer the harshness of the early Daleks and now the new series too). Also, Michael Wisher is an excellent voice artist, falling behind only Nicholas Briggs and the grand daddy of them all, Peter Hawkins; he's leagues ahead of Roy Skelton. However, the actors have trouble moving the props even on the smooth studio floors.

This all leads to an unusual cliffhanger ending leading directly into the next story, Planet Of The Daleks, but due to the tacky production and Terry Nation's derivative script the season's twelve-part centrepiece was less effective than it deserved to be: it's certainly nowhere near the quality of The Daleks' Master Plan, for which Frontier In Space and Planet Of The Daleks were conceived to rival. Still, this first half is sprawling, slow paced but also intelligent, mature and enjoyable and stands up as one of the better stories of Pertwee's last two seasons.

Revenge Of The Cybermen is a story that fandom just can’t seem to make its mind up about. People slate it to the high heavens, but it has enough supporters to keep it from the depths of turkeydom wherein lurks The Twin Dilemma and suchlike. Coming after the programme’s definitive episode (not best, mind) it’s bound to come across as a bit of a comedown, but I wouldn’t say it was terrible. In fact, the only thing in it really worthy of sustained criticism is the portrayal of the Cybermen themselves.

For one thing, the special effects are generally very good and miles better than those of The Ark In Space; I know everything was fine with Ark in part four once it shifted to film-recorded models, but there was a load of rubbish to put up with before that. Here it’s 16mm all the way and it looks really good. However, the studio scenes are considerably less atmospheric, possibly because of the different director or possibly because the thought of a space station acting as a giant refrigeration unit for the lat survivors of humanity is a slightly more enigmatic than a space station warning ships about flying into a tiny moon that’s been around for half a century anyway. However, the scenes set in the main corridor are amazingly spooky with dead bodies lying scattered disregarded - although the stars outside are behaving rather oddly, swinging around and winking on and off.

I wouldn’t say any of the acting is particularly bad in this story, although Ronald Leigh-Hunt seems to be capable of nothing more than cloning the role he played in The Seeds Of Death. William Marlowe is likeable as Lester and Jeremy Wilkin is suitably (initially, anyway) smarmy and evil as the ostensible villain. However, as is a problem with a lot of stories, the writing of the opening scenes seems forced and a bit artificial and the exposition between Kellman and Warner is very simplistic.

There is some slapstick on display with the Doctor’s arm trapped in the door, but the scene is rescued for me by Tom Baker’s sullen glaring. After this we head down to the planet’s surface and meet the locals: Michael Wisher is wasted a bit in a minor role (then again he had just done a major role that would see him remembered forever so I’ll not be churlish), but Kevin Stoney and particularly David Collings perform wonderfully. Collings is especially good as Vorus when you think how different his other roles were, as the genial Poul in The Robots Of Death and of course the melancholy Mawdryn. However, while Kellman’s status as double agent turned triple agent is interesting and clever the twist is undermined by the Vogans mentioning their agent and the presence of gold in Kellman’s quarters, which could clue in an attentive viewer. On the subject of gold this story is of course the beginning of the end of the Cybermen’s credibility; even though they’d been given one weakness per story up to now none had been as utterly stupid as this – and which one did they stick with? Right. At least here a bit of thought has gone into how it works – it has to be gold dust ground into the chest unit, easier said than done – whereas by Silver Nemesis we were seeing truly appalling scenes with gold coins being pinged off their helmets with a catapult. We only get a few bits of silliness such as gold affecting radars, although since this isn’t a great leap from being underground affecting radars it’s not a big problem.

The Cybermat, however, is utterly pathetic and while I might be able to forgive the whole hold-it-to-your-neck-and-pretend-it’s-attacking-you routine once to see it done I think four times is asking a lot of the audience. This leads to a naffer-than-naff first cliffhanger. The lines on the face, a mark of the Cyberman virus, show how derivative of each other the Gerry Davis-written Cybermen stories were, but I suppose you can’t fault the continuity. However, the audience is expected to believe that nobody at all noticed the snakebite effects, or the scratched metal, or anything – now that I think about it Davis’s stories contain gaping plot holes actually quite often. Kellman communicating with the Cybermen through Morse Code is seriously stretching it and is the wrong kind of amusing, but the model work of the Cyberman ship is excellent and the score (featuring contributions from Peter Howell, one of the better composers of the 1980s) is wonderful.

Sarah’s infection is a good dramatic sequence simply through the intense performances of all the cast, foremost of course being Elisabeth Sladen. They beam down to Voga leading to some excellent location work at Wookey Hole caves (I visited them as a child, and was bloomin’ scared). The scenes with Harry and Sarah together show the rapport between Sladen and Ian Marter, and how underrated Harry was as a companion.

The Doctor states that Voga is “hated and feared” by the Cybermen, so scratch my earlier comment about faultless continuity. However, the scene where the Doctor threatens Kellman with a Cybermat is amazingly cool as are the (Robert Holmes-penned) politics of Voga, even if the latter does smack of padding.

Really now, the Cybermen are no worse than they were in the 1980s. Christopher Robbie is supposed to have some sort of accent but I can’t hear it, and while some of their dialogue does come across as somewhat emotional, there’s always the “he [the Doctor] must suffer for our past defeats” line from Earthshock. Robbie struts around hand-on-hips; David Banks shakes his fists and rants like a lunatic. It’s all the same really.

Sarah refusing to let Harry introduce her is a nicely subtle example of her feminism (the words “subtle” and “feminist” so rarely appear in a sentence together without a prefix of “un”), and is far superior characterisation to her “if you think I’m the sort of girl who makes the coffee…” jive when she first appeared in The Time Warrior.

The studio sets of Voga are pretty poor, and let down even further by a ridiculous photographed backdrop (it’s not even in focus for crying out loud), but when we get the genuine location filming there is more very good material and the silent Cyber-drones do look effective in them.

However, here’s where it starts to get really B-movie, with Sarah learning of plot developments by eavesdropping on the monsters. With this, and talk of climbing through cross-shafts to intercept bombs, it’s all getting a bit Dalek Invasion Of Earth. That story wasn’t bad, but such simplistic plot elements barely work once let alone twice.

The rock fall is a mixture of the good (location) and bad (studio). It makes an appropriate death for Kellman – how do you kill someone who has to die to justify the narrative but who kind of is and kind of isn’t a villain? Answer: natural causes, although here that means getting whacked by a piece of painted polystyrene. And since we see the Doctor take a couple in the gut himself, how come he gets off without a scratch? The cliffhanger is still quite fun though.

The attack on the Cybermen with gold is quite well directed and edited, and Lester’s death is poignant and noble: the story’s mortality rate of 70%, while high, is totally appropriate to the story. Back on Nerva however the silliness is increasing exponentially with a plan to crash the station into Voga. That said, it isn’t bad silliness and it’s a great laugh. While the stock footage of Saturn V launching is just plain lazy, it is a fun scene where the rocket is redirected away from the station (in the nick of time, no less). The destruction of the Cyberman ship is a good special effect even though the debris has a definite downward vibe to it; I’d have hung the model upside-down myself and shot it that way. “The biggest bang in history” could have come from Douglas Adams although he probably would have realised how it could be interpreted; however, stupid as it is, I could watch that rolling-drum effect of Voga on the scanner all day. Call me mad, but I love the effects in this story.

And with that, it’s over. Answering an emergency call from the Brigadier is a good way of keeping tension over the season break, but the “space-time telegraph” is whimsy worthy of Russell T. Davies. Still, it’s nice to see the TARDIS again for the first time since The Ark In Space.

Revenge Of The Cybermen is a deeply silly story that is still a long way from being a true dud, possibly because Robert Holmes’s witty script-editing prevents it from being too serious for its naff moments to be forgiven, like Warriors Of The Deep. Season 12 is a short season with two classic stories; even a hit rate like that doesn’t mean that basic fun like this is bad.

The Face Of Evil is the forgotten story of season 14: The Deadly Assassin, The Robots Of Death and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang are flagged up as the classics (no argument from me), while The Masque Of Mandragora and The Hand Of Fear are the usual candidates for the one story per season that fans are by law required not to like. In the middle of it all nestles this story, always overlooked. This is a shame, as it's really quite a natty little tale. It's also important as it introduces Leela as a companion: not the best idea really as a character starting out in a position of less knowledge than the audience is a hard one to transplant into a setting other than their own, as John Wiles learned with Katarina. Also, Louise Jameson's performance took some time to smooth out (probably not helped by the fact that Tom Baker hated her guts) and consequently she is destined always to be remembered as the companion who didn't wear many clothes.

It begins in a fairly ordinary way, with stagy actors going on about a backwards religion, but it's no worse than the average beginning of any story. It then becomes genuinely disturbing, as we get to hear an old man getting eaten alive by some vicious monster called a Horda. Blimey, what's this monster? It must be seriously impressive to be flagged up so in the script!

The forest, our next location, is a nice enough set and benefits by being well shot on film. It is slightly strange for a hardcore fan like me though to hear background effects that date all the way back to The Daleks in 1963, and the invisible monsters make the same noise as the Skarasen from Terror Of The Zygons. Baker shoots in on absolute top form with his knotted hanky and gigantic alarm clock in his pocket nice examples of his bonkers character, while not overdoing it like he would in future seasons. although his talking to himself and directly to the camera is a reminder back to the previous episode where there was no companion to give him a real reason to talk out loud. Him meeting Leela is another very good scene with more great dialogue, perhaps showing why Chris Boucher is so highly regarded as a Doctor Who writer even though he only penned three stories. However, as all three were script edited by Robert Holmes (there are definite Holmesian touches in the dialogue) I'm never quite sure who to give the credit to.

Leela seems much more intelligent within her own society, but is still extremely violent; this is a violent episode in general, with people getting shot with crossbows and poisoned with Janus thorns (much better used here than in The Talons Of Weng-Chiang) left, right and centre. Although hardly the most intense story of the season this is still full-blooded in a typically Philip Hinchcliffe way, with the same high level of production values. The invisible monsters aren't brilliant compared to how the effects were done in The Daleks' Master Plan, but streets ahead of Planet Of The Daleks. The footprints look terrible, with rectangular blocks in the floor being lowered down in slow motion, but the destruction of the clock looks brilliant.

After this the jungle moves to being shot on videotape, which always highlights fakery. This example is particularly shameless, using industrial piping as vines, but it gets by on the general weirdness such as the sky being jet black in daylight. It's hard to notice anyway as attention-grabbing plot points are dealt out slowly, where the Doctor meets more of the natives and discovers that all is not as it seems on this planet. Neeva's Welsh accent is jarring but since it's an alien planet there's no good reason why it should be any more out of place than the other characters' Queen's-English (these are without doubt the poshest savages since The Time Meddler). The scene where Neeva waves the "artefact" around the Doctor is well written but ridiculously played by David Garfield, who staves of laughter by doing a Rolf Harris impression.

After escaping the Doctor manages to threaten the natives with a jelly baby, in my favourite scene in the story. The Sevateem really are a backwards people: those haircuts are just so 1967. After this scene - a very Holmesy one - we come to the cliffhanger, and it's a knockout. One of the story's major strengths is that all three cliffhangers are excellent, this one being the moment the Doctor sees his own face carved in a mountainside. The only thing that jars is the constant switching between film and video, but it's only a minor quibble.

When watched all in one go, it is very noticeable that the titles of each episode form almost the only breaks in Dudley Simpson's omnipresent score: this one is average, neither great nor terrible, but it is very intrusive. The discovery of Neeva's sanctum is an interesting scene as we get to hear Baker talking to himself over a radio link, which is played to be so ordinary that it's hard to notice how imaginative it is. The dialogue between the Doctor and his alter-ego is excellent, foreshadowing the plot without actually giving anything away.

The time barrier effect is good, as have most of the other effects been so far, and I like the way it is presented to the audience; these days people see the need to justify every science-fictional concept with a pseudo-authentic explanation, but here all we know is that time is somehow moved forward a couple of seconds. It's science...fiction! We are shown the barrier just in time for the Sevateem to attack it, and for a tribe of warriors they are seriously laughable in battle. Their plan of action seems to mainly consist of shouting "ATTACK!" at the top of their voices while creeping very slowly towards the enemy and doing nothing else once they get there. One of them even does a Red Indian war cry, for crying out loud. The scene where the Doctor breaks Calib's leg (so he claims) I consider an insult to anyone who's ever broken a bone (i.e. me) as he is up and on his feet in seconds. I am never sure whether this is a joke - the Doctor's subsequent threat to break Calib's nose would suggest so - but it is presented as being serious enough (just not very painful).

The Doctor is captured, and I love the scene where he dismisses Neeva's claim that he can physically renew himself as ridiculous. We then get the Horda scene, a wonderfully written and designed scene let down by a badly-choreographed fight scene with Leela rolling around the floor like a toddler. And, of course we get to see the Horda. Actually we saw them right at the beginning, slithering along at the end of a piece of string, but this is where we are told that this deadly creature we've been hearing so much about is in fact a plastic stick with a fin at one end and some Blue Peter-made teeth at the other. Frankly, things crawling in my bath have been scarier than that (i.e. me again). However, it is nice to hear some effort made to make the stone blocks actually sound like stone as they part, as opposed to polystyrene. On the subject of sounds Xoanon's second voice sounds a lot like one of the robots from the subsequent story, which is odd as Brian Croucher didn't actually play a robot in it. Maybe I'm hearing things - it certainly sounded like Baker mispronounced Tomas's name "Thomas", which made me laugh.

The CSO used to put the Doctor and Leela by the face of the idol is poor, but it's an impressive scene nonetheless. The cliffhanger, as I said before, is great, as the Doctor's image is lit up in the air. I should have been expecting it really having already heard Tom Baker's voice coming from somewhere other than Tom Baker's mouth (no, you sicko, from the speaker), but it's still wonderful to see.

Episode three gets off to a slightly muddled start as Boucher sets himself the task of introducing a completely new place and people halfway through the story. It's easy to see how the story is structured with such a sudden change between episodes, which is unusual when watching a serial all in one go. Unfortunately the design of the spaceship is bland and the Tesh look completely ridiculous, little eight-stone weaklings dressed as playing cards from Alice In Wonderland. However, Xoanon looks good: a little screen-savery perhaps, but a good screen saver, and the three actors talking together produce a brilliant atmosphere. What is also good is that the Doctor discovers the plot at the same speed as the audience for once, making the very well-written expositionary dialogue seem natural and appropriate for once. Another nice touch is the fact that all the planet's troubles have happened because the Doctor screwed up.

The scene when Leela and the Doctor are about to get diced by the laser is very derivative and closer to the lightweight action adventure that characterises most of season 15. It does show some hints of religious imagery, which would be appropriate to the story and in keeping with the deliberately Biblical imagery of Neeva's litanies - but maybe it is I who am now talking out of somewhere other than my mouth. The other action scenes are similarly staid and uneasy - a shame, as it's generally a well directed episode - but then again there are mirrored sets which must be difficult when shooting multi-camera. The final scene has a lot of plot delivered, but it is told like a story and makes very compelling listening. This is followed by one of the best cliffhangers of the 70s, with a massive image of the Doctor's face screaming "WHO AM I?" in a child's voice. It's surreal, creepy, and at least as scary as the one in The Deadly Assassin that had Mary Whitehouse choking on her garibaldi.

The final episode continues this air of bizarreness, with the Tesh getting scared by mood lighting. It's fun to watch Xoanon trying to kill the Doctor, even though the electrocution effect is rubbish, and if I'm in an unforgiving mood I'd say that Leela actually managed to shoot the Doctor. The Sevateem breaking in allows for some excellent characterisation of the Tesh, who are more concerned with not getting agitated than with actually stopping their enemies.

In the end though it reverts to a simply defuse-the-bomb scenario, which I would have thought was below this story, although the resolution is still more imaginative than usual. The end scene with Xoanon seems very forced and largely unnecessary as it's only repeating what we already know, but the old gramophone player is a nice touch. We must be thankful the episode is not written by Russell T. Davies, or the Doctor and Leela would probably start grooving to 'Dancing Queen' (see The End Of The World). The final coda is over quickly, a "get the companion into the TARDIS before the studio lights get turned off" moment, but it's well written and better than some companions got, for example Dodo. All in all then, despite a few dodgy moments of production in the second half, this is a very solid story with very little to dent it.

When I was young, I’d rave about anything. Would you believe at one point I loved The Twin Dilemma, and thought Battlefield was a good story to show to a newbie? These days, as a jaded 20 year old (I’ll be 21 in six weeks at the time of writing so I’m milking it for all it’s worth) it takes quite a lot to blow my mind, and while many have been good only two Doctor Who stories have ever managed it. One was Ghost Light; the other was Image Of The Fendahl.

What’s noticeable about this episode is how it focuses on the guest characters, with a relatively small role (initially anyway) for the Doctor and Leela. This allows for some excellently drawn roles, without going too far in this direction as the otherwise-good Revelation Of The Daleks did. It’s handy then that the guest roles are generally well acted, with the exception of the slightly stagy Edward Arthur as Adam Colby. Dennis Lill as Dr. Fendelman, taking the “mad scientist” baton and playing his little heart out while just managing to avoid playing for laughs (although take that remark with a pinch of salt when it comes to his death scene). None of this could work though were it not for the wonderful script from Chris Boucher; lines such as Adam’s plea to Max to “end the day with a smile” are the kind of nuances that take a good story into the realms of greatness. 

Oh man, I hate writing reviews where all I do is lavish praise. Still, I suppose getting to watch such an excellent episode counters this.

The visuals are appropriate to the story and are generally solid – it’s interesting to note that the other excellent stories of Graham Williams’s time as producer (Horror Of Fang Rock and City Of Death) also feature above average design. Makes you think, that. However, it must be said that this serial does the televisual equivalent of grabbing you by the lapels and screaming “GOTHIC!” at you until you pass out. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The scene with the hiker in the woods is very creepy and atmospheric, and the glowing skull effect is terrific. The only flaw is, like most programmes older than about five years, the computers look very dated.

George Spenton-Foster is a superb director on this story (his work on The Ribos Operation is more open to debate, although he was never terrible) and there are some wonderful touches such as overlaying the image of the skull over that of Thea. The hiker’s death is good, as the unseen monster’s powers of paralysis are scary enough on their own without any other details.

After some little time now we get to the first scene with the regulars. K9, even though he never speaks or leaves the TARDIS, seems incongruous in such a dark story, and Leela’s line of “don’t cry about it” illustrates her shift to being a slightly more easy going character (by her standards, anyway) over the course of the season.

After a brief scene in which the Doctor delivers a lot of technobabble (just focus on the “world will be destroyed” sections, they’re the important bits), we’re back to the scientists. The script seems to dry up whenever Max Stael opens his mouth – when Scott Fredericks hammily delivers lines like “it is never easy to die” he might as well have the words “bad guy” written on his forehead, and no amount of shifty behaviour from Fendelman can draw attention away from that. On the whole though this is still very good, even though it’s weird to see Wanda Ventham and Dennis Lill together on screen outside their vastly different roles in Only Fools And Horses. The post-mortem examination conducted by Stael on the hiker further emphasises that there’s some evil force around (the trouble with invisible monsters is that we need constant reminders that they’re there), and the atmosphere is helped at this stage by the lack of music. One point of contention though: who in their right minds names their dog Leaky? “’Scuse me, I thought you said she was housetrained-” “Gotta go!” VROOOOOOM…

The Doctor and Leela spend this episode enjoying a walk down some country lanes where they meet Ted Moss, naturalistically played by Edward Evans; the scene where Leela holds him at knifepoint is a high point of the story. At this stage I should say that even he cannot hold a candle to the superb Daphne Heard as Martha Tyler, hands down the best actor of the season.

The cliffhanger to the first episode is ambitious in its dual nature conceptually great, but it is let down by the fact that Tom Baker just standing there staring blankly doesn’t give the impression that the Doctor is in danger, especially since the darkness hides his face. Also, the scene of Leela being shot at is undermined in the next episode by one of the most annoying directorial devices possible in serials of any sort: a re-edited reprise showing that Leela was never in danger.

It is now that the Doctor makes a superb, commanding entrance to the manor house. He knows what’s going on from the moment he sees the embryo Fendahleen, and we see him delivering portentous hints as to what the danger is for the rest of the story. The plot is original, complex without being nonsense and very frightening; the Doctor’s warning about “four thousand million” people is a great line although simply saying “four billion” would have been more elegant. One of the most praiseworthy aspects of the plot is that Boucher uses the idea of the Fendahl’s continued influence, already a good idea in itself, to ease the plot delivery as it justifies all the amazingly well-informed guesses of Fendelman, which in a lesser story would be mere laziness.

Jack Tyler and Leela have some good dialogue together and Martha’s use of Tarot cards give another spooky dimension to an already captivating and mysterious plot. The cut from Leela praising the Doctor’s gentleness to him demolishing a box is a delightfully understated moment of comedy, the kind just appropriate for the story.

Episode three sees a change of pace now that the Doctor involves himself with the plot. It is quite tightly packed with plot explanations, a drawback of having such a slow paced, character driven first half. Anyway, it’s nothing that can’t be said of 90% of other stories’ third episodes. Also, it’s commendable that Boucher was able to use the Doctor like this so successfully, maintaining the mysterious atmosphere as long as possible by preventing him from entering and spoiling the plot too soon.

The scene where the Doctor uses fruit cake to restore Martha to her senses is quite simply marvellous, blending humour with a genuinely clever idea. Jack asks the Doctor how he knows so much, and his response of “I read a lot” is inspired and a quotation I use whenever the opportunity arises (or at least I would use it if I gave the impression of knowing stuff). That’s not her best china? Blimey, it’s better than mine.

There is noticeable music for the first time now, and it’s quiet and unobtrusive – a rarity for Dudley Simpson. The TARDIS scene feels like it has been crowbarred into the narrative to provide further exposition, but in a plot this good it hardly matters.

All a bit of a rush now really, as Thea is prepared for transformation in the cellar. This is a dazzling scene, both visually and musically, although it is let down slightly by being split across an episode break. Dennis Lill’s death scene is truly spectacular, reminding me a bit of Professor Zaroff’s infamous cry of “Nozzing in ze vurld can shtop me now!” in The Underwater Menace, although with a less hackneyed script.

The adult Fendahleen looks brilliant and is probably the best monster of the season, although the puppet embryos are less successful with their stiff movements of the bend down-straighten up-wiggle tail-repeat variety. Also, I have a feeling that Jack’s cry of “my legs! I can’t move my legs” is a throwback to The Daleks, where Ian says an almost identical line after being paralysed. The Doctor’s explanation of psychotelekinesis is the kind of technobabble that would have Russell T. Davies spitting blood and William Hartnell strangling himself with his own vocal cords but in the context of the scene it works, largely because of the tongue-in-cheek writing and delivery.

The Fendahl Core looks good apart from the painted eyes, and her faint smile is very creepy. It is a shame – although necessary, and it helps to retain the enigmatic ambience – that we never get to see the completed Fendahl gestalt. Stael’s death is unbearably dramatic, and it effectively illustrates the gravity of the situation to see the Doctor assisting in a man’s suicide. There is a magnificent shot of the Doctor and Leela running through an apparition of the Core, but the standard explosion ending is a bit of a disappointment after such a good story. Still, it’s nothing sufficient to damage the overall quality of the episode.

This is an often overlooked story, rarely appearing in top ten lists. In fact, I’m not sure if I’m honest that it even makes mine – but the fact remains that it is a superb, flawlessly constructed story that is by some margin the finest story of season 15, and one of the best of Graham Williams’s productions.

There are some reputations that don’t so much need changing as updating. For example, the companion Vicki is rarely mentioned without the word “underrated” lurking somewhere nearby; isn’t it about time she became known as “that companion who was really quite good”, as a reputation for being underrated is really stupid when you think about it. This principal of outdated reputations also applies to The Keeper Of Traken, which has had a “classic” label fall from the sky and attach itself to it. I’ve read a fair few reviews and while there are some that praise it to the last moment there are no more than for any other story and there is certainly no evidence I have found to justify such a lofty reputation. This appears to have led to the mildly amusing situation where there are loads of people who think that they’re the only ones who don’t like it; many of the reviews I’ve read are complaining that it isn’t a classic. As for me, I’ve only seen it a couple of times and not for years anyway, so I’ll try and stay as open-minded as possible.

The opening credits faded away and I was instantly bowled over by Tom Baker, who is more charismatic here than in any other episode for years. He is helped by a very witty script that makes for an excellent introductory scene on board the TARDIS. This is very rare, especially in the early 1980s (more specifically, in scenes with Matthew Waterhouse present), and shows that having a sharp, wise-cracking Doctor can be advantageous sometimes.

The title of the story is dropped into the dialogue early on (and several times through the story) but as it refers to something specific in the plot then there’s no problem: and the Keeper is a great character. His laconic manner does justice to the distinctive dialogue – I’m sometimes wary when writers feel that peaceful and sophisticated cultures have to talk in a sub-Elizabethan fashion, but in truth it works more often than not – and keeps the sustained exposition scene at the beginning of this episode interesting to listen to. The idea of evil forces calcifying into Melkurs is fascinating, and the flashbacks on the scanner allow us to see the back story of the episode happen rather than just hear about it in a massive retrospective info-dump.

This then is our first glimpse of Traken itself. The music score is appropriately lush but the sets, it has to be said, look like sets and nothing more. While they don’t convince as being genuine exteriors they are nevertheless easy on the eye and ambitious in concept, and designer Tony Burrough should be praised for making a story that can never be called bad looking. Roger Limb’s music score is appropriately lush, in particular the atmospheric ‘Nyssa’s Theme’ which I have on CD on the Earthshock compilation album. Most notable however is how good Anthony Ainley is at playing Tremas; it shows how the massive ham salad that was the 1980s Master was really not his fault and he should not be blamed for John Nathan-Turner’s poor decision to make him play the part over the top.

This all sets up a very enigmatic scenario of a mysterious evil subtly infiltrating a peaceful planet; it’s just a shame it turns out to be the Master really as this pantomime villain, although he had potential as stories like The Deadly Assassin show, doesn’t stand up too well today. That said, this is one of his better outings and probably his best of the 1980s bar Survival.

It takes a very long time for the TARDIS to actually reach Traken and in the meantime the consuls argue about a foster’s death: this scene is overlong, but diverting enough. The walking Melkur statue is impressive and well directed by John Black, but let down by the squeak of polystyrene that can clearly be heard as it moves. This all leads to a very good cliffhanger as the Keeper appears to condemn the Doctor and Adric. So far my desire to challenge and unwarranted reputation is on shaky ground, as the first episode is actually very strong indeed.

>From the beginning however, the second episode fails to capitalise on the strengths of the first. Kassia’s stage-fall is very silly, and Black shows he is really not an action director from the appalling scene where the Melkur kills as foster (“No! No! Nooo!”). Also, while John Woodnutt is good as Seron Sheila Ruskin is a bit of an all round bore as Kassia and Robin Soams as Luvic delivers his lines as if he thinks he’s playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night. 

It’s still a good episode though, with the Melkur’s dialogue being very spooky and doom laden even if Geoffrey Beevers has far too genial a voice to really portray the sense of evil. This is followed by an exposition scene where Adric and Nyssa discuss Traken technology. I don’t hate Sarah Sutton by any means but she isn’t great here (although who is in their first story? Okay, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton…but you get the point) and she and Waterhouse certainly can’t sustain a scene between them. The episode is amiable and always interesting and engaging, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s just treading water now.

The vanished TARDIS is dealt with in terms of technobabble which is then carried over into the next scene dealing with the mysterious readings picked up in the grove, which undermines their credibility somewhat. The Source is cool, though. 

Kassia’s stuck-on eyes are really, really silly, far worse than Thea’s in Image Of The Fendahl, and this is a shame as the death of Seron is otherwise a very good and exciting scene - although, given that Kassia is standing over his body, the fosters believe circumstantial evidence remarkably easily to take the Doctor and even Tremas away so readily.

The cliffhanger, like the last one, is dramatic, but it has to be said that this episode is a comedown from the first. It looks like I’ve taken complete opposite stands on both episodes so I’ll just pause to clarify my position: the second episode is good, it just doesn’t do or say anything of substance. However, the excellence of the first has provided a strong foundation for further exploring the intricacies of Traken while the Melkur stomps around occasionally bullying poor Kassia, which gets the episode by until the finale. While the episode is by no means bad then, it in itself can never be called above average. Thankfully with this story the overall rating is governed very much by the whole rather than individual episodes.

The third episode is more of the same really: after the set-up of part one, the story is still coasting. Like the second episode though, it’s never bad, and the revelation that Kassia is going to become Keeper on behalf of the Melkur is brilliant. Ruskin is actually better here, playing anger with more conviction than she did in the first part. How come nobody notices the massive collar that she is wearing, though?

Now we come to a scene that I find truly hard to watch: the infamous bogey scene. To show the Doctor running round with…on his face almost trashes all credibility that the character has built up over the last eighteen seasons, and makes him look like a senile old man (he was looking old in his last season, come to think of it). Did nobody notice? Why, oh WHY, did nobody cut the scene? I’m not going to dwell on it anymore, I’ll just keep telling myself that it never happened.

More technobabble follows as Nyssa carries an ion bonder instead of a gun, which is pointless. Once the Doctor escapes and returns to Tremas’s house there is the discussion about the plans to the Source; it has been remarked that the Doctor mentions a “master plan” three times. I’m not sure if there’s anything intentional going on here, but since it’s been pointed out I can’t help but notice it. 

The storm that heralds the Keeper’s death is a very cool idea, but I’d prefer it if it wasn’t used as a cheap way of getting the Doctor out of danger. The Master’s make-up is also very good (apart from those painted-on teeth) and gruesome, and the cliffhanger is another of four great episode endings this story has, with some great effects into the bargain (whew, got those points over and done with, didn’t I?)

“I have a funny feeling we’ve met somewhere before” is a good lead in to the final revelation, and is symbolic of the way the pace gets going again in the final part. In fact, I was so drawn into the beginning part of the episode that I forgot to take notes. I can’t tell you many details then, but rest assured there’s nothing bad, except for that lame head-knocking sequence.

The revelation that the Master is behind everything is excellent, but the technobabble resolution is a disappointment. At least there is an effort to explain it here though, which is more than can be said for a lot of other stories (better ones, too). The final scene however is quite, quite brilliant as the helpless Tremas is killed and possessed by the Master. I have to thank Richard Callaghan (the Anorak himself) for pointing this out, but the Master’s clock being set at four minutes to midnight is cooler than a very cool thing on a very cool day. It’s just a shame the 1980s Master turned out to be so naff: it was a real wasted opportunity.

This review has focussed on the differences between the episodes a lot more than my others have, but it is important. The Keeper Of Traken is superb at the beginning and at the end but, like a scaled-down version of The War Games, it’s very padded out in the middle. That said, it’s good padding: well written and always interesting, making for a every enjoyable tale that’s a lot better than I remembered it being the last time I saw it when I was 17. It may not be a classic, but it’s a good story in its own right and it doesn’t deserve the backlash it has received from a reputation that has become exaggerated and overblown.