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.

Black Orchid. Is that the coolest title of them all or what? I know the flower in question was only jammed into the story so as to provide said title, but even so it’s got such a great ring to it.

Anyway…

Small scale, time-out stories can be very effective when done right; stories with simple plots have the advantage of not requiring any clumsy exposition. When they’re done wrong they can be terrible, like Boom Town, but occasionally one comes along that has the subliminal effect of making the viewer snuggle into the sofa rather than hide behind it. Black Orchid is such a story, and aside from a few minor quibbles I love it to pieces.

A major criticism this story receives is that its status as a whodunit is demolished by us seeing the criminal every step of the way (okay so we don’t see his face, but we see who it isn’t). This would be a fair point were it not for one simple fact: this isn’t a whodunit. Terence Dudley was a professional writer and I’m sure such matters probably crossed his mind while he was writing it; he has produced instead a blood-relative to the whodunit, a story where the hero, whom the audience knows to be innocent, has to prove that innocence before he gets banged up for a crime he didn’t commit. Such stories can be very good and dramatic in a time’s-running-out way, and often stand up to repeated viewings better than mysteries that have little going for them once the truth is known.

The story opens with a servant being strangled; for such a gentle story this is a very dramatic opening, even if it is a dream sequence and even if we don’t see either murderer or victim above the knee. After this start though it winds down, and opens properly with some excellent location footage of a 1920s railway station. In terms of period detail Black Orchid scores very highly, especially the fantastic studio set of the main hall. Historically-set stories almost always look great in the location scenes, but such quality in studio wasn’t beaten until Ghost Light seven years later (not that there were a great deal of period pieces in that time, however).

The opening TARDIS scene, a bane of the early Davisons where the three inexperienced companions uneasily struggled to act like they had chemistry, is better than most and is over quite quickly (which might be why, now I come to think of it). Upon emerging from the ship, the story’s gentle pace allows for some great dialogue that enriches the atmosphere rather than coldly advancing the plot. However, the cricket match goes on a bit too long – it all seems a bit indulgent, although it is unusual to see upper class people on TV (it’s now shockingly politically incorrect to portray people who live above the poverty line), and some of the dialogue (“ripping performance, old boy!”) is a bit sickly for my tastes. I should point out the scene where Davison bowls out that extra, which competes with the birth of his children to be the Proudest Moment Of His Life, but really I’m just frustrated that it goes on far too long. It shows up the story’s biggest weakness: it is poorly paced. The main dramatic arm of the plot, the Doctor’s murder accusation, doesn’t happen until the second episode which means that the first episode contains nothing of note in terms of the narrative. While this allows for some great characterisation, a chance to develop the ambience and the occasional good witticism (it’s a very smoothly written episode), it does mean that there is an awful lot of padding for such a short story; perhaps it could have done with a bit more exposition in this first instalment. Having just praised the writing, the “Master” line is another indulgence that is only just carried off and the “Doctor Who?” routine is dragged out yet again like the gimp in Pulp Fiction being released from his cellar. Spotters of goofs can look out for the moment when Barbara Murray (playing Lady Cranleigh) backs into a painting in the scene where Nyssa and Ann are introduced to each other.

Nyssa’s doppelganger contrasts with the realistic tone of the story (not counting stock elements like the TARDIS, obviously), driving it into the realm of magic realism; the presence of Latoni the Brazilian tribesman is also incongruous as his presence there is not explained until right at the end.

Adric gets a small, neglected role in this story and if it were anyone else (with the possible exception of Mel) I’d say that was a bad thing. Tegan’s ‘Charleston’ routine is annoying (mainly because Janet Fielding, although she would improve later, grates horribly at this stage), and the idea that she should be rehearsing it only to do it for real in a few minutes is silly and contrived. Sarah Sutton’s acting as Ann is also poor; her very serious, somewhat staid acting style just about passes for the ultra-prim Nyssa, but when it comes to a character who is occasionally called on to express emotions from time to time she seems very forced and artificial. She also struggles to make her physical tasks look natural: note the scene in the second episode where she runs from the bedroom in tears, as she can be seen clearly and deliberately pushing the chair over as she runs past rather than knocking it.

Roger Limb’s electronic score, while not terrible in itself, doesn’t sit well with a period setting (a problem throughout the 1980s), but this isn’t a problem for the masque scenes where there are authentic period songs playing. One thing I’ve always wondered though is that since this is set in the 1920s nobody has the Australian pegged as a criminal. 

The Doctor’s gothic pastiche of secret corridors and hidden bodies is given remarkably little emphasis, and the cliffhanger really does suffer from the story not being a whodunit; it comes at the point between the two sections of the story, after the plot-light beginning but before the dramatic ending, and the fact that someone who is not the Doctor is trying to murder someone who is not Nyssa lacks the kind of impact I imagine it was intended to have. Afterwards though Ann makes her accusation and much as I enjoyed the opening I am glad it’s finally started to get moving. It is a gripping scene, spoiled only by the Doctor’s “I am a Time Lord, I have a time machine” routine that is inappropriate to the story.

Calling Nyssa, Tegan and Adric accessories to murder is an attempt to inject more tension that misfires as it makes absolutely no sense and is never subsequently mentioned. The TARDIS being moved from the railway station is padding, and it being revealed to anyone who wants to see is also annoying (after all, it was the Doctor’s fear of being discovered that began the series in 1963) but it’s the smug, self-congratulatory presentation of the scene that galls me rather than the actual content itself. 

The disfigured George (an excellent and disturbing piece of makeup) breaks out of his room by burning down the door – an impressive piece of pyrotechnics for a studio scene and a similarly good stunt as he crashes through the flames. It also creates a very logical and uncontrived resolution, whereas in a lesser story everyone would simply run to the rooftops for want of somewhere better to go. George’s backstory is similarly good, an appropriate scene of exposition which differs from others by not involving two characters who know the plot explaining it to each other anyway for the benefit of the viewers.

The confrontation on the roof is very good and dramatic. George Cranleigh is a sad and tragic figure, played surprisingly sympathetically by Gareth Milne. Only his final death is disappointing (despite being another good stunt), as it is difficult to believe why Lord Cranleigh would suddenly dart forward to embrace his crazed, insane brother while he is perched on the edge of a rooftop. The final scene is excellent though: in an extraordinarily touching and enigmatic finale (in a way I can’t quite put my finger on) the Doctor is given a copy of George’s book Black Orchid – but the author’s photograph is not of George but of his brother. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s a very poignant ending.

Black Orchid is a pleasant little story spoiled only by small problems such as its poor pacing. Even so it is a refreshing break from John Nathan-Turner’s and Eric Saward’s usual production style, that got back on full swing in the next episode. It got it right where the other Davison two-parters got it wrong: it aims low, and consequently scores high.

I would pinpoint season 21 as the major downturn of quality that eventually spelled the end of the original series of Doctor Who. Season 20, although it consisted entirely of sequels, emphasised the storytelling that largely forgave the occasional over-the-top moment of continuity such as was seen in, for example, Mawdryn Undead. Here though, Warriors Of The Deep was the largest step yet towards suicide, having the dreadful burden of including not one but two old monsters from the show’s past, the youngest of which was eleven years old. Not only that, it’s also one of the shoddiest and cheapest serials the programme ever made; not even the very early Hartnells had so many production faults.

My reviews tend to be mostly linear – I work my way through each element of the story as it comes up. That means I now have to do a complete about-turn and say how brilliant the modelwork is of the sea base, the Silurian ship and later the attack craft Sentinel 6. It’s very hard to reconcile this with what else is seen on screen, as it feels like it’s the only aspect of the production that any money was actually spent on. Unfortunately then the amount of screen time afforded to it is small, and we are instead subjected to the awful set of the bridge. Many of the sets in this story are bad, consisting of eyeball-aching white but without the stylised distinctiveness that made The Ark In Space work so well. The bridge has an even greater problem of being offensively floodlit, multiplying its tackiness a thousandfold.

Better is the Silurian ship; maybe it is so much more subdued to create a contrast between the alien and human environments. Whatever the reason, any scene set here comes as a relief to an extent, but is undermined by the presence of the Silurians: excellent in their 1970 debut story Doctor Who And The Silurians, here complete jokes. Their obviously plastic heads are fixed in grins, their voices are silly and squeaky, the lights on their heads flash in time with their words for no particular reason and they even have stupid names. They are only rescued by some decent lines; Johnny Byrne’s script is actually quite good in places with the Silurians displaying some nicely idiosyncratic mannerisms – but the aforementioned voices present a giant drag factor as far as their lines are concerned.

Also doing no favours for the lines are the horribly boring guest cast. In the first scene featuring them Nitza Saul as Karina comes off worst, saying her lines flatly and without any real feeling. Tom Adams as Vorshak is a little better but in later scenes has trouble with sounding desperate, and for my sins I find it hard to take seriously anyone whose eyebrows resemble their rank stripes. Martin Neil as Maddox fairs best, actually managing to sound like he cares about what he’s saying; the decent script allows him to cover for some obvious exposition with some reasonably interesting lines. Ian McCulloch is terrible as Nilson, and even the respected actress Ingrid Pitt is difficult to watch as Dr. Solow, such is the quality of her performance.

The opening TARDIS scene is shaky (a common complaint of this era) despite Janet Fielding’s improvements as an actress and Peter Davison’s dynamic new haircut. We see Davison fluff a line talking to Sentinel 6, and in technobabble terms “materialisation flip-flop” makes me wonder if Byrne was taking his job entirely seriously. Back on the sea base Byrne is very succinct when it comes to the technical talk from the crew at their posts, which while uninteresting to listen to at least presents the actors with lines within their range. Maddox’s synch-up scene has a new lighting effect – normally I wouldn’t mention something so minor, but as it distracts from the terrible set it’s more important than normal.

The scene where Captain Eyebrow gives the pantomime villains of Solow and Nilson Maddox’s disk has some more pleasing lines that nicely sketch in the complexities of the setting, even if they are delivered by partners in plankness McCulloch and Pitt.

The Doctor can tell that they have landed on a sea base instantly, which is unconvincing. So begins their exploration, and gradual revelation of certain plot points. I’d say that the sight of the Silurians spoils the mystery, except that there isn’t one; until they show themselves the humans are boring people doing boring things. Hexachromite gas is namedropped very deliberately, in a tokenist attempt to avoid a deus ex machine ending that falls on its face by making the ending very obvious while being subsequently ignored again until it is needed. Mark Strickson overacts when activating the lift, emphasising too much that Turlough has made an error, but it’s amusing to see him get caught in the closing doors.

The Sea Devils make their appearance now. They look good to begin with: dimly lit, shrouded in mist, and not moving, with an atmospheric score by Jonathan Gibbs helping.

The cliffhanger contains the first real incident of the episode, and while the reactor room set wobbles a bit during the Doctor’s fight it is actually very good, being very large and opulent (and maybe what the other 50% of the budget went on. It certainly didn’t go on the monsters.). The episode ends with an excellent stunt, closing a mediocre instalment helped in part by a script that so far just about manages to keep its head above water. This is followed by a well-shot underwater sequence – a rarity in Doctor Who. Pennant Roberts who also helmed the excellent The Face Of Evil) is not a bad director as long as he’s not doing action scenes. I could live without the close-ups of the horribly fake heads of the Silurians though. The Sea Devils start to move and although they have the same voices as in their debut, they look even worse than the Silurians, with their heads wobbling about and falling over.

Turlough’s scream of “save yourself” showcases Strickson’s penchant for intentional ham, and the ‘bad breath’ joke misfires – if only Russell T. Davies had learned from this that bodily functions jokes aren’t funny.

The Doctor raids the bridge, brandishing a gun and making cheesy “we have a problem” quips, going totally against his character (which at least sets a precedent for Resurrection Of The Daleks). Do I detect Eric Saward’s influence here? This scene makes me realise how little has happened so far; the regulars have only just met the other characters, while it has taken the monsters an episode and a half to start moving.

The back story of the Silurians and Sea Devils starts to cause a problem now. It would difficult for casual viewers to accept them and their attitudes without having seen this story’s prequels; as they were made over a decade previously a lot of fans probably would have had trouble as well. As such it is hard to relate them with the Doctor’s insistence that they are moral creatures: he says that “all they ever wanted to do was live in peace”, yet here they are on an obvious offensive. Solow portentously saying “Nilson, we must speak” loudly in the middle of the bridge is also an annoying moment.

The foam doors in the airlock look terrible, but they hide something infinitely worse: I’ll reinforce a clichй here and say that the Myrka is a strong contender for the title of worst monster ever. Large monsters were often a problem for the show, but other poor efforts like the Skarasen had the advantage of being models, meaning that the actors were not required to interact with them; watching people attempt to act in the presence of this ridiculous monster that can barely stay upright is cringe-inducing. The Doctor’s line of “it takes a lot to impress the Myrka” is unintentionally funny in this context: its head is totally inanimate and lifeless (like all the other monsters in this story, admittedly, but scaled up), and it moves so bizarrely that I sometimes think that the two operators were trying to move in different directions. Tegan actually manages to deliver her lines reasonably well; never a great actress, how she managers to perform here is beyond me, but I was sorely tempted to speed through her squirming under a weightless door while the Myrka wobbles about over her – which I unfortunately get subjected to again in the next episode’s reprise. When it gets blinded it doesn’t move any differently than it did before, which isn’t really surprising. Also, the extras it kills perform some of the most inept death scenes I’ve ever seen outside Destiny Of The Daleks, with all their ‘find your spot – shake about – lie down’ staginess.

This cuts away to another appalling scene with the Sea Devils. In their debut they were very good, running around athletically and shooting their excellently-realised weapons. Here they shuffle around like geriatrics, with their heads lolling uncontrollably, and firing weapons with cheap and nasty video effects. Sauvix says that “the ape primitives are no match for my warriors” – at least their mouths move when they talk, mate. Neither humans nor monsters move about much in the action scenes, but this is fine as neither side can shoot straight either.

The episode mercilessly cuts back to the Myrka, and we get to see Ingrid Pitt make a bad situation a lot, lot worse by attempting to karate kick it in one of the programme’s most toe-curlingly embarrassing scenes ever. Surely one for the blooper reel, how anyone thought it would work is beyond me; it’s as if Solow took the Doctor’s earlier line about impressing it a bit too literally. After this the monster’s death is pat and uninteresting, but oh so very welcome.

Icthar’s “it is they who insist on fighting” is a cool line, although when confronting the Doctor they drop in references to previous stories with no regard to anyone except the most insular fans. The “final solution” references are less subtle here than in the still-obvious The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, which had the advantage of a) slipping the line in relatively unobtrusively among several and b) being two decades closer to topicality. Hexachromite is mentioned again for the first time since the opening episode; there when you need it, ignored when you don’t. Preston and Vorshak are killed unnecessarily, making up Saward’s need to have a certain percentage of characters killed every episode regardless of narrative requirement (91.7% of characters die in this episode by the way, not counting the regulars and the nameless extras. All part of the service), and the Doctor’s line of “there should have been another way” is a cheap attempt at justifying a bog-standard, Saward-style ‘kill ‘em all’ resolution.

That this isn’t the worst story of the season reflects the downward slide it represents. It has a few nice moments from a genuinely talented writer that save it from a bottom-of-the-barrel rating, but fails because of the production which was now turning completely in on itself. It is a dull, uninspiring and poorly made story that unfortunately sets the tone for the next few seasons; it took the old master Robert Holmes to life the programme out of its rut after this, and that was only temporary. Arc Of Infinity showed signs of future problems, but Warriors Of The Deep was the first story to take them to extremes, and it is deeply sad to watch it in the knowledge that this story marked the beginning of the end for Doctor Who.