I've been dreading reviewing 'Genesis of the Daleks'. It is a story generally regarded as a classic, but for me it long suffered from the principle that familiarity breeds contempt. Once it was released on video, I watched it regularly until I became sick of it, and just as I decided that I didn't want to see it again for a very long time, BBC2 announced what the next story would be following the repeat of 'Doctor Who and the Silurians'… As it turned out however, that was the last time I saw it prior to this occasion, and after a lengthy absence, my enthusiasm for the story was entirely rekindled. 

'Genesis of the Daleks' is not perfect. I'll get my criticisms out of the way first, and the first is that it is rather padded during the first three episodes. Sarah's abortive escape attempt up the rocket scaffolding makes for an exciting cliffhanger but is a narrative dead-end, and the dystronic toxæmia from which she was so determined to escape is conveniently forgotten after the first five minutes of Episode Three. In addition, the scenes in the cave leading out of the Kaled bunker add little to the plot, rendering the shots of Davros' giant clam mutants pointless. Given that they are woefully unimpressive, this is unfortunate, since they need not really have been there. My other, criticism of 'Genesis of the Daleks' is that the meagre distance between the Thal and Kaled cities stretches credibility somewhat; we are expected to believe that a lengthy war has been fought on the doorsteps of these cities, each housing the last remnants of their respective races. I can think of an explanation, which is that the cities, both of them extremely spartan in décor, are an equivalent of the trenches used in world war one, built relatively recently on either side of the no-man's land in between (the wasteland), and that they represent the last bastions of civilization on the benighted Skaro, both races nearly extinct after a millennium of warfare. That said, it is always a bad sign when the viewer has to contrive explanations for threadbare areas of the plot, and given the many, many excellent aspects of this story, it is a shame. 

The rest of 'Genesis of the Daleks' however, is outstanding. This is the bleakest and most powerful illustration of the horrors of war ever seen in Doctor Who on television, presenting us with an unrelentingly grim atmosphere from the very first shot of Thal soldiers mown down in slow motion. There are many familiar images of war used here, from the trenches to the mine-riddled wasteland between them, the terrible sense of waste and weariness and the atrocities committed by both sides. This latter issue illustrates the effect of the war on the people involved in it; the Kaleds are represented by blatant Nazi imagery from the start, which never fails to convey a sense of evil. The Mutos represent the human cost of war, victims scarred by weapons and abandoned by the Kaleds out of their desire to keep their race pure, reflecting the eugenics beloved of Hitler when he spoke of the Aryan race. Jack-booted and goose-stepping, the Kaleds, or at least the military elite, are clearly based on the Third Reich, and in the midst sits Davros, representing not only Hitler, but also people like Mengele, an utterly immoral scientist taking advantage of the war to further his own ghastly interests. Perhaps more unexpectedly however, the Thals, previously cast in the role of heroes due to their long enmity with the Daleks, are just as bad, happy to use "disposal labour" to prepare their rocket, and normally killing the Mutos on sight. Their wholesale slaughter at the hands of the Daleks, and the shock displayed by Bettan, later changes their role as they become the lesser of two evils, but lest we forget only a short time before they effectively commit genocide, wiping out nearly all of the Kaleds. The production reflects this general sense of horror too, not just in the gloomy trenches and wasteland, but throughout the bunker and both cities; in any other story the drab sets might be a disappointment, but here they are wholly appropriate, since the functional, utilitarian décor suits the mood, suggesting that after centuries of conflict neither race have either the resources nor the inclination to consider aesthetics. 

One of the most famous, and indeed most interesting, scenes in 'Genesis of the Daleks' occurs at the beginning of Episode Six, as the Doctor agonizes over the decision as to whether or not he can destroy the Daleks utterly. The reason I find it so interesting is that I disagree with his argument, but nevertheless find it to be a fascinating character moment. The Doctor's indecision rests on his reluctance to commit genocide, explaining to Sarah that he doesn't have the right to destroy an entire intelligent species; his excuse is that future worlds might become allies because of their fear of the Daleks. My personal opinion is that for all that the Daleks are an intelligent species, they are more a force representative of a force of nature; twice during the story, they are compared to a virus, once by the Doctor himself when he is trying to convince Davros to change their nature, and later by Sarah as she tries to convince the Doctor to complete his mission for the Time Lords. I've argued before that the Doctor's stance is akin to refusing to prevent an outbreak of smallpox, on the grounds that the survivors might be brought closer together as a result; other fans disagree, but I maintain that the Daleks are essentially an intelligent plague, utterly destructive, ruthless and completely beyond redemption, and devoted to exterminating or subjugating all other forms of life in the cosmos. Ultimately, I feel that the Doctor's dilemma boils down not a reluctance to destroy the Daleks per se, but rather to a refusal to accept for responsibility for such an action, which would have far reaching consequences for the entire universe. However you interpret the scene however, it remains very dramatic and compelling. 

Then we have Davros, played brilliantly by Michael Wisher. Davros is undoubtedly one of the series' greatest villains, and is one of the most potent symbols of evil ever to appear in Doctor Who. Much as I like the Master, he is motivated largely by his rivalry with the Doctor and on occasion will switch sides; for all that he is ruthless and has committed unspeakable crimes, he can still on a certain level be reasoned with. Davros however, is a different matter entirely. He is entirely focused on the development of the Daleks and will stop at nothing to achieve his aims. Initially, he is a villain by association; not only is he responsible or the creation of the Daleks, he is visually associated to them by the fact that his wheelchair resembles a Dalek base. However, his characterisation is such that it is quickly established that he is a villain in his own right, and one whose sense of morality is diametrically opposed to the Doctor's. The first real glimpse of his true nature is in Episode Two, when Ronson saves the Doctro's life by deactivating the newly armed Dalek; an astonished and furious Davros questions how Ronson can possibly consider a single worthless life to be of more value than his Dalek's instinct to destroy, and this is the first clear indication that Davros is way beyond the Doctor's ability to reason. The more the story progresses, the more terrible Davros is seen to be, one of the key moments being his decision to exterminate "the whole of the Kaled people", a statement which briefly shocks even Nyder. The fact that he is prepared to sacrifice his own race to ensure that his work can continue is utterly chilling, and is compounded shortly afterwards by his "retaliation" against the Thals, as he gives his Daleks their first ever taste of mass slaughter. 

By far my favourite scenes in 'Genesis of the Daleks', and indeed one of my favourite scenes from the whole of the series, is the Doctor's attempt to reason with Davros in Episode Five. He asks Davros if he would unleash a virus that would wipe out all forms of life in the universe; Davros, rather than coming round to the Doctor's way of thinking, is fascinated by this concept, and considers it carefully before deciding that he would, since that power would make him a God, a power which the Daleks will grant him. The scene is supremely effective in summing Davros up and is wonderfully directed; as Davros considers, the incidental score grows louder and more impressive in the background, rising to a climax as Davros screeches about power and the Daleks. Most disturbing of all, is the moment when, as he considers, his finger and thumb crush an imaginary vial of virus confirming in an instant that the Doctor has absolutely no hope of ever reasoning with him. 

The Daleks themselves are used sparingly in 'Genesis of the Daleks' as they take a back seat to Davros, but when they do appear they are highly impressive. Their casual destruction of the Thals is a great visual image, as the newborn creatures glide unstoppably around the Thal dome, exterminating without hesitation anyone they find. The fact that Davros is so utterly evil also benefits the Daleks, as they turn on him in Episode Six. Having just added to his other crimes during the story by trapping and disposing of those scientists who are no longer loyal to him, even Davros is horrified when his creations turn on those who have remained loyal, the ever-faithful Nyder among them. In his last few moments, as he tries desperately to reason with the Daleks, he comes to the horrified realization that they are so much a product of himself that they will let nothing and nobody stand in their way, not even him. It is a fitting irony that just as the Doctor tried in vain to reason with Davros, so Davros now tries in vain to reason with the Daleks, and is ultimately so shocked by the results that he reaches for the button that will destroy them utterly before he is gunned down. In many ways, the Daleks are once again the living embodiment of the horrors of war, born out of it and representing all that is terrifying about it. 

There are many minor aspects of 'Genesis of the Daleks' that work so well. The fact that the Daleks are mutations of the Kaleds is brilliantly ironic, given that the Kaleds are so obsessed with racial purity that they exiled the Mutos (even more ironically, it is Nyder who tells us this, despite his total devotion to Davros's project). The gimmick of the Time Ring works well too, since it is far easier to lose than the TARDIS, and creates an additional level of tension by increasing the chances of the Doctor, Sarah and Harry becoming trapped on the nightmare that is Skaro. David Maloney's direction is superb, especially during Episode Six, as the tension builds and builds to a climax that, unusually, sees the Doctor departing without having achieved a great deal. And lastly, whilst Michael Wisher steals the show, mention must be made of Peter Miles' Davros, a character as thoroughly unpleasant and ruthless as his superior. Overall, 'Genesis of the Daleks' stands as one of Doctor Who's greatest stories, and maintains the adult feeling of 'The Ark in Space' and 'The Sontaran Experiment' whilst taking it to another level entirely. What a shame it couldn't last…

As the first - and last - two-part Doctor Who story for some considerable time, 'The Sontaran Experiment' works well. Despite one or two tenuous plot points, the story generally holds together well, and with its themes of torture and sadism it continues in the adult theme established by 'The Ark in Space'. 

Firstly, I'll just address the aforementioned tenuous plot points. The only real one is the ease with which the Sontarans back down when the Doctor tells the General that humanity is ready for their invasion fleet and will destroy it; this is undoubtedly due to time constraints however, and the script does address it by noting that the Sontarans are extremely methodical (and they're undoubtedly fighting the Rutans on another front, so perhaps it does make sense that they dare not risk it). The other weak plot point isn't actually an issue in my opinion, but is mentioned in The Discontinuity Guide, so I thought I'd address it. This point is simply that if Earth is abandoned, then there is no need for Styre to test humans anyway. In fact, I disagree; the script informs us that human colonies control "half the galaxy" and the Sontarans are planning a widespread invasion of the entire galaxy, not just Earth. Since this would obviously bring them into conflict with humanity, it makes sense of Styre's ghastly project and since Earth is abandoned it is makes a sensibly secluded location for his experiments.

These debatable issues aside, 'The Sontaran Experiment' is a well-plotted, well-placed and effective little story. The return of the Sontarans is more than welcome and Styre is an excellent villain, Kevin Lindsay once more donning a Sontaran costume to great effect. Whilst I prefer Linx's more closely fitting mask, Styre's is nonetheless impressive and Lindsay is superb as the Field-Major in every aspect. Although he is another Sontaran, Styre is a very different character from Linx; whereas Linx was ruthless and callous, he was an angel compared with the utterly sadistic Styre, whose pleasure in his work seems to extend beyond mere professionalism (from his point of view, he should probably have killed Sarah immediately, but decides to torture her to death instead). Lindsay very well conveys Styre's casual cruelty and also his brutality; the fight scene between Styre and the Doctor is rather good, despite Terry Walsh standing in for the injured Baker, with Styre lashing out with a machete with vicious rage. 

The regulars are up to their usual standards, with highpoints including Harry's utter Fury at Styre's cruelty towards both the dehydrated Galsec colonist and the seemingly dead Sarah; until the Doctor stops him he is determined to go after Styre regardless of the danger. Another great moment is the first meeting between Styre and the Doctor, when Tom Baker delivers the line "you unspeakable abomination" with such conviction that he seems to genuinely loathe his opponent. It is perhaps not the easiest of insults to make sound convincing, but he manages it with ease. 

Completing the ensemble, we have the Galsec colonists, and there isn't a bad performance amongst them. The decision to play them with South African accents is a good one, making a nice change from humans of the future speaking with an English accent. Their costumes are impressive as well, since they look convincingly worn and tatty, as they should do after days spent rough in the wilderness. Pete Rutherford is convincingly tormented as Roth, and Glyn Jones' performance is almost good enough to compensate the fact that he penned the dire 'The Space Museum'! Peter Walshe is impressively twitchy as the nervous Erak, and Donald Douglas completes the group as the treacherous Vural, playing the character like a natural. 

Basically 'The Sontaran Experiment' is a brief but enjoyable story, and benefits from superb location work and solid direction (even Styre's robot, whilst suspiciously flimsy-looking, works adequately). It maintains the high quality of 'The Ark in Space' and nicely bridges the gap between that 

All things considered, I am not a fan of Terrance Dicks. Before the advent of video, when my only knowledge of old Doctor Who stories came from Target novelisations, I always preferred those written by Malcolm Hulke or (especially) Ian Marter, finding Dicks' to be overly simplistic and lacking in depth. His television stories are variable, the better ones being those on which he collaborated with another writer ('The War Games') or was heavily script edited ('The Brain of Morbius'). 'Robot' in some ways demonstrates his shortcomings as a writer, but on the other hand it succeeds rather well in introducing both a new Doctor and a new companion. 

Conceptually, 'Robot' makes a great deal of sense, in that it introduces the new Doctor by surrounding him with the trappings of the old; UNIT plays a significant role in 'Robot' and this highlights the differences between the performances of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. There is a tendency amongst Doctor Who fans to favour the Doctor they grew up with, which in my case is Peter Davison, but from the moment I started buying Doctor Who videos Tom Baker became, and remains, my favourite. He makes an immediate impression. Although I dislike things about the Pertwee era, Jon Pertwee's performance isn't one of them; after his dignified, almost establishment figure, Baker needed to establish himself as a distinct character, and he does so magnificently; he's incredibly eccentric from the start, with his brick-chopping, running on the spot, and ludicrous costumes, but he's also commanding and fiercely intelligent. Recovering from his regeneration far more quickly than his predecessor he is able to establish his character by the end of Episode One and the scene in which he examines the pulverized dandelion showcases his intellectual prowess. He deduces far more quickly than anybody else the nature of the threat facing them from only a handful of clues (the Brigadier suspects foreign powers or alien invaders) and is quick to realize Kettlewell's involvement. His clowning, rather like Troughton's, hides a lightening fast mind, but unlike Troughton he is possessed by a manic energy, as demonstrated by his entry into the Scientific Reform Society meeting (he creates the impression that he is a buffoon, only to quickly overcome the off-guard, erm, guard) and his brief clowning on stage during the meeting even wins over members of the audience despite the fact that he threatens their plans. His line "There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes?" perhaps best sums up this new Doctor, and of course his offering of a jelly baby to the distraught Sarah. 

The other new regular is Harry Sullivan, also making an immediate impression. Initially, he demonstrates his usefulness as a comic foil to Baker's Doctor, most notably during the scene in which the Doctor presses Harry's stethoscope to his chest and he hears two heartbeats; the expression on his face speaks volumes. Despite his initial buffoonery however, he also proves to be more than just an imbecile; he quickly accepts that the Doctor's eccentricity is going to leave him baffled, as he wry smile as he later presses the stethoscope to both sides of his own chest indicates. By the end of the story, he gets a great moment as he and the Doctor drive towards the robot in Bessie, and they joke about the fact that their problem seems to have grown. It suggests an easy friendship and establishes Harry and the Doctor almost as a double act. In general, Harry is hugely likeable; he's old fashioned almost to the point of chauvinism, but big-hearted and well meaning with it, and Ian Marter plays the part to perfection. He also gets to play James Bond, which he clearly relishes, even if he does get caught. 

The other regular also gets plenty to do in a story, which exploits her investigative skills very well. She infiltrates Think Tank and quickly deduces the significance of the patch of oil on the floor, and she stands up bravely to the icy Hilda Winters when Winters nastily offers a further demonstration of K1; Sarah is clearly terrified by the idea but accepts the invitation nonetheless. Most significantly of course, Sarah's compassion brings the robot to trust her, which allows her to save the Doctor's life at the start of Episode Three. Sladen quickly establishes a rapport with both Baker and Marter, establishing the dynamic of the new team. 

UNIT, returning for one of its final appearances, also does rather well out of the story. Although not back to the heights he reached during Season Seven, the Brigadier is nevertheless back on form to a degree, regaining some of the authority of his early appearances. As in his later appearances with Pertwee, the script makes him look slightly dim in order to allow the Doctor to explain the plot, but he's impressively commanding when in action in Episodes Three and Four, especially when dealing with Miss Winters; Courtney seems genuinely horrified by the situation in Episode Four as he pulls a gun on Winters whilst the countdown to nuclear war ticks away. And the newly promoted Mr. Benton also gets some great moments, most notably when he gives the Doctor the idea to use Kettlewell's metal virus and thus finally destroy the robot. 

Then we have the robot itself. The actual costume is very effective, ingeniously designed so that it manages to avoid looking like a man in a costume. The actual characterisation of the robot also works, largely due to its interaction with Sarah and its tortured persona. Artificial intelligences have become rather clichéd, and in Doctor Who we have already had a least two, in the megalomaniac forms of WOTAN and BOSS, but the emphasis here is rather different. Unfortunately, it is also here that the story starts to fall down; firstly after Kettlewell's death, the robot becomes just another ranting madman, albeit a rather novel one, and the final episode degenerates into a typical runaround after Hilda Winters is arrested by UNIT. Secondly, and most annoyingly, it astonishes that Terrance Dicks, a man who was part of the Doctor Who for the previous several years, would be so stupid as to incorporate into his script the Attack of the Fifty-Foot Robot, an idea that could only realistically be achieved by the dreaded CSO. This immediately results in an effects nightmare, as first parts of the CSO robot vanish as it grows larger, and then we are presented with a rag-doll Sarah. The toy tank at the end of Episode Three is bad enough, but the toy companion is unforgivable. I don't usually judge Doctor Who by its special effects, but the whole concept is unnecessary here, adding little to the plot since the robot is already virtually indestructible. Since Christopher Barry's direction elsewhere in the story is rather good (especially the scene in Episode One as the camera moves through the security system as the Brigadier describes it in voice-over), this hamstringing of the production is especially disappointing. 

The villains are rather mixed. Patricia Maynard's icy Miss Winters is very good, but her assistant Jellicoe is utterly forgettable. Moreover, the motives of the Scientific Reform Society are rather dubious; given that they want to make a better world, their obvious willingness to plunge it into nuclear holocaust beggars belief. In addition, that food store in the bunker must be well stocked; a global nuclear catastrophe would render the planet largely uninhabitable for decades at least. Kettlewell's motivation is even more ill conceived; leaving aside Edward Burnham's performance of a ludicrously stereotypical mad Professor, his attitude to the robot doesn't make much sense. Even when he is alone with the robot, he frets over the treatment inflicted by Winters and seems genuinely horrified by it, despite having provided the necessary technical know-how required to reprogram it and being party to his allies' actions. His eventually revelation as a villain seems to have crow-barred into the story simply to provide a plot twist, and most unbelievably of all, despite his apparently long association with Hilda Winters and his full knowledge of their intentions, he seems not to have considered the potential consequences of helping her to obtain the nuclear launch codes. The plot also falls down in regards to the disintegrator gun; as The Discontinuity Guide points out, the Scientific Reform Society goes to great lengths to obtain the gun, just to use it to open a safe. Whilst the script tries to compensate for this with the unlikely revelation that the safe is otherwise indestructible, the plot would have been better served had they simply had the robot force it open. 

Despite these drawbacks, 'Robot' succeeds as a introduction for Tom Baker and at four action-packed episodes is rather refreshing after Pertwee's last two bloated stories. More to the point, 'Robot' establishes the new TARDIS team and paves the way for arguable Season Twelve's finest story, as Doctor Who's greatest script-writer makes a welcome return…

Allow me to quickly dispel any doubts about the tone of this review: I would sooner eat my own spleen than watch 'Revenge of the Cybermen' again any time soon. After a largely excellent first season (for all its faults, 'Robot' works reasonably well as an introductory vehicle), it is painful to see Baker saddled with such drivel as this, and on top of that I find myself trying hard to forget that my favourite Doctor Who writer had a fairly large hand in scripting it, since Gerry Davis' scripts apparently needed considerably reworking. 

There are two good things about 'Revenge of the Cybermen' (three, if you include the regulars); firstly, if you are a continuity obsessed fanboy you can amuse yourself by thinking up imaginative theories for why the Seal of Rassilon decorates Voga that amount to more than just "Roger Murray-Leach was the designer on 'The Deadly Assassin' as well". The second is that the Nerva Beacon sets are pretty good, but since I said that about them when they were used in 'The Ark in Space', this is hardly news. I should also mention the regulars; Harry and Sarah get comparatively little to do, but the Doctor is generally on form, and I do like the scene when he bellows "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!" He gets some other good moments too, such as when Sarah tells him that it is good to see him and he looks her wide eyed and asks "Is it?"

Regrettably however, everything else is utter shite. The plot is mind-bogglingly unoriginal, consisting in large parts of a sort reprise of Gerry Davis' greatest hits. Or to be more accurate, 'The Moonbase' and 'The Wheel in Space'. Thus, we have Cybermats infiltrating a space station and killing people with a virus that produces a network of lines beneath the skin, before the Cybermen turn up half-way through. Despite their own flaws, both of those stories managed to be memorably creepy, due to decent direction and the fact that they didn't have the phrase "the Cybermen" in their titles. Having thus eliminated any sense of surprise whatsoever, the writers seem to decide not to bother with suspense (it would still have been possible - a Cyberman puts in an appearance in Episode One of 'The Moonbase', for example). Despite a promising early sequence of the corpse-strewn Beacon, the plot becomes mind-numbingly banal after five minutes, the Doctor explaining that the threat facing them is the Cybermen in a manner that suggests he's breaking the news of impending light drizzle. Kellman's villainy is so obvious from the very beginning, that the viewer might be forgiven for expecting a twist to reveal that he is actually entirely blameless and a really nice chap. Even the fact that Kellman is a double agent, secretly working for the Vogans, is signposted early on. Jeremy Wilkin is almost reasonable as Kellman, but seems to have got bored with the script, and decided to abandon subtlety, smirking in a naughty way throughout, just in case we haven't worked out that he's a villain. Absurdly, even his costume is villainous, prominently featuring a trim polo neck that creates the impression of a feeble attempt to impersonate a James Bond villain. And just to make certain that the viewer won't be traumatized by the shock of any interesting developments, we get a tepid cameo of the Cybermen on board their ship in Episode One, with the Cyberleader amusingly giving hand signals to two Cybermen who are looking in entirely the opposite direction. 

Once the Cybermen actually appear, the first time viewer might be expecting things to improve. Think again, novices; Christopher Robbie has other ideas! There have been lapses in the portrayal of the Cybermen as emotionless creatures before (witness the sarcastic Cyberman in 'The Moonbase'), but Robbie just takes the piss. His posing Cyberleader with his hands on his hips struts arrogantly about, displaying almost every emotion known to humanity and delivering dodgy lines in a strange (but crap) accent. Any sense of intimidation that the Cybermen once had goes out of the window as the Cyberleader talks of impressive spectacles in a booming and extravagant tone of voice and playful tickles the Doctor's collar-bones in Episode Four (perhaps Tom hadn't fully recovered from the broken collar-bone he received during the filming of 'The Sontaran Experiment' and asked Christopher if he knew anything about physiotherapy. Or perhaps not). The other Cybermen are almost as unimpressive, the Director foolishly having elected to let the actors themselves provide the voices, which are the most awful of any Cybermen voices from the entire series. The Cybermats also suffer; once visually effective (albeit not very scary) radio-controlled props, they have been replaced by CSOed sock-puppets that hump actors' chests like overexcited dogs. 

Having recycled large chunks of plots already, Davis decides to give the Cybermen a weakness just like in 'The Tenth Planet' and 'The Moonbase'. The explanation for why gold is lethal to Cybermen (it plates their breathing apparatus) is a bit silly, but just about passable; unfortunately, Davis then seems to ignore it and gold quickly becomes to Cybermen what garlic is to a vampire. Suddenly, gold affects their radar, and small pieces of gold thrown in the general direction of a Cybermat will quickly disable the little fella. Luckily for the Cybermen, although the Vogans remember that their planet was blown up because gold is fatal to Cybermen, they are too stupid to actually exploit this fact when Cybermen visit Voga, and just get themselves shot instead. The Cybermen shouldn't get smug though; they're stupid enough to let the Doctor tie Sarah up in Episode Four without checking the knots themselves

The Vogans are not a particularly impressive race, except for the fact that despite having fairly limited technology they can maintain atmosphere and gravity in small lump of rock, and the masks provided don't help matters. Vorus and Tyrum don't look too bad, but the actors playing the other Vogans are given static and tacky masks that give a look of perpetual surprise. Amusingly, the city militia Vogans also wear dressing gowns and have unkempt hair, diverting attention away from the plot by allowing one to ponder exactly what surprised them. They are such a dull race that it is very difficult to care whether they get blown up or not (bit like the Dulcians in fact). To add insult to injury, the two most prominent Vogans, Vorus and Tyrum, are played by a pair of highly accomplished actors, in the shape of David Collings and Kevin Stoney (who, like the Cybermen, last appeared in 'The Invasion', where he was far more impressive), who seem to be half asleep throughout. This seems to be a recurring theme here, since William Marlowe, who was very impressive as Mailer in 'The Mind of Evil', also seems bored as Lester, as does Ronald Leigh-Hunt, who last appeared in 'The Seeds of Death' as Commander Radnor, as Stevenson. 

In short, 'Revenge of the Cybermen' is crap. And I haven't even mentioned the massive plot hole of the transmat's miracle cure, which as The Discontinuity Guide points out should, if it can expel poison from people, leave them stark-bollock naked and mangle Cybermen. And remove the millions of beneficial gut bacteria present in humans. And, just possibly, remove the plot.

One of the really irritating things about 'Robot', the first Doctor Who story to feature Tom Baker, is the voice of the robot - you can't help but hear it as a slighly less frightening, non-branded copy of the better known Dalek. The writers would like the robot's voice to be written in the jagged diagonal typeface found in the pages of the Dalek comic, but it would be lucky to even get italics. In all ways, Kettering's robot is a bit sad. Clearly, to look at this robot, you would never mistake it as a Dalek, and you kind of sympathise with it when Sarah Jane Smith tells it that it has been programmed to behave "all wrongly". Yes, robot, it isn't your fault that you've been programmed to behave the way you do, walking a bit like the Mitchelin man, talking a bit like a violent pepperpot. But, alas, this is the robot we are stuck with, in this remarkably below average Doctor Who story. 

What is there to say about 'Robot' that is positive? Well, there is Tom Baker. The skipping scene, with Harry, is remarkably funny, and must have been unbelievably odd, coming straight after the bravado of Jon Pertwee. Equally, Baker makes the riff on "unbreakable sounds ominously like unsinkable" the best dialogue in the episode (and there is some awful dialogue to be found here). A quick negative, while on the subject of writing: the bizarre unveiling of the 'robot' couldn't possibly try any harder to sound like a speech from a 1930s Nazi rally, and this blunt symbolism really doesn't do an already weak story any favors. 

However, following after this comes the Doctor's disarming and completely Doctor-like stand-up comedy routine. This is not only the Doctor we would come to love for 10-or-so years on television, but it is also the Doctor that we have always loved: Baker catches, in his performance, the special something that makes the Doctor who he is, and builds on it. His performance is a shot in the series' arm, and we are still seeing the benefits of it today, in, for example, the Eighth Doctor of the novels. 

So pretty frothy, in terms of plot, dialogue, and characterisation, by all accounts... but it is saved by a charming performance from Baker, teeth, scarf, and all.

"Why should we remain forever underground, cowering from the memory of things that happened centuries ago?"

Revenge of the Cybermen was one of the first Doctor Who stories I saw (at the tender age of three), so it always retains a special place in my heart. I never fail to enjoy watching it, but even I have to admit that, on many levels, it's actually rubbish. Yes, there's atmospheric shooting in Wookey Hole, the Cyberdesign looks good in photos and Kellman and Vorus shine as characters amid the cardboard, but so much just doesn't work. The Earth people are tired, the effects are risible, the music is irritating, the Vogan masks are ill-formed and characters dull - even Kevin Stoney delivers the line "It's going to hit!" not with the terrified panic of the novel, but in a tone of faint disinterest, apparently playing his role as Father Christmas. Gold is introduced as the Cybermen's nemesis, yet undoubtedly gold-firing Vogan weapons are useless against them. Above all, the script and the Cybermen themselves fail dreadfully - ironically, neither displaying much in the way of logic. 

So what went wrong? How did it so stunningly fall short of any other Hinchcliffe and Holmes story's themes or quality? All real fans know they were the new masters of innovation after the stale old season that preceded their work, that they could do no wrong. It's a *fact* that they made the Golden Age of Doctor Who. We know they were brilliant. We know they can't have got tired or uninspired. We know that, if this was the result, it must have been *somebody else's fault*.

At last, the true story can be told.

REVUE OF THE CYBERHAMS

In the midst of a production run of quality drama, usually dwelling on gruesome 'body horror', possession and lurking, subterranean ghouls, one story stands out as really not seeming like a Hinchcliffe / Holmes story at all. You've all wondered about it. What on Earth was Revenge of the Cybermen doing in Season 12? I have the answer. Hinchcliffe and Holmes had nothing to do with it. 

Picture the scene, back in 1975; the new production team is about to start work on their masterpiece, the triumphant conclusion of a trilogy of stories stamping their own, distinctive universe-view on the Doctor's past foes and establishing the new Doctor in the process. Yet, lurking in the shadows like a Bob Holmes underground megalomaniac are the twisted figures of the old guard, waiting for a last stab at glory.

That's right. Suffering Who withdrawal symptoms, Letts, Dicks and Pertwee committed a hideous crime. Falling upon the new team in an unguarded moment, they knocked their successors unconscious and bundled them into a cupboard (unknown ‘til now, the real reason why Terror of the Zygons was delayed). They then took their places, to produce a final 'Season 11' story. Pertwee had always wanted to face the Cybermen, and his team were confident they could make a 'top monster' return story every bit as dramatic and successful as Death to the Daleks. Pertwee donned a dark wig and used his famous talent for silly voices to impersonate Tom, and managed at least to be more convincing than 'the Doctor' at the end of The Monster of Peladon part 4.

So embarrassing did the BBC find this incident (they weren't the only ones, I hear you cry, but hush!) that it has remained a secret until now - although many must have guessed. Across three decades, details of the storyline as originally amended by Robert Holmes have been lost, but his settings can now be pieced together. They make for a story rather different to that overseen by the men who brought us ‘classics’ like The Eight Doctors and (whisper it) The Ghosts of N-Space. . .

To set the scene, it's perhaps best to consider the two great Hinchclomesian themes. First comes what might be termed the dastardly, demented, devious, disfigured, deformed, deadly, depressive denizens of the dank, deep dark. Or, if you prefer, 'something nasty in the cellar'. The brooding, not to say unhinged, physically limited villain buried down below is a staple in most stories of the time, seen most clearly in the characters of Davros, Sutekh, Morbius, the Master and Magnus Greel (and infesting other Holmes scripts from the Krotons and Linx to Sharaz Jek and Drathro).

Second, there is the much-remarked-on gothic / Hammer horror theme of possession and 'body horror'. Again, these ideas run through virtually every Hinchclomesian story (and most other Holmes-influenced scripts). Within this theme, an extraordinary number of stories really stand out - just look at The Ark in Space, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, The Seeds of Doom, The Masque of Mandragora, The Hand of Fear and The Face of Evil.

Now the background is fresh in your mind, I'm sure it takes little prompting to realise that Revenge of the Cybermen was to have been Hinchcliffe and Holmes' early masterpiece. In their rewrite of the script, the Cybermen were far more than mere joke robots, fit only for clumsy fight scenes (which Terrance later let slip he'd written by using one of them – the monsters’ storming of the spaceship / space station - again, with a more professional production team, in Shakedown - the Return of the Sontarans). 

Imagine how sinister the Cybermen would have been as the 'walking dead' of The Tenth Planet reborn, with the higher production values and greater willingness to go for outright horror of the mid-70s. You don't have to look to the more recent Borg for inspiration; the human shape corrupted by chillingly wrong body language and an utterly inhuman way of speaking that marked the Cybermen in their first appearance is the best prototype you could wish for.

In Holmes's version, perhaps better titled Last of the Cybermen, the Cybermen are far into the future of their previous appearances. Worn out and alone in the wake of the Cyberwar, without spare parts or reinforcements, this Cybership's crew is near termination point. Their human parts are, at long last, starting to decay, their cybernetic parts malfunctioning. They must survive.

The Cybermats are introduced to the Beacon to inject humans with a form of paralysing agent, a neural inhibitor that also forms the first stage of the cybernisation process (much as we saw in The Moonbase). Their aim is to have the Beacon in quarantine long enough to convert its facilities into a Cyber-factory. This makes perfect sense; after all, the human bee-hive of The Ark in Space showed where Holmes's thoughts at the time were leading. Just as Holmes followed The Deadly Assassin almost immediately with a thematic sequel to explore the same ideas, so this story was to have been Season 12's equivalent of The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Graphic body horror reaches its heights as the ancient Cyberleader, having been unable to hibernate and now literally rotting to death, is restored with the voice and body of the much-loved crew member who apparently copped it in episode one. It's a shame we had to wait until Frontios for ideas like this to reach the screen (now there's a story that's out of place - an odd mixture of Quatermass, Hartnell, Hinchcliffe and Holmes, and precious little like the surrounding tales).

However, this story isn't just an unmade masterpiece through its lost depiction of the living dead. The other Hinchclomesian theme, of the lurking fiend, was also well to the fore. While the Cybermen's cold, clinical, scientific corruption of humanity was perfectly suited to raising the goosebumps with body horror, the Vogans were created as the ultimate in twisted underground-dwellers. Like living dead themselves, the Vogans are 'pallid, devious worms' who have hidden in the dark for so long they have become as deformed and demented as any Hinchclomesian mastermind. With the Vogans, Holmes designed an entire race of Magnus Greels.

Voga was to have been a darker, more claustrophobic, paranoid ruin of a world. In the tame 'Season 11' story that we've all seen, we are drawn to Vorus only because he's the one Vogan that's remotely interesting – though we generally see him as a mad glory-hunter who endangers all those nice old dodderers, he was originally a much more tragic, almost heroic, figure. 

The Vogan civilisation is scheming, twisted and repressive, with paranoid manipulators always jockeying for a bigger position in their tiny planet. Vorus was a misfit mirror image to that, a glorious anti-hero with a real motivation to raise his world and his people out of their cancerous existence - not just to stir up a load of happy old cowards for the sake of it. David Collings could have pulled off a prototype Sharaz Jek, too. As it was, the state of Kevin Stoney's performance matched the Cybermen's deterioration since his last appearance with them... If it *was* Kevin Stoney. Records are unclear, but I wouldn't be surprised if Pertwee had also spirit-gummed on an unconvincing beard to play Tyrum, as Stoney's proven abilities would surely have produced a performance much closer to the devious, sinister, embittered Vogan leader of the Holmes draft.

So there you have it. The Hinchclomesian masterpiece that was never made, thanks to the terrible crimes of Dicks and Letts. The basic story of Revenge of the Cybermen is quite sound - it takes little imagination to convert it back into the 'Season 12' version, now that you know how Holmes and Hinchcliffe had planned it. Yet without understanding and delivering on the themes that brought it together, it just collapsed back into the pile of clichés that Holmes' extraordinary talent was normally able to fashion something magical from. Instead of a logically desperate group of Cyber-survivors in conflict with their sinister enemies, we had a romp. Tough and gritty it was not; desperate, but in quite the wrong sense. At least even the old production team had the sense not to let Gerry Davis anywhere near it after his first draft.

The lost draft still leaves the Cybermen with that ludicrous vulnerability that was to plague them for ever more, of course, but what can you expect? Not everything even Bob Holmes touched turned to gold, you know.