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 cliché 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.

I've had Planet Of Fire on video now for about five years but this is only the third time I've ever watched it. While it's by no means below average, I've always found it quite hard to work up much enthusiasm for it and I can't quite put my finger on why. Maybe it's the slightly shaky way that Peter Grimwade imposes his usual complexities on what is really a very straight story: he is restricted from stretching out too far, like he did with Mawdryn Undead, by the need for his story to do certain things like write out Turlough and Kamelion and write in Peri. Having said that, his first script Time-Flight shows that there is such a thing as overstretching. Anyway, the story itself...

One of the most common criticisms of this story is that the planet Sarn looks suspiciously like Lanzarote. I don't have that much of a problem with this specifically; my problem is that both Sarn and Lanzarote look like quarries. Expensive quarries, I grant you, and exotic, but still quarries. Then again, I suppose if they'd stuck to Dorset they'd never have had the scope to show off their new Bond-girl companion's assets. Fair's fair though, I have to say that Nicola Bryant makes a promising debut here (although her accent veers about uncontrollably) as she's written to be a much more proactive character; the following season it would just be two whingers whinging*.

The first episode begins with yet another backwards-religion-with-token-anarchist-who'll-side-with-the-Doctor-and-eventually-end-up-in-charge set up, but in fairness the dissenters are a well-written attempt at showing how the religion has developed over time as opposed to coming from the stockpile of rationalists like all the others. Also, the character of Timanov is supremely well acted by Peter Wyngarde.

Typically Grimwade-esque touches appear, such as mysterious alien touches blended into a normal Earth setting, and having apparently disparate elements that won't come together until later. In the case of Planet Of Fire it is the Trion artefact that has managed to find itself in a shipwreck, which is never properly explained. The fact that it has no bearing on the plot except to get Peri into the TARDIS does make it appear a rather cheap and lazy tool to introduce the new companion, but it's better than the usual method of "wow, a police box, I think I'll go inside" and it does help to generate the effective sense of mystery that sustains the first episode as it's linked with Turlough's hitherto unseen marking (a slight writer's liberty I feel) that actually looks quite painful. I should just mention at this point that the scene where Turlough rescues Peri form drowning is very well directed, with lots of quick cuts making it seem genuinely action packed. Then again, although it's not my field, for the female / gay audience out there I'm not sure how the sight of Mark Strickson in his Y-fronts compares with Captain Jack getting defabricated in Bad Wolf.

The TARDIS scenes are better than average in this story as the departure of Janet Fielding has greatly relieved the overcrowding problem (two's company, she's a crowd) that the TARDIS suffered from during Peter Davison's tenure. Also, it's interesting to note that the Doctor has changed his clothes for the first time in three years ("no time to wash, I've got a universe to save"). It's not significant, and frankly I'd take his usual costume over that waistcoat that seems to have been made out of a lampshade, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. There are a few points of genuine interest, such as the fact that Turlough's suddenly come over all shifty again like he did in the Guardian trilogy, and also that Kamelion is treated as if he's been in every episode so far. A season on and he's still as crude as ever; at least with K9 they managed to update him a bit between seasons 15 and 16. He really is inept here, far too crude to function as a character as the prop has no means of expression other than a few basic movements. In order for it to have been a success they should have stuck to just using the voice (like with K9) instead of attempting genuine animatronics. The production team only had him in this story because they didn't get away with him just disappearing after The King's Demons and as a character he's a lot to impose on any writer; Grimwade does well in the circumstances by having him spend much of his time as the hybrid shape shifter struggling to maintain the shape of Peri's stepfather Howard. By the way, how rubbish is it giving a stepfather a name like Foster?

Anyway, with all the Earth-elements together Dr. Hero, Mr. Shifty and Miss American-Eye-Candy set off for Sarn (notice how Peri's hair is immaculate when she wakes up from unconsciousness) and it is only now that a few plot points come together, although a lot is still left unexplained across the episodes. They all arrive on Sarn - and how thick is the makeup on the location scenes? Blimey, there's controversy on the new series about all the innuendo with Captain Jack, but it's 1984 and the Doctor's a transvestite! The twist introduction of the Master is a genuine surprise (unless you happen to have the video with a big picture of Anthony Ainley on it), but then again it's always disappointing to see the Master mugging like a loon as it's clear from episodes like Survival that Ainley is not a bad actor. Further Master scenes in part two actually show the Master being quite intense. Reports say that this is how he wanted it to be, but John Nathan-Turner, with his infallible eye for taste and style, ordered him to camp it up. This conflict of interests plays out on screen, but in the circumstances I can put it down to Kamelion's instability.

The second episode is really a big runaround between Kamelion and Peri, with Turlough's edginess the only thing that maintains the tension in an episode where nothing much happens: it's episode three come twenty-five minutes early. Ainley is given very moody dialogue by a sympathetic writer and the episode in general is very well acted, but on the whole it feels padded out (notice the one paragraph it gets here as opposed to the six the first episode gets). I do like the scene where Timanov finds Kamelion wandering in a daze and believes him to be the Outsider: all together now, he's a Star--maaaaaaan...

Episode three continues the formulaic feel with yet another doom laden exchange between the Doctor and the Master. Turlough is given above average characterisation - even in their last stories it was rare for companions to be so motivated - but with each revelation about his past the episode gets a bit more contrived, although it's minute compared to that artefact taken by Peri in part one. Also, I should say that Edward Highmore looks nothing like Mark Strickson, even though they are supposed to be brothers.

The volcano begins to erupt and we see the TARDIS is again used indiscriminately, a problem the plagued the Davison era, with the Sarn natives being let in to see the sights and just because a polystyrene pillar came down. That, it has to be said, is the kind of effect that hasn't improved since Ixta struggled with a weightless slab in season 1's The Aztecs.

This episode is more interesting though as it presents the first new ideas since the first part, like the god Logar really being a space suited man and the idea of numismaton gas. It strikes me as odd that this gas, which is the whole point of the plot, is only mentioned now. The Doctor only takes note when it comes pouring out the top of a mountain (a nice effect), which I would imagine would be hard to ignore. The cliffhanger is a good twist and shows some quality CSO, bit is let down by some unusually naff dialogue (for this episode, anyway) given to the Master. These paragraphs are getting thinner and thinner aren't they? It just goes to show how little of substance actually happens in these middle episodes.

Episode four sees the typical Grimwade complications coming thick and fast, but they just about come together. There are still big plot holes though, like how the numismaton gas changes back to normal fire. I'm usually generous towards Doctor Who, so I'll say it just about hangs together even though it is hard to take the Master seriously in his Lilliput form. The scene where three people look down on him is well matted, but the combination of film and video always looks a bit dodgy. The use of stock footage of a volcano is generally good but no effort is made to tally it with the location shooting, so rivers of lava appear and disappear. Also, in another Grimwade trademark, Kamelion is defeated by pretentious technobabble. The Master is destroyed utterly, but neither for the first or last time...

After the introductions in part one it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything to say about Planet Of Fire. By no means a bad story - it could have been terrible given the massive requirements imposed on the writer - it serves simply to write out an old companion and introduce a new. It does that well enough, but it can itself only be called average.

*And a partridge in a pear tree.

Imagine if you can the most annoying, pedantic, anally-retentive fan you can: the kind who harasses strangers when they hear their kids humming the theme tune, whose heads explode every time WOTAN calls the Doctor “Doctor Who” and who have to shield their eyes from the Seal of Rassilon in the Vogan control room. Now imagine what happens when you give this fan a degree of creative control in how an episode is made. Alternatively, instead of imagining it, you could just watch Attack Of The Cybermen. I know that Ian Levine bashing is so commonplace now that it can be boring to read, but I’m not letting that deprive me of my share – it’s really the writing and Levine’s insular continuity references that bring this episode down. It’s generally well made (apart from the score), as with the case with any episode it’s the writing that’s make-or-break.

When not wallowing in its own filth, this episode borders on the average. The introduction is well shot (even though the Cybermen’s P.O.V. shots are so heavily distorted it makes them look nearly blind) and the sewer set is large and impressive, although very often characters are brightly illuminated even when their torches are switched off. Oh well, I’ll put it down to creative licence and dramatic necessity.

The location filming is also good, and it also introduces the terrific Maurice Colbourne as Lytton, the one continuity reference I’m actually happy with (he had only been in it the last season, after all). Terry Molloy is reasonable outside of his Davros mask and Brian Glover puts in a good performance that saves his comic-relief character. Payne’s comment that Griffiths is allergic to nylon is funny, an example of the flash of wit that occasionally permeates the episode. 

The regulars come off less well though, having to endure the same self-conscious banter that the Davison team had to endure as introductory material. The Doctor’s comment of “here we go again” is ironic, but Colin Baker’s overacting is rescued by his final, sweet coda to Peri of a promise not to hurt her. In general though they are very poor; I don’t know if it was Levine or Paula Moore responsible for their scenes, but they come off as being written by amateurish fans. While original characters get some decent lines the Doctor is portrayed as the self-conscious eccentric that we (OK then, I) used to be when playing Doctor Who when we were little. His pompous, facetious dialogue sounds like Adric’s from Earthshock, and the worn-out ‘distress call’ routine is the oldest cliché in the book.

The policemen serve no function other than to look mean; their purpose is never explained either here on in their previous story Resurrection Of The Daleks. The Totters Lane scene is extremely annoying, potentially a nice nod to the fans ruined by the fact that the Doctor actually has to make something of it – his excited “look!” when pointing to the sign must have come off to the casual audience like a child showing off their snappy new socks. Also, Malcolm Clarke’s awful score grates, here sounding like an electronic version of the Steptoe And Son theme. There is no point in changing the TARDIS either; Levine was simply indulging himself. The Doctor referring to Peri by a multitude of other companions’ names must have also seemed very odd: “why would he call her Jamie?” asks Mr. Jones from down the road. This is so annoying, as parts of this episode have real potential.

Payne’s death is quite creepy, scary without being too intensive (that comes later). It is shortly followed though by the Doctor gleefully duffing up a fake policeman; the Doctor goes against the series ethos so much I wonder if it was worth having that ethos in the first place.

There is little point in hiding the Cybermen from shot as their name appears in the opening credits (in capital letters, no less) and I would imagine that they were what the 8.9 million viewers were there to see (a significantly higher figure than the rest of the season). However, there is some seriously nifty direction keeping them out of sight and that’s always good to see, however worthless it may be. Their proper introduction is very good, as one is seen coming towards Lytton and his team Tenth Planet style – although the ‘March Of The Cybermen’ theme from Earthshock seems a bit cheesy and melodramatic when there’s only one of them on screen. There is a sense that this was written for the ordinary four-part format, as their reveal comes about halfway through the episode and would make for a good cliffhanger. Bullets kill Cybermen here, but this can be reconciled with the knowledge that they are being severely weakened by Cryon interference. In any case, it’s better than their usual aversion to gold which is one continuity reference mercifully absent. Their voice modulation here muffles their speech, and Brian Orrell is annoying as the Cyber Lieutenant. Their ship on the dark side of the moon is a smug nod to The Invasion (as is their presence in the sewers in the first place) but at least in this case not one that affects the understanding of the story.

There is a pleasing interlude with some good location shooting for Telos, and Stratton and Bates are a good duo that provides some actual quality for a moment. After that though we come to probably the worst derivative indulgence of them all: Michael Kilgarriff as the Cybercontroller. Nobody considered that even though the character had been great in The Tomb Of The Cybermen (and that was due more to Sandra Reid’s costuming and Peter Hawkins’s voice) that hiring a middle-aged actor with a beer gut (no disrespect) as opposed to an actor actually suitable for the role twenty years on. They hired a person no longer right to play the part of a Cyberman and all because he’d been in it before – and what makes it doubly pointless is that The Tomb Of The Cybermen was at the time completely missing, making Kilgarriff’s prior performance entirely irrelevant anyway. Back on Earth though, there is some reasonable back-history delivered and I have to say that the black Cyberman looks incredibly cool.

I’ve always said that the great thing about a good cliffhanger is that you get to see it twice, while the dreadful thing about a bad cliffhanger is that you have to watch it twice – and this is the worst cliffhanger I’ve ever seen. An amazingly inept scene shows Russell shooting at a dummy Cyberman, followed by him shouting a half-hearted “no!” and making no effort to dodge a Cyberman’s fist. This is followed by Peri’s appallingly-delivered final words, although in fairness to Nicola Bryant I don’t thing even Meryl Streep could have made the line “no! NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!” work.

After the break, it goes on to talk about The Tomb Of The Cybermen as if all the people watching had seen it. Such a busy story necessitates here a large expositions scene and while it does help a little in explaining what is going on to the audience – and it’s the non-fans who are the show’s bread and butter – what is going on, although it does create a rather boring plot for them as the Cybermen’s plan revolves around rescuing a planet that is only ever mentioned in passing. I feel that they would care more about the idea of it attacking Earth in one year’s time; in fact they’d be better off just avoiding this story altogether and watching The Tenth Planet instead.

The rogue Cyberman is again from The Invasion, but it isn’t so bad as it doesn’t have to be to work – and the scene where its fist bursts through the doorway decapitating another Cyberman is a genuine jump moment; one thing you can’t call this story is badly directed (apart from that cliffhanger, obviously). The Cryons sound good and have some nice lines but are conceptually clichéd, and they would have been less cheesy if they were simply called Telosians. A good theme in this story though is the aliens’ difficulty with Griffiths’s Cockney dialect.

The hatchway taking Lytton and Griffiths to the surface is an old fork-lift truck pallet that I used to carry about when I worked at B&Q, which spoils the illusion slightly. I’d also say that the hatchway echoes the one in The Tenth Planet but it might be a coincidence and in any case I’m getting bored of all these continuity references. 

The Doctor has a decent scene with Flast, even if it does concern that stupid plot. The revelation that the Cybermen can’t time travel properly is interesting despite meaning very little. Also Rost and Varne have a good rapport, the line “you never were very bright” reminding me of the twins Cora and Clarice from Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels.

The Cyberman that flaps aimlessly at its burning arm damages their credibility still further and shows how far they fell outside the black and white years. The hand-crushing scene is undermined by the old cut away – cut back directorial trick and by the fact that the blood is very obviously painted onto some undamaged hands – but it’s the thought that counts and the thought is very unpleasant indeed. Thank you Mr. Saward, shining light of narrative justification. The other surplus characters are polished off in quick succession, showing Saward’s stupid philosophy that if there aren’t x number of deaths per episode then it won’t be any good. While I’m on the subject the mortality rate in this story (not counting Cyberman extras or the regulars) is 85.7%, which is very excessive considering the numbers involved; it’s not that they die (Horror Of Fang Rock had a mortality rate of 100% and was superb), but that they die pointlessly through a sense of requirement that it should happen regardless of circumstances.

The TARDIS changes back to a police box (why change it in the first place?), and Lytton’s death is actually quite poignant. The action scene with the Cybercontroller is reasonable but standard, and I’m getting tired of seeing empty Cyberman suits exploding. The end is very annoying also, as the sonic lance (why get rid of the sonic screwdriver if you’re just going to replace it with something else that does the same thing?) being used to detonate the vastial – to reiterate, a made-up gadget is put into some made-up powder and everything goes boom. And the lead Cyberman’s gesture of “run, lads!” doesn’t help either.

When I was young I used to like this; I’d seen the stories it references so that didn’t worry me, and I just rode the wave of pyrotechnics. Looking at it objectively though this is a silly, inward-looking and very anal episode that probably put more nails into Doctor Who’s coffin than any other. The Cybermen can be such good monsters when written well, but when put in the hands of people who forget that the programme’s audience might not be as knowledgeable as them they become what any other monster would be in such circumstances: mediocre at best.

You can see a clear progression with Eric Saward's Doctor Who work. 'The Visitation' is a nice, textbook straightforward romp. 'Earthshock' is an action movie-type story, with a fairly easy to follow plot for the most part until it all goes a bit mad at the end. 'Resurrection of the Daleks' was a slickly-directed collection of set pieces linked by a somewhat schizophrenic narrative. And 'Attack of the Cybermen' is a mess of indistinct plotlines, continuity references and two-dimensional cyphers. And yes, it is a Saward script. If Paula Moore did have any input, Saward script-edited this one to the extent that it's very much his story.

When dull Hinchcliffe fans bleat on about how dependant the JNT era was on past continuity, they often don't really have much of a case. Generally, the references were harmless. It's fandabbydozy if, say, you can name which stories the clip reel in 'Mawdryn Undead' references, but if it's about all you've seen it doesn't overpower the plot. However, 'Attack of the Cybermen' is something of an exception. To full appreciate what's going on, you could do with knowing that Mondas was destroyed in 'The Tenth Planet', that the Doctor thought the Cybercontroller dead from 'Tomb of the Cybermen', that there are Cybermen in the sewers most likely left over from 'The Invasion', and that Lytton was in 'Resurrection of the Daleks'. And that's not to mention the references like 76 Totter's Lane...

But the biggest problem 'Attack of the Cybermen' has is it's horribly dull. The thing takes until nearly the end of the first episode before it threatens to really get going. Until then, we have to put up with Lytton and his bunch of Sweeney rejects bumbling around, and the Doctor and Peri mucking around looking for a distress signal. The running joke of the 'fixed' chameleon circuit is amusing for about nine seconds of its' first appearance, while the references in the score to Steptoe and Son and Phantom of the Opera are cring-inducing. Colin Baker, having been hammy and fun in 'The Twin Dilemma', is hammy and irritating early on, having to deal with the clunky mood-swings in the script - notable the dreadful "Unstable?!?" moment. He settles down a bit later on, though the script lets him down, notably the overwrought scenes with Vlast and when he orders the shooting of Russell. I always got the impression that the violent overtones of Season 22 were not so much Saward's attempts to subvert the gentle fifth Doctor, but in fact his belief of how the character should be, turning the Doctor into some sort of revenge figure.

Still, Colin does well from the script compared to poor Nicola Bryant. While I don't think she's as bad an actress as is sometimes made out, she certainly can't save bad scenes. She also suffered from a part that was heavily underwritten. Here, Peri's largely superfluous, simply nagging and whinging at the Doctor for the most part.

Saward is far more concerned with Lytton. While Maurice Colbourne gives an efficient performance, the character's scripting is odd. We have the Doctor's moral quandry about misjudging Lytton [who he never met in 'Resurrection, but still...], but the character does very little to show he's any different than he was - remember, the Cryons are paying him to help them. Colbourne is never quite able to imbue the character with any more depth than that of a well-spoken heavy.

However, Lytton does better than most of the guest cast. Brian Glover's much-praised performance as Griffiths isn't actually all that much cop, the character being a standard slightly-squeamish henchman. Terry Molloy is similarly bland as Russell. The idea of getting Michael Kilgariff to reprise his role as the Cybercontroller is inexplicably bad seeing as the role basically entails being quite tall, wearing a costume and shouting a bit. That he's fat seventeen years on hardly helps the menace factor. David Banks does fairly well as the overshadowed Cyberleader, but the Cryons are a faceless bunch, not helped by silly costumes and cod-alien dialogue. But by far the worst element are Stratton and Bates.

It doesn't help that they're in the most superfluous of many pointless subplots which Eric seems to have crammed into the story for no readily apparent reason. We're subjected to these two idiots legging it from a work party, indulging in disguise japes, meeting up with Griffiths and Lytton and then being sharply killed off. Of course, the alleged characterisation hardly breathes life into this strand of the story. Stratton is shouty, Bates is a bit wet. Eat your heart out Bob Holmes. What really seals it is that the chap playing Stratton [he doesn't deserve me actually checking to see who played him] gives what's probably the worst performance in the series' history. That's a history that includes turns from Christopher Robbie, Dolores Grey, Leee John, Rick James, andJon Pertwee in the second half of Season 9. The chap seems to have decided to simply shout his lines at poor Batesy at all times in the hope this will work. It doesn't, and the result is excruciating.

By the second episode the plot is ludicrously contrived. We have the Cybermen planning to blow up Earth using a comet to save Mondas, but to help their cunning plan they lock up the Doctor in a room stacked with explosives, not even bothering to remove his sonic lance first. It must be some sort of Cyberarrogance programming, as they don't bother taking Lytton's knife off him later either.

But then this is the worst bunch of Cybermen we've ever had. Worst than the chaps with the balaclavas and silly voices in 'The Tenth Planet', and worst than the Monty Python and the Holy Grail-inspired squad that spend most of 'Silver Nemesis' running away from a bow and arrow. Cybernetic monsters from the future aren't very scary when ninth-rate London hoods and labourers take then out with pistols and spades. I smoke twenty cigarettes a day and eat junkfood constantly, but I'd quite fancy myself in a fight against an 'Attack' Cyberman.

It's all based on coincidences and large lapses of logic. It's stupid and boring. Thankfully, it was to be the rough nadir of the show in the 1980s, and very gradually the show would bounce back. Thank God.

Some dates are indelibly etched on our minds. For me, one such date is 5th January 1985, a time pregnant with possibilities if you were a Doctor Who fan. Me, I was a music fan and I was into girls, That day I hooked up with my new girlfriend, Sarah, hit the town, bought U2's Unforgettable Fire. Oh and I was looking forward to watching Attack of the Cybermen. What a title! I still love it. Cybermen. Attacking. What more could you want? Twin Dilemma was a false start, wasn't it? Colin Baker was great in it, a little theatrical, perhaps but he boded well and made a dramatic contrast to Peter Davison. The story was complete tosh, the production values were poor, the twins were... Best not to dwell on the inadequacies of this tale, everything would be put to right in ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN! 

Yes, Attack of the Cybermen. This got 9 million viewers, you know. I'm sure Mr and Mrs Joe Shmoe and little Jimmy looked in the paper to see what was on TV and came across Doctor Who and one look at that title and, well, you'd have to check it out, wouldn't you?

Doctor Who - he's back and it's about time. An apposite description for this story, but first lets go back to 1982 and Earthshock. It was a revelation. Episode 1 is still premium Who. Anyone watching it for the first time was genuinely enthralled by the time the closing credits began. The Cybermen were back and we'd had no warning! (If the 2005 series can deliver a similar coup then I'll eat all the celery you can set before me.) Unfortunately the remaining 3 episodes don't really live up to the 1st. The fact that it is virtually plotless doesn't really matter. it's simply a vehicle to reintroduce an old enemy and kill off a hapless companion. The dinosaur twist is neat but there are roughly 60 minutes of meandering narrative and chatty, boastful Cybermen. I reckon the more they talk, the duller and more ridiculous they become. For my money, The Invasion represents the Cybermen at their best, keeping them in the background, tantalisingly. All the talking is done by the Cyber-Planner. The Cybermen look great: sleek, functional and with blank, impassive faces (no 'scary' grimaces here). Revenge of the Cybermen doesn't muck up the design and the 'head-guns' are a GREAT idea, think about it, it makes total sense - it's logical However they have become rather talkative, not Gerry Davis' fault, I feel but it's obvious that Robert Holmes dislikes writing for them. He was the wrong (re)writer for the story because he likes to create CHARACTERS and that's not a trait the Cybermen truthfully have as The Invasion (and Tomb of the Cybermen) nicely demonstrates.

Attack of the Cybermen represents the nadir of a self-destructing series. The seeds were sown with the re-introduction of the Master in Keeper of Traken. A perfectly fine story, as was the atmospheric Logopolis. At a pinch his presence in Castrovalva was acceptable, but Time Flight? The King's Demons? The Five Doctors? Etc, etc... Overkill. This exercise had already been tried from Terror of the Autons onwards and to dubious effect but at least it was novel at first. Season 20 brought back an 'element from the past' for every story and in the process alienated casual viewers and didn't exactly enthrall the fans either. A year later, and we had some reason for optimism:The Awakening, Frontios and, of course, The Caves of Androzani. Otherwise there was a worrying preoccupation with old villains and, increasingly, unwarranted violence. The blood and gore was laid on even thicker in the following season (Lytton's torture, general torturing in Vengeance on Varos, rat-eating and an inappropriate stabbing in The Two Doctors. Revelation of the Daleks at least had the black wit of it's script and the sheer verve of Graeme Harper's direction to carry it along. It's Colin Baker's best story by a country mile.

Michael Grade wasn't the enemy of Doctor Who. The main problem with the latter Davison, early C. Baker stories lay squarely with the production team. There is no unifying vision for the voyages of the Doctor. Whether we like them or not, we can see what Hinchcliffe/Holmes, Letts/Dicks, Williams/Adams, Lloyd/Davis, et al, were trying to achieve. They set an overall tone; they aren't necessarily trying to be original but they ARE trying to tell good Doctor Who stories. John Nathan-Turner presided over some great (or at the very least, interesting) stories: Warriors' Gate, Kinda, Enlightenment, Caves, Revelation, Greatest Show in the Galaxy and most of Sylvester McCoy's last season. But there is no overall tenor to the seasons that contain them, no direction (well, not until Andrew Cartmel came along...). Shock tactics are employed - virtually everyone dies in Resurrection of the Daleks, some horribly. The aim of Eric Saward and Nathan-Turner seems to be to make the series more adult. Inferno showed how this could be done without resorting to needless violence. The Green Death has a great, topical story and some chills but no gratuitous injury or maiming. The Dalek Invasion of Earth is surprisingly grim, even now, but Verity Lambert and co. doesn't smash the viewer in the face with it. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against violence, per se, in Doctor Who or any other drama but just using it for effect is an empty and somehow degrading gesture. Nathan-Turner didn't seem seem to be interested in scripts, just recurring monsters, guest stars and strait-jacketing, inappropriate costumes (all his Doctors, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric, Turlough, Peri...). His best script editor was Cartmel.. He made the series more cohesive. You can argue the pros and cons of his version of the Doctor but at least he gave it some thought, and with Ace he brought character development into the series. Again, it's arguable whether or not you agreed with the way he did it but he tried and, more or less, succeeded. Saward simply wasn't reined in enough and in any case he shared Nathan_Turner's desire to make the series great by simply apeing the past. It's a shame because he showed a flare for dialogue and witty one-liners ("mouth on legs") and his debut, The Visitation, is a sound, traditional tale. 

Where does all this leave Attack of the Cybermen? It's akin to a dodgy Easter egg: thin, tasteless chocolate - hollow - wrapped in crinkly tin foil and containing sweets that leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Could you sustain yourself on such a diet? Colin Baker couldn't and neither could the viewers. Attack of the Cybermen is no better or worse than most of the stories that surround it and that's not a good thing.

Attack of the Cybermen - such a good title, promising much and delivering nothing. I haven't seen Sarah for years and The Unforgettable Fire saw U2 slide into bombast and self-importance. Ring any bells?

For some reason in my memory I used to remember The Awakening as being part of Season Twenty, probably due to its rather subtle pace and emphasis on atmosphere and suggestion, very Season Twenty-ish traits, and against the grain of Season Twenty One’s generally more gung-ho approach (bar Planet of Fire) to the programme. In this sense The Awakening was a welcome meditative two-parter after the bull and bluster of the messy Warriors of the Deep; even the following story, Frontios, though including some typical Chris H Bidmead scriptorial sophistication, still seems at least visually very symptomatic of its season, the least intriguing of Davison’s three seasons, although it concluded in arguably the most dramatically powerful story ever, Caves of Androzani.

What I like about The Awakening – and in this it shares some similarities with its two formulaic predecessors, Black Orchid and The King’s Demons – is its good straight-forward story telling, unpretentious execution, intriguing atmosphere, convincing pseudo-historical realization (though of course most of its historical details are meant as a Civil War re-enactment in the modern day) and seeming deftness of ease at feeling more like a four-parter than a two-parter. Even though the storyline fits neatly into its 50 minutes, with all threads tied up nicely, the story contains a fair amount of plot detail: Civil War re-enactment conjuring up dormant historical forces, alien energies and inevitable time disturbances; the Malus’s place in historical Earth superstition; its craft, a probe from Harkol, leaving deposits of Tinclavik, a ‘squigy’, malleable metal from the planet Raga (cue the Terileptils from The Visitation pleasingly and subtly alluded continuity worked in from Season Nineteen). Even the characters are, for such a short excursion, believable and fairly engaging, especially George Hutchinson, played by the impeccable and always engaging Dennis Lill (who was to recognize the impressive, follically-challenged portrayer of Dr Fendahlman beneath that cascade of hair?). Will Tyler is a memorable character also, and I always remember wishing he’d joined the Tardis crew at the time, his Stig-of-the-Dump-esque incongruity beside the infinitely more intelligent Doctor providing a highly enjoyable and comical combination (not to mention bringing the flame-haired, angst-ridden Turlough in to the bargain).

The sets in this story are typically convincing and detailed for the series’ long tradition of historically accurate backdrops. The Church set in particular is extremely well done and exudes a sufficiently eerie atmosphere; the details on the wooden pulpit are particularly impressive, showing carvings of what we later come to see in corporal as the alien intelligence known as The Malus. The later scenes with the strange gargoyle entity clinging to the wall of the Tardis are brilliantly done and very memorable. My favourite scene of all is the one towards the end in which a ghost Cavalier and a trio of ghost Roundheads are conjured up by the Harkol probe to threaten the lives of the Doctor et al; subtly realized, real actors in costumes painted white, these apparitions, apparently somehow physically manifest from the past, are suitably tangible and eerie – their realization goes to show how this sort of thing should be done, and how it can be done far more convincingly than CGI effects, with the right atmosphere and direction.

Perhaps the only real qualm about the story is the unnecessary and convenient plot device of including Tegan Jovanka’s grandfather, Andrew Bernie; although the crew intend to visit him in Little Hodcombe, it is still slightly peculiar that an Australian should be living in a hamlet in the British home counties. Having said that, they couldn’t exactly have a relative of Turlough’s living there due to his alien origins.

Over all then, a highly enjoyable story, deftly scripted by Eric Pringle, strangely memorable considering its brevity, as were the other two Davison two-parters at the time – Hartnell’s The Rescue excluded, no other era of Doctor Who managed to achieve such satisfactory examples of this 50 minute story formula than the Davison era. His two parters never seemed rushed and yet always seemed filled with detail and variety of plot elements, and in this glowing example of the 50 minute Davison era speciality, there is even time at the end for a little banter in the Tardis over a cup of tea. Consummate Who.