When I watch this story I feel I am watching the very best Doctor Who has to offer, a textured, well paced and intelligent piece, peppered with shockingly good dialogue, boosted by outstanding performances and some damn convincing production values. It’s completely unique, unlike anything that has come before or will come after. I love it because it ignores every rule of Doctor Who and forges its own identity in the maligned season twenty-two, shining bright compared to real generic run-arounds like Attack of the Cybermen and Mark of the Rani. 

What is frightening is that this is a terrifying window into the future, the way things are going we will have a punishment dome up and running by the end of the decade. Did you see the pictures of the Iraqi’s being tortured splattered all over the front pages of the papers? I know people like the repulsive Sil who were delighting in the savagery of those being abused because of all the troubled politics over the past few years. I mean how sick is that? Admiring the broadcasted images of people being dragged around the floor like dogs…Vengeance on Varos captures that feeling of a society out of control superbly. I will never listen to Sil’s excited laugh when he is watching the Doctor dehydrate in the same way again. 

Plus what with society’s obsession with fly on the wall shows the cameras are EVERYWHERE just as they are in this story. The limit of what I can stand is How Clean is Your House…sending in the cameras into people’s homes who live in pure filth and exposing them…its just sick isn’t it and hardly what I would call entertainment. How long before we have a public lavatory expose so we can see what people get up to in them? Or a glimpse into life of an electric chair operator? Considering what real life crap we put on the telly the torture in Vengeance on Varos seems relatively tame! My point is how long before we are totally monitored like the people on this planet, forced to endure life or death trials before the salivating crowds? I’m sure it would be a ratings winner. 

Doctor Who is supposed to be a teatime treat for kiddies but Vengeance subverts that valuable role with glee, pumping for something a bit more intelligent for adults to get their teeth into. The first ten minutes are shockingly slow, the Doctor only getting a token scene and the story far more concerned with setting up Varos. But these early moments are some of the best, for once creating a society that we can believe in, bored, witless workers slumped in front of their screens, a governor desperately trying to make the books balance and a capitalist presence sucking the life out of the planet. The opening shot in the punishment, the camera swooping down on Jondar chained to the wall, a camera greedily recording his torture is one of the best opening scenes to any Doctor Who story. In these early scenes there is no attempt to sensationalise the material, Arak and Etta are totally uncharismatic, the Governor is trapped in an impossible situation and shown on the brink of a nervous collapse. Its mature stuff for a show that was exploding Cybermen like fireworks just one story earlier. 

But it goes even further than that. Rarely was the Doctor as sulky and violent as he is in this story, apparently as pacifistic as the pope in every single story before this one (which I refute) which has led to a gang of sixth Doctor haters who feel his emotional characteristics go against the core of the character. To be perfectly frank this violent shake up was NEEDED, as ‘popular’ as Peter Davison’s portrayal of the fifth Doctor was (I refute that too) after three years of being terribly nice to everybody it was a joy to have the Doctor rubbing people up the wrong way again. Yes the sixth Doctor is undeniably flawed, just like you and me he is sensitive and passionate and oh yes, he wants stay alive too so he is sometimes called upon to jump into action to make sure that he achieves that. He gives up when the situation seems impossible (the TARDIS malfunctioning) and gives rousing speeches when there is a society to whip into shape. And I refuse to believe that he achieves nothing in the story, he saves Jondar’s life, Areta and Peri’s too later on, if he hadn’t proved to the Governor there was somebody else who wanted to fight the system he might not have convinced Maldak to save his life. Oh and he helps to kill the Chief and Quillam, two of the most repulsive creatures he has ever met. In every way the Doctor is responsible for the uprising on Varos, Sil’s pathetic attempt is just a side issue compared to troubles the planet is having. 

I don’t think the story ever oversteps the mark in its portrayal of media controlled violence. There are distressing scenes, the Doctor gasping for breath in a fake desert, the acid bath sequence with the guy yanking his friend inside with blood and ooze dribbling down his face…but if you’re going to make a programme that deals with a serious issue you have to show what you’re exposing, in many ways Vengeance on Varos is as bad those voyeuristic papers, similarly condemning the material and revelling in it. Maybe I am naпve but I can accept one as entertainment and can be sickened by another because it is real life but that’s my prerogative. I love how the story refuses to take the easy way out and suggest that everything is peaches and roses at the end, the violence has subsided yes but the ambiguous final scene that sees Arak and Etta staring at their blank screens with no idea what to do now that the threat of death has gone brilliantly makes the point that there are no simple solutions. It is the sort of intelligent reasoning the story deploys throughout. 

Lots of lovely touches remind us of our own media controlled society. The much-celebrated cliffhanger that sees the Doctor ‘dying’ in a cliffhanger on the Varosian screens cleverly mocks all those melodramatic Doctor cliffhangers that I am certain directors’ were just as careful to cut off at the right point for optimum suspense. Dialogue such as “We’ve received very good punch-in appreciation figures” and “I’m certain the video of his death will sell” prove it is all about the money. And who can see themselves in Arak and Etta? Moaning about repeats, sitting on the edge of their seats, commenting on inconsistencies, who they like and whinging about government officials for their poor decisions…Geez it could be Simon and I! 

If Vengeance on Varos was just politics and parodies it would get dull very quickly so it’s also an archetypal runaround with lots of running, shooting, escaping and getting captured again. It even works on this level because the story is filmed with a real sense of energy and style; the lighting is appropriately moody to increase the tension, the traps are fairly ingenious (love the giant fly…brrr) and rarely have a heard a musical score so in tune with its material (it is playfully surreal in places which makes you feel even more uncomfortable watching). Plus it helps that Jason Connery is flashing a hairy chest for half an episode, very nice. 

What is especially astonishing is how well the story uses Peri. I do mind at all that it takes her and the Doctor half the first episode to arrive because at this point we are still getting used to this unusual couple and their domestic bliss (I think not) still makes for engaging viewing. She is the Doctor’s rock, trying to lift his spirits, making helpful suggestions, sticking to his side whilst they dash about the prison trying to reassure their new allies. Peri is so underrated as a companion; she stands up to Sil, the Governor and the Chief in an interrogation scene heavy with great performances and later she shares a moment of disquiet intimacy with the Governor that is dramatic gold. So, so underrated…

Nabil Shaban and Martin Jarvis deserve to be commended for their superb performances as Sil and the Governor, two very difficult roles to play and yet they carry their scenes with total conviction. Sil is so loathsome you have to love him; his gurgling laugh and excitable tail add an extra dimension of alieness to this funny creature and his hard on for torture, both men and women gives him a perverse edge. By the time he had reached the end of his first scene he had already earned a second appearance. The Governor remains sympathetic throughout, no matter what instructions he is ordering Jarvis plays the role with a resigned disgust that never lets you forget he is trapped inside a job he loathes. 

And the icing on the cake is Colin Baker’s star turn as the Doctor already giving the quality of performance it took some Doctor’s (McCoy, Davison, Troughton) a season to master. When he promises a better future for the Varosians from the scaffold you listen, such is the intensity of his words. He leads his little band of rebels through the punishment dome with supreme confidence, I love it when he guides them through the flytrap, absolute conviction sees him through. He just glitters on screen, a blur of emotions and impossible to take your eyes away from. I love him, rigged lasers and all. I’d do the same thing in the acid bath sequences. 

Quality of a sort I am not used in the JNT era, this beacon of a story inspires fascinating debate and that might be its biggest strength yet. Even today people are still talking about its message, be it condemning or praising it. It makes people think and for that alone I cannot praise it highly enough.

There are many advantages to being an American Doctor Who fan, and one of them is that I can show “The Two Doctors” to fresh-eyed viewers who are unaware of its controversial--and rather lowly--place in the series’ canon. Strangely, this often-panned episode has been a hit with my friends, who are invariably mystified when I tell them that it’s generally loathed. Maybe there’s something fundamentally American about the gratuitous violence and sexuality in “The Two Doctors”; it’s just tacky enough to be one of our own productions, isn’t it? Or maybe “The Two Doctors” is secretly rather good, and like “Duck Soup” or “Gojira,” it’s begging to be reassessed by the same critics who have been gleefully bombing it for years.

Part of the problem is that “The Two Doctors” will forever be associated with Doctor Who’s hiatus and eventual cancellation. Fans, eager to prove that they have mature and sophisticated viewpoints, have stopped blaming various BBC executives for the series’ downfall and have turned their venom upon the series itself, blaming episodes like “The Two Doctors” for turning Doctor Who into a violent and gaudy shadow of its past success. No member of the production team is above criticism--Colin Baker is blasted for his ham acting, John Nathan-Turner is accused of “camping up” the series (though I sometimes wonder if fans aren’t attacking his sexual orientation instead of his actual work), and even the mighty Robert Holmes is generally regarded to have burnt out by this disastrous point. To most fans, there’s a stink about this production that’s attached to all involved. You’ll even hear people say that Doctor Who deserved to be canceled after producing this turkey. 

What short memories we seem to have developed; “The Caves of Androzani,” which is often cited as the best Doctor Who story of all time, had been made only the season before, and with the same man in the writers’ chair. Did the series really beg to be cancelled so soon after hitting that peak? I’d argue--and I know how alone I am here, believe me--that much of Androzani’s brilliance still shines in this episode. 

But before I get to the positives, I’d like to rebuff some common criticisms of “The Two Doctors.” Let me sum them up--the Spanish locations are superfluous, the violence is over-the-top, the storyline is padded and muddled, and Peter Moffatt’s direction is flat. Have I got it covered? Indulge me while I address these issues one-by-one.

I think that too much knowledge of the series’ production history might be a bad thing. Fans know that “The Two Doctors” was originally supposed to be shot in New Orleans (or one of several other locations), and consequently they’re hyper-aware that the Seville setting is largely arbitrary. Yet the settings of most Doctor Who stories are equally arbitrary. The authors of “The Complete Useless Doctor Who Encyclopedia” had lots of fun lampooning the series because episode after episode takes place in London. There is, of course, no particular reason why aliens should so often elect to invade England’s capital, just as there is no particular reason why the Sontarans base themselves in a hacienda near Seville. With all brutal honesty, the Spanish location was chosen because it’s pretty. One might say that such reasoning is rather shallow but, since television is a visual medium, I’d argue that such reasoning actually fits perfectly. I would certainly rather look at Seville (and its surroundings) than yet another mud flat at the bottom of a slate quarry.

The violence issue is rather more prickly. The same fans who rush to defend the Hinchcliffe era against accusations of excessive violence are the ones who feel that, in the case of “The Two Doctors,” the production team really did go too far. For whatever reason, Condo’s stomach exploding in “The Brain of Morbius” is perfectly acceptable, but Shockeye eating a rat is not (needless to say, I don’t think Mary Whitehouse would have drawn such a fine distinction here). In today’s post-Tarantino climate, however, “The Two Doctors” seems rather tame. In fact, it was pretty tame at the time, seeing as how violent spectacles like “The Wild Bunch” and any one of a dozen slasher movies had preceded it. The violence itself is clearly not the problem, but somehow its execution in this particular episode has come to be criticized as flawed and in poor taste. I simply don’t share that judgment. In Doctor Who tradition, the gratuitously violent acts are all perpetrated by the villains, and serve to build up suspense and tension. Never is the violence depicted in a humorous light; Oscar’s death is obviously supposed to be horrible, just like the Dona Arana’s (and Oscar’s sense of humor makes his death more tragic, not less). The Doctor does kill Shockeye, but only in self-defense, and can you really blame him? The only dubious moment is his “just desserts” pun, but again, this all seems rather PG compared to the gore fests and callous anti-heroes we get today. “The Two Doctors” still has its moral compass correctly aligned; the good guys are generally pacifists, and the bad guys are the bloodthirsty ones. Robert Holmes has pushed the violence envelope a little further here, but he’s operating in the same vein as he did during the Hinchcliffe era, which had itself pushed the boundaries established by Barry Letts.

Criticisms of the storyline hold slightly more weight, but not much. Chessene switches plans and has the Second Doctor turned into an Androgum because she believes that the Time Lords are closing in, and she doesn’t have time to deconstruct his genetic code piece by piece. Killing just the two Sontarans is sufficient because the other Sontarans have no interest in Earth; they’re fighting the Rutans elsewhere, and have no intention of invading (the planet is “conveniently situated” for Stike to stop over before the battle, not for him to occupy it). The “padding” in the third part is, in my view, some of the best comedy that the series ever featured. I don’t know what to say if you didn’t laugh at Troughton as an Androgum; I think his performance is priceless, and I’m glad he got one last showcase for his comic talents before bowing out. Ultimately, the much vaunted plot holes in “The Two Doctors” seem to be either nit-picking or totally inaccurate myths based on sloppy viewings instead of sloppy scripting.

I’ll surprise you now and say that I agree, to an extent, with the common assessment that Peter Moffatt is a sub-par director. However, there is really only one terrible shot in this episode; that much maligned first appearance of the Sontarans outside the hacienda. Bizarrely, the earlier shot of a Sontaran raising its gun at the Second Doctor is wonderful, and I can’t quite account for the contrast between the subtle directing there and the artless directing that comes later on. Generally speaking, though, I don’t have much of a problem with Moffatt’s work; it’s standard TV directing, not adventurous, but not rubbish either.

It’s a shame that I’ve had to write such a defensive review of this episode; now that I’ve trawled through all of the establish criticisms, I feel obliged to keep my positive comments short. Suffice to say that the Androgums are a more interesting race than they might at first appear to be. Their obsession with blood and lineage lends weight to their characterization that balances out their very stereotypical (but very amusing) obsession with food and other carnal pleasures. Like all satirical figures, they’re half serious and half joke, and over-the-top in the best way. Fans balk at the comical treatment of the Sontarans in this episode, but they’re being used for satirical purposes as well; and remember, the first Sontaran episode is a comedy, too. Holmes clearly conceived them as a humorous attack on narrow military minds, and attempts to make them more menacing during the Tom Baker era, whether you judge them as successful or not, deviate far more from this concept than does “The Two Doctors.”

The villains are so memorable that they detract somewhat from the novelty value of the episode, which is of course seeing two Doctors together. But that’s what I love most about Holmes’ script; it tells a proper story, and doesn’t rely on the same silly gimmick that barely held “The Three Doctors” and “The Five Doctors” together. Big Finish should’ve learned their lesson from here when they made “Zagreus.” That story was so keen to escape the gimmick of multiple Doctors that it cheated and didn’t deliver the goods, and the result was pretty much widespread disappointment. Yet “The Two Doctors” proves that multiple incarnations of the same Time Lord can appear in the same story, without that story stinking (ironically enough, “Zagreus” ended up being more bogged down in continuity than any episode of the series. While fans tend to condemn episodes like “The Two Doctors” for being continuity-driven, violent, and overly complex, their own writing often possesses all three of these qualities in spades).

There are interesting political undertones in the script, and it’s surprising to see Holmes serve up a liberal message (the vegetarian not-so-sub-text) right alongside a conservative one (is the notion that Androgums can’t evolve beyond barbarism a criticism of failed attempts to reform criminals?). The Gallifreyans are again depicted as manipulative and menacing after too many bad episodes had turned them into the Doctor’s buddies, and it’s possible for viewers to agree with Dastari that their interference is selfishly motivated. Holmes doesn’t tell us exactly how to feel about the issues involved, and that’s what makes this good drama instead of irksome soapboxing, a storytelling style that has infested way too many Doctor Who stories of late.

While I don’t think that “The Two Doctors” will ever storm the Top Ten (honestly, it’s not even in mine), it does deserve better treatment, especially if even a handful of the arguments that I've presented here hold any weight. The recent DVD release was coldly received, but I couldn't tell if fans were reviewing the actual episode, or the politics and history behind it, which still seem to be distracting even after all this time. I honestly think that this tiresome baggage needs to be shelved. There’s a Robert Holmes gem here, waiting to be discovered, just beneath a very thin layer of dust (or perhaps I should say, more in keeping with the episode’s gruesome content, a very thin sheen of blood?)

Much like ‘Paradise Towers’, ‘Dragonfire’ is a story with a promising script let down by the production. These production problems are nowhere near as bad as those that marred ‘Paradise Towers’ however, and the story works rather better as a result. More importantly to the Doctor Who mythos, ‘Dragonfire’ paves the way for the last two seasons of the classic BBC series, as Mel departs and a new companion is introduced whose impact on the series, for better or for worse, remains to this day…

I’m going to get this out of the way without further ado and make it clear that I can’t stand Ace. Firstly, it has often been noted that she is a ghastly hybrid of a character, a supposedly streetwise rebellious London teenager played by a slightly posh woman in her twenties with dialogue written by largely middle class men who are over thirty. The result is abominable; apparently aiming for angst, scriptwriter Ian Briggs offers us such gems as the fact that Ace is sure that her parents aren’t her real parents because they gave her a crap name (Dorothy). She doesn’t suggest that her parents lacked judgement or hampered her with a name designed for bullies to have fun with in the playground, she actually tells Mel that they can’t be her real parents and she sounds very much like she means it. The result, along with her pyromaniac tendencies and complaints about the teachers at school who took a dim view to her blowing up a classroom with, lest we forget, real explosives, is that the impression created is not that of a troubled teenager but instead one of an emotionally retarded psychopath.

The second problem with Ace stems largely from Sophie Aldred. Aldred has been a staunch supporter of the series since it ended and seems like a thoroughly nice person, but as an actress she is appalling, delivering all of her lines in a horrible amateur dramatics fashion. It doesn’t help that the target audience of Doctor Who automatically limits the characterisation of Ace. Rebellious teenagers from London who don’t swear are about as commonplace as rocking horse, and this instantly poses a problem; Ace cannot swear for obvious reasons, and so the character doesn’t ring true. This wouldn’t be quite such a problem were it not for the fact that she is often placed in situations where it would be perfectly natural for her to swear; in these instances, we instead get such verbal diarrhoea as “Male chauvinist bilgebag”, “I bet you’ve never had a milkshake tipped over you head either”, “Gordon Bennett” and “What a bunch of spots!” Having said that, the rest of her dialogue is just as bad, with clunky and unrealistic lines such as “I ain’t got no mum and dad, I ain’t never had no mum and dad!” and “Do you feel like arguing with a can of deodorant that registers nine on the Richter scale?” Ultimately, I have never, during the entire run of the series, felt like I am watching a children’s programme quite as much as I do whenever Ace is on screen. It’s no coincidence that the only stories in which I personally think Ace works are the New Adventures post-‘Love and War’, during which she is almost a different character.

So, already cursed with a badly scripted, badly acted and badly conceived yet strangely popular new companion, does ‘Dragonfire’ have anything to offer? Well, yes but not all that much. The main plot is quite reasonable, featuring as it does an exiled criminal seeking the means to return home and wreak revenge upon his people; this is hardly original, but it is decent, workable stuff, and Kane is a great villain. In a season that began with hammy villains, Edward Peel’s suitably icy performance as Kane is extremely welcome and he positively exudes menace. His initial murder of one of Glitz’s crewmembers is highly effective in setting the tone and establishing the character, as he commits casual slaughter without the slightest hesitation, as though swatting a fly. He is also well motivated; his back-story is simple (he’s basically a gangster arrested and imprisoned by his people), but it is considerably enhanced by his love for Xana, his former accomplice who died escaping arrest. His obsession with Xana is what drives him, and although it is not explicitly stated, the impression is very much given that his much-desired revenge is to avenge his lover far more than it is to avenge his long imprisonment. Kane is scary throughout the story, Peel bringing real menace to lines such as “I demand absolute loyalty now and forever, and I don’t forgive those who betray me”, but his finest scenes are those following Belazs’ and Kracauer’s betrayal. Having been forcibly warmed up by Kracauer’s interference with his refrigeration system, Kane is too weak to stand, until he sees the destruction on the ice statue of Xana by the rising temperature; sheer fury at this desecration, far more than at the attempt to kill him, gives Kane the strength to rise to his feet and kill Kracauer, and he is consumed by hatred during the later scene in which he repays Belazs for her part in it. Because his desire for revenge, both for himself and Xana, is what motivates Kane, his eventual fate is very fitting; confronted by the fact that Proamon has been destroyed during his exile, he realises that his reason for existing is over, and so he commits suicide.

Unfortunately, discussion of Kane highlights one of the problems of ‘Dragonfire’, in that despite some good ideas, not everything seems to have been thought through carefully. Kane, we are told, has been waiting for three thousand years to regain the Dragonfire and return to Proamon, which raises the question of why. Within a short space of time, the Doctor and Glitz and Mel and Ace separately find the Biomechanoid, and it doesn’t take long for Kane’s soldiers to locate and kill it either. The idea seems to be that Iceworld is so massive that finding the creature is impossible but without the map, but three thousand years is such a vast expanse of time that it seems unlikely that Kane could not have found and destroyed the creature much, much earlier. He does, after all, have large numbers of soldiers and cryogenically frozen mercenaries at his disposal. The question is also raised as to why his jailors even left the Dragonfire on Iceworld, guardian or not; since Kane cannot possibly survive on the light side of the planet, it could have been hidden there, or even taken back to Proamon, thus guaranteeing that he could never regain it. Speaking of good ideas badly realised and Kane’s mercenaries, they are another potentially fine idea, effectively unstoppable zombies that are used to massacre the inhabitants of Iceworld or drive them out. They could have been extremely creepy, but ham and glitter spoil the effect; the extras playing them are awful, one of them apparently striking a catalogue model pose in the canteen, and the glitter added to their hair to make them look icy is just plain silly.

Nothing in ‘Dragonfire’ comes close to being flawless. Some of the characterisation is superb, with Belazs being another example in addition to Kane; she works for him, but like Kane himself is driven by a desire to escape, leading to an especially dramatic scene on board Glitz’s ship as the Doctor sadly tells her that he doubts she can ever repay her debt to Kane. Her eventual betrayal is well written, as her death scene, as Kane gives her hope before viscously subjecting her to a painful death, and Patricia Quinn is superb in the role, especially when she is plotting with Kracauer. Other characters work less well however. When I reviewed ‘The Mysterious Planet’ I noted that despite being well served by the script, Tony Selby’s portrayal of Glitz was spoiled by his stilted dialogue. He’s far more comfortable in the role here, as he was in ‘The Ultimate Foe’, but unfortunately this comes at a price. Whereas Holmes gave Glitz a hard edge (the first time he ever saw the Doctor he ordered him to be shot), this is largely absent here and the character seems neutered as a result. Suddenly, Glitz goes from being a ruthless (if cowardly) mercenary to being a dodgy dealer in rotten fruit and a third rate gambler who can’t pay his debts off. The fact that he sold his crew to Kane is a step in the right direction, but the effect of this is diluted by the fact that he’s generally become more of a likeable buffoon than a slightly dangerous criminal. To add insult to injury, designer John Asbridge decides to decorate the cockpit of the Nosferatu with furry dice and fake leopard skin seat covers, further transforming Glitz, by association, into a third rate spiv who wouldn’t be out of place in Eastenders.

This is symptomatic of the problems of ‘Dragonfire’; everything is undermined by lapses of judgement in the design and scripting. Stellar’s mother wanders around in a stroppy mood in Episode Three, apparently having missed the massacre of her fellow shoppers, which is blatantly silly. The costumes worn by Kane and his staff create the impression that they should be advertising ice cream. As is so often the case with Doctor Who during the nineteen eighties, the sets are too brightly lit, which at times makes it painfully obvious that they are made of plastic; only slightly less bright and they would have worked so much better, as would the Geiger-esque Biomechanoid, which comes close to being impressive but is lit up like a Christmas tree so that its rubbery appearance becomes obvious. The plot is explained at the end of Episode Two by a high-tech slide show. And of course there is the notorious Episode One cliffhanger, which takes the piss in interesting new ways and which makes no sense whatsoever unless you happen to have read the novelisation.

Nevertheless, ‘Dragonfire’ has moments of brilliance. The scene in which the Doctor distracts a guard with philosophical debate only to find himself out of his depth is priceless (famously, the lines are lifted out of The Unfolding Text), and subverts audience expectations, as well as the Doctor’s. This is followed shortly afterwards by Glitz telling the Doctor that Belazs is going to kill them to which he deadpans, “Ah, an existentialist”. Indeed, McCoy is very good here, even if his unwise decision to act as though walking on ice ends up making him look like a tit, since nobody else bothers. The Doctor’s interest in the Biomechanoid for purely scientific reasons contrasts nicely with everyone else’s obsession with the treasure, and as in ‘Paradise Towers’ and ‘Delta and the Bannermen’ it’s nice to see the Doctor just wander into a situation and work hard to keep as many people as possible alive and well without him having some hidden agenda; regardless of whether or not one likes the so-called “Cartmel masterplan”, it is pleasant to see the Doctor simply wandering the universe lead by his curiosity prior to the more manipulative, proactive characterisation of Seasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six.

And then there is Mel. For a brief moment in Episode One, Mel is at her most annoying, as Belazs intimidates Glitz and she leaps to his defense, telling Belacs that she’ll have to kill her and the Doctor to get to him. She has no knowledge whatsoever of the situation and the result is simply embarrassing for the audience. Oh, and later on she suggests a game of “I Spy” to pass the time, which instantly makes me want to reach into the screen and throttle her. But for the remainder of the story, she is at her best; Langford gives one last spirited performance before departing from the television series, and she comes off well. Mel is paired up with Ace here, and she benefits enormously. Partly this is because as irritating as Mel can get, Langford can at least act and therefore shines next to Aldred, but mainly it’s due to the script, which portrays Mel as older and wiser. She gains Ace’s trust before anybody else, including the Doctor, and she continues to stand up for what she believes in, screaming at Ace not to pick up Kane’s sovereign despite the risk to herself, and later reluctant to hand over the Dragonfire to a tyrant again regardless of the danger. Best of all, she gets a superb, if abrupt, leaving scene, in which McCoy shows the Doctor’s melancholy at her departure very well. The dialogue here is great, culminating in “Think about me, when you’re living your life, one day after another, all in a neat pattern. Think about the homeless traveller in his old police box, his days like crazy paving”, which sums up the Doctor beautifully. Those brief moments before he invites Ace to join him suddenly hint at the loneliness of near immortality and offer an explanation of why he surrounds himself with companions on his travels. Pity then that Mel’s reasons for leaving are complete bollocks, as she suddenly decides to go off with Glitz, a decision so preposterous that the best explanation to date is Steve Lyons’ suggestion in ‘Head Games’ that the Doctor brainwashed her to get rid of her and make way for Fenric bait.

In summary, ‘Dragonfire’ is not entirely successful, but has merit. And mercifully, for the only time in Season Twenty-Four, the musical haemorrhoid of Keff McCulloch’s work is soothed by the Anusol of Dominic Glynn, who composes a decent moody score that complements the story nicely. I’d say that he’s more talented than McCulloch, but it’s damning with faint praise.

When I reviewed 'Delta and the Bannermen' I suggested that arguably no other story from the McCoy era has divided the opinion fandom as much as that story; nevertheless, in that respect 'Remembrance of the Daleks' comes close to rivaling it, albeit for very different reasons. Regarded by some fans as one of the ten best Doctor Who stories of all time, 'Remembrance of the Daleks' has much to recommend it, but its controversy lies largely in the fact that for the first time it really heralds the beginning of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan" and that this is obviously reflected in the characterisation of the Doctor.

I'll make it clear from the start that I adore 'Remembrance of the Daleks', for much the same reason that The New Adventures comprise one of my favourite eras of Doctor Who; I love the darker, more manipulative side to the Seventh Doctor that emerges here. And this is where many fans problems with 'Remembrance of the Daleks' lie, as the Doctor becomes a manipulative schemer, acting with foreknowledge of events and with a plan up his sleeve that sees him not blundering blindly into a situation and doing his best to sort it out, but orchestrating events from the start as he leads the Daleks into a trap. This culminates notoriously in the destruction of Skaro, and it is that more than anything else that so many fans take issue with. For over fifteen years now a debate has raged about the morality of the Doctor's actions here, as he manipulates Davros into destroying his home planet with the Hand of Omega. It is an issue more than worthy of debate; questions have been asked about the Doctor's right to effectively commit genocide by destroying the Daleks' power base, and critics have noted that the destruction of an entire world sees not just the destruction of the Daleks, but also that of an entire ecosystem. Writer Ben Aaronovitch has provided further fuel for this debate with his description of rock leopards in the mountains of Skaro in his novelisation of 'Remembrance of the Daleks' and questions have also been asked about whether there are any Thals on the planet at this time.

This issue therefore has at least two levels. On one level, the audience is invited to ask, was the Doctor right to wipe out the Daleks (or at least, Davros' Daleks) and on another, was he right to destroy an entire world? There is, ultimately, no easy answer. Back when I reviewed 'Genesis of the Daleks', a story in which the Doctor balks at committing genocide by wiping out the Daleks, I argued that whereas many so-called Doctor Who monsters are races of people with individual motivations and the possibility of redemption, the Daleks are, literally, Monsters. Back when Terry Nation created them, he used them as metaphors for nuclear Armageddon and later drew obvious parallels between the Daleks and Nazis. During the intervening years, they have remained as potent a force for evil as they were back then to such an extent that I have in the past likened them to Smallpox, a destructive force inimical to human life that many people would have no qualms about eradicating. So personally, I have no moral objection to the Doctor attempting to wipe them out; even more than this, I have stated in the past that I think the Doctor was wrong in 'Genesis of the Daleks'. 

The destruction of Skaro is more complicated. The Imperial Daleks seen here are suggested to be at the height of their powers; they have returned to their ancestral seat, they have an impressive mother ship capable of destroying entire planets, and they seemingly travel through time with ease. This being the case, I find it very hard to believe that Skaro, at the time in which it is destroyed, is still inhabited by Thals. As for the rock leopards, whilst as a fan I find the changes and additions made to Doctor Who television stories when they were novelized interesting, I strongly object to the suggestion that they should be taken into account when considering the relative merits of a television story; these stories were aimed at a wider audience than simply hard core fans, and should stand or fall on their own merits. Thus, there is little to suggest to in 'Remembrance of the Daleks' that Skaro is anything other than the radioactive rubble-strewn wasteland seen in 'Destiny of the Daleks'. The problem is however, that I'm not sure; I'm not absolutely convinced that there is nothing living on Skaro other than the Daleks, or for that matter on the other five planets in the system seen on the star map in the Dalek shuttle. It has also been pointed out that Davros chooses to use the Hand whether the Doctor goads him into it or not; critics have suggested that the Doctor could have warned him of the consequences of doing so instead of just asking him not to use, but this doesn't really make sense, since Davros would probably have still taken the Hand away with him and spent time trying to reprogram it (and possibly succeeding). Again however, the issue is far from clear-cut. And that, ultimately, is what fascinates me about 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. Suddenly, the Doctor has an edge to him, he has become proactive in a far more ruthless and dangerous way than anything we have seen before, even in the first three stories at the dawn of the series. Whatever knowledge he has beforehand, what we see is a Doctor who has considered the odds and has decided that the destruction of an entire solar system is worthwhile if it wipes out or at least severely cripples the Dalek race. Anyone who considers the Doctor a cut and dried Hero is undoubtedly going to have problems with this, just as they would have problems with the Doctor's actions in the New Adventures 'Love and war', 'Blood Heat' and 'Zamper' (to name but three examples), but I find morally dubious "heroes" vastly more interesting than clear cut "good guys". My final word on this issue is that, whatever else you might think about it, the strength of 'Remembrance of the Daleks' is that, fifteen years on it can still provoke fierce debate. 

So what of the rest of 'Remembrance of the Daleks', outside of that controversial sequence towards the end of Episode Four? The story has many good points. For one thing, the immediate effect of the Cartmel Masterplan is evident from the start, as the Doctor spends the story making sure that the correct Dalek faction gets the Hand of Omega and tries to limit the number of people killed in the crossfire. In amongst this, we have intriguing hints that we don't, after all, know everything about the Doctor, as he implies that he may have worked with Omega and Rassilon (incidentally, there is a deleted scene from Episode Four included on the DVD, in which he tells Davros that he is "far more than just another Time Lord"). The Doctor's alien nature is suddenly re-emphasized to powerful effect, and Sylvester McCoy responds with a performance here that is virtually flawless. During the scenes set in the Junkyard in Totter's Lane in Episode One, he makes quite asides such as "humans" and "what a predictable response" and inherent in those lines is something darker than what we are used to, as the Doctor stands in judgement of his favourite species. McCoy packs real emotion into those lines, which considering some of the oft-mentioned limitations of his acting skills is hugely impressive. The strengths of McCoy's acting are emphasized instead, so that we get a Doctor who charms his way into the confidence of Rachael and Allison, gains the trust of Group Captain Gilmore and alternates between deadly serious and clownish buffoonery. There is a magnificent scene in Episode Two as he discusses the nature of consequence with Joseph Marcell's John, and aside from being a beautifully scripted scene that foreshadows the events to come, it shows McCoy at his best; the Doctor seems genuinely exhausted by the stress of what he is doing when he first sits down at the counter and orders tea. 

McCoy's acting only even begins to touch on cringe-worthy during his confrontation with Davros in Episode Four, as he over does the Doctor's "unlimited rice pudding" goading to a level that should make it obvious even to the over-excited and emotional Davros that he is up to something. Terry Molloy's performance here as Davros is also occasionally criticized for being over-the-top, but personally I've never had a problem with Molloy's performance as Davros in any of his four stories to date. Whilst Davros is undoubtedly a genius, he's also undoubtedly insane; it has been pointed out that it is astonishingly stupid of him to use the Hand of Omega so quickly after having obtained it and in a fit of pique, but to me it seems perfectly in character, as he's easily arrogant and volatile enough to believe that he can indeed "handle the technology", and Molloy's ranting and cackling reflects the fact that he's literally almost gibbering with excitement at the prospect of gaining total mastery over time. 

I also, for the most part, like what Aaronovitch does with the Daleks here. It has been pointed out that the Daleks here are at there most clichйd, doing little except spouting "Exterminate!" at every opportunity and this is not entirely untrue, but coupled with that is the fact that Aaronovitch makes them seem truly dangerous again. Not since the Troughton era has a single Dalek presented such a potent threat as the one in Totter's Lane in Episode One, as it holds an entire squadron of soldiers at bay, killing two of them without receiving so much as a scratch in return. It takes the Doctor, armed with Ace's nitro nine, to deal with this lone Dalek where grenades in a confined space fail, and lines such as "that's just the point Group Captain, it isn't even remotely human" reinforce the danger of the Daleks in relatively subtle ways. Andrew Morgan's direction also helps; the Dalek point of view seen twice in Episode One is quiet impressive, but the Episode One cliffhanger as a Dalek glides up some stairs towards the Doctor is worth the license fee alone. Having said which, it is slightly undermined by the fact that a slight blow to the stomach leaves Ace apparently unconscious rather than, say, winded and clutching her stomach. At the end of the day, it is a blatant crowd-pleasing gesture, but I'm not going to lie and pretend that it doesn't make me grin from ear-to-ear every time I watch it. Especially in the company of non-fans. There are other examples of this; the Daleks here were all newly built props, and they look great. Some critics have complained that they wobble too much on location, but I don't especially care. I also love the Dalek battle in Episode Four, especially the Special Weapons Dalek, which is pure gimmickry but which I'm not afraid to admit gives me a cheap fanboy thrill. 

Other aspects of Aaronovitch's scripting of the Daleks are, again, more controversial. The Daleks have been the living embodiment of racism since at least 'The Daleks Invasion of Earth' (and arguably 'The Mutants'), but some fans have complained that the supposed reasons for their civil war (that they are into racial purity and that Davros has been mutating his Daleks further) contradicts 'Revelation of the Daleks', in which the Daleks from Skaro intend to recondition Davros' new breed of Daleks to obey the Supreme Dalek. In fact, the racial purity aspect is only hypothesized by Ace on screen, and is not confirmed by the Doctor or Daleks; nevertheless, it is consistent here with the old comparison that Nation used between the Daleks and Nazis, and as such it makes sense. Ironically, what rankles me far more and which rarely gets mentioned is the battle computer, which the Daleks need because they're dependent on rationality and logic. The Daleks were never portrayed as creatures of logic until 'Destiny of the Daleks', with examples of Daleks losing their temper or panicking scattered throughout the series and just as I hated this development in 'Destiny of the Daleks' I hate it here too. The other problem with the Daleks here is that on at least two occasions their actions don't entirely make sense. At the generally rather impressive Episode Two cliffhanger they spend too long chanting "Exterminate!" at Ace without actually killing her, and at the end of Episode Four the Doctor's ability to talk the Black Dalek to death doesn't make tremendous sense either. I only really understand these scenes with certainty because I've read the novelisation, and that is no more excusable here than it was for the rationale behind the silly Episode One cliffhanger in 'Dragonfire'. Having said that, I do rather like the idea of the Doctor talking a Dalek to death, simply because I find it to be a vaguely amusing conceit.

Inevitably with Season Twenty-Five, we have the problem of Ace. Sophie Aldred's performance is as stilted and self-conscious as usual, and the character continues to fail to work, again failed with such crass dialogue as "You toerag. You lying, stinking scumbag". On the other hand, the character works far better here than in 'Dragonfire', partly because Aaronovitch gives her plenty to do. The scene in which Ace beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat is woeful, but the cliffhanger ending to Episode Two as she is chased through the school is impressive. Then there is Ace's relationship with Mike; her attraction to Mike brings out her best side, as she flirts with him and tries to impress him, which gives way to anger when she discovers that he has betrayed the Doctor by working for Ratcliffe. More important though is what Mike represents. In contrast to the rabidly xenophobic Daleks, Mike's inherent racism is a banal, institutionalized affair, seeming petty even in contrast to that of Nazi-sympathizer Ratcliffe. Mike is, for the most part, likeable, and although it isn't explicitly stated, the impression is given that he has inherited his racism from his mum, who has a sign with "No coloureds" written on it hanging in the window of her bed and breakfast, and also from Ratcliffe, who he obviously admires and respects (incidentally, there is a deleted scene present on the DVD in which he worries that Ace is foreign, an attitude that gains him a look of contempt from Rachel). The importance of this to Ace is that instead of ranting unsubtly against the racism represented by the Daleks, which she thinks are into racial purity, her disgust at the attitudes of Mike and his mother are far more subtly revealed. When she finds the sign in the window of the bed and breakfast, she stares at it in disbelief and goes out for some fresh air; later, when Mike is trying to justify his actions, he gets as far as saying "You have to look after your own" before she tells him to shut up. Thus, we learn a great deal about Ace's character from two simple, underplayed scenes, and for all that she is a dreadful actress, Aldred handles them well. 

'Remembrance of the Daleks' benefits a great deal from decent characters and acting. Pamela Salem's Rachel Jensen is a great character, a frustrated scientist fed tidbits of information by the vastly more knowledgeable Doctor; she constantly tries to tease further bits of information out of him about the alien technology that she witnesses, only to be told that humanity isn't ready for it yet. Group Captain Gilmore is in a similar position, since the Doctor knows what is going on but tells him as little as possible and tries to keep him and his men safely out of the way. Nevertheless, he comes to trust the Doctor, eventually telling him, "only a fool argues with his Doctor" as he realises that he is hopelessly out of his depth. Simon Williams is superb in the part, keeping a stiff upper lip at all times in a role obviously reminiscent of the Brigadier (which the Doctor mistakenly calls him at one point). Then there is George Sewell's Ratcliffe, an unpleasant man who clearly believes that the ends justifies his means and has no qualms about bringing war down on London, and who naturally learns never to trust a Dalek, going the way of most Dalek allies… We also get relatively brief but dependable performances from Doctor Who stalwarts Michael Sheard and Peter Halliday, and an impressively creepy turn from Jasmine Breaks as the girl wired into the Dalek battle computer.

Finally, the production is very impressive. Andrew Morgan does a fine job of directing, and there are numerous nice touches including the ominous pre-credits sequence at the start of Episode One and the Dalek shuttle landing, which is astonishingly well done. As usual with Doctor Who, the extensive location work looks great, despite the occasional glimpse of an anachronistic building, and Martin Collins studio sets blend seamlessly with the location footage to the extent that I must admit it was a long time before I even realised that the school interiors were actually studio sets. And incredibly, astonishing though it may be, Kef McCulloch produces a half-decent incidental score. It is by no means perfect and there are some horrible drum machine fills on scenes that don't need them, but for the most part it more or less works. I should also say that I like the links to the series past, which are unobtrusive but provide some nice touches to mark the twenty-fifth season; the story is of course set in the same area of London and the same year as the very first episode of Doctor Who, with the junkyard at Totter's Lane and Coal Hill School featuring prominently, but there are also other touches such as the book on the French Revolution that Susan borrows in '100,000BC', plus the fact that as Ace is leaving the bed and breakfast, a new science fiction series is about to begin on BBC1. The Discontinuity Guide rather spoils the fun of this last point by explaining in painful detail why it can't actually be Doctor Who, but we all know damn well what the production team intended…

This then, is 'Remembrance of the Daleks', a story that has proved rather controversial over the years but one which I never fail to enjoy. With debates about the morality of the Doctor's actions here continuing to arise periodically the story's prominence is likely to endure; ultimately, for me, the worst thing that can be said about it is that it inspired 'War of the Daleks'. 

Season twenty five is considered by most fans to be a huge leap forward in terms of quality over the seventh Doctors debut season. Indeed, it is hard to imagine most fans finding a season that isn’t a considerable leap forward in quality over season twenty four. I’ve often found myself defending season twenty four against some of its harsher detractors, but even I have to admit McCoy’s debut season was deeply damaging to the shows reputation, with many people thinking of all late eightiesDoctor Who as a ‘silly pantomime’ as a direct result of some of season twenty fours sillier moments. Many people still believe season twenty five and to a lesser extent twenty six could be accurately described in such a derogatory way. However, I think that this does everyone involved in the production of the Doctors last two seasons a great disservice, especially those who worked on ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. 

In the lead up to ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ airing my dad would try and get me all worked up over the reappearance of the Daleks. I had no idea what they were, and as a five year old I would call them ‘Garlic’s’! I was eagerly awaiting Doctor Who to make its return. To my young eyes Doctor Who during this period was the greatest thing ever. ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ had a lot to do with this. Years later I would only remember a few strong images of Doctor Who, and most of these were of ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. 

Anyway, enough of the history lesson, it is now time for me to explain, after repeated viewings on video and now DVD, why I love this story so much. I mentioned before that a couple of years after the show got axed and before I started buying the VHS tapes only a few images of Doctor Who remained with me. The main image that stuck with me was of the Daleks themselves. It is easy to look at them with older eyes and laugh at their pepper pot design, but to a young child these monsters must look so different to anything else, their shape and form lodges itself inside your subconscious. That is what makes them so effective. Yes, they speak in an extremely memorable fashion and “exterminate” everything that moves, but it is the look of them that makes them what they are. And so I come to my first giant tick in favour of ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, the Daleks themselves. These chaps can now levitate, enabling them to travel up stairs! No one trying to take the piss out of the Doctors deadliest enemies can now say to get away from them all you need to do is “go up some stairs”. Actually, this wasn’t the first time a hovering Dalek was seen. In season twenty two’s ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ Davros – not technically a Dalek, but you know what I mean - could levitate, but here you knew what kind of a reaction from the viewing public the production team were after. The Daleks also fire extremely effective ‘laser bolts’ (for want of a better expression), and the effect of which is shown in episode one when the army squad is fighting the Dalek trapped at Trotters Lane. He is flung backwards with great force when struck in an impressive stunt. This is much more effective than the rubbish weapons the Daleks had during the sixties and seventies. They can also call upon the Special Weapons Dalek in battle. During the battle sequence between the two Dalek factions this thing rolls up into position and blows away the opposition. I quite like the idea of different Daleks designed for different battlefield roles. 

‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is also memorable for containing some tightly directed action scenes. Two immediately spring to mind, with the first being Ace’s battle with the imperial Dalek squad inside the school. Often in Doctor Who action scenes are handled poorly, but this little sequence is expertly handled and shows that even on a small budget, if you get enough talented people working together behind and in front of the cameras anything is possible. The second action scene that I feel is worthy of special praise is the Dalek battle between the renegades and the imperials that I mentioned above. What makes this look so great is simply the pyrotechnics on display. Effective video effects make the blasts from Dalek weaponry look great and the explosions used here are impressive. It makes other Dalek action scenes from the shows history look pretty unspectacular by comparison. 

Ben Aarnovitch has crafted a story that is both at times quite complex and yet is also easy to simply sit back and enjoy. That this adventure can work on these two levels is a credit to the writer. He seems to have a knack for writing great scenes for the Doctor. The much discussed cafй scene immediately springs to mind, but the Doctor/Davros confrontation at the end of episode four is also highly effective. More on this later. 

The plot, as I’m sure many of you reading this are aware, is the same one later used in Kevin Clarke’s ‘Silver Nemesis’, but I could hardly criticise this serial in regards to that, simply because ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ came first. Actually, the fact that these two writers used a very similar plotline illustrates what a fine writer Aarnovitch is. Whereas in ‘Silver Nemesis’ Clarke has the Doctor going from one location to another giving the different parts of the Nemesis to different groups in a linear, flat, dull manner, Aarnovitch manages to inject some sense of adventure into what is essentially a standard Doctor Who run around. After bashing ‘Silver Nemesis’, I’ll quickly say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Just go and read my review of it. 

Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred work well as a pair here, in what is their first story together as Doctor/companion. McCoy, especially, looks a lot more comfortable in the lead role here than at any point during the previous season. ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is one of the few Doctor Who stories where none of the supporting cast lets the side down. Simon Williams as Group Captain ‘Chunky’ Gilmore is particularly memorable, and brings a real air of authority to the role. Other memorable characters include scientist Rachel Jansen, ably played by Pamela Salem and Ratcliff, who is played by George Sewell.

‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is perhaps the only story after ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ where Davros is used effectively. When the imperial Dalek is finally revealed to be Davros, it may not be as much of a surprise as intended, but it is certainly a dramatic moment. The confrontation at the end of episode four between the Doctor and Davros is occasionally criticised for the moment when the Doctor, mocking Davros, says “…unimaginable power, unlimited rice pudding!” However, the Doctor was trying to goad Davros into using the Hand of Omega (which of course the Doctor had pre-programmed to strike Skaros’ sun) and so I don’t have a problem with this. In fact this confrontation is well handled by the crew and the actors, and is a fine climax to the story. 

Now, no review of this story would be complete without comment on one of the most fiercely debated moments throughout all of Doctor Who’s long history; the moment the Doctor uses the Omega device to turn Skaros’ sun supernova, thereby destroying Skaro, the Daleks home planet. The main problem I have with this is that the seventh Doctor seems positively ‘anti-violence’ when up close and personal with it, and yet when he is distanced from the consequences of violent actions he has no moral problems destroying entire fleets of ships or entire solar systems, as happened in ‘Silver Nemesis’ and here in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, respectively. He is something of a modern politician in that if put into the frontlines would probably desert, and yet has no problem initiating wars, where tens of thousands will die, from a distance. 

‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is not perfect. I mentioned before how effectively the Daleks are used in this story, however they do have a nasty tendency to wobble. Also worthy of mention is the Keff McCulloch score. Whilst probably his best work on the series can be found in this serial, he still manages to cock things up by using far too many horrible eighties sounding drum fills. 

In closing, ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ is a fine addition to Dalek history, being well written, acted and directed. It is not often that these factors came together as sublimely as they did here during the shows history, especially through the seventh Doctors era. It may have divided fandom, but ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ will always reside in my top ten Doctor Who stories of all time.

At the age of ten, when 'The Happiness Patrol' was first broadcast, I hated it. I'd just seen Daleks and I was looking forward to Cybermen and in the interim I got a Bertie Bassett monster armed with social commentary and metaphor that went totally over my head. Sixteen years on however, 'The Happiness Patrol' is easily one of my favourite stories of the McCoy era, a richly textured story sparkling with wit and a delightfully surreal monster. Doctor Who for adults? Perhaps not. But Doctor Who for me, certainly. 

'The Happiness Patrol' is riddled with political allegory and can be interpreted in a number of ways. On the one hand, Helen A is, famously, an obvious nod to Mrs. Thatcher, due largely to Sheila Hancock's performance, and The Discontinuity Guidedescribes the Kandy Man as "capitalism itself, killing with sweeties". It also takes a swipe at colonialism, with the native population of Terra Alpha not even qualifying as second-class citizens, but instead dismissed as "vermin". These are perfectly valid interpretations, but 'The Happiness Patrol' can also been interpreted (and indeed has, by a small but growing number of fans) as an attack on communist states that have developed into fascist dictator ships over time. Thus, we have a police state, in which dissent is punishable by death, with undercover agents whose job is to encourage dissenters so that they can be identified and disposed of and there are state executions and an underclass of workers who are forbidden from entering the cities. There are designated areas for tourists. Helen A at times seems to be a response to the argument that the revolutions in Russia and China were initially welcomed by the majority of the people in those countries but gave way to tyranny later in Helen A's attempt to justify her actions to the Doctor when he contemptuously asks her about the "Prisons, death-squads, executions?", to which she replies "They only came later". 

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg; the society presented by writer Graeme Curry in 'The Happiness Patrol' is fascinating. In a series littered with stock megalomaniacs there are interesting hints as to what motivates Helen A; she expresses genuine anger at the "killjoys" and tells that Doctor that she only wanted people to be happy. She seems to mean this, and so we are presented with a woman whose frustration at failing to achieve her aims caused her to become a ruthless dictator. There is some dialogue that, when considered in any depth becomes chilling, as she states, "If they're miserable, we'll put them out of their misery. After all, it's for their own good". This is delivered not as the self-justification of somebody who revels in suffering, but as the firm unwavering opinion of somebody who really believes it. Later, she talks to a wounded Fifi alone and it becomes clearly that she really can't stand miserable people, it isn't just a faзade that she hides behind to maintain her power. The Doctor's complete failure to make her understand how utterly terrible her actions have been is deeply disturbing, and as such I find the denouement one of the most satisfying and emotional of any Doctor Who story to date as Helen A is finally made to see the error of the ways by her discovery of Fifi's corpse and her bitterness and anger gives way to almost palpable grief as she weeps over it. Hancock's performance is outstanding throughout, but in that final scene it is astonishingly powerful. 

Another interesting aspect of 'The Happiness Patrol' is the propaganda on display, from the obvious (the "lift music", the posters) to the relatively subtle, such as the refusal of Helen A to call a prison a prison, preferring instead the term "waiting zone" and glossing over her actions with phrases such as "We have controlled the population down by seven percent". And in the midst of this oppressive society, there is some interesting characterisation. There are some characters, most notably Georgina Hale's loathsome Daisy K and Rachel Bell's Priscilla P (who describes herself as a fighter but who is of course simply a killer), who thrive within the system, eagerly enforcing the rules laid down by Helen A. Interestingly, they are also confined by them, either because these rules are so deeply ingrained or because they in turn fear the consequences to breaking them, as demonstrated when they prove unable to kill the seemingly happy Doctor and drones in Episode Three. It is worth noting that undercover agent Silas P is doing rather well for himself until he tells Helen A, "I'm aiming for the top". She icily replies "not quite the very top, I hope" and he looks terrified; shortly afterwards, the Happiness Patrol seem awfully quick to kill him when he makes a very small mistake… Then there are those who have rebelled against the system in one way or another, most of whom end up dead prior to the Doctor's intervention. More interesting than either of these however are those characters who have chosen to live within the system rather than dying by it, but who clearly do not share Helen A's philosophies. These range from the Kandy Man, who is essentially a psychopath given free reign to kill people whenever he wants because Helen A needs a state executioner, to Lesley Dunlop's Susan Q. Susan Q especially interest me, because she obviously hates and fears Helen A and the Happiness Patrol and finally rebels against them. This raises an interesting question; she obviously joined the Happiness Patrol in order to survive in this society, but prior to her decision to make a stand, just how many people has she helped to make "disappear"? It isn't a question addressed in the story, but it is there nonetheless and it adds considerable to the underlying darkness of the story. 

Enough subtext; 'The Happiness Patrol' works on a purely aesthetic level too, proving enormously entertaining. The Kandy Man has proved to be a rather controversial creation over the years, but I think that it's quite superb. The idea of a psychotic robot made out of confectionary is weird and disturbing, a nightmare creation akin to the Child Catcher from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, and the decision by the designer to make him resemble a monstrous Bertie Bassett is highly amusing, even if it did nearly result in the BBC facing a lawsuit. Beyond his outlandish appearance however, he works well as a character, because he is a charismatic psychopath with lines like "sweets that are so good, so delicious, that if I'm on form, the human physiology is not equipped to deal with the pleasure". His scenes with the Doctor are especially good, as he threatens, boasts and bargains with him at different points, culminating in the scene in which he is trying to decide whether to kill the Doctor or Ace first; when the Doctor points out that he is vulnerable to the poker that Ace is brandishing, he cheerfully announces, "I have to bow, however reluctantly, to your logic" and turns on the Doctor instead. He's also incredibly unstable, his temper flaring up without warning, which of course allows the Doctor to trick him into sticking himself to the floor with lemonade. The character wouldn't work nearly as well if not for the body language of actor David John Pope who brings the Kandy Man to life with a variety of expressive hand gestures and manages to make it look as though the character's feet really are stuck fast in Episode Two. 

The presence of Harold Innocent's Gilbert M also helps the Kandy Man's characterisation, as the pair bicker like an old married couple Incidentally, Gilbert built the Kandy Man to house the mind of a friend, whose "bones" he brought with him from Vasilip, and the novelisation confirms that they are old friends; additionally, it seems to be the death of the Kandy Man, more so than the collapse of the regime, that catalyses Gilbert's decision to leave. Fans have tried to find homosexual subtexts in 'The Happiness Patrol' for years - could they have been looking in the wrong place? Regardless of this hypothesizing, Gilbert is another fine character, brought to life by Innocent's acting, and is another example of a character who has clearly chosen to live within the system without really seeming to believe in it; he gleefully joins in the Doctor's mockery of the Happiness Patrol in Episode Three and quickly departs when everything goes wrong. Ronald Fraser's Joseph C, a character that is probably as much influenced by public opinion of Dennis Thatcher as Helen A is by Maggie, joins him. A browbeaten quiet man who is party to Helen A's atrocities but seemingly ignores them (he seems to find the fondant surprise execution in Episode One a mild diversion without being either troubled by or really concerned with it), more concerned with entertaining guests, he shows neither hesitation or remorse at abandoning Helen A, presumably pleased to be free of his domineering wife. 

The production of 'The Happiness Patrol' nicely complements both script and performance. Most of the sets are drab and obviously studio bound, and Chris Clough's direction is as flat and uninspired as usual, but ironically this actually helps to enhance the claustrophobic and oppressive feel of Terra Alpha. The sole exception to the drabness of the sets is the Kandy Kitchen, a complex set with pipes and wheels that briefly makes me wonder what Doctor Who directed by Tim Burton would be like. There is also a superb score from Dominic Glynn, which is by turns sinister and dramatic and, appropriately enough, incorporates some nice blues stings, especially at the end.

And finally, there are the regulars. Sophie Aldred gives one of her better performances here, and although she gets saddled with the usual crap dialogue ("I wanna nail those scumbags. I want to make them very unhappy") it is kept to a minimum. Ace also gets a reasonable amount to do, showing anger at Helen A's regime without seeming too petulant or childish in the process, which is usually a problem whenever the character is called upon to show emotion. McCoy however, is for the most part brilliant. He conveys utter contempt whenever the Doctor speaks with Helen A, from the moment that he greats her with the acerbic "It's no pleasure, I assure you" to their final confrontation as he watches her veneer of happiness shattered by Fifi's death. This is the Seventh Doctor at his proactive best, as he proves the catalyst for massive social change and the collapse of a dictatorship, easily demolishing the mechanisms of Helen A's power with very little difficulty. As he says in Episode Three, "I can hear the sound of empires toppling". He also gets some nice moments such as when he exploits Trevor Sigma's obsession with bureaucracy to extract information from him, but his finest moment in the story is undoubtedly the scene with the snipers, as he confronts them and forces them to face the reality of what they do, as he invites one to look him in the eye and end his life. This works not because it simply assumes that killing is bad (following on directly from the, erm, explosive climax to 'Remembrance of the Daleks' it would be especially jarring if it did), but because it sees the Doctor confronting another couple of people who do what they have to in order to survive in Helen A's Terra Alpha, but who do so by not thinking about the consequences of their actions. That, for me, is why the scene is so powerful, not just because the Doctor stops the snipers from killing the drones, but because he makes them question their actions ("That's what guns are for. Pull a trigger. End a life. Simple isn't it?… Why don't you do it then? Look me in the eye. Pull the trigger. End my life" "I can't" "Why not? "I don't know"). 

Unfortunately, there is one flaw in 'The Happiness Patrol', and ironically enough it is McCoy. Although I've alluded to the limitations of his acting before, I've not yet had cause to elaborate, until now. Superb as he is for most of the story, there is one scene that is so bad, so cringe-worthy that it suddenly interrupts my enjoyment of 'The Happiness Patrol' like a smack in the mouth. During Episode Three, McCoy is required to portray the Doctor's fake happiness to confuse the Happiness Patrol and he performs the scene in truly diabolical style; he delivers his lines badly, guffaws unconvincingly and is generally embarrassing to watch. For that brief moment, I suddenly understand why so many fans dislike his Doctor, and it is so disappointing given the rest of his performance here. Bad as it is though, it isn't enough to ruin the story and 'The Happiness Patrol' remains a story that I'm happy to recommend.