The Wheel In Space is called on to achieve a lot, as the climatic story of one of the programme's best ever seasons. The Conventional Opinion of Whovians (COW) states that it fails in this respect, that it is padded out and dull. I, on the other hand, quite like it, but then I did have the benefit of seeing the existing episodes young. I bought Cybermen: The Early Years, which along with its Dalek equivalent was an excuse to release fragments from largely missing stories. I should say that I have no problem with this at all, and the Cybermen from this story, as well as the ones from The Moonbase (also provided on that tape) are indelibly burned into my head as one of the definitive versions of the monster. It took a while for me to catch up with the other episodes, which I did through a Joint Venture reconstruction; it is quite strange reviewing it then, as I am unfamiliar with 66% of it but can recite the other 33% by heart.

Most of the criticism of this story is focussed on the first two episodes, and I have to say that it is largely justified as they are horrendously padded out. I feel that this story might be better regarded if the first two episodes had been edited together; of course this would leave the season running an episode short but I feel The Web Of Fear could have stood up as a seven-parter. And if you think I'm talking idly, look at Planet Of Giants. The first thing that strikes me about episode one is that the TARDIS warning mechanism makes no sense at all, trying to tell the Doctor that the outside world is dangerous by showing pictures of a tropical paradise. Talk about reverse psychology. So what happens, the TARDIS materialises in the Emperor Dalek's throne room and the Doctor and Jamie rush out in their swimming trunks? Both sides would be as surprised as each other, probably. "Doctor, do you have your sonic screwdriver?" "Er..."

The first episode is quite atmospheric though as it trades on a sense of the unknown, something common in pre-Star Wars science fiction. Just look the titles of early sci-fi, full of the unexplained: It Came From Outer Space, The Thing From Another World, Out Of The Unknown, Them!, It: The Terror From Beyond Space and, of course, Doctor Who. The mystery here though is straight from stock as Jamie opens doors by falling on switches and suchlike. Still, it's better than its reputation.

One thing notable about this story is the way that sound effects are used very effectively as music: that chiming sound of outer space (nonsense but pleasant), the evocative buzz of the Cybermen and the bleeping of the Servo Robot. From what can be heard, the largely silent scenes featuring the robot may well have been very effective and I'd like to see them. Meanwhile, the exhaustive list of foodstuffs fed into the dispensing machine is a huge frivolity and demonstrates the padding of the episode, not to mention being a single cream bun away from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Also, the space age food-in-blocks idea was done earlier in The Tomb Of The Cybermen, and it wasn't new then. Ah, those innocent days before Rice Krispie Squares.

The rocket lurching forward is the first piece of action for a while, and it caught me quite off guard. The floating eggs scene was probably horrible (I can just imagine them wobbling about like Thunderbirds puppets), but as Bill King is a generally reliable effects technician and the meteorites in part six look superb then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The Time Vector Generator is interchangeable with the Sonic Screwdriver for most practical purposes, but I'll let it go.

After twenty minutes of the Doctor and Jamie eating and napping, the sudden cut to the Wheel is a not unpleasant shock. The dialogue is good, as is usually the case with David Whitaker, but as the story progresses the characterisation can come across as a little inconsistent. An immediate standout, even in a missing episode, is Dr. Gemma Corwyn, a very well written character excellently played by Anne Ridler. The sense of mystery is continued here as the Cybermat eggs morph through the hull of the station, although this is very implausible.

The second episode largely focusses on the characters. This is a euphemism for horribly padded of course, but it does make for interesting viewing (ok then, listening) in places. What is clear though is that Whitaker feels very uncomfortable writing romance between Leo Ryan and Tanya Lernov; a lot of the time he just sticks to having Eric Flynn (son of Errol and father of Jerome, so my sources tell me) put his hand on her shoulder and we're left to draw our own conclusions. The episode is very slow to begin with, but the scene where Jamie lies his way through a medical test (including making up the pseudonym 'John Smith' for the Doctor) is fascinating to hear. Zoe is a better character than Victoria, being less inclined to squeal and run behind Jamie at the first sign of rain, although Perky Padbury is a little annoying in her first outing especially when trying to portray mirth. There is a slightly obvious scene as well where Bill shows Jamie the weapons system (presumably all strangers get this) including the power array, targeting system and the best place to sabotage it.

Tanya's nose speech is an unusually bizarre piece of writing, especially since the second half of her conversation takes place in the next episode. When I first saw episode three then, I thought it was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard. There's a great cliffhanger though as the robotic hand burst through the shell of the egg, although it does raise the question of how the Cybermen tie their bootlaces with only three fingers.

Episode three is where the story really gets going, not least because Patrick Troughton's bad from his holidays and on top form. The Cybermen look fantastic, although how they got a teardrop in their mouths is beyond me. Their voices are great, a smooth droning, and we also get the joy of the truly brilliant Mark II voices courtesy of the Cyberplanner. One problem with the new costumes though is that the mouths don't move; it would seem that the production team saw the mouths that just hung open as the words streamed out as a disposable gimmick. In fact, apart from being totally amazing it also served as a visual indicator of which Cyberman was speaking and without this the Cybermen are forced to rock backwards and forwards as they speak to give the actors something to react to, which looks rather strange. The scene with the Cyberplanner is slightly crude in the exposition as the monsters explain their plan to each other, but as the dialogue is delivered through such amazing sound effects I'm happy (a shallow vindication I know, but there you are). There is some amazingly cool direction though, mixing to the face of a Cyberman just as the Doctor is talking about an unknown menace...

The Cybermats look better than on their previous outing and actually have a clearly defined purpose and means of executing it, but fundamentally they are still a very strange concept: small infiltrating robots I can accept, but the Cybermats are just odd. Kemel's terror at them seems excessive, even though it turns out to be justified; Kevork Malikyan here wins the award for the Episode's Best Screamer (and who said this show was sexist?). Although the episode does tend to tread the same ground insofar as the script goes, the Doctor's realisation of the presence of the Cybermen is still a good scene even though we already know this. Maybe it's just because Troughton is blatantly the most talented actor the play the role.

Leo's attack on Zoe seems a little unprovoked and is an example of the slightly dodgy characterisation I mentioned earlier. Flannigan rocks hard, but only in a slightly patronising drunk-Irishman kind of way.

The Cybermen's plan is complex but generally it holds water; they can't attack directly because the station would send a distress call and they can't set up their own transmitter because it would be detected. So therefore we have an example of a complicated scheme that can't really be picked at. But the cliffhanger - what's happened to their voices? "Youwa willa trya my pizza, izza ze best ona Telosa". The voices improve a bit in part four, but they only really go back to normal in part five. Part four hold up very well through being very tense, and it starts with the Doctor desperately trying to convince Jarvis of the problem. The stages of Jarvis's breakdown match the episodes: three is aggression, four is contentment, five is withdrawal and six is acceptance.

It strikes me as odd that the crew doesn't react to the fact that Laleham and Vallance are suddenly talking like they've been lobotamised, as if their personalities switch on and off regularly anyway. Zoe records data on the incoming meteorite storm on magnetic tape, which I find amusing (but hey, according to The Daleks' Master Plan it was still cutting edge in the year 4000). Jamie, in yet another example of weird characterisation, reverts back to being the ignorant 18th century traveller not knowing about sound recording.

I don't know if Peter Laird is really of oriental origin, but his accent is straight out of a cartoon. He gets a good death though, and the Cyberman putting his body in an incinerator creates a gruesome mental image. The scene where the Doctor checks for hypnotised crew is nail biting, and the surviving footage of Duggan's death shows a return to the trusty "negative" effect; which is good, as it's one of the programme's most successful effects ever.

Part five carries on as normal as the sight of the Cybermen only confirms what we already know. Zoe's growing dissatisfaction with her life is an obvious pointer towards her joining the TARDIS crew, but it's nothing clunky and it's a good effort at providing some kind of explanation for what normally is simply a simple "take me with you Doctor!" set up in the last five minutes.

Surviving footage of the fight scene in this episode shows possibly the show's wobbliest ever set, but I could listen to Flannigan yelling "you need a couple of lessons in the noble and manly arts, me bucko!" all day. The lava lamps in the oxygen room date the show badly, but no more so than the plasma ball masquerading as a time drive in Remembrance Of The Daleks.

It's back to moving pictures for the final episode and some terrific model work is on display. Even the cartoon X-Ray laser bolts look good in a retro kind of way. We do get one of the most out of character moments ever though as the Doctor advocates sacrificing Jamie and Zoe, albeit reluctantly; surely he'd look for a solution that didn't involve sacrificing anyone? Still, it's not as bad as Jon Pertwee gunning down an Ogron in cold blood in Day Of The Daleks. This is made up for by the very stylish scene immediately afterwards where the Cybermen systematically work out who is aware of their presence. The confrontation scene between the Doctor and the Cybermen is one of my favourite ever largely due to Troughton's performance: his resigned line of "I imagine you have orders to destroy me" is possibly the most iconic of his era although I must admit we have Earthshock to thank for that. Even in the face of (apparently) certain death the second Doctor was always a step ahead while appearing to be a step behind...come on, he was the best of them all!

If the Cybermen don't need air, then how does the plastic spray kill them? That's my only real beef with the climax, although the issue of whether or not Cybermen need air is one I'll return to when I review other stories featuring them. Zoe's joining scene is the usual fair - but what better end to a season can you get than the entirety of The Evil Of The Daleks?

I took the mick a bit but this really is a good story, very tense and generally well written and acted. It has the unfortunate distinction of being the penultimate Cyberman story where they actually had any credibility, and while it is slightly drawn out I always enjoy it and I'm proud to have it (or what's left of it) in my collection.

To be honest, it’s a bit difficult to introduce Planet Of Evil. It’s a very, very strong story but only in very standard ways, as if its formula has been taken from a textbook. I could go on about the great plot and design work while mentioning the occasional flashes of scripting and acting brilliance but, while all true, none of it is exactly unique. It’s just a bloomin’ good story, well suited to being in Doctor Who’s best season.

The jungle set on Zeta Minor has its detractors but I think it’s probably the best set the series ever had: the studio-recorded scenes are bearable (a rarity) while the film-recorded ones are terrific, an absolute triumph of lighting that actually uses shadows effectively rather than being swamped in them unintentionally. The subdued lighting obscures the fine detail making it seem even more realistic, while the addition of small details such as puddles are the icing on the cake. Amazing. It’s also helped by a good score: Dudley Simpson had got over his dire electronic phase under Barry Letts and was now producing some good material perfectly suited to the episodes themselves, here aided by Peter Howell’s augmentations. The studio interiors, by contrast, are extremely plain (season 11 style), and I notice that some of the electronic equipment in fact comes from The Ark In Space. However, I’d rather have them plain than have them extremely complicated and suffer as a result (naming no names, but it involves the Doctor strangling his companion).

The set design helps in part to create a brilliantly atmospheric introduction, in which the last survivors of the Morestran expedition are wiped out by some unseen force; the unknown has always been the most dramatic and interesting for me, and here it is only spoiled by actually seeing the victims disappear and reappear again, which doesn’t make much sense anyway.

The TARDIS scene, again a rarity in the Philip Hinchcliffe years, showcases the wonderful dynamic of Elisabeth Sladen and Tom Baker, illustrating why they were the best Doctor / companion duo; Sladen’s clumsy characterisation that held her back when she first appeared has now settled down, creating an immensely likeable and realistic character. Spotters of these things can see an enormous boom mike shadow on the wall near the beginning of the scene though (seriously, you can make out every detail of it, it’s terrible). It leads on to them entering the jungle where Sarah first experiences the monster; her acting is brilliant, such as when she says “as if my mind…left my body” in a very quiet and subdued voice, increasing the menace greatly. I’m a believer in the power of understatement, and this is a fine example. 

The spacecraft, however, comes as a real let down. The spartan sets that just about passed for the scientific base now just look boring, and the costumes are truly terrible: light cotton spacesuits with shoulder pads, open necks and flares. Morestra must be a really culturally backwards society; it’s the 380th century (or thereabouts) and they’re still living in the 1970s. The common, prosaic names of the characters implies that Morestra may be a former Earth colony, and in fact the crew are portrayed as being more multinational if their names are anything to go by than we usually see with humans (Morelli: Italian; O’Hara: Irish; De Haan: German, etc.). There is some very crude exposition here as Salamar (played dreadfully by Prentis Hancock, possibly the worst guest actor to have appeared in the programme more than twice) goes through the hierarchy of the ship to help the audience. While I’m on the subject Ewen Solon and Frederick Jaeger are the standouts among the guest cast here; suggestions that this is because they’d worked together on The Savages almost a decade earlier always seem a bit tenuous to me, but whatever the reason they are both excellent.

The shrivelled bodies left by the antimatter monster are gruesome in the extreme, even though after a while it becomes obvious that there is only one corpse prop that gets dressed up differently each time. There is a thorough explanation of the cause of death which isn’t really necessary as the mode of the killings aren’t directly relevant to the story; nevertheless it’s seriously creepy and if I’d seen this when I was very young (I didn’t, and if I’m honest it was probably for the best, I was a sensitive soul as a nipper) it would have provided some serious nightmare material.

Elisabeth Sladen’s “can’t breathe” acting is absolutely identical to other stories where she’s been cut off from oxygen (The Ark In Space, Terror Of The Zygons…do you think the production team where subtly hinting at something here? Nah), but she’s still brilliant. In fact, she’s so superior in her scenes featuring Hancock that I can’t shake the feeling she was mocking him. There’s also a nice piece of direction here where the shot of the tool she’s holding cuts to a shot of its empty place on a rack, although I notice that there seem to be some focussing problems when there are sudden movements in this episode.

Baker’s constant boggle-eyed expression is an exaggeration top his performance that I hadn’t thought had kicked in yet; it’s a shame as it’s things like that that show why he could have been the best actor to play the role yet wasn’t. The cliffhanger to the first episode is brilliant though, as the antimatter monster is revealed for the first time: it shows Hinchcliffe’s habit of finding out if special effects can be done well beforehand (surely just common sense, but you’d be amazed). Also, it utilises the image-loss effect that happens whenever something shiny is CSO’d; I always love it when what are normally problems for lesser producers and directors are integrated and used to produce great results. It strikes me as slightly odd though that the Doctor and Sarah leg it off into the jungle to let O’Hara get thrashed. Haydn Wood’s death-throes are good though, and some good direction shows the beast looming over him. The Morestran gunshots are more good effects (see how it pays to keep it simple?), although they do appear to hit Sarah as she runs off into the jungle.

The dawn sequence is amazingly atmospheric as the Doctor and Sarah hide from the monster, a scene helped by the Doctor quoting from Shakespeare (Romeo And Juliet III.v.9-10, by the way). I’d say that the film-recorded jungle scenes in this story are the best the programme ever did from a purely visual point of view. The oculoid tracker has a silly big eye but other than that it works fine as well, and I love the shots of it weaving through the vegetation.

The idea of the pool between the worlds is great (a sort of macabre version of The Magician’s Nephew), but only let down by being in fact described as a pool and it’s presented as being a simple hole. If they’d had it as that in the first place it may have been better, but I’m nitpicking so never mind. It’s also slightly patronising and lazy how the psychic Doctor has worked out the problem already so that he can talk us through it upon the presentation of some actual evidence. Sorenson provides a bit of explanation about the antimatter, a bad scene turned into a good one by his wholly ignorant foil, De Haan. Michael Wisher, by contrast, having created the most iconic character ever (after the Doctor, obviously) the previous season is here cast in the utterly thankless role of Morelli, and seems thoroughly bored. Can’t say I blame him, really.

The Doctor’s portentous revelation about the nature of the problem is very well written and performed, although the “cataclysm” idea lacks development and is only provided so as to deny the Doctor an excuse to high-tail it out of there. Also, how does Sarah know what the compression units sound like? Do they just come as standard?

Before thoughts of little spaceship mechanics indelibly lodge in my head and distract me I’ll move on and say that the cartoon starburst effect for the force field is actually quite decent if a little silly, and the cliffhanger provides Hinchcliffe with his one freeze frame per season.

The effects for the antimatter void, yet again, are great through their simplicity. Sorenson’s transformation, although similarly well visualised, has come out of nowhere and could have done with being established a bit earlier. Like I said though it looks great, and ironically blurring is used effectively to obscure his features (I’m not sure what the point of that is as we see him pretty clearly pretty soon, but even so).

Morelli being a Morestran Orthodox is more detail than we normally get with alien races (it smacks of Robert Holmes’s influence actually), even though the Morestrans like many other races are just humans by another name.

Hancock gets even worse when trying to be intense; he’s quite painful to watch and lets down the cliffhanger, which otherwise is dramatic and exciting. Episode four then kicks off on all six cylinders, even though I think it’s a mistake setting the story so much on the ship rather than the planet. The idea of an alien loose aboard the ship smacks of fun B-movie It! The Terror From Beyond Space (this was four years before Alien, don’t forget), making it the third major reference of the story, the others being Forbidden Planet and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. It may not be original particularly, but it’s good TV all the same. 

The Doctor’s confrontation with Sorenson is another very well written and tense scene, but Hancock gets even worse still which is hard to believe considering he started at the bottom anyway. His death comes as a blessed relief, finishing off the mortality rate (not including nameless cannon-fodder extras, as usual) at a vast 80%. Is it me, or does the special effect of Sorenson’s duplication look like the video of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? It does lead to some more great (and scary) effects as the multiple antimen roam the ship.

The resolution isn’t the most dramatic ever, but at least it makes sense. Sorenson survives, which is unusually merciful by this story’s standards, and leads to a charming resolution in which the ship’s two survivors are left to fly it on their own (sorry, unnecessary sarcasm. A fair point though, I think, even given that “emergency refuelling” business).

As far as a final rating goes, Planet Of Evil is a very tricky one to make a decision about. My memory of it was of a clear 5/5, but on re-viewing it’s a borderline between Very Good and Excellent; it would be the best story of a lot of other seasons but given the overall brilliance of season 13 I’m going to grit my teeth and withhold a maximum rating if only to distinguish this story from its peers. I’ll probably regret it later, though.

You have to laugh at second-generation clichйs, where one clichй is used to avoid using another. For example, how many reviews of The Talons Of Weng-Chiang begin with “classic is such an overused term, but…”? Now, you could argue that I’ve just said the same thing myself in a roundabout and rather smug way, and you’d be right. I also might have just given birth to the third-generation clichй. So before I digress any further I’ll lay my cards down straight: Pyramids Of Mars is an all-time top-tier platinum-card officers’-club classic. Despite this is has its share of detractors, and maybe one day I’ll understand why. Nah, probably not.

It rocks and rolls from the very beginning, with a brilliantly atmospheric introduction in the Egyptian tomb. It’s jarring to see Bernard Archard playing an ordinary bloke as it’s at odds with what I’m used to from the rest of the story, but the idea of him stumbling into a hidden chamber only to be blasted down by an unseen something within is magic. Also of note is Ahmed, the one credited cast member who doesn’t die (and that’s only because he flees for good having uttered his one line); from here on in it’s doom and gloom all the way with a massive 87.5% mortality rate.

The opening TARDIS scene is one of many from this story that had a particular effect on me in my youth, for reasons that will shortly become clear. The dialogue between the regulars is up to Robert Holmes’s usual high standard (apart from the Prince Albert joke which I never laughed at, ever) with the Doctor going through a mid-life crisis moment when suddenly all gives way to one of Doctor Who’s top three scariest moments ever: a transparent, disembodied nightmare-face materialises on the wall of the TARDIS. My word, I had nightmares for weeks and weeks when I was small, and I still feel a bit nervous every time I know the scene is coming up.

It’s a nice idea for once that the TARDIS should arrive too early for once rather than too late, especially because it leads to one of the most successful studio recreations of period detail there ever were. The shot of the sarcophagus in the mirror reminds us that Paddy Russell is at the wheel; a fearsome lady by all accounts but a superb director, so fair enough.

One notable thing about this story is how perfectly it’s constructed, with the first episode building up the premise in layers in order to make sense later. Here then we have unexplained missing professors, walking mummies, and so forth. Collins’s death makes good use of the unseen, with something emerging from a sarcophagus (can you guess what it is yet?). Namin shifting the weightless polystyrene sarcophagus lid looks just like it does every time anyone ever tries to make weightless polystyrene seem heavy, but such trivialities are forgotten with the first sight of one of the mummies: slow, silent, lumbering but unstoppable killers, which look just amazing.

The sight of blood on Warlock’s hand is a funny thing: common in Hinchcliffe (Terror Of The Zygons and The Brain Of Morbius to name two examples just from this season) but rare elsewhere. Perhaps that’s why I can’t make my mind up about whether it’s jarring or not. I’ll admit it though, the first episode does contain too much running about in the woods. That said it is one of the most effective uses of location ever with the mummies looking amazing as they stalk between the trees, and Dudley Simpson scores it with some of his best ever work.

Now we meet the late Michael Sheard putting in a bumbling but sympathetic performance as Laurence Scarman, and the dialogue between him and the Doctor over the marconiscope is priceless. “Beware Sutekh” provides us with the next layer of the plot; those who criticise the “glacial pace” of the original series (step forward Radio Times, turncoat that y’are) should be silenced by this expertly constructed yet deliberately slow-paced story.

I’ve always thought that the space / time vortex effect looks like a load of flying smarties, but it’s actually a pretty good effect for the time and in this instance it leads to one of the most terrifying cliffhangers of them all. The black-clad figure, whose footsteps cause the floor to smoulder, striding forward to kill his loyal servant…and some people don’t like this.

With the intro over part two starts telling us how all the pieces fit together, and so begins the most exposition-heavy episode that concerns itself about mummies building rockets and power sources on Mars. It’s well written and a great concept though, so you’ll not here complaints from me. I also get some ironic humour from the idea of Egyptian aliens being worshipped as gods – maybe the new series got its giant budget from Stargate’s royalty payments.

The Doctor getting caught in the vortex is a very contrived way of getting the TARDIS key to Sutekh (and yet the Doctor has a spare, handily) and lacks explanation apart from that “parallax coil” jive which is no help to anyone. However, the following scene of the mummy being caught in the badger trap in the dawn light is as atmospheric a moment as the series has ever made. This is followed by the deflector shield, leading to a brilliant effect as Clements throws a stick at it. Clements is really just a means of showcasing Sutekh’s power, and this simple task is performed very well indeed. After this comes another great moment: the death of Warlock is chilling in the extreme, featuring a brilliant performance from Bernard Archard.

The priest-hole scene shows up the limitations of the time as all characters have to stay facing the camera rather than each other. However, Marcus’s comment that “there are other humans within these walls” is a brilliant bit of wordplay that I’d never noticed before and the sight of him getting shot in the back only for the bullet to come hurtling out again is one of the show’s defining moments. 

Laurence sees inside the TARDIS – now he has to die. The return to 1980 is a wonderful moment (and freaky to people watching this in 1975), and puts some thought into Sarah’s question which is often asked about time travel.

The swirls as Sutekh communicates with Scarman are much more effective than the Tunnel of Smarties; this is our fist experience of Gabriel Woolf’s virtuoso vocal performance as Sutekh. The casting is perfect; and to think Hinchcliffe wanted to use a ranting “bwa-ha-ha” type.

Clements’s death is shocking in the extreme; how did this story ever get a U certificate? The cliffhanger lingers a bit too long though, with everyone holding their poses for the sting. This requires a bit of judicial editing for the reprise in part three, and thankfully it gets it.

Well, we know the plot now, so the goodies spring into action. The Doctor’s dismantling of the generator loop is a very tense scene with some good interplay between the Doctor and Sarah – but then, you have to spice up sonic screwdriver scenes somehow (SSSS…er, isn’t that taking alliteration a little too far?). The scene in Clements’s shed is fun amidst the seriousness, as Laurence’s death is unbearably intense (I had to skip forward through this when I was young). The Doctor’s reaction is an enlightening bit of characterisation and shows the regulars at the top of their game. The only thing that makes me wonder is the fact that Laurence’s body is still rocking in his chair when the Doctor walks in so Marcus could only have left seconds earlier, and yet nobody saw him.

Sarah’s missed a vocation as a costumer because her dressing up of the Doctor is flawless, rendering the covering line of “it doesn’t have to be perfect” redundant. She’s also a crack shot with a rifle, for some reason. This kind of contrivance I have a problem with. It’s a nice twist though to have Sutekh’s original plan failing at the end of part three; there’s no better way to pad a story up to length.

The Doctor’s confrontation with Sutekh is one of the show’s best ever scenes, as the two talk together almost as equals even though the Doctor remains firmly in the villain’s power. It’s let down by the sight of the TARDIS key wobbling about on a piece of string, but raised again with the possessed Doctor – will he make it?

Handily, Horus has filled the Pyramid of Mars with an oxygen atmosphere. I always liked the travel through the pyramid (I have a particular soft spot for The Crystal Maze), and the logic puzzle scene with Sarah trapped is fantastic – people still ask that riddle as if there isn’t an easy answer. However, the roll-back-and-mix effects are slightly crude in this story. Scarman’s final death is another spooky moment.

As Sutekh has apparently one the scene is set for a seriously dramatic showdown, but unfortunately endings was where Holmes’s genius often tended to falter a bit, as here he presents some naff deus ex machina worthy of Russell T. Davies himself: the Doctor grabs a random bit of machinery from the TARDIS and confines Sutekh to the Tunnel of Smarties forevermore. At least he won’t go hungry, and it leads to a great final shot of the priory burning down.

The disappointing ending is not enough to knock this story down of its pedestal. Always a defining episode of the show, despite naysayers I’m confident it will always be a favourite. It’ll certainly always be a favourite of mine – what more is there to say?

Enough has been said about the racism implicit in many of the characters in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. My only advice is that if you concentrate only on a few jibes that are correct for the Victorian era and ignore the brilliant character development, creepy period atmosphere, and some of the tightest plotting for a six-part serial; then you will miss all that is worth savouring about it.

The odd thing about The Talons of Weng-Chiang that may turn off some first time viewers is that no one knows what’s really going on throughout the entire story except for the villain, Weng-Chiang. And as The Doctor says of him when asked who he is, “I don’t know. He didn’t introduce himself.” Weng-Chiang – or Magnus Greel if you prefer – isn’t about to reveal his secrets to anyone. So the audience is almost as much in the dark as Leela, Litefoot, or Jago. The only advantage a viewer has is that we’re used to watching science fiction, so can follow ideas like time travelling cabinets and life essence transferral machines. And even at the episode six denouement, we only discover the true nature of Greel’s technology in quick snippets of easily missed dialogue.

The only other difficulty I can see people having with The Talons of Weng-Chiang is that all the supporting characters are so well-written that they overshadow The Doctor himself. He’s in fine form here, with almost every scene played perfectly. Example one – approaching the Chinese thugs carrying a dead body in episode one with the phrase, “Say, could I help you with that?” then going into Doctor Who’s most blatant (and bizarre) example of Kung Fu cinema. Example two – casually reminding the apparent Orientalist Litefoot that his authentic Chinese blunderbuss is in fact an imitation from Birmingham. Example three – walking into Litefoot’s dining room carrying a map and talking, sitting next to Greel, looking him straight in the face, and saying “Oh good! I see you let yourself in.” Example four, et al – every other scene he’s in. He’s a bit too uniformly serious in this story for my own Tom tastes. I prefer some of his crazier moments in Ark in Space or the occasional bit of City of Death-style madcappery. But if you like the more dour, moody Fourth Doctor of season 14, this is the perfect place to go.

Leela too has some excellent moments. Disguising herself as the dolled-up prostitute Teresa in episode three to infiltrate Greel’s secret hideaway is just right for her action hero persona. The way she spits curses at Greel as he’s about to suck the life out of her in episode six, you can almost feel the saliva on your face. And her dinner with Litefoot speaks perfectly to the Eliza Doolittle concept that was originally behind her character, in addition to being hilarious.

Just as a side note, Leela looks nothing like Teresa, even with her face covered, but Chang doesn’t notice. Pretty ironic considering his earlier comment regarding his character’s ethnicity, “I suppose we all look the same.”

It’s Professor George Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago who most often steal the show from The Doctor, though. They had quite a bit of chemistry as a comical double act, but they didn’t even meet until episode five. So we first meet them as fabulous characters in their own right. Litefoot comes across quite well as an over-earnest, but very out-of-his-depth police pathologist. Tracking down a murder mystery he can handle, sort of, but you can tell how confused he is once forty-ninth century technology starts making its appearance. Still, he’s good in a pinch, and a charming fellow, really. As I mentioned, the dinner scene with Leela is hilarious, as he’s just too polite to eat from a plate when he sees her tearing straight into a side of beef. When he tells The Doctor that Weng-Chiang’s bandits won’t catch him napping again, you know he’s going to fall asleep in time for them to break into the house. But he’s so charming when he says it that you really, truly do want to believe him.

But it was Jago who stole my heart in this story. Maybe it’s the frustrated actor in me, but the way he talks about the skill and theatricality he brings to his job announcing the acts, ad-libbing jokes, and taking care of the accounts makes me smile at this blustery old fart who puts so much honest effort into his usually thankless job. He’s the perfect archetype of the portly bellower who talks big but is a bit of a coward underneath. When The Doctor discovers the hologram of the ghost that Weng-Chiang set up to keep people away from his hideout, you see Jago faint behind him at the sight of it, leaving The Doctor to drag him away. This is only one of the many cracking funny moments Jago has in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. He and Litefoot do work wonderfully together, Litefoot’s earnestness fitting perfectly against Jago’s blustering cowardice. And it is a wonderful moment for Jago when he finally gives himself enough bravery to distract the carnage-happy Mr. Sin so Leela can grab a nearby gun without being shot. Seeing these two walk off into the fog at the end reminded me just a little bit of the end of Casablanca, a much more upbeat beginning of a beautiful friendship.

But I can’t discuss this story without mention of the villains, and what villains they are. Weng-Chiang/Magnus Greel is the most mystifying of all. We first hear the name Weng-Chiang as The Doctor describes him, an ancient malevolent Chinese god. But once we see him, we see a psychotic broken figure with a hidden face and disfigured hands who, while quite malevolent, does not seem all that Chinese. The sight of him firing a laser pistol, and The Doctor’s discovery of future technology is enough to clue the viewer into the less than heavenly origins of the character. It is just his psychotic nature that makes him so compelling. Hardly fitting the standard profile of a Chinese god, we are left to wonder about his nature until The Doctor finally fills us in at the end of the story with recollections of his own experiences in the forty-ninth century. If he were subtle and less brutally violent, we would be more likely to believe that he was a supernatural being. The clash with our initial expectations of him draws the viewer deeper into the mystery of what exactly he is. Plus, he is also an entirely repulsive character, taking pleasure in every death around him, laughing maniacally when he forces his henchmen to commit suicide. And there is rather clearly a perverse sexual overtone to his prediliction for feeding on the life force of supple young women. Perhaps if he is too deformed to attract them, he will instead see them die.

And of course, Li H’Sen Chang. Yes he was played by a white man in fairly obvious makeup, and yes his accent was atrocious. But as no one is willing to give an adequate explanation, I will move on and say what a marvellous character! Here is a man driven to the murder of ten young women in London alone to please his master, his supposed god. Ever since he was a peasant, Chang has devoted his life to the service of Weng-Chiang, and he is positively menacing. His low, accented voice is perfect to deliver completely certain threats. When he’s on the surface, he’s in control, hypnotising his victims at will and having those who get too close to his operation despatched as easily as that angry cab driver in episode one. Then when he descends into his master’s hell, he is at times forced to beg forgiveness from his psychopathic lord. And when Greel betrays and abandons him, he willingly runs into the sewers to be chewed to death by giant rats. His last scene, dying in an opium den, his thoughts only on how he has wasted his life, offer him some little redemption for the destruction he has caused in the service of a false god.

But all these wonderful characters would be useless if lost in a muddled plot, but with Robert Holmes, we have a story with hardly a single throwaway moment. There may be some slow moments, perhaps inevitable in a Doctor Who story more than two hours long, but we are always on edge, waiting for the next developments to occur. Plus, every episode sees a part of the story arc develop with a considerably different character. The ominous atmosphere is present throughout, but each episode is a little different in tone, making sure that none of the action quite blurs together between the episode barriers as I’ve noticed in many other serials. 

Episode one excellently sets up our creepy tale, introducing us to the unsettling character of Li H’Sen Chang. The gruesome death of the cab driver – insane old Victorian bag lady with no teeth included! – sets the tone for the proceedings. Mr. Sin brandishing his knife for the first time is just plain scary. Deep Roy has quite a good performance here as the psychotic robot Mr. Sin. I’m sure this was much more fun in a grisly sort of way than his later role as an ewok in Return of the Jedi. Episode two sees the mystery build as we see Weng-Chiang for the first time, as well as The Doctor’s superbly shot chase around the upper chambers of the theatre. Plus, we get the whimsical break in the terror supplied by Leela and Litefoot’s dinner. 

Episode three gives us a disturbing play-by-play of Chang’s kidnaps, as he hypnotises the prostitute in the early morning and leads a theatre cleaning girl to her death. Episode four sees the battle of wits – at times both amusing and shocking – between The Doctor and Chang during his magic performance. Seeing Chang at the height of his power only makes his fall from grace in this episode all the harder. Episode five sees the shift from Chang to Greel as the plot focusses on the hunt for Greel’s new hideout. We also get two versions of this hunt – the serious one from The Doctor and Leela, and one tinged with low to middle comedy from Jago and Litefoot. How oddly appropriate that the comedians find it first! 

Episode six, of course, sees the climactic final fight, as the mad Greel dies in his own machine with which he has killed so many others. A minor quibble with this episode, we never see what The Doctor does with all Greel’s anachronistic technology, aside from smashing the key to the time cabinet. Of course, given that the story has given us little explanation of Greel’s origins and technology, it’s only fitting that The Doctor’s deconstruction of the Zygma equipment be cut for the much more character-centric tea discussion over muffins. I think this was one of the best ending lines for a final battle scene I remember seeing in Doctor Who. Some bells ring nearby, and The Doctor says, “It’s the muffin man. Come on, I’ll buy you some muffins.”

And then the four of them are eating muffins.

On the giant rats, there’s a real person in a rat suit in some of those shots, as I found out in the Whose Doctor Who documentary that came with the dvd. The rat scenes are really the only moments in this serial where viewer commentary like “Cheap 1970s BBC effects coming up!” are all that necessary.

Incidentally, The Talons of Weng-Chiang contains a throwaway reference to Time Agents, which would reappear as more important parts of the Who universe in the novel Eater of Wasps, in which they were morally ambiguous operatives The Eighth Doctor had to deal with. However, it was this organization that gave us Captain Jack Harkness, so perhaps they have been redeemed at least a little.

An endnote: John Bennett gave a wonderful performance, but I thought of a good Asian actor who could have played the part well, if perhaps with some makeup to make him appear the same age he was when I first saw him in the mid-1990s. Soon Tek Oh, who played Bon Bon Hai, a recurring villain on Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Now, he was menacing.

No stories split opinion as much as the light-hearted ones do. Some universally love them, and some…well, you get the picture. I try to keep an open mind about them; I think The Chase is brilliant, for example, whereas others make me cringe as anyone who has read my recent review of Delta And The Bannermen will attest (and lets not forget Aliens Of London). While I wouldn’t call it comedic, The Androids Of Tara is certainly lightweight – and furthermore, it’s an example of a lightweight story pitched just right.

Having said that, it does get off to a shaky start. I’ve never held David Fisher in particularly high regard as a writer, and the beginning of this episode showcases why: his dialogue isn’t terrible, but it is completely lacking in any breadth beyond what applies directly to the plot. Every line spoken is the minimum necessary to push the narrative forward; characterisation, subtext and original panache are hardly present at all. The best I can say about it is that it has a certain simplistic elegance, but I feel that it is simply Fisher’s rudimentary skill that causes this. It is his well-known source material rather than him that makes this story the most enjoyable of his four scripts for the series. This isn’t a problem once the plot actually gets going, but in the early introductory scenes the script creaks through its inability to carry a conversation that doesn’t directly correspond to its core idea of Count Grendel’s political machinations. Hence we have Romana’s horribly delivered recap of their quest for the season, exposition so unsubtle it feels like being on the receiving end of Monty Python’s fish-slapping routine. We also get the Doctor’s desire to take a break, which judders along side the intention of the story as a whole. Just to get my gripes over and done with, four stories in and Tom Baker and the Ice Queen still have no on-screen rapport whatsoever. Baker tries his best, but Frostina undermines his efforts with boringly delivered lines that for all their efficiency aren’t much more interesting than her just saying “I’m going over here”.

Ten minutes in the plot gets going, and all is well. The segment is found immediately, and plays little part in the story. This adventure epitomises how to carry a plot-arc successfully: not to be concerned about it all the time. This serial comes as light relief to prevent the ongoing hunt for the Key To Time, which had been going on unabated for twelve weeks, and prevents it becoming boring – it works wonderfully well. In even the most dynamic of narratives (not that that’s an adjective commonly appropriate to the Graham Williams era) there comes a time when it’s good to take the foot from the accelerator and just cruise for a bit.

The core idea of a technologically-sophisticated society that is aesthetically archaic is a brilliantly original one, even if it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny; then again, this episode was never designed to stand up to scrutiny, or else it wouldn’t be “lightweight”. It creates a fascinating juxtaposition between culture and technology, and also presents the unique scenario of a science-fiction adventure with what is for practical purposes a period setting – and when it comes to period settings, Doctor Who’s hit-rate is well documented. It is helped by some pleasing design work (my jaw hit the ground when I saw that designer Valerie Warrender was also responsible for The Twin Dilemma), and some excellently directed location footage from Michael Hayes. I shouldn’t need to make that point given that Hayes also helmed the truly magnificent City Of Death, but he never seems to get much recognition. The only real failing in design terms is the wood beast, but then it’s really just the inanimate plastic face mask that lets it down; at least it can move at more than a snails pace, unlike several other monsters that space does not permit me to list. Also the incidental music sees Dudley Simpson on one of his better days, his harpsichord score appropriate to the story and unobtrusive.

In acting terms the story gets by with an average cast: Neville Jason is good as Prince Reynart but is cancelled out by the hamtastic Paul Lavers as Farrah. The real standout though is of course Peter Jeffery as Count Grendel, who makes a brilliant villain for such a story: pantomime-influenced, but retaining all his credibility. In short, I love to hate him in a way only really matched by Roger Delgado. Baker is flippant, as he was throughout most of Williams’s time as producer, but not lazy yet. Zadek’s and Reynart’s explanation of Tara’s political system is reasonable in the exposition field, staying the right side of stating the obvious, and signposts future action in which swashes will be significantly buckled.

The poisoned chalice is, unsurprisingly, a stock element but it makes for an enjoyable cliffhanger leading to a great final shot of the leering Grendel. Very little has happened of note in the first episode, which is odd given that the only purpose of each scene is to further the plot, but it has the perfect spirit.

I’m not criticising it as such, but the superficiality of this story does make it quite hard to find something to say about it beyond aesthetic details. For most stories this would be a final condemnation, but this is so intentionally daffy and confident in its execution it elevates it to the level of fun-for-all. It has to be said that even if the dialogue is not so simple intentionally it is very tight; a rare exception to its purely perfunctory nature comes with Farrah’s nervousness towards androids, to which the Doctor responds that androids feel the same way about humans. This is a good moment, even if it had been done better in The Robots Of Death. 

Cyril Shaps plays a whinger in all four of his appearances in the show, which is an unfortunate role to be typecast as, and this is his only story where he doesn’t get killed. He can get very annoying, especially when I’m so familiar with The Tomb Of The Cybermen is which is complaining reaches incredible levels. The cliffhanger is great if only because it’s so much fun to see the Doctor triumphant, even if it does undermine Grendel’s threat. Mary Tamm’s speech to the android king, however, sounds like it’s being delivered by a zombie. Tamm plays four roles in this story (a record), when she can only barely cope with one. However, two of the roles are only faceless ciphers - and the androids don’t take much skill either.

There is as tense seen as the characters blag their way through the android king’s malfunctions, and this leads on to a brief shot of the segment; it has no bearing on the story, and is only being shown through necessity as there is no real way of avoiding that this is a Key to Time story; of all of the six serials this is the one that could sit most happily in another season.

The Romana-android that fires a laser at womb height (a feminist commentary perhaps, or just laughable visual effects? You decide) gets by as this episode makes no claim to gritty realism. This makes it all the more jarring to hear of Lamia’s relationship with Grendel; a relief to see a moment of characterisation, even if it is slightly tokenist.

The destruction of the Romana-android is a stagy action scene: Hayes’s strength is with film. The action scenes that take place outdoors are much better, even if the guards cannot shoot straight; villains could very rarely shoot straight in Doctor Who, but here for some reason I found their ability to hit just about everything except what they were actually aiming at quite irritating. It is a shock to see Madam Lamia killed in such an inherently gentle story though; the mortality rate for this story (credited characters only* not including regulars) is only 11.1%.

Into the final episode, and Grendel’s outburst of “this is not wine but vinegar” is embarrassingly cheesy in a story that, while undeniably derivative, has an original twist. 

Tamm’s performance as Strella is even worse than her one as Romana, if that’s possible, and annoyingly K9 plays a significant role in the plot. Like the sonic screwdriver he’s OK for certain things but if he’s used directly in solving the plot then he’s just as galling as any other narrative device; there’s also the problem that I never feel so much like it’s a kids’ show as when K9’s on screen. That said he does get quite sarky in this episode, making him just about bearable. Even so, the “hamster with a blunt penknife” line is overrated.

There are lots of cuts between film and videotape here, which is helped by the darkness. The finale is wonderful: again it contains stock elements, but the oldies are the best: it has all the classics such as an unjust wedding interrupted in the nick of time and a very well choreographed swordfight that restores my faith in Hayes. However, Baker’s performance does verge on slapstick here which is inappropriate for a show that, while whimsical, was not a comedy programme. By contrast the lack of incidental music in the first part of the fight makes it seem very grim and serious, although it makes it less dramatic also.

A Gracht never surrenders: they take the honourable option of fleeing. It makes his last words of “next time I shall not be so lenient” seem very witty, and it is testament to how sweet natured this is that it feels totally right that the villain should escape free. I’d feel sorry for him if he bit the dust. This is followed by the quick, necessary scene of making sure they have the segment, and the Doctor’s line of “I didn’t catch one fish” must have seemed a very strange thing to say to the 500 000 people who hadn’t watched part one.

My top ten list is loaded up with the deep and rich stories such as The Curse Of Fenric, City Of Death and Kinda – The Androids Of Tara is a perfect alternative however, when I want one. It will never be a classic as it is so essentially empty and so I’m only giving it an average rating, but it gets that by default more than anything else; settle down with a swiss roll and some dry cider and it’s a delight from beginning to end.

*Besides, I think K9 probably only stunned those guards anyway. Wouldn’t really suit the tone otherwise.

Kinda is remembered as, in a nutshell, “that story everyone used to think was rubbish in 1982 and now thinks is brilliant”. Well, I wasn’t born in 1982 and my first memory of it is watching it after having had some teeth extracted when I was eleven. It’s rather a strange story anyway: imagine what it’s like under the effect of laughing gas. Ten years later I can safely say that all traces of the anaesthetic has worn off and so I can say that Kinda is one of my very favourite stories. Christopher Bailey has gone for the interesting but risky option of presenting the subtexts as what are important rather than the surface details, while refraining from explaining these subtexts in too much detail. This style of storytelling requires a very active viewer; it has taken me a couple of dozen viewings over the last decade for me to really get to grips with it. While then if I just want to pig out with a slice of cake I’ll watch The Androids Of Tara, when I can be bothered to put the effort in it is completely worth it.

The first aspect of the story that’s immediately obvious is the much-criticised set design. To be honest, I never had too much of a problem with it. I admit that the jungle set never looks like a real jungle but I think it serves its purpose, mainly because set designer Malcolm Thornton has stuck to standard plant designs and hasn’t been over-ambitious and presented pedal-bins with eyes like in Planet Of The Daleks. That and I’ve always been rather partial to the colour green, so I’m biased. The studio sets also get criticised for being too plain, but in every case there’s always a splash of colour somewhere to provide some kind of interest, like the jungle out of a window or the psychedelic equipment in the control room. It works well, and I’ll take it over the garish studios of many other 1980s stories.

The introductory scenes are a problem for a lot of stories, as the writers struggle to sustain them without the benefit of their plot to centre them around. The dialogue in the base in these early scenes is slightly stilted, with Todd explaining to Sanders what he already knows – a scene rescued by Sanders’s anger at being told useless information. What helps though is that Simon Rouse, Richard Todd and Nerys Hughes (apparently she gets more fan-mail for this than she does for The Liver Birds) are three terrific actors, and in fact quite show up the regulars when they arrive. Tegan, Nyssa and Adric are possibly the worst combination of companions ever (although I never hated Sarah Sutton), and in this story all three of them are sidelined to an extent: Sutton is written out almost entirely, Janet Fielding gets no lines for an episode and a half despite it being “her story”, and Matthew Waterhouse spends the whole time moping about getting screamed at by Rouse. Also, it’s funny this season watching Eric Saward write out the sonic screwdriver at every available opportunity.

Well, yes, the costumes are a commentary on colonialism. Is it possible to be too obvious simply through the medium of clothes? While it’s hardly subtle though the subtext is never dwelt upon; there are no “blobs” speeches, and the natives aren’t named after a parody of the colonial word for Africans (The Mutants). As far as I’m concerned, that’s the right kind of subtext. The only thing that threatens to push it over the edge is the stereotypical blustering leader – although he soon changes. There is a good dynamic here, in that the expedition is falling to pieces and only Todd can see this properly.

The chimes are enigmatic and assisted by some beautiful sound effects and one of the most hauntingly effective scores of the decade, and electronic music has to be very special to earn praise from me. I would like no know though how they were made, especially since this question is asked in the script but never actually answered. 

The TSS is rather comical on its first appearance, lurching about all by itself, but it does lead to a good scene where the Doctor and Adric are introduced to the colonists. Sanders’s casual mention of “the hostages” is a very effective commentary on the 19th British attitude to the foreign other, but in a time where social concerns are very much rooted in the here and now it is strange to think that Bailey would pass comment on ideas then a century out of date. Also, Sanders’s constant repetition of “they’re just ignorant savages” is overdoing it. The Helix design is very interesting, with this episode effectively building tension by first introducing the Kinda as what they appear to be on the surface and then gradually introducing elements that don’t fit Sanders’s simplistic pattern.

The scenes set in the dark places of the inside are some of my favourites ever (seriously, nitrous oxide is the only way to see this story). The chess scene in particular is one of my favourites; it is the scene I immediately think of when asked to come up with an example of how well written the programme can be, and it is helped by the spooky, macabre performances of Anna Wing and Roger Milner. Also, the sudden appearance of Dukkha is one of the show’s few genuine jump-moments, while demonstrating how well lit these scenes are: the lighting is deliberately contrast-heavy so that some parts of the picture are overlit while others are in shadow, creating a very surreal ambience. Also, because it’s the kind of story that allows for it, unexplained elements such as the strange structure and the possibility that the Mara might be a representation of something else give rise to some serious possibilities for in-depth analysis that I won’t go into here, this being an evaluative review.

Mary Morris as Panna is also a good actress, although Sarah Prince as Karuna is a real weak link; her characterisation as a whiner, coupled with the tooth-bursting pitch of her voice, is something I find intensely annoying. Hindle’s final rant at the end of the first episode seems like a ham-overdose, and it is only now that the very sophisticated writing allows Rouse to show just how good an actor he is. His madness is very subtle: not in acting terms, but in its writing. Small details like his desire to see the Kinda’s fingernails, and his blending of serious issues such as the base’s destruction with minor issues such as the need to hold a rolled-up chart in place of a cane, make this some of the best written insanity characterisation that I can immediately think of. The indications of his paranoia are very convincing, and his sudden bouts of childlike ranting are very frightening to watch.

The Box of Jhana is introduced well: the immediate implication is that it was responsible for the expedition’s previous disappearances, so that Sander’s subsequent reappearance is a real surprise.

The possession of Tegan is a good scene although let down by poor acting, and much as I would defend the set design in this story I have to say that tree is abominable, like part of an adventure playground. It may be an old joke, but if you asked me to point to something wooden it wouldn’t be the tree that springs to mind. Oh, and you can also see Adrian Mills’s fillings, which made me laugh.

The second episode’s cliffhanger is an absolute knockout, although it does turn out to be a deliberate false scare; while appropriate to the narrative it does come as a bit of a let down. That said, if it didn’t get people watching next week then nothing would, and I suppose that was the point. After this however we get to see the Box of Jhana’s full properties: let’s face it, it’s a massive piece of deus ex machina, one of my pet hates in any kind of fiction. It is responsible for the shift in the character dynamic that is so important to the story, it allows the Doctor and Todd to escape (and even gives them a place to escape to) and thereby drive the story into its second half, and is even part responsible for the resolution of the story. Thankfully the extremely impressive presentation, a half-proper explanation for it and the fact that it is introduced gradually rather than thrust upon us at the end stays off the otherwise huge sense of disappointment that I usually feel about this sort of thing. In fact, I quite like it, and all is forgiven at the end (I’ll explain later*).

The Trickster scene is actually quite grotesque and spooky in the very unsettling concept of this story. The Mara-possessed Aris turns up at this point and is frankly a bit of a let down. He rants and raves with the best of them, and is a very ordinary villain in this most extraordinary of stories. The set falls down again here too, as the crinkles and creases in the painted backdrop are clearly visible.

The exposition in this episode is hard to spot, as the plot elements are left to speak for themselves. Even as a nipper, although I had to think quite hard, I never really had too much of a problem with the plot. At this stage only the fine details require filling in. Even the explanation of the Mara doesn't say anything too obvious; it doesn't need to.

The dream sequence is truly amazing, and shows what an innovative director Peter Grimwade was. However, they picked the wrong moment for the cliffhanger: the “it’s the end of everything line” would have been perfect, but instead they bisect the following scene thus requiring a gigantic reprise for episode four. This provides the story’s only really confusing moment where the balance between adequate explanations and subtlety is misjudged; how will attacking the dome help the Mara? After wracking my brain I came up with the theory that the Mara would feed of the ensuing negative emotions, which would seem to fit with Snakedance, but I feel it should have been made clearer here. Mary Morris provides the story’s only casualty here (the missing members of the expedition are only referred to): you’d think that in such a creepy story a 10% mortality rate would seem odd, but it doesn’t as it isn’t creepy in that way.

The crushing of the doll is a surprisingly poignant moment – it’s heartbreaking to watch the Trickster drop to his knees – and I wonder if it’s significant to the Kinda’s eventual revolt against Aris. The attack on the TSS isn’t brilliantly executed, although it is very interesting to watch the Kinda’s attempts to match this alien technology. When the Doctor tries to reassure Adric, it is funny to watch Adrian Mills in the background watching that tiny flame on his wooden frame with an expression of intense anxiety. Also, Matthew Waterhouse is terrible; it’s disappointing to say that as he’d spent the story in a kind of low-grade naffness that he might just have got away with.

The “you can’t mend people” scene is probably the season’s most iconic outside of Earthshock, and deservedly so as it shows Rouse on absolute full throttle. Here is where the contrivance of the Box of Jhana is forgiven, as Todd has to work hard to convince Hindle to open it. What I love about it is that the solution has been present all this time, but nobody’s been able to actually implement it. A contrivance that can’t be used puts a very interesting spin on the whole idea.

The mirror finale, however, treads some seriously dodgy ground. Conceptually speaking the Mara is one of the best monsters ever (a shame I can’t say that about the visuals), but the idea that it soils itself at its own reaction undermines its power somewhat. The Mara’s relationship with mirrors had to be altered fairly significantly for the sequel, as well. The snake prop does look stupid, in fact almost indefensible, but in a story with so much going for it it’s a drop in the ocean. Plus, I think Grimwade deserves respect for not getting any piece of studio equipment reflected in the mirrors. The final scene is also good, with a pleasant goodbye scene that contains some real life-affirming comments while going easy on the sentiment.

Kinda is a stunning story, to the extent that the rumour that it was written by Tom Stoppard actually sounds half believable (the one about Kate Bush is a bit more of a stretch, however). Its rich themes and narrative depths reach levels other stories can only aspire to, especially given that they are delivered with such style and , on the whole, shrewdness. I consider it the best Davison and one of the half-dozen best stories of the 1980s; it sits comfortably in my all time top ten, in fact. 

*I’ve waited so long to say that.