Is there anything good that one can say about the seventh Doctor's debut season on television? After the excellent Colin Baker's performance the show took a decided nose dive for the worse. Reasons why I hated it, in no particular order, are:

1/ That music! That godawful incidental music that they used! It is useless to describe this music in written words but anyone who saw these episodes on television will doubtless remember it. It was so bad! If it had just been used in Time and the Rani, but every story from then on had the same cringe-inducing din.

2/ There were now only four stories per season, and most of these only ran to three episodes.

3/ Those guest actors! Only Sylvester McCoy would be pathetically proud to have Richard O'Brien and Ken Dodd on Dr Who. This is supposed to be a serious sci-fi show not a pantomime performance, and these actors were totally inappropriate.

4/ The Doctor's initial persona was a bit wet and wishy-washy. I understand that in later seasons the Seventh Doctor becomes a darker, more mysterious character, but alas! His debut season was enough to put me off for life.

But back to Time and the Rani. It wasn't all bad; I particularly liked the Seventh Doctor floundering around in the too big costume of the Sixth Doctor at the beginning. A nice bit of continuity there. And I (at first) liked him being so different. As Mel says, his hair...size...voice...face...everything was just so totally different about this new Doctor's appearance. The Rani was nicely evil, but could she really be that much of a threat to the pacifist Lakertyns? The dreadful music...oh, I've already mentioned that.

I'm trying to think of a good way to close this...ah! Pip and Jane Baker's scripts are always a joy, even in a dreadful story the characters have such good throwaway lines. There!

A truly amazing episode, with a mixed emotional ending. Following the light-hearted episode Black Orchid, it has changed to a totally dark episode. This show brings back the Doctor's old enemies, the Cybermen. It begins with researchers/miners on Earth in a cave, and two black androids appear every once in awhile and kill some of these miners, and they die in a rather gruesome manner. 

Soon, the TARDIS materializes in the same cave, and Adric and the Doctor have fought.Adric asks to be taken back to E-Space, and the Doctor refuses,storming off to take a walk. Tegan goes off to talk to the Doctor, while Nyssa talks to Adric. The rapport between Nyssa and Adric have always been very good, so it is understandable why she should be the one to talk to him. Later Nyssa joins up with Tegan and the Doctor while Adric is left to do mathematical calculations to prove himself to the Doctor, which he always seems to do. 

We find out these androids are from the Cybermen and they have been spying on the Doctor and his companions. Adric saves the day by creeping up and finishing off the androids.

Soon the crew with a few of the miners leave Earth in the TARDIS and end up on the sapceship which is housing the Cybermen (unknowing to the ship's crew). Later we see Tegan out with a few of the men from the mining team armed with weapons, and suddenly Cybermen appear. The group splits up and Tegan takes off and bravely kills a Cyberman and mortally wounds another.

The Doctor finds out about the Cybermen and to his horror he comes face to face with them. Peter Davison is great in this scene where he has to choose to save Tegan's life or let the Cybermen kill her, and making the best decision, he rushes over and protects her. Adric comforts Tegan, it's one of those rare moments where they aren't bickering.

Nyssa however is in the TARDIS with one of the female miners and to her shock and horror, she watches the Cybermen break into the TARDIS, and they kill the woman right in front of Nyssa. Soon after, they start searching the TARDIS. Great performance by Sarah Sutton is done in this scene, although for the most part she is cast aside in the TARDIS and doesn't see anything but the few halls near the TARDIS.

The Cybermen had set the spaceship to collide with Earth to destroy it once and for all, and Adric bravely decides to stay and try to stop it from happening. This is when Matthew's final scenes really shine! He tell's the Doctor and Tegan that he'll see them soon, but from the tone in his voice, you can tell he is uncertain. Tegan is saddened by his decision and has to be taken out by the Doctor.

The ship crew help Adric all they can while he starts punching in mathematical numbers. The ships crew realizes that they have an escape pod and they all go to it and have to literally pull Adric away, saying there is nothing he can do. But Adric, after a moment of being in the escape pode knows the sequence to the final section of the Cybermen's device and he runs out bravely to finish it and the escape pod leaves. So there is no way out for him. He is too busy punching out the numbers to notice the mortally wounded Cybermen Tegan had shot, crawling into the room. The Cybermen, before dying, destroys the device and Adric then realizes he is going to die.

Matthew's performance is outstanding in this episode, he has always had a rocky time in the Davison era, but he finally brings back the great performance that he had given from E-Space to Keeper of Traken in his last show. In the TARDIS, Cyberman are taunting Tegan about destroying Earth, and she gets upset, which she has every right to be, considering they are planning on destroying her planet. The Doctor gets one of the guns and begins firing at the cybermen, hitting the console, so that there was no way to get Adric back.The Doctor kills the Cyberleader by smashing Adrics mathematical badge of excellence, a gold star, into the chest of the Cyberleader. Since Cybermen are allergic to gold, he dies fairly quickly.

Once the Cybermen are finished off, great performances are done by all. Janet Fielding, glossy-eyed, watches the ship fade in and out, Sarah Sutton screams out Adric's name in what seems like great sadness, Peter Davison looks up wide-eyed in sorrow as they watch what is coming to their friend, who is sacrificing his life for them. The camera zooms slowly up to Matthew as he watches and prepares to face what is coming to him, and he clutches the rope that had belonged to his brother Varsh, who had also sacrificed his life for the Doctor and Adric.

We see the TARDIS crew mourning for the loss of their friend, Nyssa crying on Tegan's shoulder, Tegan holding Nyssa, looking completely bewildered and sad and the Doctor just standing in the background. The end credits have no sound and it shows the image of Adric's smashed star. For many fans they gleefully rejoice at this destruction of Adric. But to many others, such as myself, we find it extremely sad. For a true friend, no matter how annoying they are, will sacrifice their lives for their friends if need be, and that's exactly what Adric did. And he proves he was a great friend to all of them.

Ghost Light has always been one of those Doctor Who stories that you wouldn't be ashamed to show your friends. It has a certain respectability: atmospheric, well-acted, ironic, compelling. Good TV, plain and simple. Looking at it now, in 2003, I can't find any reason to change my opinion. There's the odd flaw, often related to haste or lack of time (as when a piece of dialogue is spoilt by an obtrusively abrupt cut in the the Reverend Ernest Matthews introductory scene). But this sort of tiny technical flaw is part of what makes Who so endearing; it's not enough to spoil an excellent story.

The plot itself is, as is often noted, a little opaque. One reason for this is that much of the dialogue (in the first two episodes at least) doesn't actually provide a lot of explanation as to what is going on - unusually for Doctor Who, there isn't a great amount of expository writing. There are enigmatic conversations (such as that between the Doctor and Isiah), bewildering monologues (Fenn-Cooper's, in episode one, is superb), and much else that is strange and perplexing (in a good way), but we, the viewer, are left to fill in many of the gaps.

We may have to watch Ghost Light a couple of times to appreciate it fully, but when a story is so full of brilliant moments, it isn't really a hardship. There is Ace's analysis of the 19th century mind: "Scratch the Victorian veneer, and something nasty will come crawling out!"; the Reverend, firmly against the theory of evolution, de-evolving into an ape-like state, munching a banana; and the iconic moment where the Doctor is told, after he stops a clock by halting the movement of the pendulum, that he is as "powerful" as he is "wise". Even writing about it makes me smile. Ghost Light takes Doctor Who and makes it better; takes two characters, and makes them finer and more complex.

The New Adventures told stories too broad or deep for the screen, and here Platt plants seeds for what would follow: a Doctor with dark motives and agendas - "Even I can't play this many games at once!" - and an Ace tormented with memories, looking on as a building burns, emergency-service lights flashing in her face. Highly recommended, and definitely worth revisiting.

I am always slightly perplexed as to why this story is so widely disregarded in fan circles. Interestingly I have always found it an engagining opening to the seventh Doctor`s era. As a fan knowing all the background to all the turbulent times the series was going through by then it is always slightly spoilt. Colin Baker should have been around for another few years but was suddenly removed. Sylvester McCoy was thrown very much in at the deep end of things,but oddly enough that shows later on this season rather than in this debut romp.

To me this has always seemed a very typical piece of Doctor Who. It is a very watchable escape from reality with some very tight plotting each episode ( I cant fault Pip and Jane Bakers work in all honesty apart from some extreme dialogue that NOBODY could possibly say in an average (even in Doctor Who terms) conversation!) Visually it is very impressive with the best use of O.B filming I have seen in the series and The Rani`s bubble traps are a joy. The nature of the story the Bakers had in mind would have been better servd with a more gothic feel to The Rani`s headquaters-but that is only a small gripe as the scenes in the Tetraps lair and The Rani`s secret chamber are very atmospheric. 

One of the biggest missed opportunities after this story was we had no real rematch between The Doctor and The Rani. I adored Kate O`Mara in the her debut Rani adventure in season 22 and although by 1987 the actress was working on American super soap Dynasty she was more than happy to make this return. Her subsequent support and enthusiasm for her time with Doctor Who always made this fan happy as she is one of the UK`s best actors and such an endorsement of the series is wonderful. However in spite of my pleasure in Pip and Jane`s scripts imagine if Kate had gotten a script by say Robert Holmes? Hopefully the Big Finish audios may give her a chance one day to work on something with another writer,if P&J will allow it?? ) Anyway..her rapport with Sylvester`s instantly adorable Season 24 Doctor are a delight. A good proportion of the script is purely Sylvester and Kate and it works very well on the screen. The impersonation of Mel scenes are witty and well done (although should not have been carried over virtually 2 full episodes). The final part is very action packed with plenty of good visuals and high (camp) drama. It sees Rani cleverly achieving her aim but being thwarted by the newly regenerated Doctor,who quickly turns The Rani`s handiwork back on herself. A very well constructed story.

Bonnie Langford gets plenty to do as Mel (always well served by the Bakers scripts). She is over the top at times-but that is the nature of the entire piece. Mel works better with the Seventh Doctor and her scenes with Sylvester are well executed. The rest of the cast is small and do well , Mark Greenstreet and Donald Pickering are solid (if a little bewildered) , Wanda Ventham is very effective and restrained as Faroon (in particular when she stumbles across the remains of her daughter,killed by The Rani`s bubble traps) and Richard Gauntlett is deliciously malicious as the bat like Tetrap, Urak,who is obedient to his mistress Rani but far more astute and wise to The Rani`s ultimate objectives than he lets on.

Direction from Andrew Morgan is fast paced and ambitious. The incidentals are fresh and vibrant from Keff McCulloch (far better than some of the awful and cheap sounding incidentals McCulloch put together in later McCoy stories) and the new Seventh Doctor title sequence is impressive (never been sure of the logo though??!)

This is not the lemon some like to say it is. Catch up with it again soon and you will be pleasantly surprised. If nothing else enjoy McCoy and O`Mara in this admittedly lightweight piece that still retains all the wonderful ingredients of Doctor Who. Good Fun. Good Doctor Who.

After the superb Season Seven, Season Eight begins with a story that represents a considerable down turn in the quality of the era, at least in my opinion. As might be expected from a Robert Holmes story, ‘Terror of the Autons’ has some great dialogue and excellent characterisation, but it also signals a considerable change in emphasis for the series in comparison with ‘Inferno’. ‘Terror of the Autons’ has several features that in my eyes can be construed as faults, although it is by no means a complete loss. I’ll start with the criticisms that I have of the story.

‘Terror of the Autons’ is the debut story of two characters that I feel weaken the era and they do this by beginning UNIT’s transformation from an elite, top-secret military organization, into a Dad’s Army style farcical collection of buffoons. The first of these is Jo Grant. Now Katy Manning is a fine actress and Jo is undeniably rather cute and likeable, but she represents a dumbing down of the series that positively infuriates me. Whereas Liz was a competent, efficient scientist Jo is the living embodiment of the principle that the Doctor Who companion exists so that the Doctor can explain things to the audience. She might be bright and chirpy, but she’s also air-headed and dizzy. As a UNIT agent (which she technically is) she is utterly implausible despite a rather contrived throwaway line about her uncle getting her a job with the organization. Therein lies my problem I think: I don’t object to Jo as a character per se, I just prefer Liz and thus object to the change that Jo heralds. 

The second character that debuts in ‘Terror of the Autons’ and represents a downward slide is Captain Yates. I take no delight in saying this, but whilst Richard Franklin seems like a very nice chap, I personally think that he’s a dreadful actor. As Yates, he presents us with one of the least convincing soldiers ever seen on television. I’m not au fait enough with the military to have much idea of whether Benton and the Brigadier are actually convincingly real soldiers, but Mike seems quite plainly not to be. I think in all honesty that he’s just too camp, although in fairness to Richard Franklin this seems to be as much a problem of the script as it is with his acting. Between them, Jo and Yates weaken UNIT’s credibility and signal the beginning of the organization’s descent into rather twee coziness. Which ironically is of course the very “UNIT family” feeling that many fans seem to like. 

My next major criticism of ‘Terror of the Autons’ is the Nestenes. In ‘Spearhead From Space’, they were a genuinely creepy, menacing threat. Here they are relegated to playing second fiddle to the Master and they suffer from it. The Autons themselves are less successful due to the change in their appearance; in their debut story, they had hollow empty eye sockets and sculpted, pouting mouths, which gave them an eerie, zombie-like feeling. Here however, their faces are completely smooth with no eye holes, and this makes them seem less like ghastly parodies of people and more like, ironically, shop dummies. They actually look more sinister once they don their large carnival heads, regaining some of the eerie incongruity of their shop window dwelling predecessors. On the other hand, the Nestenes do benefit from greater versatility in this story. I like the idea that they can take on literally any form at all if it is made of plastic, and here we get killer dolls, killer chairs, killer daffodils, and a killer telephone cable. This results in some memorable and effective set pieces, such as the deaths of McDermott and Farrell senior. 

My final criticism of ‘Terror of the Autons’ is the use of CSO. I said when I reviewed ‘The Web Planet’ that I don’t judge Doctor Who on its special effects, and I stand by that. What I will criticize however is Barry Letts’ decision to massively overuse CSO in this story. The technique is much maligned by fans, but obviously it has its uses, as illustrated in both ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ and ‘The Ambassadors of Death’. However, here we get CSO backdrops of ordinary rooms, which makes the story look cheap and nasty. The most blatant example is in the Farrell household, but the Museum is also worthy of particular scorn. The use of CSO to show the Nestene doll running around is fine, but CSO kitchens is just taking the piss.

Anyway, enough ranting. For all its faults, there are things that I like about ‘Terror of the Autons’. Firstly, Jon Pertwee’s performance as the Doctor continues to please me here. Much as I find Jo annoying on one level, she and the Doctor do quite quickly establish a rather touching rapport, and whilst she may seem less capable than Liz in some respects, she proves her usefulness as a companion by rescuing the Doctor from the circus and later using her escapology training to slip her bonds in the coach. As I said, she may represent a dumbing down of UNIT, but she is undeniably likeable. The Doctor seems to agree; although he is slightly more irascible and disrespectful in this story than in the previous season, he quickly takes Jo under his wing, despite the fact that she ruins his steady-state micro-welding, nearly blows him up, and refuses to do as she is told. I also like the Doctor’s rather waspish attitude in this story, which some fans have criticized. For example, when Jo removes his gag in Rossini’s (or rather, Russell’s) caravan he crossly demands to know what she is doing there. Rude and ill tempered I know, but it’s also quite funny. Then there’s the scene with Brownrose. Paul Cornell once complained in a scathing review of this story that the production team had turned the Doctor into a Tory and Verity Lambert also allegedly complained about the Doctor being made part of the establishment around this time, in a reference to his status as UNIT’s scientific advisor. I can see both their points, but I just love the idea of the Doctor, who let us be honest has always been rather egotistical, strolling into a gentlemen’s club and charming all of the other members. In my opinion it isn’t so much that the Doctor has sold out to the establishment, it is more that this always rebellious, disrespectful figure can and will charm almost anyone. My basic assumption is that he’s accepted as a member of the club simply because the other members like him.

‘Terror of the Autons’ is of course most well known for introducing the Master. The Roger Delgado incarnation is still my favourite Doctor Who villain, and this story demonstrates why. He’s immediately a commanding villain from the moment that he emerges from his TARDIS in Rossini’s circus in episode one and quickly cows the belligerent circus owner. As the story progresses, he begins to display his trademark charm, but in this story he also maintains a truly ruthless edge. The death toll attributable directly to the Master in this story demonstrates this, and not just those deaths that he causes by allowing the Nestenes to return to Earth. He kills Goodge without a thought, more concerned with leaving his shrunken corpse as a calling card for the Doctor than he is at casually extinguishing a life. He uses and discards Phillips and Farrell, and has no qualms whatsoever about disposing of McDermott and Farrell senior when they get in his way. And whilst I’ve never really paid it any attention before, it struck me on this viewing how out-of-hand and nasty the death of the scientist that he throws from the radio telescope in episode four is. This then is the Master in his debut story; charming and debonair but thoroughly evil.

‘Terror of the Autons’ has been criticized for its ending, when the Master seems too easily convinced to betray the Nestenes by a single line from the Doctor. This I think is missing the point. The Master’s primary aim is never helping the Nestenes to invade, it is always his battle of wits with the Doctor. He simply doesn’t care about anything else; he gets several opportunities to kill the Doctor, which would probably allow him to win easily, but on each occasion he is easily dissuaded from doing so because he enjoys their rivalry. I have no doubt that his ultimate aim is the Doctor’s death, but more important to him is his desire to humiliate his foe, to score a series of minor triumphs before he finally disposes of him. As he says to Farrell, “I have so few worthy opponents. When they’re gone I always miss them”. Interestingly, it is hinted at even this stage that the Doctor enjoys their rivalry too despite the deaths the Master has caused and will no doubt cause later on, the Doctor has a wry smile on his face as the Master drives away in the coach in the end, and in the final scene of the story he tells the Brigadier and Jo that he is rather looking forward to their next encounter.

Overall then, ‘Terror of the Autons’ is not up to the same standard of the previous season’s stories, but is nonetheless entertaining. Unfortunately, it is deeply flawed, but with the following story the season really starts to pick up…

I must confess that on viewing ‘The Mind of Evil’ again, I found it to be something of a disappointment. This doesn’t mean that I think it’s rubbish; it just isn’t as good as I remembered. It does have several things to commend it, but I’ll get my criticisms out of the way first. 

When I reviewed ‘Terror of the Autons’, I said that it represents a dumbing down of the series and the start of UNIT’s decline into farce. This continues here, although not uniformly throughout the story; most of the problems are confined to the first half. Firstly, it is here that the Brigadier is first made to look like a buffoon. The scenes with the Doctor and Fu Peng are mildly amusing, but they reduce the Brigadier to the role of comic foil and he looks like an idiot, unable to get a word in edgeways and the subject of contempt from Fu Peng. Suddenly, the intelligent, commanding and diplomatic military leader of Season Seven is a bumbling fool. Fortunately, he regains some credibility in the second half of the story, as he leads the assault on Stangmoor Prison, and in one of his finest moments shoots Mailer just in the nick of time to save the Doctor. UNIT also continues to suffer from the presence of Mike Yates, who remains an unconvincing character. In Richard Franklin’s defense however, Yates also benefits from the last three episodes, and doesn’t fare too badly in an action man role that sees him tracking the missile to the airfield and defiantly confronting the Master whilst tied to a chair. Finally, the thoroughly irritating Major Cosgrove further cements UNIT’s newfound reputation as a slightly camp and silly organization. 

Another major weakness of ‘The Mind of Evil’ concerns UNIT’s transport of the Thunderbolt missile, which has a ridiculously light escort. The script bravely attempts to address this issue, but with even the person Yates discusses the escort with on the telephone in episode two expressing disbelief at the feeble security measures, this attempt is doomed to failure. I’m also rather dubious about the explosion at the end. The Thunderbolt is referred to as a nuclear missile with a nerve gas warhead throughout, and the Doctor further adds that it will take a nuclear explosion to destroy the Keller Machine. Now I’m no nuclear physicist, but the explosion at the end seems pretty small for a nuclear explosion, destroying as it does one aircraft hanger. And nobody seems remotely concerned about any nerve gas being released. 

My final criticism of ‘The Mind of Evil’ is that it feels padded. Given that the three seven part stories in Season Seven seldom felt stretched out, this is particularly disappointing. ‘The Mind of Evil’ is repetitive; the Doctor undergoes several attacks by the Keller Machine, for example, and then there’s Mailer’s initial, unsuccessful attempt to take over the prison, which is no sooner foiled than the Master arrives to organize a more successfully attempt. Consequently, this is one of only a few six part Doctor Who stories that I think would have benefited from being two episodes shorter. 

On the other hand, there are several things to recommend ‘The Mind of Evil’. Firstly, and most significantly in my opinion, it showcases the rivalry between the Doctor and the Master superbly. During ‘Terror of the Autons’ they only met on screen during the last episodes, but here they get far more scenes together, and it reveals something rather interesting. When I reviewed ‘Terror of the Autons’, I noted that the Master tends to allow himself to find an excuse not to kill the Doctor rather easily. Here, the impression is given that the Master desperately needs to let the Doctor see him win. It is interesting that he almost seems to be trying to impress the Doctor, and certainly has a degree of respect for him; after all, although as he says at one point, they are both Time Lords, the Master lacks the ability to deal with the Mind Parasite, whereas he clearly believes that the Doctor is more than capable of doing so. Even before he resorts to threatening Jo, he seems confident that the Doctor is underestimating himself. Of course, the revelation that the Doctor ridiculing him is his greatest fear speaks volumes about their relationship and it is also here that we get the first hints that the two of them used to be friends. One of their most interesting scenes together is when the Doctor lashes together his electronic loop to temporarily trap the Keller Machine; for a brief couple of minutes, they seem to forget their enmity, both discussing the scientific problem in hand, with the Master seeming genuinely interested in the Doctor’s solution. Even more interesting is the fact that whilst the Master often thinks twice about killing the Doctor, when the Doctor gets the chance to blow his enemy up at the end, he has no hesitation about doing so. In fact, the Master seems keen to show off and generally gloat in front of the Doctor throughout, whereas the Doctor seems genuinely angered by the Master. Given that he quite rightly blames the Master for bringing the Mind Parasite to Earth and given that the Keller Machine indisputably terrifies him, this is entirely understandable, but is an interesting contrast with his attitude in later stories. In summary, the Master seems to need the Doctor’s recognition of his achievements, whilst the Doctor appears to really actively dislike the Master throughout this story. 

Another good aspect of ‘The Mind of Evil’ is Jo. Despite the criticism that I heaped upon here in the previous review, she undergoes something of a transformation here and becomes a capable, useful assistant, rather just an empty-headed companion. She shows considerable courage in dealing with Mailer and the Master, compassion in looking after Barnham, and the complete trust in and loyalty to the Doctor that tend to characterize here. In fact, she’s generally more forthright than I remember her, not afraid to speak her mind, and proving ready to fight when necessary (she holds Mailer at gunpoint in episode two for example, and doesn’t seem particularly scared by him) I still don’t find her convincing as a UNIT agent, but she does at least prove that she has potential as a Doctor Who companion. Jon Pertwee continues to satisfy as the Doctor. His increasing frustration at being trapped on Earth comes through well; he is even more irritable than in ‘Terror of the Autons’, frequently bad-tempered, and very entertainingly rude during Kettering’s press conference. This is topped off by the Doctor’s impotent fury in the last scene, when the Master telephones him to taunt him about his exile. Oh and full marks to Pertwee’s acting when attacked by the Machine; after gurning in ‘Spearhead From Space’, he manages to seem convincingly frightened here. 

The direction of ‘The Mind of Evil’ is excellent, so much so that the Keller Machine, essential a box with a phallus, seems genuinely menacing, as it teleports around and sucks the life from its victims. In addition, Puff the Magic Dragon, potentially absurd, also looks quite good at the end of episode two and the start of episode three. The action sequences are also exceptionally good, especially the pitched gun battle between UNIT troops and the convicts in episode five. Overall, ‘The Mind of Evil’ is far from perfect but contains some memorable sequences and is well worth watching in spite of being slightly disappointing overall.