This one is the classic Doctor Who story where the nature of time travel and “slipping side-ways to parallel universes are explored in a new and interesting way. The regular cast enthusiastically does a great job with their alter-egos on the alternative earth and points out the question about how different we’d be if our situation was very different. The story does the rare feat of sustaining itself over all 7 episodes. As each episode ends I find my self wanting to see the next one right away. 

This probably works as well as it does because the episodes set on the parallel earth works effectively as a story within the story. Inferno reminds me of the excellent Quatermass serials. The basic premise is that there is a project to drill all of the way through the earth’s crust but that would unleash unforeseen dangers. One danger is the green ooze that transforms people into monsters. The 2^nd is that penetrating the crust will cause volcanic eruptions that would destroy the world. It works dramatically as a moral story warning us not to tread on where we do not understand the consequences of our actions. 

That there can be serious consequences to our actions was a new and important idea that wasn’t dealt with by society prior to the 1970s.

It seems kind of odd to me when I realized that I have no problem with green ooze turning people into monsters but that drilling through the crust could destroy the earth seems silly. H.G. Wells believed that a science fiction story can contain a small number of places where the audience would need to suspend their beliefs without an explanation. For example the audience will accept that there are alien worlds and that they can be visited with a time and space machine without the need to explain how the machine works or evidence that life exists on other worlds. However Wells understood that you can’t expect the audience to do this too often so you need to explain them with science or technobabble. So I accept without an explanation that there is an ooze that we don’t know about that if touched turns people into monsters. 

It’s silly but I don’t need an explanation for this plot devise. However a hole in the ground resulting in the volcanic destruction of the entire earth needs an explanation because I know that it just isn’t possible. 

If it was the case, then instead of nuclear bombs, we could use drills as a doomsday devise. Who needs to develop expensive WMDs when all that you need is oil drilling equipment to hold the world hostage. But if you get passed this then you’ll enjoy a wonderfully crafted story.

One highlight is that they do an excellent job of building tension throughout all 7 episodes. The pace is masterful and allows the story to get more exciting as it goes on. I got the feeling that literally anything bad can happen in the final scenes on the doomed parallel earth. The contrast between the solution on the Orwellian alternate world and the solution on our world makes a strong point about the evils of fascism.

The visuals on the DVD hold up pretty well and the story seemed fresh to me. The monsters aren’t great looking but they are a small part of the story and they sufficiently show that the infected people aren’t quite human any more.

Inferno has long been cited by many fans as being one of the best examples of Doctor Who. In my opinion it is a top 20 story and probably the best of the Pertwee years. In addition I would highly recommend this as a good story for a newbie to classic Doctor Who.

*** Ѕ out of four

The plot is that the Doctor and Romana land on a cargo ship carrying human sacrifices to the minotaur-like Nimon. The Nimon promise whatever the leaders of a world want but con them to consume those worlds. The leader (Soldeed) is played as an over the top leader who only desires military conquest. The victims are not well acted not are their characters well developed. Originally aired during the holiday season 1979-1980 there are a number of laughs and it plays like a pantomime. I hadn't seen this story since the late 80’s and I remember that when I had seen it for the first time it was not one of my favorite stories. 

However I watched this recently with my 8 year old daughter. She was riveted for all four episodes and especially enjoyed K9.

The Nimon costume was a huge bull-like head with yellow horns. The face is not animated in any way so it is not clear if we see the face or if this is a helmet. The body was covered with black nylon and 6-inch platform shoes to suggest a hoof-like foot. These monsters seemed intelligent but they had slow-moving stiff bodies and roared so much (for no apparent reason) that they always warned our heroes before they are about to turn a corner in the labyrinth. I think that they looked hilarious, but my daughter accepted them as proper monsters although she said that they were “weird”. As a species the Nimon just don’t work for me. There is no biological explanation other than comparing them to locusts. However we don’t observe anything resembling a swarm and it’s hard to see anything locust-like in a labyrinth-dwelling minotaur. It is hard to understand how they would be an interplanetary threat. An entire species whose ecology is predicated on the successful con of one space traveling individual doesn’t make sense. It works as a dramatic devise but it seems like nonsense to me.

The plot was not particularly imaginative since human sacrifice, elaborate cons to set up an invasion, and megalomaniac leaders are common Doctor Who plot devises, but the story was sufficiently interesting and paced to carry a four part story. For me it is one of the weaker examples of Doctor Who but a fun camp romp. From the perspective of an 8 year old it works. In her words the story was “cool”.

** out of 4

Wow! What a piece of work! Watching this on a Monday evening or two in 1984 aged 9 was akin to being bludgeoned. It was like the scene in American Werewolf In London where the Nazi monsters burst in on the family watching The Muppet Show and massacre them, only stretched over the course of 100 minutes.

This is proper nightmare television. Sudden death lurks around every corner, often meted out with - presumably unintentional - agonizingly clumsy slowness (Mercer’s death is oddly effective in its fumbled confusion: no one is sure who to shoot). Faces melt off! People scream and judder grotesquely when exterminated! The woman from Play School is machine-gunned to death! British bobbies shoot innocent passers by!

And like all the best nightmares – or perhaps Tegan is imagining all this whilst lying in bed with a high fever – nothing makes any sense. The Daleks wield a kaleidoscope of nonsensical plans that manage to cancel each other out. No one is who they seem; and if they were it wouldn’t matter anyway. The whole thing is one big frightening scattershot bloodbath that appears potentially quite logical to the casual viewer but is in fact all happening completely at random, as if generated by a computer or a madman.

It is, of course, all baloney of the highest order. It appears to have been written by a man with severe sleep deprivation in a single sitting, just typing the first thing that comes into his head, wired on coffee and amphetamines. It has its detractors – and rightly so – but would you really swap it for another Power Of Kroll, for example? It’s nice that the more thoughtful or mysterious or comic adventures can be off-set against this kind of macho nonsense; you wouldn’t get an episode like this in Quantum Leap after all, would you?

And you wouldn’t laugh at a Dalek trooper’s hat in real life either.

Naturally 'Caves of Androzani' has got an awesomely high reputation as being one of the, if not THE, best story of the Eighties, rivalled perhaps only by the likes of 'The Curse of Fenric' or 'The Greatest Show In The Galaxy' or, in my opinion but not everybody else's, 'Remembrance of the Daleks' (It's good fun if nothing else isn't it). So when, a few months ago, I purchase 'The Caves of Androzani' on DVD I was expecting to be blown away by this 'awesome story', and the fact that it was the only regeneration story currently on DVD from the programme's 26-year-run, I was itching to view. 

What I got was a perfectly sound story, and I certainly can see why its reputation is so high, but it was still an anti-climax.

I suppose if I delve deep into the characterisation of Holmes, and the detailed society and culture of Androzani Major/Minor I can indeed agree that it scores top marks on that level. I will first present my annoyances with the story. These are minor glitches overall and they are beside the notorious television remotes of Morgus and the unconvincing Magma creature (and somehow Graham Harper thought that it was terrifying, and even asked Peter Davison at the end of Episode 2 on the DVD commentary if he and Nicola thought it terrifying too!). But there are other things - mostly the fact that it is so much more of an 'adult' programme rather than a 'children/family' programme because there is very little action till up to the final episode and I found that, although I enjoyed it, my younger cousins tended to switch off a lot when watching it. Another thing is the incidental score - which IS effective in some places, but in others it can be very tedious. And I have to say that the mercenaries chasing the Doctor at the start of Episode 4 are terrible shots, and Cralper looks ridiculous as he runs stiffly with his tiny gun held at his waist, firing randomly.

But lets move on to the much better things - and these are (apart from what I mentioned at the start) Davison's performance. The acting is excellent throughout - and I do agree that the performance of Davison at the end of Episode 3 is exceptionally good and hits the exact amount of anger and desperation without going outside of the Fifth Doctor's character, which I found was not the case when I recently watched 'The Visitation' where a lot of the Doctor's actions and manner of talking were not unlike Colin Baker's performance. It wasn't until I read Paul Clarke's review of this story that it suddenly hit home that the caves are actually sets and not really caves - I honestly never realised they were studio sets - obviously deep down I knew they were because of the picture quality, but I hadn't though about it till now. So excellent cave sets are evident - however Morgus' office is terribly bland, but the 'hologram' effects of Morgus talking to Chellak or Stotz are exceptional for the series.

The main thing I love about Caves is the ending. Harper's direction coupled with Davison's performance is immense as he trudges on towards the TARDIS carrying Peri in his arms as is his performance in the TARDIS in what is a spectacular regeneration scene as you all will agree - but they do cheat slightly by flooding the camera with light effects so that they just switch clips from Davison to Baker in between but this doesn't detract.

Overall then - Caves is a perfectly good story, and in comparison to 'The Three Doctors' which I'm watching now it excels miles. It's just that the heaps of praise was raising expectations a little too high.

As sad as it was that our favourite T.V. series was about to go off the air, it is re-assuring to see that it went out with tremendous style and sophistication. That, rather than attempt to make all kinds of pathetic attempts at grabbing ratings, the show just focussed on a very specific vision of how to make quality television and did all it could in its last two seasons to bring that vision to life. Many of the stories in these last two seasons are imbued with, what I feel, is a tremendous spirit of excellence. 

"Ghost Light" is one of the finest examples of that spirit of excellence. 

Yes, like everyone else, I watched this tale for the first time and was pretty sure I had little or no clue as to what exactly had happened. But that, in my opinion, is what impressed me the most about this story. This was not your average "just explain everything in the last episode" formulae that we'd been accustomed to for the last 25 years or so (with a few notable exceptions, such as "Warrior's Gate"). This was a different kind of storytelling. All the elements of a complete story are there - it's just up to you to link them together and make your own decisions about some of the more vital aspects of the plot. Which is an extremely mature method of stoytelling. Probably too mature for most television audiences, of course. But that doesn't mean this story should be dismissed as too high-handed. To me, that would be the equivalent of dismissing Picasso's work cause it "looks too wierd". Just because the style doesn't make sense to everyone - doesn't mean the art is bad. 

One of the greatest appeals about this particular style of storytelling is that, with every viewing, you can get something "new" out of it. For instance, when I just re-watched this a few days previously, I made a new conclusion about Light. I had often wondered why he was so disturbed by the whole concept of evolution and change. If he was surveying planets, wouldn't he have seen this on other worlds too? I noticed that the Doctor makes several references to Light being extremely ancient. Perhaps, then, Light is from one of the "higher" races that populate the Whoniverse. And it seems that many of these higher races are like the Time Lords. Very stagnant. Very resistant to any kind of real change. So when Light surveyed them, there would be no real sense of evolution there. Those races had done all the evolving they ever intended to. Could it be that the Earth was the first world Light went to that wasn't a populated by a higher race? Or is it merely the fact that in all his other surveys, Light just came down, did his census and moved on whereas he became stranded on Earth for a time? 

Who knows for sure exactly why. And that's what makes this form of plotting so beautiful. I can spend endless paragraphs just theorising over this one little point. Because, again, Platt doesn't explain more than he needs to. He, instead, just lets use our imaginations. And this, to me, is a great why to appreciate a storyline.

The other strongpoint in the writing is its tremendous sense of style. From beginning to end, we almost feel like where listening to poetry rather than dialogue. With tonnes of litterary references seeping through the script (my favourite being the least cultured of them all where the Doctor paraphrases Douglas Adams!) and a fantastic sense of wordplay which manages to resist becoming tedious. For example, mutliple puns are made using the word "Light" but it never quite gets shoved down our throats. To me, this shows that Platt never wanted to be completely pretentious with his writing. But he did want to show off just how good he is with words. 

Moving beyond the script, we see that gorgeous sense of style flowing into the production too. By keeping it all restrained to just a single location, fantastic work was done to make that location look absolutely authentic. Including, of course, an actual fully-functional lift built into the set. And production value is crucial in this tale. With a very moody and atmospheric script, you needed moody and atmospheric direction. And the blend here is seamless. 

Acting in this tale, as well as most of the stories in the last two seasons, is second-to-none. All the characters, as strange and absurd as some of them are, are portrayed with conviction and realism. Redvers Fenn Cooper being easilly the most enjoyable of the characters. But then, how can you resist a completely insane character who still ends up being a really nice guy who is pivotal in stopping the machinations of the chief villain? I mean, that's just great characterisation. But of equal importance, was the need to get an actor that would portray him with the subtlety and sensitivity that the part requires. And this was done perfectly. How horrible Redvers might have been in another actor's hands. 

Also, the characterisation being done with the two leads continues to work beautifully in Ghost Light. As much as we all love to go on about Rose and the Doctor, all that evolving (if you'll pardon the pun) interplay was also at work between the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor, by this point, had become more mysterious again - and this was a great move on behalf of the producer and script editor. But in developping that mysteriousness, it meant giving much greater attention to the background of the companion. And another layer of Ace is explored quite beautifully in the manor of Gabriel Chase. "Curse of Fenric" will still always be the best Ace story. But "Ghost Light" comes a close second. And it is sad that this whole mentorship between Doctor and companion was never allowed to reach its full conclusion. One hopes that, with the current development going on in Rose, this dynamic of a developing relationship (be it platonic or romantic) that we saw first with Doctor Seven and Ace will, at last, be explored to its fullest. Both Ace and the Doctor were very different from what they were like when they first met. And character growth in the leads of a T.V. series is a rare and precious gem. Glad we're getting more of it these days. But let it go on record that we saw it in Ace and the Doctor first. And several important elements of that growth are explored with great depth and sensitivity in Ghost Light. Making it just one more of the many strongpoints of this story.

There is much else to praise but I'll try restrain myself here and just go on about one more really good strongpoint: those gorgeous monologues. There's quite a few, of course. With Sly McCoy getting all the best ones. His abhorrence of burnt toast and the speech he gives to the cockroach are both written and delivered magnificiently. But the final speech that destroys Light is, quite naturally, the best. And though we see several examples with McCoy's Doctor "talking a villain to death" - this is one is my favourite. It is great the way the series used the very strength of the Doctor's words as a means of plot resolution. Making him the ultimate non-violent hero. Again, absolutely great stuff that, for me, brought the series out on a high note. 

Any actual complaints? Perhaps two very minor ones. Though I love the incidental music, I would also consider a bit more than just intrusive in places. It's downright oppressive! Making some lines of this beautiful dialogue completely indistinguishable. Even after multiple viewings. 

The other complaint being the McCoy gurn during the "I didn't get caught napping!" line. It's odd though, I'll watch the story and hate the gurn. But then, the next time I watch it - I think the gurn is perfect for that line. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, really. But the damned Sylvester McCoy gurn isn't so much a sore point for me as it is a point of mixed opinion! 

Aside from those two very slight quibbles, this story is magnificent. Still not quite in what I would label the "classic" category. But then, I have very few stories that I slot in that space. Still, "Ghost Light" comes pretty damned close. One can only hope that the series tries something this bold again someday. It needs another few seasons to really get some solid feet, of course. But once those roots are there - let's see another story like this come out that will both astound and confound its audience!

"Gridlock" ? at times very impressive, beautiful even, yet tainted with frustration and a sense of "what might have been".

I've read many reviews on Outpost Gallifrey in the last year or two, and only now have I found it necessary to add my own thoughts to the mix. I've not felt compelled to write a review before this and I'm still not sure what has encouraged it now. Suffice it to say that "Gridlock" had the hallmarks of being a great story, in the mould of say "The Impossible Planet" or "Father's Day", yet niggles which seem to have developed over the last season or so have dogged what could have been a firm favourite.

Let's start with the good points then. The obvious first one is the continued excellence of David Tennant. Someone recently wrote in the press that he's dangerously close to becoming the definitive Doctor, and I have to say I agree with this estimate. Tennant conveys each facet of the Doctor's personality with equal ease. The humour he displays at certain points through his interactions with even the minor characters he encounters in his quest to reach the fast lane is balanced with the anger he shows at the "mood sellers" encountered early on in the episode. Tennant is excellent at the anger. We've certainly moved on from the Sylvester McCoy days? Whereas Christopher Eccleston's Doctor seemed to use anger as his raison d'etre, Tennant's Doctor is more sparing here, the occasional outbursts seeming more effective than a permanent coil of what seemed to be the Ninth Doctor's resentment at his life. Of course this is probably best explained within the context of the overarching storyline. Eccleston's Doctor had witnessed first hand ? or so we are led to believe ? the Time War. The anger, profound shock and frustration built up seemed to be mixed with a fear that maybe the power to regenerate had been lost. Now that the Doctor has changed again, there seems to be a new found optimism that things are returning to the Doctor's favour ? he can regenerate, he can defeat villains and monsters and so on. But this is digression. David Tennant has tapped into the Doctor's character so successfully and so effectively blends all aspects of this together in what is such a powerhouse performance, that you tend to forget he had nine predecessors. You simply cannot take your eyes from the screen when he's on as there's always something happening ? he's an electric presence, and yet alien at the same time. I know how he does it ? good acting, but it's a revelation every week. I'm reminded of feeling like I'm back at school again watching Tom Baker ? it's very strange. I must admit to trepidation when I heard Tennant was succeeding Eccleston; I was hoping we'd finally get an old Doctor again, and I still think the late lamented Ian Richardson would have made a superb Doctor, but there you go! When you watch the final scenes of Gridlock, when the Doctor talks about Gallifrey, you almost physically see inside his head and gain some sense of wonder, sadness and loss. Was I the only viewer who thought, "hang on, he's going to cry"? A powerful moment, beautifully acted, and beautifully written by Russell T Davies.

Add to this Freema Agyeman's performance and you start to see, if you've not already done so, why this Doctor and companion work so well. She's extremely assured as Martha, and a superb foil for the Doctor. Agyeman's confidence shines through in every scene, and the different dynamic to the Tennant-Piper relationship is highlighted by her greater pragmatism. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I can't help feeling that her faith in the Doctor is going to be shattered by the end of the season ? is she going to react to the Daleks in much the same way as Tegan Jovanka did, or will she become a victim of the expected end of season revelations and be treated in the same way as Ace in "The Curse of Fenric"? (Look it up newbies?). It's early days though and Agyeman makes Martha such a likeable character that again, you tend to forget Rose? My only concern is that Russell T Davies might reintroduce the family again ? I wasn't keen on the Tylers, and I'm not sure the Joneses will be much better, but let's reserve judgment for now.

Perhaps the other excellent point in the episode was the use of music. I know Murray Gold comes in for a lot of criticism on this site for his "intrusive" music, but I think in this episode he seemed to get the balance right. I'm a massive fan of his theme arrangement - an orchestral version was long overdue ? and here the use of hymns was a beautiful counterpoint to the action, without being overly cloying. All right "Abide with Me" was perhaps a little obvious for the final monologue, but the arrangements were simply exquisite and fitted perfectly. The visuals and the music at the end of the episode were simply excellent, and show how far the show has progressed under the modern stewardship. Full marks also for the stand-out turn by Ardal O'Hanlon as Brannigan; although he was really Thermoman in a cat-suit, he's always likeable, and it would be good to see him return. I'm not sure what everyone else made of him, and perhaps he should have been given a greater role to play within the story, but that's the problem with trying to complete a story in 45 minutes.

And there's the problem in a nutshell. 45 minutes. I was OK until about an hour after the episode, until my subconscious came up, tapped me on the shoulder and said "But what about the Macra?" I'm sure I must have missed something ? and maybe I'll have to watch the repeat, but I'm certain the Doctor just saved the people trapped on the motorway and left the Macra to it! Five minutes to save the world ? let's do what we can seems to be the motto now. All right, maybe the lack of fumes from the traffic would mean the Macra would die anyway, but it seemed that this aspect of the story was rushed. No doubt I'll have started a flame war on these pages now from the forum writers telling me to concentrate, but that's life? Patrick Troughton's Doctor ? or any other Doctor ? would have made sure that the Macra were thoroughly removed. It might have taken four episodes to do it, but the job would be done. My concern here is the speed at which the current stories run. OK, we'll never have six episodes of corridor running, thank heaven, but I think one episode is too short a length for a number of stories, and Gridlock was a case in point. Some stories are perfectly suited to one episode, "The Idiot's Lantern" or "Father's Day" for example, whereas two episodes was a perfect length for "The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit". I just felt the balance was wrong here. It deserved a cliffhanger which would have allowed the action to move from the motorway to other parts of New York. A cliffhanger also allows of course for the dramatic possibility that the Doctor might not just throw a switch and win ? he might have to make sacrifices or really have to think about how best to defeat the monsters. The honour (and the great benefit for youngsters watching) is in the fact that sometimes it IS hard to defeat the enemies, but you grow stronger for doing so, and learn in the process. The Doctor shouldn't really be glib and be able to knock a solution up in five minutes.

Unfortunately I thought the re-introduction of the Macra was wasted. There was nothing really for the Doctor to "confront" as such ? villains or monsters always seem to work better when there's been the direct give-and-take between them and the Doctor. A faceless monster which had no interaction with the Doctor has only really worked a couple of times ? most notably in "Fury from the Deep", ironically again from the Troughton era. Much better perhaps to have reintroduced the Yeti or even the Ice Warriors?

The 45-minute format is too short I think to tell some of the stories which are being told. Far better I think for the production team to have the confidence now to push for 16 episode seasons, have say 6 double episodes with the occasional single episode story. So many of the stories written during the new series have deserved longer screen time, and I think that without being over-critical of Russell T Davies ? he who is the golden-egg laying goose ? his ideas deserve longer expression over two episodes. There are almost too many ideas competing for attention, and I think maybe an editorial re-think is needed. And if Russell's reading this, no-one has yet written a more tense half an hour in the new series yet than in "Bad Wolf" with Rose's supposed death and the reintroduction of the Daleks ? "We have your associate" is still the best line in the new series for me - written so well and delivered with such venom that it makes you feel 12 again, which is what it's all about.

Other negatives ? the nagging feeling to older viewers like me who barely struggled to escape the late 1980s episodes that it's all becoming a bit derivative. I know that's like saying the Grand National's derivative as it always uses the same course, but it's getting easier to spot the origins of each episode. "Gridlock" had a strong smell of "Paradise Towers" left on the shelf for just a bit too long, whereas I was thinking "It's the Unquiet Dead again" during "The Shakespeare Code". Let's have some more variety ? we're big enough and ugly enough to take it. We must cater for the younger viewers of course, and I know we're not going to get Chekhov at 7pm on a Saturday evening, but let's have a couple of real thrillers with some good cliffhangers, political thrillers, or a few more psychological dramas.
We're so nearly there. Just a few tweaks needed, and we can start talking seriously about Golden Ages?