At a key point in 'The Invisible Enemy' the Doctor discovers that cloning experiments first took place in the year 3922 (or some similarly far-flung date), a gentle reminder that recent advances in genetic science have come at us far quicker than could ever have been expected. That isn't to imply that 'The Invisible Enemy' explores cloning in any serious way: it doesn't. But it does demonstrate the wonderfully throw-away approach to science in Doctor Who stories, or what in Star Trek is called 'techno-babble'. But where Star Trek is quite earnest and serious in its approach to 'science', taking it all 'very seriously', Doctor Who stories often seem to fling 'real' science facts into the mix in the way you might fling chocolate chips into a dough mixture: you don't need to be precise, because all that really matters is that you don't forget to put them in. 

The reason 'The Invisible Enemy' is still entertaining is the combination of witty dialogue and eye-catching design. Tom Baker frequently proves to be the saving grace of Fourth Doctor stories, and here is no exception. Both the Doctor and Leela are served well by a script which is clever, slightly ironic, and full of good dialogue ("You megalomaniacs are all the same"), and save for a few dud lines (usually where the script is desperately trying to cover some distance in a short space of time with exposition from either Leela of the Swarm) Bob Baker and Dave Martin turned out a solid (if not classic) story.

However what stands out in 'The Invisible Enemy' is the time that appears to have gone into giving the story a distinctive look and atmosphere. A high-angle shot of the three infected astronauts in their space-suits, for example, succeeds in stretching the capabilities of a shot-on-video studio-based TV story into the realms of the filmic. 'The Invisible Enemy' isn't cinematic by any stretch of the imagination, but there are certain shots early on that leave a big impression. The cliff-hanger to episode one, the special effects shots at the very beginning of the story, and the model-shots of the eggs before they hatch, are all particularly effective. And other, smaller details shouldn't be ignored: the decals used in the moon base ('Oxygen' and 'Level 4X', etc.) have a pleasing future-retro feel, and Professor Marius' spectacles are wonderful.

There is a lot to like in 'The Invisible Enemy', and even though certain elements would make even the most hardy of viewers wince (the inside of the Doctor's brain, and the virus in it, for example, are far too tacky) overall it is a successful and enjoyable Doctor Who adventure.

The opening sequence of 'Four to Doomsday' is remarkably effective: an ominous and enigmatic score accompanies a series of panning and tracking shots of a dark, mysterious, and (presumably) gigantic spaceship; a tone both mysterious and threatening is established. The viewer (this viewer, at least) is not disappointed by what follows, for whatever the flaws of 'Four to Doomsday' it manages to work as an intriguing, textured, and sinister piece of science fiction. 

Although on a plot-only level 'Four to Doomsday' is a bit long, and a bit of a drag at times, it does succeed in telling a story tinged with engaging ideas and concepts. The first two cliff-hangers rely not on a terrible fate for the Doctor, but on a revelation: the drama for much of 'Four to Doomsday' is the discovery of more and more of the details of the science fiction set up. One theme which emerges from this SF set up is that of 'difference' and 'alienness': the themes split. Perception, and the different ways different people view 'others', is everywhere. There is Adric, in his usual, petulant self-important tone, making notably bigoted comments about what he sees as being the difference between men and women and girls. The whole premise of the plot is the fact that the spaceship is full of different cultures and races, collected from Earth at various points in history by the Urbankans. And although they are not fully developed, 'Four to Doomsday' touches on questions of how we define 'cultures', and whether it is possible that cultures can be recorded, and stored, and preserved in stasis. What the Urbankans fail to see is the speed with which culture changes: their ability to alter their appearance to become 'like' other cultures is flawed, because it does not allow for natural evolution and change, and also because it is only skin deep. Culture is more than just accent and clothing and native dances. 

On other levels, 'Four to Doomsday' is classic Doctor Who hokum. Questions of race, culture, and class aside, there is no doubt that the Urbankans neatly fill the role of the classic, unambiguous, atypical, nasty Doctor Who aliens we see so frequently, and hopefully will see more of soon! Monarch's eloquent, mannered, and 'civilized' English diction, rather than making him sympathetic, simply makes him more sinister, and more alien. There is a superb line during episode two (when Adric and Nyssa are suffocating) where Enlightenment notes that Adric and Nyssa "have lungs", and Monarch replies with sadistic pleasure: "Let them remember that." Chilling. 

Overall, deficiencies of plot aside (well, not 'deficiencies', as such'... there just isn't a lot happening), 'Four to Doomsday' is an entertaining story. And it has a brain. Recommended.

Doctor Who’s tenth season commenced with “The Three Doctors”, the official anniversary story. In many ways, however, the real anniversary story is “Planet Of The Daleks” – a nostalgic space romp with the Doctor’s most famous adversaries, an epic six-parter in the style of the Daleks’ 1960s stories. 

The Daleks entered the colour era with “Day Of The Daleks”, but their spectacle was much diminished as the BBC only had three Dalek props at their disposal, and story-wise they were obscured by the Controller and the guerrillas. “Planet of the Daleks” returns them to centre-stage, their domination of Spiridon recalling the almighty Dalek Empire of “Evil Of The Daleks” and the twelve Dalek props enhanced by the special guest appearance of the impressive Dalek Supreme. Their next TV serial, “Death To The Daleks”, would see the Daleks reduced to a small crew on the planet Exxilon, and after the introduction of their creator Davros in “Genesis Of The Daleks”, their plans for total domination became replaced by internalised power struggles. “Planet Of The Daleks” is the last time we see the creatures as a force to be reckoned with.

The story follows directly from “Frontier In Space”, although describing it as a sequel is pushing it a bit. The “Frontier”/”Planet” story arc was an attempt to echo the audacious twelve-parter “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, hence these two stories have been given the unofficial umbrella title, “The Master’s Dalek Plan”! The scene of Jo in the TARDIS with the unconscious Doctor are quite touching, as we have seen this partnership become very close since their first meeting, and foreshadows the third Doctor’s ‘death’ before the giant spiders the following year. More pertinently, the scene towards the end, when Jo considers Latep’s invitation to stay with him, is a nice build up to the events in the next story, “The Green Death”.

The jungles on Spiridon are among the most effective seen on the series – imagine how much better “Kinda” would have looked with a lush jungle set like this – and the plants that squirt fluid have the ‘yuk factor’ important to any Doctor Who story!

The story reintroduces the Thals, the Dalek’s enemies and fellow inhabitants of Skaro, whose ancestors appeared in the second story ever. The third Doctor’s era is one of the most continuity-free in the series’ history, and Jon Pertwee made the role so utterly his own it was easy to forget that there had been previous incumbents, and the references to the first Doctor, Ian and Barbara is a lovely touch, almost like being reminded about old friends. The Thals are well portrayed by the actors, considering that they do not have much personality, although Bernard Horsfall is excellent as Taron, particularly when the Doctor gives him his philosophical lecture about bravery, and when he has to strike a balance between his duty as a leader and his feelings for Rebec. Tim Preece as Codal also has some good moments, but Prentis Hancock’s headstrong Vaber is not much different from Salamar, his equally one-dimensional character in “Planet Of Evil.”

The highlight of the story is the chase sequences set in the Daleks’ city on Spiridon. Most of these take place in the episode, which only survives in black and white. In a way I’m glad about this, as the entrance to the Dalek city looks much more impressive in monochrome, and the steel corridors are reminiscent of “The Daleks” and “Power Of The Daleks”. As I said before, “Planet Of The Daleks” is an old-fashioned space romp, and scenes such as the attempt to escape from the Daleks by ascending the chimney with the canopy are more reminiscent of scenes from “Dalek Invasion Earth 2150 AD” or the Dalek comic strips of the 1960s!

The only problem with the story’s structure, apart from the fact that six parters are almost always very tiresome in one setting, and tend to feature a bit of padding towards the end, is that the Doctor, Jo and the Daleks spend too much of the story apart. One of the highlights of the third Doctor’s stories is Jon Pertwee’s wonderful interaction with Katy Manning, which had matured into a strong, believable friendship from the tutor/student friction of “Terror Of The Autons”. Nevertheless, Jo’s scenes with the invisible Wester are nice, although she does seem separate from the story for a bit too much of the serial. The story also lacks those wonderful Doctor/Dalek showdowns, which are always a highlight of Dalek stories, from Hartnell’s “Conquer the world, you poor pitiful creatures?” to McCoy’s “Unlimited rice pudding, et cetera”.

As mentioned earlier, there are Daleks aplenty in this story – although most of them appear to be immobile. This is a great improvement on “Day Of The Daleks”, and things brighten up (literally) in episode six with the appearance of the Dalek Supreme, a modified version of the impressive movie Daleks, although his lights flash out of sync with his dialogue, which is a bit distracting. The Daleks’ voices have been giving a grating quality and are a big improvement on their last story. The concept of an frozen army of thousands of Daleks also gives the story much of its epic quality, and the shots of the cave full of model Daleks is quite effective in suggesting the scale of this army.

After the Doctor gives the Thals a typically Doctorish lecture on war, the Doctor takes a homesick Jo back to Earth. But the viewer is left with a couple of tantalising loose ends. The Dalek Supreme escapes, knowing that they still have an army of the Daleks they can defrost at any moment. More importantly, we are no closer a resolution to “Frontier In Space”. What happened to the Master? How come we never hear from the Draconian Empire again? Surely both Draconia and Earth would be after the Master for trying to start a war between them, and you can just imagine the Doctor being dragged into it, caught between the two empires and his arch-enemy? Maybe one day someone will complete the trilogy?

I first acquired video technology in 1995, on a sunday morning. That afternoon I went to town and bought Resurrection of the Daleks, which I had long been wanting to do. This then was not only the first Dr Who video I ever bought, but the first video full stop. 

Watching it, I felt the same buzz of pleasure and excitement as I had back in 1984 when Resurrection was first aired. This is quite simply my favourite Dr Who story of all time. After the plain old silly Destiny of the Daleks some years previously, wherein the Daleks shouted a lot but were about as menacing as tins of corned beef, Resurrection was summat else again. These Daleks were vicious, menacing killers; behaving exactly as Daleks are supposed to but rarely do. They were also wonderfully irrational: dropping everything (one imagines) to go halfway across the galaxy to rescue Davros, simply to serve their own ends, and then deciding to exterminate him anyway. There is an extremely vague plan to invade Earth and an even vaguer one to depopulate Gallifrey's time lord population, but this is all good. If the Daleks here were seen as boringly logical and killing only one or two people (as portrayed many times in the past) then they would just be dull. 

The gradual massacre of the Space Station personnel, the use of chemical gas, the mutant Dalek scuttling around the warehouse, the Daleks having to rely (at first) on human Troopers, the shock revelation of the Dalek agent...I could go on and on but will instead confine myself to two extra points. 

First, Davros. This time I found the portrayal of him even better than in Genesis. Then, he was a cold, ruthless scientist who ranted occasionally. Now, a thousand and ninety years later (or whatever) he is utterly obsessed with revenge with his own Daleks, as willing to kill them as they are to kill him. His ability to defend himself now, and his shocked reaction to the Daleks' defeat and having to use human soldiers, are lasting memories for me. 

Then there is Lytton, a wonderfully compelling, ruthless character. Right from the off he is threatened with extermination by the Supreme Dalek, he clearly is less than willing to be working for them and yet he performs his duty with chilling efficiency. I think Lytton rates as the second best human baddie in the entire series ('second' best? Well, no one can beat the War Lord!). I think his becoming a good, or at least less bad, guy in Attack of the Cybermen to be rather inappropriate. A question though, if all this happened to the duplicate Lytton, is there a real one knocking about somewhere? 

So, a definite ten out of ten here. Resurrection is what Earthshock could have been like if all the supporting cast had been killed off. It increases the realism, the excitement. I'm glad this story went as far as it did, and if Sylvester McCoy and Pantomime were to threaten the show a few years down the line, then it came out just in time.

Everybody knows that The Talons of Weng-Chiang, broadcast in 1977, is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever created, but that doesn't mean that it isn't worth, once in a while, looking at it again and reminding ourselves of why it is so good. 

In fact, I hadn't seen it at all until the Christmas of 2001, when the video was given to me as a gift. When I watched it a second time today I was struck by how many of the little details I'd missed: little details which make it something you can watch and watch again. There are too many little things to mention, but they are everywhere: dialogue, set-dressing, looks, camera-angles. And they all compliment the big things. My favorite big thing is probably Litefoot. Trevor Baxter is given a script overflowing with Victorian cliches, but manages to produce a performance which plays on this, and doesn't get drowned by it. Litefoot is a Victorian oddity: quirky and unusual, but not a parody. Or, not a parody which turns the whole story into a farce. The whole of the story is like this: it is overflowing with cliches and Victorian silliness, but this doesn't destroy the ambience, ruin the tone. At no point does The Talons of Weng-Chiang feel as though it is over-treading the mark, turning its historical setting into a pastiche or a parody. 

And because the setting does, even now, successfully evoke the dark and moody atmosphere (literal and metaphorical) of a Victorian reality, the story transcends its 25 year vintage, as gripping and entertaining today, in 2002, as it was then. However far from reality the depiction of London may actually be, the BBC, 70s depiction, contains the sense and quality of being real, and it is this sense and quality that allows the viewer to become absorbed in the murk, and fog, and sinister machinations of the setting. Some of the best BBC costume dramas recreate an era perfectly, but fail to actually have the feeling and buzz of reality that is here. I never bored of looking at it, just watching scenes and shots: and sometimes on this level Doctor Who can be really boring. 

The story in Talons of Weng-Chiang isn't anything more elaborate or clever than any other Doctor Who story, really. It works, and does the job, but it is the execution of the story which makes the whole thing tick: the atmospheric evocation of time and place, the stunning control of sub-plots and all characters (there are no 'secondary' characters, because each of the performances is strong, and highly watchable), and the structuring of the narrative. Another thing about The Talons of Weng-Chiang is that it isn't flabby - lots and lots of things happen, and the whole story feels more like four episodes than six. 

And the Doctor. The Doctor is classic. Each and every line of his dialogue makes you want to rewind and listen to it again: the scene where the assassin misses the Doctor, and is killed by Leela, is quite simply one of the best moments in Doctor Who. Tom Baker was often very good, and often just went on auto-pilot, but here is he very definitely very good. 

So yes, without going on too much, yes The Talons of Weng-Chiang, broadcast in 1977, is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever made.

I was initially rather disappointed with this story when it first was on television, but with hindsight now regard it as one of the true classics of its time. The problem was that I was expecting another Logopolis type story, with a dramatic threat-to-the-universe type scenario as befitting a Doctor's regeneration tale. This rather sordid gun-running drama didn't, to me, seem really worthy to be the Fifth Doctor's final adventure; not for a Doctor who had been back to Event One, saved the universe on Terminus, faced Omega again, etc. Also, I was really, really wanting an old monster to appear for this final story - I love stories with old monsters so rather enjoyed Peter Davison's run - but there wasn't one. We saw tantalising glimpses of Sharaz Jek in part one - close ups of his mouth, eyes etc, and I was hoping that this would be some old foe from the Doctor's past, but alas.

However, what we are left with is still an action filled, tense and extremely exciting tale. I loved the fact that machine pistols were used by everyone and not some space laser guns; it made the thing more realistic and gritty. The characters were uniformly excellant - Jek, Chellack, Morgus, Stotz. Some of them were wonderfully evil throughout whilst others had evil more or less thrust upon them by being in a difficult situation at a difficult time. I particularly liked Salateen who, while being ruthless at least had a sense of fair play - he didn't do anything bad without a reason and also didn't hog all the credit for his and Peri's escape from Jek's headquarters. He was fair minded but ended up just as dead as everyone else.

All the episode endings were superb but the ending of episode one was a bit flat in comparison - we see a panel slide open in the back of the Doctor and Peri's cell moments before they are led to the firing squad, so this rather spoils things as we know that the doctor and peri do not face certain death. We don't yet know about Jek's ability to create replicas, but we now know that SOMETHING happened. If we hadn't seen that panel open beforehand the ending would have been much more spectacular, but as it is the suspense is spoiled somewhat.

Then, after a load of treachery, explosions, shootings and death, the Doctor regenerates after a typical act of noble sacrifice - beware of Trions carrying beautiful half-drowned American girls into one's Tardis the moment one's back is turned is I suppose the moral - but regenerates into what? Who is this new persona who is rather sharp with the bewildered Peri at the story's closing moments? That, as we all know, is another story.....