My interest in Doctor Who began after viewing the new series featuring Christopher Eccleston - and enjoying it I decided to look into the Classic Series and find out what the fuss was about - a year later and I'm a fan and have started collecting the BBC Worldwide DVD series, beginning with 'The Five Doctors' which I think - showing you Time Lord history, a look a the characters of the first five Doctors and many of the companions, as well as Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti and the Master - is possibly THE single best way to introduce a sprouting youngling Who fan to the world of classic Doctor Who - of course, like any Who story, it has flaws - but I think it works very well, as I will now demonstrate...

Like 'The Eight Doctors' Novel by Terrance Dicks, 'The Five Doctors' is a celebration of the years gone by, and you immediately sense that that is what you're about to be given when, before the titles roll, one of William Hartnell's most famous lines is given - 'One day I shall come back. Yes - I shall come back. Until then there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties - just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mind'...WEEEEWW-DIDDLY DUM, DIDDLE DUM...

First a look at the present TARDIS crew - the Fifth Doctor is my secondary favourite Doctor (Sylvester McCoy topping all others) and I was at first slightly sceptical of his boyish nature, and sometimes I even felt as though he sounded slightly camp, but as the story progressed I grew to admire him, until by the end I vowed to make sure that I would give him a fairly bulky slot in my Who DVD Collection (at the present he has the highest percentage). As companions go it was rather shaky - for some reason, try as I might, I can't seem to come to like Tegan at all, her loud mouth attitude putting me off from the word go. Turlough is a lot more calm and relaxed (maybe it was due to the Eye of Orion's positive bombardments, I don't know) and carried an air of respectability around with him.

The basic plot is very straightforward - a sinister looking figure made up of black gloves and arms which waves over Eighties futuristic equipment is using a shimmering triangle to carry the Doctor's incarnations and place them in the middle of a sinister arena known as the Death Zone on the Time Lord planet Gallifrey - in the heart is the legendary Dark Tower, tomb of Rassillon - "the greatest single figure in Time Lord history"[The Second Doctor]. Also the villain has placed many of the Doctor's past companions in there too, which leads me to something that has always got under my skin when it comes to the Five Doctors - the scene when Sarah Jane falls down a ledge and the Third Doctor rescues her by pulling her up with a rope and Bessie - can it be called a ledge? Ah yes, Pertwee rescued Sladen valiantly from the horizontal slope! Not only does she obviously force herself to role down the hill, but surely she could have climbed back up on foot without needing any help from a rope-pull! To be honest Sarah Jane has never been my favourite companion and I fail to see what the fans see in her so much. Anyway, a look at the past Doctors...

The First Doctor was a real let down. According to the inner leaflet of the DVD it states that Hurndall's interpretation of Hartnell's character is excellent - to be honest this grumpy old pensioner had cleanly cemented his place in 'my worst Doctor so far' category. But then I hear great praise of William Hartnell, and watch clips of his era, and find him to be a very likeable Doctor and he is slowly climbing up the ranks. The Second Doctor made a highly entertaining debut into my experience of him. Although he is, I have heard, very different in the multi-doctor stories to his own era, I still find him to be a very fun and amusing little man - particularly when he is reciting an old Gallifreyan poem to himself, [Brigadier] "Are you in pain, Doctor?" [Second Doctor] "Age has not mellowed you has it, Brigadier?" In fact the whole way through, the endless humour exchanged between both the Doctor and the Brigadier is priceless. Moving on to the Third Doctor, I've never been a fan of Pertwee to this day. Being one of the all-time great Doctors, I was very let down by his overall character. There's very little in the way of humour, so from my earliest memories of watching clips from the Pertwee era he didn't seem to lighten the mood and I always found his stories to be particularly chilling. However, 'The Five Doctors' is very much the three Doctors, with the Fifth Doctor working behind the scenes in the Capitol, because, expecting an epic with five Doctors all together in one big adventure, the Fourth Doctor merely gets a sluggish rowing scene with Romana in a boat and that's it - wasn't impressed.

As regards to the villains - the Dalek's appearance was far too short for my liking and didn't create the slightest feeling of tension of fear at all, as was the case with the Yeti. The Cybermen had a lot more to do, but even they didn't seem at all powerful or fearful although the scene with the Raston Warrior Robot [obviously a man in a suit] slaughtering them all was particularly good. Finally, the Master's little story here works well - for most of the story I was led to believe that he was the evil traitor, and his constant failings to be accepted by the Doctors brings him in the end to turn on them and try and gain immortality for himself.

But the highlight of 'The Five Doctors' for me is when that panel opens up revealing the dark room. The Fifth Doctor steps through, and after an adventure of Daleks, Cybermen and Doctors, you get reminded of that weird room with all those models of the Doctor and that eery music kicks in once again - brilliant.

Overall, I find 'The Five Doctors' to be an excellent celebration and introduction for Doctor Who and works very well.

A bit of the "odd man out" in the notorious Season 22. 

A kinder, gentler story in this very morbid and "noir" season. The Doctor is a bit more approachable. The storyline, simpler. And the general tone of the whole tale is considerably less dark than the other stories surrounding it. This made quite a bit of fandom happy since a lot of folks aren't happy with the direction most of Season 22 went in. 

But now, here's where I differ from most of you. I loved what Season 22 did. I know I could be very alone in that sentiment, but I really enjoyed the whole anti-hero nature of the Doctor and all the strange, off-beat violence and the general sense experimentalism at work throughout the season. So, does this mean I despise "Mark of the Rani" for going against the grain? 

Meh. It's an okay story.

It's got a couple of really big flaws to it that have been attacked and lambasted several million times over by fandom. The tree saving Peri, the Master offering no real explanation for surviving "Planet Of Fire" and several other moments like that. There are even some flaws to it that bothered me that didn't seem to bother anyone else. For instance, the attack on the Doctor in the first part where the three recently-converted Luddites are trying to shove him "down pit" looks horrendously fake. Watch really careful, by the way, at the bad editing. One of the Luddites falls into the pit - only to re-appear a moment later! 

But none of these flaws are quite enough, in my book, to genuinely "kill" this story. They lessen its effectiveness a bit, but they don't turn it into a genuine "stinker". I do feel, however, that there is a genuine flaw to the overall "flow" of the plot that does cause it to lose some of its impact. I'll explain it in a moment. First, I'll heap on some praise where praise is due. 

Pip and Jane Baker, for all their overblown dialogue, do offer an excellent first script. Based on this tale alone, I can see why they were re-commissioned as writers. And, for my money, what they did in Trial of a Time Lord was pretty good too (but that's a whole other review!). 

The greatest strength to this story is how they set up the Doctor/Master/Rani dynamics. To me, the very high-handed vocabulary even suits them (they're Time Lords, they'd use big words with each other!). The banter between the three of them as they reach the cliffhanger is just a whole lot of fun to watch and is probably one of the most memorable moments of Season 22. I really like how these scenes are executed. 

The biggest problem, to me, that arises is that the Master/Rani/Doctor confrontation is the high point of the story. But we still have another forty minutes or so to get through in the next part. And though there are some nice moments in the second half of Mark of the Rani, it never quite "measures up" to what we got in the first half. Thus making the whole thing a tad on the anti-climactic side. This is the greatest flaw to this story. We get all the really good stuff far too early. I suppose it couldn't be avoided in some ways. A second, drawn-out three-way confrontation between the Rani, the Doctor and the Master would've seemed too forced. Perhaps, then, it would have been better to have kept the first encounter short and then given us a bigger one later. 

This doesn't mean, of course, that the second half of the story is totally bad. We still have some nice little moments. The excursion into the Rani's gorgeous TARDIS interior being highly memorable. And the Doctor almost "losing his cool" and being tempted to use the Tissue Compressor on his two rivals is also quite riveting. But, overall, most of the bang for my buck is done as the cliffhanger rolls up. 

Still, the story does score some extra points by having a very different "feel" to it. As much as I enjoyed the nature of Season 22, I'm even more impressed with the fact that they stuck something so radically different in the middle of it. I also find the Master to be at his all-time creepiest in this story. All those moody shots of him just skulking about were so well-achieved. Yes, he's psychologically imbalanced and, therefore, not half the man Delgado was. But that was the whole point of the Ainley Master. He was living on borrowed time and this was having a drastic effect on his sanity. And his nuttiness is played up quite effectively in this tale. Making him genuinely scary rather than just comical. Like "Ultimate Foe", having the Master take a bit of a backseat in this tale was actually a great move for his character. He could really focus on just being sinister and nasty rather than having to propel the plot a whole lot. 

So, in the final analysis, this is a fairly passable tale. Overshadowed quite a bit by some of the other offerings of Season 22, but still a nice little break from all the sombreness. Even if said sombreness is greatly enjoyed by this reviewer!

Still not sure, exactly, why Pip and Jane are so maligned by fandomn. 

Okay, "Time and the Rani" was pretty bad in spots (though still not half as bad as some of the other "duds" the series has produced now and again), but their other submissions to the series are actually quite strong. And, in all honesty, I can see why JNT turned to them as often as he did during this highly tumultous time. The bottom line is, they're fairly solid writers. 

And "Terror of the Vervoids" is a pretty good example of this. Even though it's probably my least favourite story in the Trial of a Time Lord season, it's still a damned good one.

Okay, the dialogue is a bit overblown in places and we practically need a thesaurus in order to follow along with some of the dialogue. But I can think of plenty of authors who do this in Who. It's actually part of what I like about the show. It has seriously enriched my vocabulary over the years because the scriptwriters weren't afraid to give the actors some real mouthfuls sometimes. So, really, to bitch about Pip and Jane doing this is pretty silly. I could find you some pretty overblown stuff from the great Robert Holmes without having to look too hard. So let's get off the poor Bakers' back about it, already, okay? 

Now, rather than address the sillines of fandomn's tastes, let's get into the story proper. It's a nice little premise, of course and the parallells between it and "Murder On the Orient Express" are obvious enough (and I'm pretty sure we all got it without the shot of the book sitting on the table but it was still nice touch). The characters are also well-suited to a murder mystery premise. Although I did find the actual execution by the actors playing Lasky and Rudge to be a bit "off". Honor Blackman just doesn't seem to have the prescence of her "dragon lady" personae "down" right. And I feel that Rudge needed to, perhaps, "bumble" a bit more to convey that he's a bit on the incompetent side. Although, once he shows his true colours, I did feel his performance improved.

The direction of the storyline works pretty good, overall, and Chris Clough does a good job with what he's given (which he does in all the stories he directed). Even with the budget increased because of the episodes being reduced, the classic series was still never given enough money to achieve all the proper visuals. So Clough is smart enough to not dwell too hard on certain sequences whereas he puts a nice chunk of the budget into that opening shot of the Hyperion III and gives us a very nice first impression of the third case in the trial because of that shot. He also put some nice work into the Vervoid costumes (even if we do see a jumpsuit or two) and their death sequence looked quite impressive. I'm still not exactly sure how he got all those leaves to turn colours at once! 

The biggest drawback that I feel this story suffers from is one that happened in a few mid-80s Who tales. There are, perhaps, just a few too many plot strands going on here. We've got murder, hijacking and killer plants all weaving in and out of each other a bit too much at once. It's just a bit on the prepostorous side to have so much going on in the plot and it stretches credulity a tad too far because of it. Although, in its defense, too much plot is always better than too little. But still, I just find it hard to believe that so much can happen on just one flight of a ship! But that's really my biggest gripe.

There are, of course, some silly inconsistencies like the whole "key upside down" sequence but they're hardly worth getting "up in arms" about. Sillier things have happened in a Who story. And some of the clever things like the Mogarian translator not switching on makes up for any of these smaller problems quite nicely.

The trial going on outside of the Hyperion storyline is getting quite interesting by this point. We now see that the Doctor definitely believes the Matrix is being falsified and even suspects who's up to it. And the charge being changed at the end of the final episode is a nice little twist and a good way to finish the whole story off with a bit of a bang. Some very well-achieved scenes. But then, I loved the trial scenes throughout this season so it's a bit of a bias, really! 

So, not a whole lot of problems with this story in my book. A bit too "busy" plot-wise and a few minor problems with some of the acting but this really is another fairly well-told story from Pip and Jane Bakers' pen. So, once again, gang: What is the big problem with the Bakers? I think they did the show quite good, overall.

The time is ripe for reappraising the 1996 TVM. It's no longer our Last Hope For The Future, but no less importantly it's no longer The End. Doctor Who survived, thanks to Russell T. Davies. These days, the TVM is that oddity from 1996 that writes out Sylvester McCoy between Survival and Rose. We can fit it into a greater context and hopefully see it more level-headedly.

I always kinda liked it, but watching it in sequence with its neighbouring Who stories was an eye-opener. It's not very good, is it? There's a lot to like in the production, but the script is bollocks. In fact it's the most incoherent gibberish ever to get through the Doctor Who TV production process, which is no small claim. The first half-hour is an extended epilogue to the McCoy era, albeit a charming one, with the real story only beginning once the Doctor and the Master have their new bodies. The Doctor decides he needs a MacGuffin (the beryllium clock - WHY???) and the world gets destroyed and saved by screenwriter whim. I nearly said technobbable, but we're not even given that much. Matthew Jacobs has some strange ideas about time machines, but what's more thought them so self-explanatory that justification was unnecessary. You'd have to tie your brain in knots to explain what happened. It's not beyond the wit of fan, but I'd sooner try to rationalise UNIT dating.

Russell T. Davies had a go at redeeming it in Boom Town and The Parting of the Ways, though.

It's interesting in a continuity context. Some of the 8th Doctor's traits were foreshadowed under Cartmel. The 7th Doctor mentions his family in Curse of Fenric and leaves notes for himself in Battlefield, which although it's a much lesser cheat could be seen as leading up to the TVM's (mis)use of time travel. Furthermore, McGann's kisses now seem to lead in to the Eccleston era, e.g. The Doctor Dances. The TVM even has our last mention of Gallifrey before the Time War, in a respectful homage that's a more fitting farewell than the messy Trial of a Time Lord.

However the Master being tried and executed on Skaro, to be taken back to Gallifrey? Huh? Whassat? Russell T. Davies's Time War can be interpolated into Dalek stories from Genesis onwards, and the TVM adds a further perspective to that. Dunno what it means, though!

Despite everything, I'm still fond of the TVM. It cares about its characters and works its little socks off to give them snappy scenes and a good joke or two. Its heart is in the right place, even if its brain isn't. "Half-human" indeed. It's amiable and good-natured. Most importantly, it feels like the work of someone who loves Doctor Who, rather than someone who thinks the show was a bit crap and needed more ass-kicking and macho one-liners.

It gets the Doctor right. He's compassionate, whimsical and Doctorish, with some wonderful moments ("I'll shoot myself" or "these shoes: they fit perfectly"). Back in 1996 we were full of praise for Paul McGann, but I'm inclined to give more credit to the script. The actor's having fun, but I came away with a stronger impression of Matthew Jacobs's Doctor than I did of the actor's. Probably McGann's most distinctive moment is the bit near the end where he's showing off at the TARDIS console. Curiously his performance spoke to me more of the Earth Arc Doctor than the "hello birds, hello sky" congenital idiot of the early 8DAs. His cold, pale eyes make him feel remote and distant. I'm thinking particularly of his unreadable expression as he looks back at Grace from the TARDIS doors before disappearing at the end.

In contrast, Sylvester McCoy gets hung out to dry! Lunatics have called it his best performance as the Doctor. Bollocks is it. The script gives him nothing to play with. There's nothing wrong with him here and McCoy gets to demonstrate his forte of physical acting, but it could be seen as a flaw that this movie's lead character is almost entirely passive and silent until he dies. Eccleston's first two minutes in the role gave him more to do.

Daphne Ashbrook holds the film together as Grace. If she hadn't been so strong and vivid, this would have been well-nigh unwatchable. Yee Jee Tso is also fun, but for me the star of the show is Eric Roberts. He may be camping it up somewhat, but how exactly is that inappropriate for the Master? Don't try to tell me that Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley were never tongue-in-cheek. I might have liked this Master to be scarier, e.g. when killing Chang Lee, but Roberts is clearly having a ball and he's always fun to watch. He has charm and wit, which are important. I love his ad-libs and comedy byplay in the ambulance, for instance. His banter with Chang Lee always makes me chuckle.

Seriously, the Roberts Master may have his critics but things could have been much worse. Consider his shades. Sunglasses are great if you want to look imposing and impassive (e.g. the Terminator), but fortunately Roberts chose to play against them instead of relying on them. Imagine the Master being played as an American Schwarzenegger wannabe in black leather and shades, then shudder. I also enjoy watching the Master's gradual disintegration, from "I had trouble with the walking and the talking" all the way to becoming Dracula destroyed by sunlight. As an aside, no classic series story ever painted him more clearly as the anti-Doctor, with their personal stories paralleled at every point (resurrected together, acquiring new companions together, etc.).

On a production level, obviously the TVM is stunning. The "Oh My God" console room is still my all-time favourite, beating the Eccleston version by virtue of being so damn beautiful. Geoffrey Sax's direction is wonderful, with at least one sequence (the Doctor's regeneration intercut with clips from James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein and scored with a heartbeat) that's worth the entry price all by itself. Ooooh, that's good. Admittedly I cringe at Fat Comedy Guy's "Oh My God" shortly afterwards, but you can't have everything.

The incidental music is terrific all round, in fact. In what's surely a first for the show, three people get an "Incidental Music" credit. At its best it complements the visuals as well as anything we'd ever seen, though I'm not wild about the new arrangement of the theme music. It sounds nice and I like the twinkly piano bit, but it treats Ron Grainer's original as just another tune to be scored for an orchestra. The results are too melodious. It's just another American TV theme, not haunting or wailing. The trumpet section needs shooting, and as for the very end of the closing titles...

Interestingly not only do all four lead characters die and get reborn, but so does the whole world! You can't accuse them of not following through on their theme of resurrection and rebirth.

I like the resonances and ironies in the story. For example it's not bullets that kill the 7th Doctor, but simply being an alien among humans. I enjoy the religious imagery too. The kisses make me roll my eyes, but they don't matter. In 1996 Doctor Who fell into the hands of Americans and the results may not have been perfect, but Jean-Marc Lofficier's The Nth Doctor showed that things could have been much, much worse. It's a bit stupid, but charming.

Doctor Who’s fifth season will forever be remembered for the debut of two new sets of monsters – The Ice Warriors, who would show up in the next story, and the Yeti. “The Abominable Snowmen” was such a big hit with the viewing public that a sequel for later in the season was immediately commissioned, and whilst many don’t reckon this six-parter to be quite as good as it’s moody sequel, “The Web of Fear,” this story is still one of Troughton’s best and is a fantastic introduction to the Great Intelligence and their monstrous servants. Being the first story of fifth production block, this serial was afforded the luxury – still rare at this point in the series’ history – of a week’s location filming, which took place in Snowdonia, North Wales, at the start of September 1967. In the existing episode and the telesnaps from this story, the location footage looks superb on screen – the money really shows!

“There’s a great deal of difference between the Highlands and the Himalayas, Jamie” 

“Aye. They’re bigger.”

The first few episodes of the serial are slow moving, but nevertheless compelling. The surviving second episode (available on the Lost in Time DVD) probably isn’t the best showcase for the story, as the episode is bogged down for long periods in the Detsen Monastery, but even so the slow build-up allows the audience time to really get to know the characters, and they are a particularly fascinating bunch! Travers, the explorer, is played by Jack Watling (Deborah Watling’s father) who brings a lot of weight to the role and Krisong (Norman Jones), is also especially memorable as the warrior monk who takes an instant dislike to the Doctor and his companions. The serial follows the tried-and-tested plot formula where the Doctor is initially suspected of wrongdoing and then eventually earns the trust of the people who initially suspect him, and although it has been done time after time throughout the series it never works better than it does here. To see the Doctor finally win over Travers, Krisong and the monks is wonderful to watch.

Unfortunately much of the story has little dialogue and is therefore difficult to enjoy on audio alone. Moreover, a lot of the gags are purely visual – for example, the Doctor and Victoria mistake the Doctor for a “hairy beastie” early on, as does Professor Travers, who initially thinks that the Doctor may have attacked him (when in fact it was a Yeti.) Fortunately, when listened to in synch with the telesnaps one can follow the story far easier – my DIY reconstruction just about does the job!

Jamie has a great story, even by his high standards, and is at the heart of most of the action. One of my strongest memories of the Terrance Dicks’ Target novelisation that I read years and years ago is the underlying humour in the story, and Jamie is at the centre of most of that too. Along with the Doctor, the pair of them have some immortal one-liners: “They came to get their ball back”; “Bung a rock at it”; need I go on? Victoria, however, demonstrates exactly why she has the reputation as the helpless ‘screaming young girl’ companion. She does strike out on her own for a large chunk of the story – in the fourth episode, for example, it is Victoria that discovers that the High Lama Padmasambhava is possessed by the Great Intelligence – but even so she spends far too much time running around and screaming for my liking! 

The last half of the story is much more action packed than the beginning. The Yeti rampage through the Abbey; the Doctor confronts what is left of his old friend, Padmasambhava; and we are treated to an explosive ending that sees the Doctor immobilise the Yeti, but only at great cost. Songsten, Krisong, Padmasambhava, scores of monks… all lost. Despite the tremendous loss of life though, the story still manages to end with another lovely little moment of comedy, with Jamie declaring that he wants to go somewhere ‘warmer’ next time – blissfully unaware that he is on course for the second ice age! – and Travers discovering a real Yeti, a shy and timid creature!

“The Dominators” is a story which sadly, by today’s standards has aged pretty badly. The Dulcian’s outfits have to be some of the most ridiculous costumes ever seen in Doctor Who, and poor Wendy Padbury spends her first proper story as a companion stuck in one of them! Even the Quarks, which tend to be remembered rather fondly in fan circles (and recently were nostalgically mentioned in the Big Finish audio drama, “Flip-Flop”) are at best amusing – they certainly aren’t any sort of convincing threat. The two Dominators themselves are the best thing about the story; their costumes are almost respectable (which helps) but more importantly they are entertaining villains. I really enjoyed their constant bickering; the subordinate Dominator’s blood lust and his commander’s more rational, focused attitude clash splendidly and make for some good drama, especially in the final episode.

Renowned ‘Yeti’ creators Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln requested that their names be taken off this story after Derrick Sherwin had finished script-editing it. This serial certainly isn’t a patch on “The Abominable Snowmen” or “The Web of Fear”; but a few pacing issues aside, Sherwin can’t be blamed for what is basically a very bland storyline. The plot is good vs evil at its most basic. The Dulcians are pacifists – so annoyingly so that the viewer almost wants the Dominators to win! – and the Dominators are warmongers, plain and simple. They plan to fire rockets down bore holes, causing an eruption of the molten core of Dulkis turning the planet into a radioactive mass - fuel for their space fleet. Admittedly, it’s not quite as bad as it sounds – the utter cruelty of the Dominators combined with some very amusing performances from Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines give the story a bit a life, but at the end of the day it is hardly classic Doctor Who. The story’s greatest triumph (except maybe the Doctor using the sonic screwdriver as a flamethrower!) is the writers having Jamie save the day, only to be ridiculed by his disbelieving companions!

“Jamie! It’s a brilliant plan! I just can’t see how you could have come up with it!”

After five episodes, “The Dominators” mercifully ends on a surprisingly effective cliff-hanger; a volcanic eruption on the island engulfing the TARDIS, leading directly into a much, much better Doctor Who serial…