Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Douglas Adams just isn’t like other writers. A manic energy mixes with a dazzling imagination that skirts the edge of believability, carried by its natural verve; you might disagree with that, of course. As his first story, this has more claim to be television history than the average episode, and most of Adams’s later trademarks appear here in embryonic form. Watching The Pirate Planet for the first time is like being kicked in the balls by an insanely beautiful woman; it makes your eyes water at the time, but wait until your friends hear about it!

The opening scene takes no prisoners. Right from the start the viewer is hit with one of the strangest characters ever presented, a half-cybernetic (proto-Cyberman, really) space pirate yelling about devilstorms and sky-demons at the top of his voice, while the fawning Mr Fibuli lopes around like Igor. Can you imagine if Russell T. Davies had written this? I’d rather not. But it somehow works, because Adams’s writing style just floors the accelerator and sticks a massive two fingers up at detractors, and what happens next is up to you: either hold on, or get left behind. I love it, but I can appreciate the opposite view.

Opening TARDIS scenes are rarely very good, as without a plot to be talking about yet dialogue often falls flat. Tom Baker tries his best, but he’s fighting a losing battle with Mary Tamm on screen with him; she’s like a lightning rod that sucks all quality from the scene away and into the ground. However, the Doctor’s brilliant line of “I’m perfectly capable of admitting when I’m wrong, it’s just that this time I’m not” makes it worth watching.

We’re back on the bridge before too long though, and once you get over the shock of the Captain and start to think about him properly he becomes quite spooky; one of the strongest features of this story is the contrast between humour and serious moments that make the jokes funnier and the serious stuff darker. Just one thing though: the Captain is blatantly far more intelligent than Fibuli, so why does he need him at all?

Initially the Mentiads come across as quite atmospheric and distract from the fact the main city of Zanak seems to consist of about twelve people. However, their whole expressive dance routine becomes even sillier when presented alongside David Sibley’s pathetic acting; the guest cast is what really lets this story down, as only David Warwick as Kemas and Bruce Purchase as the Captain really put up a fight. It is a shame though that the characterisation of Kemas treads some very familiar ground as the iconoclast who breaks free of the social order and leads his people to freedom.

“This planet wasn’t here when I tried to land…” Now we’re getting somewhere. One of my favourite aspects of the original series is that the length and slow pace of the stories allows them to build up a sense of mystery, and this makes a good start with a planet not where it is supposed to be, with various precious stones just scattered about. This could be presented better though, as they are strewn rather strategically where the Doctor should have spotted them earlier. The scene where the Doctor is ignored by the locals is fun, but slightly odd when next time they all seem to be utterly terrified of him: the people of Zanak have this strange habit of changing their customs depending on the narrative requirement, although I could watch the scene of the citizen taking four jelly babies again and again.

The film-recorded shots of the Mentiads walking over the hills look great, which is handy since this is about all they do apart from that massive exposition scene in part three. It’s nice to see Baker so energetic too, as he uses the other wooden actors as a springboard to rescue scenes in danger of going under, such as the tedious soap-opera exchanges between Mula and Balaton. 

That Polyphase Avatron, although appropriate to the Captain in tone, is really pushing it but the special effects in the story are actually quite good and the idea of a robotic parrot is handled well, all things considered. The air car also looks quite good, although I do wish Mary Tamm would shut her mouth for once and the cars need a bit more effort to make them look like speedboats with some bits stuck on.

We’re almost halfway through the story now, and there’s been very little narrative progression since the initial mystery of the disappearance of Calufrax. This is what stops the story from being a classic: the plot is poorly paced and is released in short bursts after long gaps, which allows the tension and interest created by each little bit of exposition to dissipate. However, the Doctor’s line of “I save planets mostly, but this time I think I’ve arrived far, far too late” is brilliant.

The realisation that the Captain is the complete bitch of his pretty little nurse is a good moment of characterisation, and the Doctor’s message of advanced technology being vulnerable to a primitive attack makes a straightforward open-the-door problem an interesting scene. Kemas running on the spot looks stupid, although I do like the idea of an inertia-dampening tunnel and the special effect is very good.

That scar on the Doctor’s lip does look much more prominent on film, and the hasty piece of writing to excuse this that he bashes his face on the console doesn’t quite wash – especially since his injury is also clearly visible in the previous story The Ribos Operation. However, the engine room scene is fantastic as it really sets the story down a new path – we realise that the Captain’s blustering and the Doctor’s humour are all acts as the two men circle each other trying to outwit each other; this allows for the sillier moments to be forgiven. There is also a little bit more of plot that comes trickling through, but again the interest is lost since it is followed by a badly-handled generic shoot-out featuring guards that can’t shoot straight; the story’s fairly gentle mortality rate of 33.3% is confined pretty much entirely to the villains.

Once they hit the mines though, the revelation of the true nature of Zanak is outstanding; The Pirate Planet has probably the best core idea of any story that just about compensates for the disappointing way it is handled. The concept of entire worlds being wrecked to feed another planet is breathtaking, although Kemas’s routine of “verily, thou shalt be avenged” adds some unnecessary cheese.

I never really got the weirdness of K9 referring to the Doctor as “the Master” before. Did you?

The Captain’s cry of “with the Mentiaaaads!” puts me in mind of the guy in The Simpsons who screams “yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessss!” all the time. On this note though the story slows right down for a massive info dump partially designed to refresh viewers’ memories of the previous episode; it probably would have worked better if I watched this story on a week-by-week basis. Baker makes it interesting, but Tamm sounds like a patronising Blue Peter presenter.

The thought of Earth being in danger seems a bit tokenistic since by part three the audience already cares as much as it’s going to and in any case Earth doesn’t really sit well with this episode. It is followed by another exposition scene where the Captain explains what happens to Zanak’s prey – it is saved by a brilliant idea and also the performances of the two actors; the Captain’s line of “I come in here to dream of freedom” adds some good characterisation to boot.

K9 really gets to show off now, and if you don’t like that character (I don’t) then it’s not necessarily a good thing. Adams gets away with a lot, but a robot dog with a laser in its nose is a bad idea at the start and to pit it against a robot parrot with a laser in its, er, tail feathers sees him overdo it. That said, I can’t really fault the effects. Another great plot revelation follows that of Xanxia; since she’s supposed to be in stasis, the scene would work better if she kept still though. The cliffhanger is appalling largely through a lapse in Baker’s acting, although none of the cliffhangers of this story are particularly good.

The plot has really taken a while to come along, but it’s going strong in the final episode when the nurse’s true identity is revealed. The big sabotage scene amounts to little though apart from plugging stuff into other stuff and blowing it up, and there’s little I can think of to say about it apart from that whacking a console with a spanner is a bit simplistic for this story.

The death of Fibuli is poignant due to Purchase’s acting. However, the big technobabble resolution spoils things a bit since Adams really pushes his luck, and his writing does come across at times as rather smug. He does have the consideration to treat us to a good bit of pyrotechnics at the end though.

Really this is an average story, but the strength of its core idea warrants it being bumped up a grade making it the best of the Key to Time season. The Pirate Planet is a very strong story, but it speaks volumes that the best story of the season doesn’t get a maximum rating from me.

It's odd that I enjoy Malcolme Hulke's work as much I do. "The Silurians" and "War Games" are great stories. Whereas "The Sea Devils" is not a story I'm all that fond of and "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" is, pretty-well, one of the worst stories of the Pertwee era. So, even though he's written two pretty bad stories - he's probably my second favourite writer in the whole series (Robert Holmes being my, and probably your, all-time favourite).

So, with all these "peaks and valleys" in Malcolme's submissions to the show, where does "Colony In Space" fit in? Very nicely in the middle of things. 

It is a painfully pedestrian story. It's not so much full of padding as it is just moving very slowly in places. Which isn't an entirely bad thing. We get a lot of nice characterisation in these slower moments. Particularly with Jo's first few moments in the TARDIS and the Doctor's excitement at being able to travel again. A very rich scene and probably one of the best "companion enters the TARDIS for the first time" moments that the show has ever created. This carries on throughout the story as we meet various colonists and IMC men. All the characters are given nice chances to develop and we become connected to them because of those moments. As slow as they may sometimes be. Even the cantankerous old engineer who's always fixing up the generator is someone we feel close to - even though he's barely around for an episode. And his tragic death affects us all the more because of well Hulke writes his characters. 

Quite naturally enough, the actors that were cast in these roles latch on to the rich characterisations quite well and give us some great interpretations because of it. Although I feel the leader of the colonists and IMC turn in the best performances in this one. Especially Captain Dent. In the wrong hands, he could have been a totally over-the-top mustache-twirling villain. Instead, there's some gorgeous subtlety to his villainy. He has a very cool exterior that makes him seem all the more menacing. He's manipulative and mean-spiritted, but this is all kept very much below the surface and only displayed ever-so-slightly in the delivery of his dialogue. Even in his moment of triumph in the final episode, he tears down the map on the wall with one quick snatch and then returns to his calm state. Very well-portrayed. 

It's also interesting to note that this is one of the few Hulke stories were the lines between "good" and "evil" are very clearly drawn. With most of his scripts, we saw a lot of humanity on both sides and the bad guys aren't so much bad as they are "misguided". Not so here. Things are even a bit "stilted". Particularly in the way Hulke has the Doctor take the colonist's side so quickly. It's interesting note that his villains are, of course, very indicative of "big corporation mentality" and it makes me think that Hulke obviously has some issues with big business since these are the only "true villains" he's ever written into a story. Still, even in this characterisation of evil, he gives us Caldwell - an IMC man who eventually finds his conscience and does the right thing in the end.

Now, we get to the Master. 

Okay, yeah, the Time Lords give away in the opening scene that he's involved in this whole thing, but I like that it was done that way. Especially since we've almost completely forgotten about the scene by the time he makes his appearance. And the way his appearance is set up makes it a very nice surprise. Probably one of his better surprise appearances in the history of the show. And given how often the Master does this, that's saying something! 

Here's where I diverge alot on popular fan opinion: I don't generally like the Delgado Master much. Yes, Ainley's Master does some wildly inconsistent things now and again but so does this incarnation. And, at least in the case of Ainley's Master, we can see that extending his life artificially has made him a bit nutty and we can justify some of this behaviour. In the case of the Delgado Master, we don't have that excuse. Still, even though his recurring appearances are getting a bit tiresome this far into the season, Hulke does one of the best jobs of crafting the Doctor's arch rival. It seems a little of out of place for him to suddenly offer a partnership to the Doctor for universal domination but, otherwise, I find the portrayal very smooth and consistent. Very much the way this particular incarnation of the Master should be conveyed even though that's not what we always got in the Delgado Master stories. I particularly like the way Hulke gives us a genuine look into the Master's philosophy of life during the final episode as he speaks of "either leading or serving". Very much the sort of thing Hulke does with his characters. He allows us into their heads. So that, even if we don't agree with them, we, at least, understand them. 

So, apart from the story moving just a bit too slowly in places, I have very little complaints. Some of the props are a bit too silly like having a tear-away calendar in the far-flung future or an entertainment screen aboard the IMC vessel that has curtains that draw back. Or the way all the guns are old-fashioned rifles or machine guns. But, really, this sort of thing is far too commonplace in the classic series for it to really merit much objection. It's one of those things a fan learns to "look past" in their overall evaluation of a story. Cause if a few silly props are going to mar your enjoyment of a Doctor Who story then you're watching the wrong T.V. show! 

So, in the final evaluation, I find myself agreeing very much with the other reviewer of this story. "Colony" is very much a gem in this season whereas I too, think "the Daemons" is a huge load of manure. Maybe I should get in touch with this guy - we'd probably have some very interesting chats!

The Three Doctors is a load of old tat, according to conventional wisdom. However some people say the same about The Five Doctors and the entire Pertwee era. Personally I think it's a genuinely strong story. It has great characters and some of Doctor Who's best comedy... in all seriousness, I laughed more at The Three Doctors than I did at City of Death. Gellguards aside, what's not to like? Admittedly it looks silly, but we're Doctor Who fans. We should be able to see past that.

The reason to watch episodes 1-3 is the comedy between the regulars, who are fantastic. Dr Tyler and Sam Whatsit don't add much (although I loved Sam's last line at the end of episode four), but they don't matter. The Three Doctors knows who its stars are and cuts back everything else to maximise their screen time.

Troughton doesn't exactly underplay his role, but that wasn't his specialty in the 1960s either. The always-impressive Nicholas Courtney makes good lines look fantastic... this is famously the Brigadier's "I'm pretty sure that's Cromer" story, but somehow he actually avoids looking like an idiot. He's wrong, but for character-based reasons rather than plain stupidity. Nick Courtney gives us a man who's always found the Doctor trying but is now discovering that Troughton could give even Pertwee lessons in stretching your patience. The Doctors work together wonderfully, of course. Troughton and Pertwee were both masters of comic acting, while there's a freshness to their scenes since their Doctors had never previously had to operate in anything like this kind of relationship.

William Hartnell is okay. Sadly the poor man's condition meant that he had to read his lines off a cue card and only appear on a monitor, which simplified the plot but means that his Doctor has none of the force and power of which Hartnell was perfectly capable. He also looks strange on the TARDIS scanner. He's orange. He gets a good line or two, but as a performance it's pretty sad compared to his usual standards.

Benton makes a good companion, incidentally. Like Jo Grant, the character has an endearing "I may not be very bright but I'm doing my best" earnestness about him. I'm also glad that Richard Franklin took time off to direct a play, because Captain Yates was the one UNIT regular who hadn't met Troughton and he might have diluted the byplay.

The story's other big plus is Omega, who's a wonderful creation. I'm tempted to call him Doctor Who's finest villain, a Shakespearian figure of tragedy and complexity. The Master and often even Davros are simply evil. They appear in better stories than poor Omega, but they're rent-a-baddies who can be inserted into a random script and left to get on with their latest Plan For World Domination. However I wasn't kidding when I called Omega Shakespearian. He's like Prospero's deranged twin, if he'd been stranded on his island for ten million years. We feel his tragedy. He earns our sympathy even when we realise that he's become a ranting monster intent on destroying everything.

Omega's story is the most iconic in Doctor Who's mythology, but he's not just an eye-catching high concept. The character has depth and complexity too. Stephen Thorne manages to fit a surprising amount of naturalism into a performance that's necessarily full of declamation, theatricality and over-the-top ranting. Compare with Season Sixteen's godawful Pirate Captain for instance. You never doubt the power, grandeur and insanity of the man, but at the same time he feels real. His childishness extends beyond those temper tantrums. When he's thwarted, he almost cries! I love the way Stephen Thorne puts a crack in his voice at that point. I now want to rewatch Arc of Infinity, especially Davison's performance as Omega in its final episode, and those aren't words you'll hear too often. He even has a personification of the dark side of his mind! On top of that part four's revelation is a great SF twist, giving Omega yet another black irony.

The obvious comparison with The Three Doctors is The Wizard of Oz (but this time there really isn't a man behind the curtain, ho ho), but I'm going to suggest The Tempest. Both stories are about an exiled king-in-waiting who becomes a wizard and creates a magical storm to summon his usurpers to his island. Both are full of magic, or at least the Doctor Who technobabble equivalent. Both are more interested in character and theatricality than plot.

The Gallifrey scenes are okay. In episode one they're ghastly, pissing away any grandeur the story might have had with horrible technobabbly dialogue and po-faced uncomprehending delivery, but things improve in later episodes when we can see how much trouble they're in. Incidentally two of the three actors credited here as Time Lords had also played such parts previously. Clyde Pollitt was in The War Games and Graham Leaman was in Colony in Space. The better-known example of The Deadly Assassin's Chancellor Goth also being in The War Games was just a coincidence, Bernard Horsfall being one of David Maloney's favourite actors. All four of his Doctor Who roles were in Maloney-directed stories! However it seems clear that here Lennie Mayne was deliberately casting former Time Lords.

We see some minor traditions of multi-Doctor stories.

1 - Bessie will get teleported along with the 3rd Doctor.

2 - One of the Doctors will get trapped on a TV screen, thus freeing up story space for the others.

3 - It's always the latest incarnation who does the actual investigation. He's still the hero. His predecessors are just colourful guest stars.

I adore the Gellguards. The weird multicoloured blob is freaky enough to look effective, but the Gellguards are hilarious. You'd think you were watching a Graham Williams story. For a man who so obviously loves theatricality and impressive costumes, Omega has a mysterious tendency to make goofy monsters. Scarily the Ergon was an improvement! Admittedly the Gellguards look pretty in close-up, with the colours on that bubbly oil slick surface, but in motion... oh my. It's the way they bounce as they wobble forwards.

However on the plus side, the singularity technobabble makes sense! The laws of physics really do go peculiar at the heart of a black hole, so it's not unreasonable for Omega to be exploiting those peculiar properties... especially since those are the exact forces he'd harnessed aeons ago to create the Time Lords.

I also love part one's cliffhanger. The Doctors know what they have to do as soon as Hartnell tells them about the bridge, but they mess around with comedy coin-tossing and we think it's just a bit of fun... until Pertwee walks outside and LETS THE MONSTER EAT HIM.

The Doctor's exile being rescinded is a nice touch, but it would have been more meaningful if by then he hadn't had full control over the TARDIS anyway. Season Seven's production team played fair with the Doctor's exile, but by the time of The Time Monster the TARDIS was seemingly as free as a bird. Had they still been taking that seriously, the production team might have realised that they missed an opportunity in this story. Troughton presumably didn't have Pertwee's memory blocks. They could have had comedy with one Doctor being reliant on the other to fly his own TARDIS, or possibly even stealing back his knowledge of temporal physics through telepathic contact with his previous self.

Like The Five Doctors, this story is underrated. It looks and feels like glittery nonsense, but it has Omega, a great cast and some of Doctor Who's best comedy. Admittedly the story doesn't move quickly, but that was the format under Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts. Even the good Pertwee-era stories can be tortoise-like. Seriously, I was impressed.

I’ll not write off Barry Letts completely, because he did give us some good episodes, but in choosing the wack-a-thon of Robot to introduce Tom Baker he does create a sense that his production style, five years old now, is well past its prime. As for season twelve in general though, it’s cleanout time! With the chilling The Ark In Space, the surprisingly brutal The Sontaran Experiment and Genesis Of The Daleks back to back (like Genesis or not, it’s the most ambitious story since Inferno) you know there’s a new kid on the block. It’s testament to Philip Hinchcliffe shooting out the traps at ninety miles per hour that a quickie like this – commissioned by Letts, written by the often-mediocre Bob Baker and Dave Martin and featuring a middling monster that probably didn’t deserve a sequel – could turn out such a snappy little number.

To get it over with, yes, this is the only story to feature no interior scenes of any kind and yes, it’s all shot on videotape. This does make for an atmospheric story, as much due to the overcast Dartmoor landscape than anything else, although the videotape might have looked more eerily incongruous for location shots if it hadn’t been used for Robot the previous month. And I reckon it would have looked better on film anyway. Cheer up, Ed!

The opening scene is slightly twee as the TARDIS crew arrive, sans TARDIS, in a variety of amusing places: Sarah even lands on her bottom, haw haw haw! It does belie what’s to come later though, and it does seem rather unsettling on a second viewing. While the first episode isn’t the quickest-paced instalment you’re likely to see there is a lot to enjoy in it, a particular highlight being the excellent stunt fall as Harry tumbles down the pit. However, this does show up the slightly stiff direction from Rodney Bennett, whose slow and clinical pans and sweeps worked wonders in the claustrophobic corridors of The Ark In Space but are less well suited to the rolling expanse of Dartmoor.

This particularly hurts whenever the robot wobbles into view, looking like what an 18th Century servant might draw if you asked them what a clothes-line might look like in the year 2000.

From Sarah’s point of view there’s some very good mystery here, with the Doctor and Harry vanishing in succession; in that sense it’s a real shame that the viewer has to see what happens to them in advance, because it’d be a corker of a scene if we were as much in the dark as her. Instead it has to settle for being merely quite good, as we still get the benefit of the always-engaging Elizabeth Sladen creating a palpable sense of mounting panic. Roth’s panicky warning about “the thing in the rocks” is another attempt at creating atmosphere and mystery, but while worthy in itself it’s similarly abortive because the story pulls a Planet Of The Daleks on the viewer, in that it names the monster in the title and then expects us to be surprised when it turns up at the cliffhanger.

I can see the point of giving the characters accents, but in practice it’s very strange as it relies on the viewer sharing the attitude of the writers (that there should be accents in the first place), as well as being able to overlook the fact that other episodes set in a similar time period never bothered with this sort of thing and that their accents in practice are absolutely ridiculous – and some of the mannerisms aren’t much better, with the Doctor being called a freak (“fleak”) about three times. The immense charisma of Tom Baker helps a great deal though – and this only his second story – and all the characters are given consistently good dialogue by the writers. There’s an interesting theme of neo-Colonialism set up, where the colonists are so proud of what they’ve achieved that instead of working for the glory of the empire they seem to want to jettison their roots and establish their own; it’s a nice idea that deserves more time than it gets. On a slightly more lowbrow note, it’s funny watching Liz Sladen fight against the instinct to swear like a sergeant major when she slips over.

While we already know that the villain is going to turn out to be a Sontaran, and although I've criticised Rodney Bennett, the shot of him first emerging from his ship is very well done; rather than cheesily having him stride from his ship in a tight close up, he emerges out of the background without fanfare and is all the more dramatic for it. Styre’s redesign is an unfortunate necessity, as Kevin Lindsay was very ill and couldn't use the original one from The Time Warrior. I can let go the sacrifice of aesthetics for an undeniable practical reason; the only problem is Sarah’s insistence that he’s “identical,” which is a mile away. They could have recast the part but since the masks were specifically designed they still wouldn't be identical – but what counts is that the definitive Sontaran actor is still the one inside the costume and delivering the lines. The Sontarans are no longer the semi-ironic race that Robert Holmes invented, as represented by Linx; Styre is a brutal killer, and while there’s very little real violence in this episode parts of it are genuinely horrifying, which is not something that can normally be said about traditionally-lightweight two-parters.

The big flaw in this episode is that the entire plot makes no sense – if the Earth is uninhabited, surely Styre’s plan is self-defeating as the only resistance the invasion fleet are going to face is what they bring with them. This flaw is well-observed, appearing in virtually every review of The Sontaran Experiment, so I was pondering whether to mention it in all honesty; on the other hand, when it’s so glaring, how could I not? And to delay the entire plan because of four knackered old spacemen, too!

The big fight sequence is undermined by the necessary stunt-double for the injured Tom Baker, which leads to several scenes of the Doctor inexplicably holding his hand to his face and which really shows up the limits in Bennett’s direction again although, like I said, it would have looked better on film. Styre deflating is a rather peculiar effect, although very serviceable in its way – so all that’s left is for the Doctor to tell the invasion fleet to go away. And they do! If only it was always that simple, every story could be a two-parter. That’s it really – The Sontaran Experiment is the narrative equivalent of a jam in the conveyor belt, resulting in a slight delay between the two big stories of the season, Ark and Genesis.

But while it’s small and rather shallow, I quite like it. It’s misconceived, to the extent that its flaws can’t be overlooked, but it’s still well written, well made and an atmospheric and evocative episode. It speaks volumes for Philip Hinchcliffe that this story, low grade by his standards, would stand up as being among many other producers’ best work.

A highly unusual story. I remember "The Discontinuity Guide" stating that it almost seems like Terrence Dudley doesn't seem to know what it's like to write for Doctor Who. And, as I watched this story with this premise in mind, I found this notion not only plausible but highly effective. 

In the hands of a lot of other authors, "Four To Doomsday" would have resorted to many of the cliches an invasion story in Doctor Who uses. In fact, if we go back a few years to the early Tom Baker days, we have a story called "The Android Invasion" that runs along some somewhat similar lines. Except that, of course, "Four To Doomsday" is highly intelligent sci-fi and "Android Invasion" is a pretty big load of bunk! 

The greatest pitfall it assails that much of "cliche Who" has failed at is the characterisation of its main villain. Since JNT took the helm as producer in the previous season, we have seen many of the more megalomaniacal characters becoming more subdued and layered in stories like "Warriors Gate" and "Leisure Hive". This tradition continues in the characterisation of Monarch. He's very "plummy" both in dialogue and portrayal. And though, like all the maniacs in Who that are trying to take over the universe, his eventual true colours show in a complete disintegration of his personality - even this is handled with a great sense of finesse. Rather than subjecting us the OTT stuff we saw in the pre-JNT days - we get a very convincing and even three-dimensional character. And thanks to this characterisation, Monarch easilly rests in my memory as one of the better villains of the Davison era.

Counterpointing the very excellent Monarch is an equally-strong portrayal in the stereotypical "rebellious character that the Doctor allies himself with in order to take down the bad guy". Bigon is also very well-executed both on paper and in performance. He is ironically tragic as the atheist greek philosopher who has more soul than anyone else on the ship. His relationship with Monarch is also quite fascinating as the dictator allows him his existence because he sees him as a "moral galvaniser". Again, another convention we have seen in countless other stories, but Terrence Dudley gives us a whole new slant on the premise and makes this story thoroughly refreshing because of it.

Now we come to the TARDIS crew. This, in many ways, is their first "proper" story even though the current line-up has been around for two stories. Both those stories were spent dealing with the Doctor's regeneration and we really don't get much of a sense of what their relationships will be like since all the focus is on dealing with a crisis rather than genuinely inter-relating with each other. But, in this story, we definitely see what things will be like with Doctor Five at the helm. It's an awkward sort of muddle, really. Which isn't an entirely bad thing. We've only got one 20th-century human in the mix - the rest are all aliens. Thus creating a nice breeding ground for misinterpretation and even some hostility now and again. And with this new Doctor being a bit more meek like Troughton rather than assertive like Tom or Pertwee, we get even more soap opera drama between the crewmembers because he doesn't tend to "put the companions in their place" when they appear to be getting out of hand. Although this isn't always done quite so effectively in other stories of this season - I quite like how it's done here. And all the companions get fairly equal attention - something that, again, doesn't always go so well in future stories. 

I also enjoyed how, for once, Adric really did join the bad guy for a bit rather than just pretend to like he has in other stories. And the scene where the Doctor "strips him down" in episode four is well-realised. Showing that this latest incarnation can lack assertiveness sometimes, but still knows when to truly take a stand and not back down. And even though Davison is a bit "shaky" in places because this is his first story in filming order, much of what would become "definitive fifth Doctor" is in strong evidence here and he shows that the character is going to move in some wonderful new directions now that old Tom has been laid to rest once and for all. 

Accompanied with all this are some extremely gorgeous sets, a neat form of scanning equipment (the Monopticons) and some really well-choreographed dance sequences (did I just use "well-choreographed dance sequences" in a review of a Doctor Who story? Yes, yes I did). And, of course, the wonderful space walk sequence in episode four. Again, very cheap-looking by the North American standards I'm used to when watching T.V. - but still, a very exciting little moment. Especially with the way the Doctor uses the basic laws of inertia and a cricket ball to save the day! A very "Who-esque" moment if I ever saw one! 

However, along with this, we do get some plot loopholes and things do "sag" ever-so-slightly now and again cause there just doesn't seem quite an adequate amount of story to fill the four episodes. But these problems only weigh down the story so much. "Four To Doomsday", for its flaws, is also a triumph of style and sophistication. I might even go so far to say that it is a shining example of all that is good in 80s-style sci-fi. Not just in context of the series, but the genre in general. A bit of a hidden gem that is oftentimes overlooked just because the monsters aren't quite bug-eyed enough! 

Watch this one again and see just how well it has stood the test of time. It's outstanding stuff!

In comparison to the other stories involving the Doctor on Gallifrey, this one is the weakest of them all. And that's probably what causes it to leave such a bitter taste in most of fandomn's mouth. But if we view this story on its own merits, it's really not so bad. 

It's got a decent little plot structure to it. Two different events at very different locations eventually entwine in a somewhat clever way. Very stereotypical Davison era-type stuff. It's got an old villain coming back with a new twist to him. It's even got a nice foreign location that doesn't actually slow down the plot too much in order to show off that the crew went to a foreign location (sorry folks, but some of those scenes in "City Of Death" of walking and/or running through Paris could've stood a bit of trimming!). It's got quite a few nice things going for it. So why, then, does "Arc of Infinity" get panned as much as it does? 

For me, the biggest problem of this story is the techno-babble. There's just a bit too much of it, really. With barely enough explanation given to what all the babble actually means. For instance, we have all these vague references to molecular bonding with the Doctor. It almost sort of happens in Part One. It's what keeps the Doctor alive through Part Three. But then, suddenly, in Part Four, Omega just seems to do it all on his own. How exactly does that work? I suppose, with a bit of imagination, one could theorise that the bonding process needs the Doctor alive as a sort of "master copy" for Omega to work from. But it's never properly explained. And, though there have been some other stories where ideas where not given full explanations (ie: "Warriors Gate" or "Ghost Light"), this seems to come across more as lazy writing than creative effort. Now add to this seven or eight other "techno-babblic" ideas being thrown out all over the place and we really find ourselves wondering if perhaps Johnny Byrne just didn't feel like getting bogged down with too much of a real plot. And that, everytime he got stuck, he just came up with a pseudo-science of some sort in order to work around the problem. The "pulse loop" in episode four being a great example of this. We get the vaguest idea of how it works. But it really should have just been called "A piece of techno-babble I made up in order to get the Doctor off Gallifrey without Omega knowing". It would have been just as effective of a name. 

This problem persists throughout the story. No proper explanations get offered anywhere, really. How exactly did Omega gain control of the Matrix? Or the Arc of Infinity, for that matter? How was Hedin able to use Borussa's code to get the Doctor's bio-data extract? Again, we can fill in the gaps using our imaginations but when I find myself doing that as much as I do in this story, I can't help but think that maybe the writing is a bit weak instead. And this remains my biggest problem with this tale. 

Some weaker, more "niggly" negative points would be Gallifrey's new sense of interior design. Personally, I loved the way things looked in "Deadly Assassin" and "Invasion of Time" and though I can appreciate a need to "re-vamp" things slightly, they went a bit too far and made the interiors look far too radically different from what they used to look like. It's a minor point, I know. But it always "puts me off a bit" when I watch this story. 

My other minor complaint would be Borussa. In this incarnation, he doesn't seem at all like any of his predecessors or his successor. Is this the fault of the writing or the directing or the acting? I can't be sure. But, to me, this just doesn't seem like the Borussa we've seen before or after. Might have been better to just have an entirely different Lord President and have Borussa still on council. I know this could work to the detriment of "The Five Doctors" but it would have made it a bit easier, I think, for the fans to digest in this story. This just doesn't seem like the Borussa we know. Although, at least, his harsh decision to kill the Doctor heralds his growing sense of corruption. So, it's a bit of foreshadowing, I suppose. Mind you, I doubt this was done intentionally. 

Now, before I go too far into the criticism, there are some things about this story I like. Part Four is an especially strong episode. Yes, the chase scenes are somewhat gratuitous and show off the Amsterdam scenery quite a bit. But, at least, it remains an interesting chase. Different things happen along the way to keep us involved. Had it just been shot after shot of Omega running down a street and then the Doctor and his companions running down the same street a moment later, I would feel entirely different on the matter. But with all the different incidents happening along the way, the sequence seems justified. And even quite enjoyable. And, of course, Omega's stop at the organ grinder is very touching. Much praise has been given already to Davison for his portrayal of this moment, I'll heap on some more. It really seems as though this is not the same man we see chasing along after himself a moment later. And, though Doctor Five is not quite my favourite, I do consider Peter Davison to be probably the most talented actor to have taken on the role. And this moment is one of the more shining examples of his talent. Though there are many more...

The character of Omega, himself, is another really great strength to this story. Changing his appearance was not just good for plot expediency, it was very symbolic of who he had become. The ranting maniac of "The Three Doctors" was still buried deep within the character. But the tragic element of his tragic hero personality was played up one hundred percent. We almost can't really call him a villain. He's just a man who has become consumed with trying to get back home. And the obcession has made him so unreasonable that he's willing to abandon any morals he may have once had. The "poor unfortunate wretch" dialogue that's spoken after he passes on is truly befitting of our sentiment for him. We're glad to see the world saved but sad to see how the man threatening it was sacrificed. An excellent sense of pathos. I loved it. 

Overall, this story rises just a bit above mediocre - but not much. Which is another thing that works so much against it when you view it in context of the rest of this series. Not only is the weakest of all the "Gallifrey-bound" stories, but it was also the opener for the 20th anniversary season. And it causes the season to start off with a fizzle rather than a bang. Still, as I said before, view it on its own merits and it's not so bad. Even quite good, in places!