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!

Earthshock is one of the most dramatic and exciting stories the original series ever put out, and yet it makes a fatal mistake: where The Caves Of Androzani tempered its thrills with fleshed-out characters and an engaging story, this seems to think that action and dramatic tension are all that are needed for a good story. While they certainly don’t hurt when done right (and they are, with Peter Grimwade at the helm), they just aren’t enough by themselves.

For the first episode though it’s possible to enjoy the story simply on its own terms and in that sense it’s a corker, all about atmosphere and dramatic tension; the caves are well lit – although they never escape the studio-set feel – and the shots of the androids slinking around in the darkness are some of the most iconic visuals of the Davison era, and rightly so. They look so good that at this stage it’s easy to dismiss how little sense they make to the plot (more on that later).

The opening TARDIS scene isn’t great, but they rarely were in this period anyway. This time, as well as the usual charmless “performance” from Matthew Waterhouse we have to contend with an explosion of continuity, with I think six previous stories alluded to either visually or by word within a few minutes. In faint mitigation none of them would have been overly obscure to viewers of the time, but that isn’t really the problem: the scene, with the Doctor and Adric having a blazing row, is a rather heavy-handed attempt at foreshadowing the future events of the story. This would have passed unnoticed with viewers at the time, which is very telling: this story relies on surprise and tension for the entirety of its power, and is therefore held back by the simple fact that it’s no longer March 1982. Buying the story on DVD, with its cover art of a Cyberman and a wistful-looking Adric, sucks the wind right out of its sails. However, it is refreshing to see Davison unusually authoritative here.

Back in the caves, and another spadeload of atmosphere arrives with the flaring scanner. Critical of the TARDIS scenes I may be, but it’s difficult not to like the rest of the first episode. The androids’ killings are all the more affecting for happening off-screen, and melting the humans down is a good scary touch – it’s only the way the androids manage to leave their victims’ name badges intact that detract from their believability. Unfortunately we also have to put up with the fossil scene, where the knowledge of the story’s ending makes it seem like very unsophisticated storytelling and a throwback to the Hartnell years’ preoccupation with teaching people basic facts.

The confrontation between Scott and the Doctor is tense and exciting, even though it shows up how basic the characterisation is with the butch soldier shoving round the vulnerable Doctor. It’s followed though by an amazingly shot action sequence, with only the barber’s-pole laser beam special effects failing the test of time. The cliffhanger is another example of Grimwade’s directorial mastery (how can someone so knowledgeable about how to construct the show have such a stupid idea as Time-Flight?) but also serves to represent how the story sabotages itself. Why, for example, do the Cybermen use the androids to guard their hatch if they’re “too valuable to waste”? Since there are apparently 15,000 Cybermen on board the freighter, why not send two of them? There isn’t really a satisfactory answer to that since the androids have no plot function at all; they are simply a narrative device to delay revealing the Cybermen and to construct the cliffhanger. The first time round the sheer shock of the sight of the Cybermen would have been enough, the story’s failure to hold water makes it hard to believe it in the cold light of subsequent viewings.

On the subject of the Cybermen, these new ones are fairly impressive; although they were never as good as they were in the Troughton era, these certainly beat the pretenders from Revenge Of The Cybermen. Unfortunately, they are rather misconceived as characters and while David Banks undoubtedly gives a good performance the impassioned dialogue he is given misses the point of the Cybermen – especially since their lack of emotions is something that will later be afforded some prominence in the script.

The Doctor manages to defeat the androids with logic, which shows some real and convincing thought put into how to resolve this problem; sadly, as far as Earthshock goes this is an exception rather than a rule.

One thing I’ve noticed is that this story, for much of its duration, allows the viewer to be streets ahead of the Doctor, who doesn’t find out about the Cybermen until the end of part three. This is something of a double-edged sword as while it adds to the tension of waiting for the Doctor to work out the problem for himself it also takes away any sense of mystery that might have remained beyond the first episode. However, this criticism pales when compared to the masterpiece of suspense that is the Doctor’s attempt to deactivate the bomb, and it isn’t until the action transfers to the freighter that the story’s limitations begin to detract from it in a really meaningful way.

The replay of clips from previous episodes is fannish; unlike the similar (and longer) one in Mawdryn Undead this doesn’t have the excuse of being necessary to the characters experiencing it, as the Cyberleader knows about it already and its lieutenant doesn’t particularly need to know.

The crew of the freighter are, like most of the guest cast, well acted. However, they are also an equally clichйd bunch of characters in writing terms: grizzled, blue-collar space-bums, just like 90% of all spaceship crews since Alien came out three years earlier. The exception to that is Beryl Reid as the captain, one of the weirdest pieces of casting the programme has ever had (and yes, I’ll repeat the age-old assertion that she is indeed brilliant). This helps though, as the science-fiction dialogue is so po-faced in these sequences that without Reid it would quickly sound silly. In this context, Berger sounds ironic telling Ringway not to be so earnest. However, it is this seriousness that lends the second cliffhanger its impact, even if Alec Sabin plays the campest security guard who ever lived.

The third episode features the Cyberleader’s order that the Doctor “must suffer for our past defeats”, the line that almost single-handedly removes all the credibility that the Cybermen ever had, going completely against the whole idea of the Cybermen; this wouldn’t be so bad if elsewhere Saward didn’t try to engage with this concept. Their mass activation is a brilliant sequence though helped immensely by the music, which is unusual as elsewhere in the series Malcolm Clarke wrote a whole lot of rubbish.

It’s dispiriting to see the Cybermen’s weakness to gold, one of the programme’s very worst ideas, wheeled out again; and to add insult to injury there’s the contrivance of having Adric’s badge made of the stuff. Also, there’s the inconsistency of the Doctor explaining how gold kills Cybermen by suffocating them, and then two minutes later telling Berger that they don’t need air.

The Cyberman becoming stuck in the door is a great scene in visual terms but overly technobabbly; it seems that every great moment of production has some shaky piece of writing to cancel it out. There’s an unusual lapse in production when the Cybermen blow the door in one of the least spectacular explosions ever recorded, and this also highlights yet another deficiency in the writing: why didn’t the Cybermen just blow the doors in in the first place? The story is so light on proper storytelling that moments like this – and also the way the bomb has to be deactivated by the Doctor twice – really feel like ways of procrastinating and killing time until the hundred minutes are up.

The Cyberleader’s comment that “it [“fondness”] is a word like any other – and so is “destruction”, which is what we are going to do to that planet” is of the show’s clunkiest lines, and the cliffhanger is no more exciting or dramatic than anything else that’s happened in the preceding twenty-five minutes. This is turning out to be such a negative review that I should point out that the story is never really bad, but just massively flawed, and it’s a crying shame that something that initially had so much promise can have fallen so far by the third episode.

The killing of Kyle is an early sign of the violence that Eric Saward became notorious for; Nyssa acts all upset, but the scene isn’t really about emotions – it’s a cheap way of writing out a character who’s ceased to have any real function since part one and has spent the intervening time stuck in the TARDIS whining about things. It is this cynical attitude to violence that, scaled up, would make Resurrection Of The Daleks one of the most depressing episodes of all time, but since in this story it happens in isolation it’s not so bad and on the whole the story’s high mortality rate (not including Adric, who is a special case) of over 71% seems fairly appropriate to it.

The “emotions” debate is unusually preachy but helped by being a genuine exchange between the Doctor and the Cyberleader rather than being one big speech. What completely ruins it though is how blatantly emotional the Cyberleader is: when it claims that “these things are irrelevant” it sounds, paradoxically, genuinely disgusted.

The Cybermen’s machinery sending the freighter back in time is a contrivance of monumental proportions, and Adric’s death – while another superbly made sequence, as Peter Grimwade can do no wrong as a director – is let down by advance knowledge of it since the foreshadowing of it, including the “goodbye” scene, feels inconsistent with the idea of a shock twist. The Cyberleader’s death though is satisfyingly brutal, although I can’t help but wonder if a theoretically emotionless creature should evoke such a response in the viewer. This is followed finally by the silent credits, television’s equivalent of removing its hat. Many have criticised it; in principal I can live with it, although Adric is such an unpopular character that it sometimes feels like a mickeytake.

Despite being the best colour Cyberman story, Earthshock is a major disappointment – not because it’s bad, but because it had so much potential which it squandered. I can see why it was so successful the first time around, but equally – despite remaining the traditionally popular episode of season nineteen – it’s right and proper that in the years to come it would take a severe blow from Kinda. While it’s thrills and tension dazzle the viewer on first viewing, it cuts too many corners to really hold up afterwards. I would compare this to Rose in that, when taken out of the context of its original broadcast, it’s enjoyment value is severely limited.

Not quite my favourite Davison story, but pretty damned close...

The strongest impact this story has is not-so-much its atmosphere, but its pace. One would not even necessarily describe that pace as breakneck. It has its moments of respite and rest (particularly as locations change from caves to spaceship) but the way in which this plot moves implies that something really big and really bad is going to happen by the time we reach the conclusion. And though the atmosphere of the plot also implies this, the pace or flow of the story conveys this just as, if not more, effectively. Which, to me, indicates some very gifted writing and direction on the part of the people who made this adventure. And yes, even with some of these "plot holes" that fans go on endlessly about, I'll still compliment the writer! This is some very solid storytelling. I may even be bold enough to say some of the best I've seen in the series. 

Earthshock certainly stands out in my memory as being exceptional in many ways. Its first episode, to me, is an excellent example of how to create some genuinely spine-tingling suspense with a shoe-string budget. Dress up a couple of extras in some black bodysuits, get the rest of the cast to wear some nice helmets with lights on them and then set up a "scanner device" that's just a screen with some cheap-looking blips on them. This should, to all intents, get some laughs from any discerning audience. But, again, the direction makes it all very creepy and downright disturbing (that shot where one of the soldiers finds a fizzled pile of goo with the name tag on it being exceptionally memorable). Only near the end of the episode, where the soldiers start firing and we must contend with some somewhat bad-looking post-editing effects, does the low budget seem evident. Otherwise, my suspension of disbelief during that entire episode is complete. 

But it's not entirely uncommon for a Doctor Who story to have an excellent first episode and then fall apart. So how does the rest of the story fare? Again, the pacing in this tale is magnificient. The bomb defusion sequence - which could have come across as blatant padding - instead maintains some excellent suspense. Whilst, at the same time, we get a brief Cybermen re-cap since we haven't seen these particular baddies in quite some time. And, by the way, if you think real hard, it's not hard to get the whole flashback sequence to fit in chronologically. I just assume that these neomorphic Cybermen are time travellers from after "Attack of the Cybermen" who are now going back in time to deliberately meddle with history. So, they can see a sequence from "Revenge of the Cybermen" because they are from a time that takes place afterwards and are deliberately going back in time to stop the events of that particular story from actually happening (it also gets the whole time travelling/decoder paradox to work a bit better at the end of the story).

And then, we move to the spaceship. Again, great work with using so little. A few symetrically-stacked cylinders, some nice model-work interspersed within the sequences and now we have another great creepy sequence where we know most of the humans involved are doomed to die at the hands of these merciless silver giants. Great stuff.

Next, we have episode three. The pace really starts to pick up now. The Cyber-army is unleashed. The battle sequences, though still a bit cheap-looking in spots, are magnificently created. The Cybermen seem truly mighty as most weapons seem entirely useless against them. Even Adric's gold badge will only do so much damage. The bridge-defending sequence creates another highly memorable image as the Cyberman breaking through gets frozen into the door. Gorgeous stuff. Done so effectively by just having a camera pan back really hard and fast! There's still so little to genuinely complain about here. And, upon my first viewing of this tale, I was so completely caught up in it. Even as episode three closes with a somewhat lack-lustre cliff-hanger, it seems impossible for Episode Four to go wrong.

And it doesn't. A great debate between Doctor and Cyberleader regarding emotions (a fantastic performance, in general, from both Banks and Davison in this story - they are both at their best here). Some super-creepy claustrophobic stuff where the Cybermen seem to be swarming about like a colony of ants aboard the spaceship (love that bit where Tegan keeps trying to avoid them in the halls and then finally gets grabbed from behind as she fiddles with her gun). And, finally, an absolutely stunning climax. Some of the most intense drama I've ever seen on the show. I had to pick my jaw off the floor as the absolutely bone-chillingly silent credits ran across the screen with Adric's mathematical badge lying in shards. This was not just 80s Who at its best. It was Who at it's best, period. There was nothing that could get me to hate this story. Even a few plotholes that were almost inconsequential anyway! 

I was a somewhat new fan as I watched this particular adventure. And this worked greatly to my advantage. For one thing, I had no idea that companions could die in the series. So my shock was two-fold as Adric crashed into the Earth at the end. And my emotional attachment to the story was almost self-contradictory by this point. I want Adric to be saved, of course. But I don't want Earth history to change either. And it was great to find myself so betwixt myself at the climax of the story. 

I also didn't know who the Cybermen were yet. This was my first experience with them. And, for my money, they couldn't have made a better first impression. Yes, it does not seem to make sense that they claim to be emotionless and then display sadism and pride in abundancy. But, to me, this somehow seems to work in this story. Though such a formula didn't work so well in other stories both before and after Earthshock and I can also see how wonderful the portrayal of the old Hartnell/Troughton Cybermen is, the way the Cybermen are treated in this particular tale agrees with me. I can't even necessarily say why it does, but it was this story that actually put the Cybermen down as my personal all-time favourite monsters. That's right, I even like them better than Daleks. If nothing else, they can climb stairs a whole lot more easily! 

But the strongest point of this story, for me, is that it still gives me nightmares now and again. I started watching Who when I was about fourteen (I'm Canadian, so it's not asserted into our culture like it is in Britain. We have to almost discover this series and we oftentimes don't do that til our teens) By that age, I was pretty familiar with the differences between big-budget and low-budget productions. And when something looked low-budget - it could do nothing to scare me. But this story, due to its clever use of doing so much with so little, effectively disturbed me. So much so, that it has crept into my Id and I still find myself, now and again, caught up in a dream sequence where I am trying to take flight through these dark metalic hallways with nasty Cybermen lurking around every corner waiting to grab me. That, to me, is the strongest testament to this story. Not only is it highly engaging to watch, it could also genuinely creeped me out to the point of having nightmares.

"Kinda" is still my all-time favourite Davison story. But this one comes a very close second!

Peter Grimwade’s three scripts for Doctor Who are all commendably ambitious. He was always a better director than he was a writer though and it’s only really on Mawdryn Undead that this ambition actually translates into a coherent story, even if it’s only coherent relative to stories like Time-Flight, which is a bit like watching a rabbit trip over its own ears. On the whole, while never quite escaping his tendency to overreach himself, Grimwade serves up a very enjoyable story in Mawdryn Undead.

Some things are notable right from the start, such as the sheer anachronism of the school, presenting us with the kind of peculiar kids you could imagine say things like “yah” and have names like Chipper Jones and Tubby McGee. I’m not sure if they actually do wear straw boater hats or if my memory is just playing tricks on me, but it’s that sort of thing. With this and a reference to the cane, it’s easy to forget that this is supposed to take place in 1983 and I wonder if contemporary audiences found this is odd as I do. It does provide us with Turlough though, possibly the best companion of the 1980s after Romana, since Mark Strickson has the enviable talent of presenting ham in a credible manner, the kind that Anthony Ainley could only dream about. It’s amusing how the producer jettisoned portraying him being of schoolboy age more or less from the instant he leaves the school, and it’s also an innovative idea to have a companion spend three stories secretly plotting to kill the Doctor.

Without knowing anything about the character at this early stage though, the episode gets off to a rather less than likeable start with Paddy Kingsland’s ridiculous score and Peter Moffatt’s purely functional direction, but the crash soon comes along to make things more interesting – even if it is shot as a comedy scene, with the car veering off screen to an accompanying sound-effect. It introduces Valentine Dyall, who excels in more or less the only role available to him. He’s restricted as an actor since his booming voice is only really suitable for quasi-deities, but he works very well within his limited range. 

The fact that he’s here at all does raise the issue of continuity, but I can say that I saw this story years before I saw anything of season 16 and I never had a problem with it. If continuity is a problem in this story, it’s more through sheer quantity than anything else. The story certainly wears its continuity on its sleeves, with references to the previous story Snakedance (I know it only transmitted a week earlier, but is all the technobabble really necessary?), the Guardians, the Zero Room, UNIT and the Brigadier, copious ex-companions, Time Lord mythology – and of course the flashback scene, which I’ll come to in due course. It just about manages to succeed through keeping most of these references fairly unobtrusive (apart from the Brigadier, but he’s well known enough for it not to matter); it’s only in Arc Of Infinity that continuity is actually seriously detrimental at any point this season.

Episode one concerns itself with atmosphere through imagery such as the obelisk, the communicator device and the transmat capsule. With this, the large amount of location shooting and the pleasantly-designed spaceship, this is one of the better looking stories of the period. Once the TARDIS lands there the mystery starts to build, with the three-millennia journey and mysteriously missing capsule, but the enigmatic idea starts to falter as the Doctor’s investigations are largely reduced to pushing buttons and going “a-ha!”. It’s still enjoyable though, and there are plenty of gruesome ideas present about the dangers of transmat capsules. The cliffhanger to the first episode is serviceable enough, but the kind of thing that would get rather tired after three stories where writers had to continually come up with reasons for Turlough not to kill the Doctor.

The Brigadier’s amnesia serves as an excuse for the fannish-but-sweet flashbacks, and I have to acknowledge enjoying seeing clips from The Web Of Fear, Terror Of The Zygons et al for a moment. This episode is where the plot really begins to take off now, as two different strands set six years apart advance the story in tandem; it’s an awesome context and considering how complex it is there are remarkably few plot holes – apart from the infamous controversy over the dates, but it’s not so bad if you judge the episode on its own terms instead of comparing it to something said in an episode dated ten years previously, and to put things in perspective there are no disembodies heads stuck in paving stones anywhere to be seen in this story. Another feature of the plot is that it requires so much concentration that it distracts from some of the story’s slight weaknesses, such as the way the plot comes at the expense of just about everything else – the opposite problem to the new series, where it’s characterisation that takes away from the plot.

Mawdryn’s blackened and charred body is about as graphic and grisly as Doctor Who ever got, and his make-up is also impressive; it would all count for naught if David Collings wasn’t a great actor, but as The Robots Of Death proved there’s nothing to worry about on that front. There’s a less obtrusive nod to the past having him wear Tom Baker’s coat, and the cliffhanger where we see his true form for the first time is genuinely startling.

Going into the third episode, there’s a huge amount of exposition. This isn’t necessarily a problem as generally it’s well done and interesting enough to remain engaging, although lines like “activate sequential regression” do show up the weaker elements of the script. There is a “reverse the polarity” in-joke to be found, which does add a welcome lighter touch. It has all the elements of a bad story – but the sheer imagination of the central concept elevates it to a far higher level. The concept of the two Brigadiers meeting briefly sees the Doctor and the Black Guardian working towards the same ends, which brings home the seriousness of the problem.

The concept of immortality is extremely evocative, but the cliffhanger is let down because Peter Davison struggles with high drama and because so little actually happens in this episode that there’s little to say about it. You just have to keep concentrating on it.

There’s more running about in the fourth episode, which never causes the episode to really sink – but Grimwade does fall into the usual trap of getting tangled in the complexities of what he’s writing. This is contrasted shockingly with some gruesome make-up for Tegan and Nyssa’s ageing scene, which seriously freaked me out as a kid. The Doctor is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for them, which is consistent with his characterisation; his willingness to help the innocent victims throws his refusal to help the mutants into relief. The resolution is a bit contrived, but the Doctor’s comment about the level of coincidence in events (a reference to the Black Guardian) takes the edge off it.

Considering that it’s little more than a great slab of exposition with a dollop of continuity on top, Mawdryn Undead does remarkably well for itself. As usual for Peter Grimwade there’s a feeling that it could be much more if it didn’t aim too high for its own good, but its sheer imagination and verve takes what is fundamentally an average story and elevates it.

My conscience is clear... but the Presidium will find my actions treasonable.

What is there to say about The Caves of Androzani that hasn't already been said at least a dozen times before? It's great, it's brilliant, it's dark, it's gritty, it managed to give Peter Davison cold feet about leaving Doctor Who and arguably was a factor behind his decision to go back for the Big Finish audios...

But I honestly don't look at Caves and think Doctor Who. I look at Caves and see a crossover between Doctor Who and Blake's 7. Of course, there was another one - The Sun Makers, also by Robert Holmes, but also made before the first episode of Blake's 7 was filmed, let alone screened.

Like Blake's 7, Caves shows a universe full of utter bastards with nice lines in wit who as likely to insult you as shoot you in the back. Androzani Minor could be any planet in B7, a barren quarry with caves filled with trigger-happy troopers, native monsters and amusing-looking androids. The army is fighting a small band of rebels lead by 'an evil renegade', and Sharaz Jek does kind of resemble a mixture of Roj Blake and Kerr Avon - a sinister bloke in black leather who obsesses about a woman he hardly knows and is fighting a wide-scale war against his society more out of revenge than ideology. Morgus resembles Servalan in many ways (bar, obviously, gender and fashion sense): a high-placed official in a plush office, already with great power over their world and prepared to kill and murder their way until they are more powerful than the President. And like Servalan, Morgus is deposed and left on the run trying to locate the key to restoring their position - in the former, it's the spaceship Liberator, in the latter, it's a stock of pure Spectrox. And like Blake's 7, the story ends with most of the guest cast dead and no interest in what will happen to society following this adventure. Androzani Major may flourish or collapse, and the regulars have no interest in it, either way.

But it is B7 with its small good humor ripped away. While Stotz and Krelper's bitching recalls the repartee between Avon and Vila, Stotz has no real camaraderie with Krelper, evidence by the loud and uncomfortable scene where he beats Krelper up, holds him over a cliff, slashes at his face with a knife and throws a cyanide capsule down his throat. The rebels in Blake's 7 were at least attempting to fight something more corrupt and evil than they were - on Androzani Minor, everyone is ironically on the same side, but still determined to wipe each other out. Morgus runs the army, Morgus runs Stotz and the gun runners, and Sharaz Jek is thus dependent on his hated enemy who has masterminded this entire war in order for him to stay rich and profitable.

Of course, it's around this point we say The Caves of Androzani is the fifth Doctor's finest hour. Well, it's true, isn't it? I believe Davison's Doctor has quite a few good hours, but this still beats out in quality. For the first episode or so, it's as though Davison is playing the fourth Doctor. You can easily imagine Tom Baker casually wandering through the caves, baiting Chellak, and all the while doing that wonderful expression of his grin collapsing into a grimace as he realizes what a horrible place this is. But the desperation the Doctor develops upon learning he is dead meat is definitely playing to Davison's strengths. The third episode cliffhanger with the Doctor simultaneously threatened by a bullet to the head, a fatal crash-landing and Spectrox Toxaemia is justly famous for its tension. But when seen in context, after the rest of the fifth Doctor's era, and the cliffhanger gets even better.

When I reviewed Planet of Fire I noticed that the new, tougher fifth Doctor has developed a 'I don't have time for this' attitude when it comes to his companions, enemies and the universe in general. Caves takes this and cranks this up to eleven. While the end of the first episode has the Doctor as usual trying to understand this situation and work out what's going on, by the end of the second he has no time for the politics of the Androzani twins. When he sees Morgus and realizes who is really in control of this 'pathetic local war', he loses all interest. He doesn't care, he's got Peri to worry about and he's not going to let juggling the big picture and the little picture lose him his friend.

It can't be argued the Doctor has not been that successful with his companions. Although Adric sacrificed himself nobly trying to save a world of people he'd never met (for a species he regularly found annoying), he ultimately died for nothing and the Doctor couldn't save him. When Nyssa left the Doctor, it wasn't because she had found a place she wanted to live and enjoy herself, it was because she was faced with a problem so big the Doctor wasn't prepared to hang around in fix so she refused to go with him. The Doctor could easily feel proud of Nyssa's compassion and bravery, it's not the happy ending she deserved and the Doctor obviously felt he should provide. Turlough seems to decide to quit the TARDIS the moment the Doctor snaps at him that he's had enough of the Trion's secrecy, and was prepared to face arrest, exile, maybe even execution rather continuing traveling with the Time Lord. Kamelion was killed by the Doctor himself, fatally wounding the android and then crushing the poor thing. And Tegan, of course, ran out on the Doctor when she saw him pick up a gun and prepare to commit cold-blooded murder - and ironically changed her mind at the last moment, even though she never found out the Doctor didn't kill Davros. Even in the comic strips, the Doctor was unlucky with friends. Sir Justin in The Tides of Time sacrifices himself for something, but the Doctor shouldn't have let it get that far. In The Moderator, Gus Goodman was killed defending the Doctor, and died with the miserable realization he'd never get home - all because the Doctor was sarky to a giant cane toad.

Ultimately, Big Finish's decision to put a whole season between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani is uncomfortable to put it mildly. Caves is clearly set a very short time after Planet and why not? Robert Holmes was hardly writing the scripts with the proviso in twenty years time missing audio adventures were being recorded. Also, just putting Erimem in there ruins the feel. Unless she also leaves the Doctor on bad terms, it shoots the whole point of Caves through the head. The Doctor HAS to save Peri because he has spectacularly failed to save any other companion. But if Erimem does suffer this fate, it makes the Doctor and Peri suspiciously cheerful at the start of this story. Damned either way, really, but the audios definitely remove the poignancy of the Doctor dying saving the life of someone he's only known for a few days.The Caves of Androzani also manages what Resurrection of the Daleks failed at - that is, it puts the Doctor on the sidelines of action but still makes him vital to the plot. This is one hell of a difficult trick, so there's no shame in failing at it. Shame in stupidly trying it again and again, though.

The Doctor manages to meet every character bar Timmin, and has a domino effect on those around him. If he didn't visit Androzani Minor, Stotz wouldn't have lost his consignment of arms, Sharaz Jek would never have seen Peri, Salateen wouldn't have been able to escape and thus the whole balance of power would have remained the same. Yet while the Doctor's mere presence (and that of Peri) causes the whole adventure to happen, no one's interested in him in anything other than target practice - they just have different reasons for doing so. Morgus wants the Doctor dead because he's probably a spy; Chellak wants the Doctor dead first because he's ordered and then because he thinks he's a traitor; Sharaz Jek wants the Doctor dead because he's annoying and irritating; Stotz wants the Doctor dead because he might be a scapegoat and the gun runner is something of a sadist; Krelper wants the Doctor dead because he likes killing people and the Doctor's survived so far; Salateen even goes so far as to defend the Doctor, but it's more because he's honest rather than he cares for the Time Lord's safety; even the Magma Beast wants the Doctor dead, but just because he's hungry. Tellingly, the Doctor barely glances at these characters when he passes their corpses.

On top of that, the Doctor's fate is continually being sealed by those around him, and ironically they seal their own fate as well. Chellak admits he believes that the Doctor and Peri are innocent, but can't be bothered to try and save their lives - and thus this leads to him being the last survivor of his army, drowned in boiling mud. Salateen abandons the Doctor but keeps Peri prisoner as insurance to help him - and ends up being the first shot dead by the androids. If Sharaz Jek had put his foot down and kept the Doctor on Androzani Minor, he would have discovered Peri's condition sooner and been in a better position to save her. Morgus' casual decision to order the time travelers shot is what ultimately leads to him facing Sharaz Jek face to face and paying the price. Every character is cruel, rude and callous - only Jek has any redeeming quality: he wants to keep Peri alive and safe, and although he's causing mass panic and confusion on Major, he'd happily hand over his Spectrox and save them as long as Morgus was dead. But he's still not a nice guy and he suffers the same fate as the others.

Only three characters survive this story - Peri, Timmin and the Doctor (and technically the Doctor doesn't), and this highlights the cold justice in this story. In this world, if you're nasty, you pay the price. The Doctor, like his third self, gets caught up in this through his own curiosity and by putting Peri in danger is ultimately doomed. But the Doctor gets a second chance because he plans to make amends, to save Peri's life whatever the cost. Peri never hurts or want to hurt anyone in the story, even trying to help Jek. Timmin is seemingly the exception, as she seizes control of Morgus' empire without a shot being fired and effectively wins. However, we know that the mud burst has wiped out all the supply of Spectrox and most likely the bats as well, so Timmin has just taken over a planet of people about to die of old age catching up. And how long before Timmin finds others conspiring to overthrow her? Timmin's nastiness is subtle and cunning, and the karma she's facing will be just as insidious.

Peri manages very well in this story, though like the Doctor, she's more a catalyst for change than a player in the story. Her relationship with the Doctor in part one is relaxed and friendly, and it's as though being around Peri allows the Doctor to assume a more 'Doctorish', absent-minded, curious quality, as if it's a fresh start. The situations they face show Peri to be a real person - she's slightly clumsy, scared of being arrested by people with guns and being lusted after disfigured self-proclaimed maniacs. Peri is able to cope with the events in her first story because they are easily compared to her old life - being unintentionally kidnapped by the Doctor and Turlough can be dealt with because she was planning to abscond with two strange men already; facing down the Master (and Kamelion) is easy because she has dealt with annoying arrogant men for most of her life; and travelling to Sarn is just Lanzarote with fewer cafes. But here she's been captured by soldiers, threatened with death by firing squad, feeling very ill and sick. If she has anything to compare it to, it's... being captured by soldiers, threatened with death by firing squad and feeling very ill and sick. She jumped into the TARDIS because she liked the Doctor and wanted to travel, but she didn't sign on for this and she's scared. Fair enough. But seeing the Doctor dying in front of her cracks her resolve which kept her going throughout the adventure. She doesn't sob because she wants to go home or is scared of being trapped in the TARDIS, it's because her friend is dying! Peri is reassuringly human, even if it's becoming clear she's not the perfect time traveling companion.

Ultimately, Caves is a story that should be a one-off. It throws the Doctor into the deep end specifically to make him sink, because it's ludicrous for him to swim. Caves wouldn't work if the Doctor survived the end, and if he kept trying to resolve the Spectrox war, it would be a completely different story - and not half as bleak and lethal as the one we see. Yes, Caves is brilliant but that's precisely because it's a story that can only be told once. Like Genesis of the Daleks - it'd be the height of stupidity to tell an identical story when the original did it so well. Yet, the production team decided to pop back to this dark, B7 universe where life is cheap, happy endings rare and nice people surviving are even rarer.

Like the Doctor's involvement, Caves had something of a chain reaction on Doctor Who itself. The following season was one long attempt to repeat Caves' atmosphere and success - a nice aim, but flawed from the outset. Apart from anything else, finding subterranean settings full of bastards and villains drooling over Peri got old very quickly. Caves ended the fifth Doctor's era and it's a sad but true fact that Doctor Who was on shaky ground ever since. From 1985 onwards it was on a precipice of cancellation, and it ultimately fell despite getting its act together at the last moment - quite like the Doctor here.

Another thing I noticed that Holmes was also responsible for The Brain of Morbius, in which we are shown the Doctor is in his twelfth body by the time he's Tom Baker, and The Deadly Assassin where we learn Time Lords only get thirteen bodies. It's hard not to see some significance in the dying Doctor's wondering if he will regenerate - as it is implied he's on his last life, and might explain why he's about to go through his most difficult regeneration so far. In any case, the idea that the Doctor goes through all he has to in Caves even though he knows he's really going to die this time, just makes him more of a hero.The Caves of Androzani is damn-near perfect.

But you knew that already, didn't you?

I've been going through a semi-orderly survey of Doctor Who stories – not perhaps the exhaustive chronological crawl that some other fans here have done, but rather a selective hunt and peck, targeting stories generally regarded as classics, as well as few I remember vividly from my childhood. In some cases, I've certainly been delighted to find stories worthier than I expected ('Death to the Daleks,' 'The Leisure Hive,' e.g.), but in others I've been disappointed by some that didn't, in my estimation, live up to their stellar reputations ('City of Death' and 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' were two particularly sad surprises, I thought).

So I wasn't sure what I would make of 'The Caves of Androzani,' a story about which I remembered little from my own first experience with it as a teenager. The story seems to be universally loved by fanboys, and yet it is also is a 'hard-edged' war story script-edited by Eric Saward, whose vision for the series is not one I always appreciate. Add to this the fact that the venerable 'Discontinuity Guide' calls it 'overrated,' and I was a little bit nervous. Then again, I've found Robert Holmes's reputation as the grand old man of Doctor Who scripts to be largely justified, and even when his stories are disappointing in some ways (as I found 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' to be), they usually provide some redeeming elements of characterization or humor.

And indeed, as I got into the first episode of 'The Caves of Androzani,' I found it to play like Holmes's homage to the Saward years. In fact, you could say the plot 'out-Sawards' Saward in its grittiness and its focus on militarism (there not much sci-fi or philosophy at work here). But it doesn't take long to see how Holmes's gift for dramatization is raising this story above superficially similar Saward efforts like 'Resurrection of the Daleks' and 'Earthshock.' The plot is economical, yet satisfyingly knotty, with a lot of social and political commentary lining its edges, and the characters, while perhaps simple, are overall as beautifully drawn as we might hope. 

The obvious place to begin is with Sharaz Jek, who is both the ostensible villain of the piece and its main 'monster.' The script makes him both convincingly mad and suitably menacing when torturing the Doctor or drooling over Peri, but, like Li H'sen Chang and other Holmes creations before him, Jek is made complex enough that we can't help sympathizing with him, at least somewhat. He is perhaps not the best fleshed-out of Holmes characters overall – we don't get much sense of what he was like before his betrayal and injury, despite his mentioning that he was also a doctor once - and one could argue that his Phantom of the Opera/Quasimodo-like obsession with beauty is a bit of a clichй. On the other hand, this association does nicely hearken back to the interest in classic literary monsters Holmes explored so often in his work with Philip Hinchcliffe in the early Tom Baker years, and it's true that Jek's actions towards Peri seem as (oddly) protective as they do predatory, which helps to humanize the character. Plus, an aesthetic bent helps explain the character's striking costume and mask, with its bright blue false eye. And Christopher Gable's performance is remarkable, ultimately sealing the deal as far as Jek's place in the pantheon of DW villains is concerned. He handles the dialogue with a nice combination of elegance and threat, but it's in his *physical* acting that this former dancer truly excels. He makes Jek particularly pitiable when he shows him crawling under the table and covering his scarred face in shame after Peri has seen it. (Although one suspects in reality it would take more than facial burns to make a war-hardened soldier like Chellak scream like a woman. But I digress . . . .)

But the *real* villain of the piece, of course, is not Jek at all, but rather his old friend and rival Morgus, and this is where Holmes's satire really comes into play. If anything, Morgus is an even flatter character than Jek, but Holmes's clear concept of him makes him believably awful, and even quietly frightening. (Compare the character to the buffoonish, bellowing Henry van Statten in 'Dalek,' and you tell me which is the better realization of a Super Capitalist as Villain.) Holmes's treatment of the character is enormously cynical, and the way in which Morgus tries to hitch his rapacious business interests to political ideals ("Patriotism is our only viewpoint") resonates just as well in the era of Halliburton as it must have in the Reagan/Thatcher-dominated 1980s. And of course, like many contemporary giants of commerce, Morgus is ultimately shown to have his fingers in too many pies at once, and given this fact it's probably a mercy that he meets a quick end at the hands of his archenemy rather than facing the legal and political annihilation that would wait for him if he survived. John Normington gives a much more contained performance than Christopher Gable here, but it's no less effective. He is steely and unblinking in the role, and while the character's asides to the camera are a bit stagey and strange (is Morgus the narrator?), the actor plays them so well that they never become a joke. 

And although the overall tone of the story is serious and dark, Holmes does find ways to slip in his trademark wit, however grimly. He does so in extremely subtle ways, tying the humor in to the subject matter to the point where it may not seem funny the first time (as when Peri jokes about her rash early on - "I don't expect we'll die of it within the next hour" - little realizing she actually *has* been infected with a lethal disease), but which improves with subsequent viewings. Morgus's conversations with the President provide some dry amusement too, with the politician cheerfully suggesting to the businessman that Jek's terms may have to be accepted (and Morgus's head sacrificed) if the situation is not resolved soon. And Episode Four in particular contains many darkly funny surprises, notably Stotz's smiling betrayal of his fellows (double-crosses like this are common in Doctor Who, but rarely do they feel so believable, or so shocking), and Krau Timmin's cool one of her master ("Are you sitting at my *desk*?" is a wonderful line, and John Normington delivers it with just the right combination of disbelief and dawning realization).

So, 'The Caves of Androzani' is well plotted and characterized. But it's the *emotional* content, unusually, that really raises this story above the competition. As with many Holmes scripts, the stakes here are relatively small – Jek simply wants revenge against a single man, and Morgus simply wants to continue his brutal commercial efforts – but that just adds to the realism, and makes it seem all the more important for the Doctor and Peri to get out of there as fast as they can before they die. (After all, they have no universe to save this time.) And the tone of the story is so serious, and the subject of the Doctor's and Peri's illness treated so realistically (if subtly), that even two decades down the road, it does still feels like they're *really going to die* - it's *very* unusual for this show to give the impression of such danger, even in good stories. This makes the *Doctor's* stakes both large and small at the same time – he doesn't care about the war or who wins it, he just wants to get his friend medicine, fast, and he abandons his concern for anything else in his focus. The cliffhanger to Episode Three is so beautifully played, with the Doctor half-laughing (!) as he crashes the spaceship, but it's only one example of the sense of inescapable doom about this story – things seem to be genuinely unraveling in a way they rarely do in these stories. This feeling of grim inevitability is in fact enhanced by our knowledge that this is Peter Davison's final story, and especially for those of us who love the Fifth Doctor. As I said, I've been going through a sampling of Doctor Who stories more or less in order, and watching 'Caves' I realized that this was the first time in my survey that I honestly wasn't ready to move along to a new era. As for Davison's acting, his Doctor is at his most sarcastic here – he seems like he's asking for a punch in the face with his goading of Chellak in Episode One and Jek and 'Stotzie' through much of the rest of the story. But he is also vulnerable and humane, two of the best qualities of this Doctor, and, as others have pointed out, when he says "Adric?" just before regenerating, it's as if he's aware of his own failings in his final moments – an extremely moving thing, and perfectly in character for this fallible, sympathetic incarnation.

After all this, it almost seems like an afterthought to go into specifics about the production aesthetics, so I'll only mention one: while in its design, the story is a typical studio-bound Davison story (notably, we only see the crashing spaceship from the *inside*!), the exterior shots at the beginning are pretty amazing. The one of the Doctor and Peri walking away from the TARDIS with mountains in the distance is one of the most frankly beautiful I can recall seeing in this series, and so it's fitting that it should introduce such a memorable story.