Direction and writing in Doctor Who are two elements which rarely come together; we either get a well directed story with poor writing (Earthshock) or a well written story with bad direction, which is the case here. Vengeance on Varos is almost ruined by Ron Jones' absolutely flareless direction. A lot of people will nominate Peter Moffatt for the title of Worst Who Director, but in truth he occasionally was capable of something approaching atmosphere (State of Decay is an admittedly inconsistent example of this). Jones, on the other hand, never rises to a challenge, and he succeeds in sucking the life out of a highly interesting script, with, perhaps incredibly, some well judged edits by Eric Saward.

The most potent example of this is the first scene between Arak and Etta. Never mind that Etta looks about thirty years older than her supposed husband; the really jarring thing about this moment is how slowly it seems to pass. And it isn't anything to do with leaden dialogue- it's because Ron Jones directs the scene unadventurously, a long wide shot of the two arguing. I was sorely tempted to turn it off.

But to do so would mean missing an otherwise fantastic story. The writing, by Phillip Martin, is excellent. He manages to give almost all of the major characters a clear identity. We sympathise with the weary Governor; and we are reviled by the reptilian Sil. Equally, the issues it tackles, most prominently video nasties, are fascinating, particularly so when you look at how creatively and intellectually bereft most of it's Season 22 stablemates are. Occasionally the structure wobbles, but this is largely due to the fact that the series had changed to a slower paced 45 minute format. Is it violent? For a Doctor Who story, yes, but the furore at the time surrounding it was misjudged, as it is farely tame by today's standards. Plus, at least it is provocative, and not a dull Underworld style runaround.

And at least on the acting front, Ron Jones got something right, by casting disabled performer Nabil Shaban as Sil. The remarkable design of the character has something to do with the success of Varos and Shaban imbues him with some truly vile habits, like his hugely grating laugh. The rest of the cast is variable, as usual; Martin Jarvis is excellent, Jason Connery less so in the important role of Jondar, which would have been a hard slog for most actors anyway. Colin Baker really takes control, however, and in some respects we see him acting, rather than simply hamming it up. The scenes in which he feigns death are a case in point. From a production stance, it is competent but not visually resplendent; few stories set in an underground mining colony could be.

It is unfortunate that Colin Baker made so few Doctor Who stories for television, but his short era is fascinating, as in many ways it is a microcosm of the series. In Season 22 there is a multi-Doctor story, a Dalek story, a Cybermen story, and this, a pseudo historical adventure set during the Luddite riots in England. While on the whole it is probably one of the better Sixth Doctor adventures, lacking as it is many of the obvious faults that befell his two and a bit seasons, it is still a somewhat misjudged.

The title refers to a Time Lady, the Rani, who has been stealing brain chemicals from pit workers in 19th century Newcastle. The Doctor and Peri arrive, forced there by The Master, who plans to kill his nemesis. But they both become involved in the strange events, the former trying to prevent the alteration of history, the latter planning to use George Stevenson to aid him in his dreams of world domination.

The script, by Pip and Jane Baker, is intriguing, but they come up with some of the most preposterous dialogue heard in series history. They should probably be praised for trying to enlarge our vocabularies, but then again does anyone know what "Apposite epithet" means, or even care? They also seem to get the characterisation of The Doctor and Peri wrong, and insert a set piece in which The Rani and Peri must traverse a field of mines...that turn unfortunate victims into trees. It's so out of place you have to suspect that substances were involved during the writing...mind you, some of the blame must be pointed at poor Eric Saward. He might've been apathetic to The Master, but that's no reason not to provide an explanation as to his escape from death in Planet of Fire. Sometimes, I think he's undeserving of most of the critical flack he receives. But for laziness like that, most of the time I have to agree with it.

The performances are mixed. Colin Baker is as good as ever, but Nicola Bryant is growing increasingly annoying. Granted, she gets some of the worst dialogue ("You suspect another motive?"), but she still doesn't have the skill to deliver it in a way to make it sound half-decent, and her American accent is growing even more wobbly. She also wears too much, although that's perhaps a more trivial complaint. Anthony Ainley returns with an oddly restrained performance, acting as nothing more than The Rani's lackey throughout the story. And The Rani herself? Well, Kate O' Mara's not bad, but essentially her character is nothing more than a female Master, and when she's in a scene with former co-star Colin, or Ainley, things really do get cheesy.

It's left to director Sarah Hellings to make up for these deficincies. Helped by an atmospheric location, she works wonders, which are magnified when you look at who directed the two stories surrounding this one. There are some delightful visual touches, like the volcano, The Rani's TARDIS (which, I'm afraid to say, is a lot better than the Doctor's) and the odd shot at the end in which one of the dinosaur embroyos inside her TARDIS begins to grow at an accelerated speed, which is a surprisingly effective, er, effect.

Unfortunately though, The Mark of the Rani also has bad dialogue and some duff performances, so they negate these good points to a certain extent. But I'm prepared to be generous to this one as Colin made so few, and was such an enjoyable and under-rated Doctor, even when the odds were stacked against him.

Many people dislike Mindwarp, saying it is all about people escaping, running along tunnels, being recaptured etc, and not having any story. I think rather that,like Resurrection of the Daleks, it has too many interwoven plotlines - the selling of arms to Ycarnos and his warlords, finding a transplant doner for Lord Kiv, the Trial itself, the overthrow of the Mentors.....and it doesn't all hang together that well. It is still, also like Resurrection, one of my favourite stories for the following reasons.

Firstly the characters I find uniformly excellant. The delightfully loud Ycarnos providing much needed light relief,the dour Frax, and of course Crozier. This man, outwardly so ordinary looking and not some ranting power mad megalomaniac, was nevertheless sinister and utterly without compassion; destroying (so we are lead to believe) one of the Doctor's companians,this quietly spoken man becomes one of the Sixth Doctor's biggest threats. So we are lead to believe.

For this story must be unique in that the events seen on the Matrix screen are, it is hinted, maybe not entirely as they transpired. We can only guess how the events on Thorus-Beta end, we are not told. We don't really know if we are watching the lies of the Valeyard, the Doctor suffering from the effects of that machine, or the unvarnished truth. Or a mixture of all three.

But I was talking about what I like here which is, the Mentors! I always like a story with cool monsters and these Mentors look good and are funny as well as being ruthless and clever. Clever because it is only their ability to control people's minds that makes them able to have slaves who would otherwise be able to crush them underfoot.

Mindwarp is a delightfully amoral story. No one really cares about their actions - Kiv, Sil, Crozier, even the Sixth Doctor. Or is it illusion? Da, da!

The Ultimate Foe! What a remarkably accurate title for a change, no inaccuracy here! I don't know if the resolution to the trial of a time lord makes a lot of sense, but what a brilliant way to end it! Now then, unless you have been living in a cave, in Mars, with your fingers in your ears, you will know that the Valeyard was in fact the Doctor himself, in his twelfth and last regeneration, and that he wanted the sixth Doctor (himself) dead so that he could steal his remaining regenerations for himself.

Absolute rubbish? Possibly, possibly, but an ending surely noone could have predicted. and is it all that unlikely? Here is a future incarnation of the Doctor, possibly thousands of years into the future - it is likely to assume that a person's priorities might change in all that time from good to evil, even the Doctor's. And he was facing death after his next regeneration, so was presumably desperate enough to try drastic measures to prolong his life - for a time lord who's lived so long, death when it comes must be even worse than for a human.

I also loved Mr Popplewick who was (cave in Mars, fingers in ears) also the Twelfth Doctor. I would like to see a load of new adventue novels featuring Mr Popplwick in a Tardis, maybe slowly tranforming from good to evil. No? Oh well.

But a good ending to a good series. On the whole. I personally thought that there was a bad Sixth Doctor that we were seeing on the matrix screen - a doppleganger who we were seeing doing all those bad things, and not the good sixth Doctor at all. Well, it seemed plausable at the time!

This is the only Seventh Doctor-era story that seriously disappointed me. (I have seen all but Delta and the Bannermen.)

It claims to be an satirical and intellectual tale of a population being denied the right to feel sad, and to some extent it is; but, it comes off as fluff--not very intellectual, witty or funny, but just silly. Granted, the Kandy Man (an evil executioner who is literally made of candy) is /vaguely/ scary, esp. when s/he snarls, "Welcome to the Kandy Kitchen, gentlemen...I like my volunteers [to die] with...THMILES on their faces!", but most other characters are dismissably dull. And some of the things that happen during the 'revolution' against happiness make the viewer groan and say 'Riiiight'--such as the Doctor dousing the Kandy Man with lemonade, which apparently reacts with his candy-flesh so as to make his feet stick to the floor.

Another reason to dislike The Happiness Patrol is that unlike most Doctor Who stories, this is overtly and offensively politicized. What the political messages are is not relevant, but I will say that the reason I dumped Star Trek is that I had grown tired of Trek's arrogant and incessant attempts to indoctrinate its audience. Doctor Who has consistently avoided shoving lessons down the viewer's throat, but The Happiness Patrol does exactly that. Really, the only other such exception in Doctor Who is The Green Death, a laughable serial about capitalists who pollute the environment because they are bad, bad, bad.

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story (except, aren't they all?)!

Today I shall tell you why Silver Nemesis is one of my top three Doctor Who stories, ever. No, really!

Bear in mind, I was probably all of seven or eight years old when I first saw this story (on PBS, before the Cleveland PBS station decided to follow the BBC's lead and exile the TARDIS from the airwaves, boo hiss). I watched Nemesis with a child's glee...and still do, even to this day. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are my favorite Doctor and companion, respectively and as a team, and here they're in top form. 

The Doctor is playing chess, manipulating Nazis, Cybermen, and Elizabethan nutters to to win the day...yet he does so with whimsy, and hardly a touch of angst. When he confounds the Cyberleader by preprogramming the Nemesis to 'understand, and disobey' its orders...to my younger incarnation this was an utterly brilliant twist, and still today it feels triumphant. It is the essense of the Doctor, I would argue; he's one of those rare heroes whose best weapons are their wits. We also see quite a bit of the so-called 'Cartmel master-plan' at work here, an attempt to restore some mystery to the Doctor. In addition to Lady Peinforte's babblings about Gallifrey and the Dark Time, we have the Doctor's own conversations with the Nemesis. The statue asks when she shall have her freedom...

"I told you when. Things aren't perfect yet..."

Combined with his actions in 'Remembrance of the Daleks' (which has a rather same-y plot, in the broad outlines, but I never noticed until it was pointed out, and frankly I still don't mind!), this Doctor seems to have a far grander plan for the universe than ever we'd imagined. The author Neil Gaiman, on his commentary track for the 'Neverwhere' DVD, talks about creating a character with the early Doctor Whos in mind...with a sense of danger about him, a sense of his own agenda. The seventh Doctor here brings that back in spades...yet without ever crossing the line into anti-hero territory. He remains firmly on the side of the angels, and his companions. He remains our lovable, magical, silly uncle. (I've always felt the New Adventures novels lost that balance, should not have crossed those lines, but that's a debate for another day.)

Ace, meanwhile, kicks some major cyber-bottom. Pinned down by three of the argent adversaries, she cleverly shoots one (with a gold coin) and ducks, so the other two miss her and kill each other...and okay, its the oldest trick in the book, but at the time it seemed novel to me!

Although many fans decry the Cybermen being turned into weaklings in Silver Nemesis, a poor joke, this is the very story which made me fall in love with them. I loved watching Ace racing about the warehouse, dodging laser blasts, and picking them off one by one with her 'catapult'. I loved their ridiculous cyber death screams. I've never really been particularly worried if they were 'scary' or not. In stories like 'Tomb' they're creepy, in Earthshock they're diabolical...but in Nemesis, they're just plain fun.

Then there's Fiona Walker, of "I, Claudius" fame, as the twisted Lady Peinforte, an Elizabethan sorceress who's managed to meddle with Time Lord technology, and even to learn their secrets, the Doctor's secrets (or so she claims). In less able hands she might have been a poor caricature, but Walker's performance is marvelously subtle, a delight to watch, and a worthy foe for the seventh Doctor. She is so carefully composed...utterly ladylike, despite her ruthlessness, even viciousness. Even in the raving phase of her madness, she is measured, her passion bubbling beneath the surface yet never boiling over the top. Her megalomaniacal musical number is hilarious, yet strangely pitiable. Her scenes in the limo with Mrs. Remington are beautifully played, and cleverly scripted...

"Now let me see, there WAS a Dorothea, she died in 16--"

21. 'Twas a slow poison..."

Lady Peinforte also displays an intriguing self-awareness, perhaps even pangs of conscience, when confused by Richard's insistence on saving her life, despite years of ill treatment. Richard, in turn, is another wonderful character. A simple archetype, the sinner with the heart of gold, but played with such feeling by Gerard Murphy that he transcends the trite. Instead he rings true, and his single-handed destruction of the Cyberleader is another of the story's triumphant moments; the good heart wins through.

I have always considered it one of Doctor Who's great strengths that it is a show for ALL ages, that it is as ridiculous as it is meaningful, as whimsical as it is thoughtful. In what other show would you find our heroes taking a break from their pursuit of the enemy to lie on a hillside for a 'jam session'? I would argue that few, if any, series have that breadth of imagination...that ability to take itself utterly and not at all seriously, all at once. In Doctor Who, as in life, there are times to philosophize, and times just to sit back and enjoy the ride. And so for me, Silver Nemesis really was a perfect anniversary story, a Who for all seasons, the quintessence...and whatever anyone says, I shall proclaim it proudly!

And for my next trick, a rave review of 'Timelash'...

You think I'm kidding.