Battlefield has suffered since it first went out, being viewed as the weak link in a generally strong period for the show and even as a nadir of 80s Doctor Who. Ben Aaronovitch has it doubly hard as far as I'm concerned as I happen to think his other episode, Remembrance Of The Daleks, to be the most horribly overrated in the series's history. On the other hand, I have very fond memories of seeing this episode when I was a kid, and I used to rave about it years ago. Consequently, I can never make up my mind about Battlefield.

It certainly gets off to a poor start, with the same continuity-tsunami that characterises much of Remembrance owing to the requirement once again to dig up the Brigadier. It suffers as well considering its status as a McCoy season opener: it's hardly the Star Wars homage of Remembrance (the best bit about the episode), and as for Time And The Rani...tacky it may be, but a regeneration is a regeneration. Aside from the very first scene though, the first episode shows a lot of promise, with an unusually multi-cultural feel that almost borders on political correctness (shock horror!). There is an enormous drag factor evident though in Keff McCulloch's appalling score, as Arthurian warriors slug it out to the sound of a Milli Vanilli backing track.

Given my general dislike of excess continuity it is still nice to see UNIT back again and the namedrops come thick and fast, with the Doctor mentioning five monsters in as many seconds Normally I'd hate this, but I'm in a kind mood. This is punctuated by the occasional piece of nice pyrotechnics, of which it seems there can never be too much in this story. Bear in mind though that this story is set in the future (i.e. now, from their point of view) and this leads to some odd jokes, like three drinks costing five pounds (innocent times) and the Brigadier dismissing a telephone call by saying "I don't care if it's the King!", the "ha ha, Queen Elizabeth has popped her clogs" subtext of which blowing my earlier remark about political correctness to pieces.

What the story is notable for, and this episode in particular, is the monumentally rubbish fight scenes: it's as if the stunt men decided to save on effects by attacking each other in slow motion. If you look at the episode though it is actually deceptively expensive but - in true John Nathan-Turner style - the money has gone on all the wrong things. For example, they hired a helicopter when stock footage would have done; I know we'd all be moaning about it but we might have got a better battle, so it would be the lesser of two evils.

Meanwhile, while the battle rages, the heroes have gone for a swift half in the local pub, where they find a scabbard that can mysteriously heat up and cool down (rubbish for swords, great for making hot milk). This is the first example of a very shaky plot: why have the soldiers come to Earth, why do they want Excalibur? The episode hinges on these questions, but never is any attempt made to address them. Even so, I quite like the pub scenes as there's some great dialogue; even if Ling Tai is not the greatest actress in the world, at least she looks like she's enjoying herself. Ace is annoying, but it is good for the season as it paves the way for her personal growth in Ghost Light and The Curse Of Fenric. Curse was originally intended to come before this, but Ace would never have worked if the episodes were that way round.

It is in part two where things start to fall apart, with the introduction of Mordred, woefully played by Christopher Bowen. He is from the Ronnie Kray school of Mummy's boy villains, and his remark in part four of "my mother will destroy you!" is possibly the lamest threat I've ever heard. I bet he was the school bully just because his mum was a mighty sorceress. The summoning of Morgaine is painful, with Mordred spouting ridiculously portentous sub-Tolkien dialogue, intercut with Sylvester McCoy overacting like a lunatic (not for the last time this story). Worst of all is when Bowen starts screaming "ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa!" at the top of his lungs: I'd call it laughter but there's clearly no humour. Perhaps he has a chest infection.

After this it settles down a bit more, showing that Aaronovitch is clearly better at the human elements of his scripting. The scene with the Brigadier and Morgaine just about stays on this side of self-parody, and the underwater spacecraft is impressive, if a little gaudy. The action scene with the glowing snake thing is a nice idea but badly executed, like all of the serial's action scenes, and the snake thing (no other possible description) is never adequately explained. Also, on your left you will see the infamous scene where the water-filled tank cracked, and McCoy got to be a real hero by running away and shouting for other people to do something. Unable to do the scene twice they were forced to salvage what footage they could, with the result being that the cracked glass is clearly visible. This does give the ship an air of shoddiness, but hey, it is supposed to be thousands of years old.

Episode three continues in the same vein, with dire battles intercut with better moments and the dialogue veering uncontrollably between the good and the downright ludicrous: The soldier's call of "the seabirds are still operational", when taken out of context, is a strong contender for the title of Most Surreal Moment. The killing of Lavell though is a wonderful scene, and Morgaine's subsequent gift of vision to the landlady shows her to be a more complex character than she is allowed to be.

Episode three also contains the scene where all extraneous characters get evacuated. It's a cop-out, yes, but there've been worse in better episodes so I'll let it go, and the scene with the chalk circle is excellent (if shakily acted). The episode also sees a return to some issues left hanging in part one, such as the missile convoy and the continuity references: the Daleks are namechecked, and Bessie is seen for the first time since The Five Doctors. It is a testament to the innocence the programme still had even in its last season that anyone seriously thought the flaming tracks gag would ever work. This kind of thing highlights exactly how little actually happened in episode two.

Moving on to episode four we get the Destroyer: never has such a good idea been wasted so badly. No sooner has Morgaine removed his bonds than the Brigadier has pumped him full of lead (well, silver) and that's the end of him. It. That. Whatever. Oh well, perhaps we'll see more of him in the prequel that Aaronovitch is blatantly setting up. This is in truth a very rushed episode, with the vortex between the pub and the villain's lair being another example of very dodgy deus ex machina plotting. The "is that a spaceship" line got a laugh in spite of myself, but basically the denouement is very cheesy: both the aforementioned death of the Destroyer and also the stop-the-countdown confrontation with Morgaine, with more bad dialogue and overacting. Am I the only one who considers "lock them up" to be slightly inadequate, given their powers?

After this we go back to the Brigadier's house for the final scene, which is pleasant enough - in a sense, the jumps between good and bad make for an appropriate ending for a very uneven story. However, it is still - and yes, I'm in the minority here - the best of Aaronovitch's two scripts for the series.

Every time I see it, Ghost Light never fails to dazzle me. An advantage of the show being so small and unimportant in the late 1980s was that, by having nothing to lose, it could afford to be daring and as a consequence we get this extraordinary story that is simply unlike any other episode. I’m not going to claim that I’ll grasp the multitude of subtexts it presents in this review – after all, how many thousands of words do you want to read?

Like many stories it’s the visuals that make the first impression, and the opulent yet un-showy sets and subdued lighting create an oppressive atmosphere of decay from the start. Add to this the music – Mark Ayres is just about the only person I can think of who made an electronic score work in a period setting, and here he does his best work for the series. He is correct to say in interviews that it’s too loud; this is however a problem addressed with the 5.1 surround mix on the DVD. The whole opening is enigmatic and bizarre, with a montage of unexplained happenings (mysterious figures in chairs, secret passages in walls) that set the scene for a story that never quite divulges its secrets. That said, Ace is definitely not at her most charismatic here (before her catharsis in The Curse Of Fenric), and I do cringe a bit when she talks to the stuffed emu; a childish moment in such a mature and esoteric story seems very incongruous.

In quick succession we are introduced to the first members of the oddball cast: Rev. Matthews, Mrs. Pritchard and Redvers Fenn-Cooper. The guest actors here cannot be faulted and neither can Marc Platt’s dialogue for them; Alan Wareing’s direction is also excellent as the camera ominously follows Mrs. Pritchard around. The eloquent Nimrod is a fascinating character and almost funny in a bizarre kind of way, but the real crown has to go to Ian Hogg who has to be one of the best guest stars the series ever had. He plays a true enigma, a man crippled by acute senses that harks back to Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall Of The House Of Usher’; these references are so subtle that for an English student like me they’re fun to pick up on, but for a casual viewer they simply add to the overall kaleidoscope. 

The Doctor mentions a Chinese firing piece: is this a reference to The Talons Of Weng-Chiang I wonder, one of Platt’s favourite episodes? I’m currently in my third year of an English degree so I pick up on many of the literary references – Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness being the first – and I can say that they help to make the story what it is, as many of its elements may not have been present were it not for them.

The “bog-brain” line shows all that’s wrong with Ace: by having as a companion the kind of character who realistically would swear like my old boss, many strange and totally unbelievable insults have to be substituted to make the character suitable for a family audience. However, this does make her growth in the second half of the season all the more notable and one of my greatest regrets about the series being cancelled when it was is that this burgeoning character arc is cut dead. Also a point for criticism is the glowing snuffbox: while a very dramatic scene, to be sure, it is the one moment of the complex story that I genuinely think should have had more explanation. 

One of my favourite moments in the story is the Doctor’s confrontation with Ace, which finally sketches in some plot amongst the madness. I have to say though that I’ve never had any great problem with the plot; it’s the subtexts and undercurrents that make the story so complicated, and all the exposition that’s needed is there provided you have your brain switched on. I would say that this is no more complicated than the following story The Curse Of Fenric, but then again I was six when I first saw that one and twenty when I first saw Ghost Light, so there’s bound to be a discrepancy in how I view them. I would strongly dispute the claim in The Pocket Essentials Guide To Doctor Who, one of the lamest episode guides there ever was, that it makes no allowance for the casual audience – it is fully open to the casual audience, containing none of the inward-looking insularity of old. I just makes no allowance for people who need their plots given to them on a silver platter. And if we’re talking about subtexts, then Gwendoline singing ‘That’s The Way To The Zoo’ is the icing on the cake. The advancing husks make for a surprisingly traditional cliffhanger, but those monsters work as concepts.

Inspector Mackenzie asleep in the drawer shows that the story is capable of pulling surprises all along its length, but really it’s a bit hard to know what to say about the story now because every time I seem to have a handle on something the story veers away onto something else.

Control’s release is one of my all time favourite pieces of direction that the show ever had: a shapeless figure leaps from the dungeon and moves down the tunnel. However, even though the camera is facing directly towards her we can’t see her due to the dark lighting and the other characters until her hand comes round the door. Brilliant – and her Eliza Doolittle-style dialogue works well too.

Rev. Matthew’s transformation is darkly comic in a spooky and very grotesque way, and this is contrasted with Mrs. Grose (named after Henry James’s The Turn Of The Screw), the one normal member of the cast. Nimrod’s soliloquy to the fang is a very atmospheric moment among many, as is the Doctor’s musings on what Light actually is.

The frozen staff in the attic are very creepy, and the final form of Matthews is really something. The second episode finishes with another great cliffhanger as Light, whatever it is, finally begins to emerge from the lift. John Hallam’s slightly effeminate performance as Light is a bit of an acquired taste I will admit, but I really like it. I find it a pleasing irony after Matthews denouncing evolution as blasphemous to find a character who is simply bored and frustrated by the whole process.

Oh man, the gurning. It comes to something when the lead actor is the worst in the story, but there you are. At least this time I was writing in my notepad and so didn’t have to watch it. Ace’s flashback is a nice idea but a bit dodgy in practice, as red lighting and Sophie Aldred’s dodgy acting fail to convince that the stuffed animals are coming to life.

The death of the maid shows Light’s amorality as opposed to sheer evil, and the scene where he turns Mrs. Pritchard and Gwendoline to stone is deeply poignant as well as showcasing some excellent special effects.

The forgotten sub-plot of the assassination of Queen Victoria is finally given some time here, and it leads to a dramatic scene at dinner where Aldred actually gives a decent performance as Control threatens to burn the house down. The Doctor talking down Light, while not exactly thrilling, is appropriate to the story although the stop-the-countdown ending tacked on to make it seem more exciting is very artificial and contrived. However, there is finally some good interplay between the regulars at the end.

Ghost Light is, quite simply, amazing. It’s hard to judge it by the standards of other stories as it’s so unlike them, but taken on its own terms it is one of the most original and unique pieces of science-fiction I’ve ever seen. So when’s Marc Platt writing for the new series?

I love these DVD releases of the old series. Not only do you get a good quality version of the story, but also a package of lovingly produced extras. Not that this is a review of last years DVD release of ‘Ghost Light’, but its important to note how much my understanding of this complex story has been aided by the various extras found to be found on the disc. You see, even after multiple viewings of my VHS copy, I never truly understood the intricacies of this serial until only recently…

‘Ghost Light’ is famously the last Doctor Who serial produced as part of its original twenty six year run. It is also, perhaps, the only Doctor Who story that still gets fans scratching their heads over the complexities of the plot fifteen years after the original broadcast. There are various explanations for this. Firstly, ‘Ghost Light’ is a genuinely complex story about evolution and various conceptions of it. So, we have the Reverend Ernest Matthews dismissing entirely Darwinism, and Josiah Smith believing in ‘survival of the fittest’. We know this from his plan to take over the British Empire by killing Queen Victoria, the ‘Crowned-Sax-Coberg’. This illustrates Josiah’s misconceptions about evolution. Secondly the narrative doesn’t flow as it normally would in other more traditional forms of storytelling. There is no clear beginning, middle and end (or exposition, explanation and resolution) in the traditional sense. The viewer has to piece these things together for themselves. Thirdly, some fans dislike ‘Ghost Light’ to such an extent that they won’t even attempt to figure out what its all about, many are turned off completely by the unconventional manner the story is being told. Finally, it has to be said that no matter how many times we are told (by people who worked on the serial) that all the pieces of the puzzle are there, up on the screen, some of them aren’t. For example, the viewer could probably figure it out for themselves that the husks are Josiah’s cast offs from previous ‘regenerations’, but why do they still contain residual life? If they are indeed ‘empty shells’ then how is it possible that they are still animated? No explanation is offered. Also, why and how does Reverend Matthews devolve into an Ape by eating a banana? A script that makes the viewer work hard is fine by me, but when key plot points are never explained, it merely confuses, and, ultimately, frustrates. It makes many fans dislike ‘Ghost Light’ and means that they’ll never enjoy what is otherwise an excellent McCoy adventure.

‘Ghost Light’ features a wonderful cast. Ian Hogg, who plays Josiah Smith, is superbly sinister, and in an era in which produced few decent villains, may come as something as a surprise to first time viewers of this serial. Sylvia Simms is perfectly cast as the stereotypical Victorian era housekeeper, and Katherine Sleschinger does well as Gwendolyn. John Hallam's performance as Light I feel is a bit off. It is often described as camp, but I’m not really sure that is the correct word to describe it. It is certainly brave, but I’m not sure that the vocal tone used to play the part is correct. Also worthy of mention is Carl Forgaine who plays Nimrod, the Neanderthal butler. Forgaine puts in a superb performance, and his non-human Neanderthal body movements completely sell the character.

Of the two regulars, McCoy really shines here. Able to cast off once and for all the rather goofy elements of his character that were evident in seasons twenty four and to a lesser degree season twenty five, his portrayal of the Doctor hits its peak. Aldred is also decent here, and is helped considerably by a script that not only makes her a central player, but also gives her no cringe worthy dialogue such as "Who do you think you are, armpit?", which featured in this seasons ‘The Curse of Fenric’.

First time Doctor Who writer Marc Platt has produced perhaps the most densely written scripts of the entire series. Barely a word or phrase is wasted, which has the effect of making ‘Ghost Light’ quite exhausting to watch. The plot involves the Doctor and Ace arriving at Gabriel Chase, so as to allow the Doctor to give Ace an initiative test. This is really a front to allow the Doctor to delve into Ace’s past, although we don’t discover this until later in the serial. After this introduction, things move along breathlessly. The main point to make about the beginning-middle portion of the story is that Josiah Smith, who holds a different view on evolution to the Reverend Ernest Mathews (who presumably believes in the creationist theory), has hired Redvers Fenn-Cooper to assassinate Queen Victoria. He even attempts to hire the Doctor to do this, but is turned down (obviously). As events build to the final part, the Doctor releases Light, in order to counter Josiah Smith. This is where things can get confusing. As explained on the ‘Ghost Light’ DVD, Light is a being who travels the universe, cataloguing all life forms. The life form that evolved into Josiah Smith is a part of this process. The role of this entity is to evolve into the highest form of life on any given planet, hence his evolution into a Victorian Gentlemen. The character of Control, then, is to simply stay aboard the space craft and not evolve, so the two can be compared. This is why, when she escapes, she begins to change and evolve into a "Lady-like", and at the end of the serial the two have swapped roles, with Josiah Smith becoming the creature Control evolved out of. The climax of the story sees Light tormented by the constant evolution of life on Earth, and so initiates the ‘Firestorm’ programme to stop evolution on Earth completely. Light is defeated with the Doctor talking him to death, which I rather enjoy.

All of this takes place on a superb set, with moody lighting and high production values. It is a clichй to say that the BBC does costume dramas well, but it is true.

Mark Ayres score is superb, evoking a certain amount of mystery and complimenting the onscreen action. On the DVD he himself says that the incidental music is too loud in the mix, but since I didn’t notice this until he pointed it out, I really don’t care. The X-Files was always slathered with loud, atmospheric music, and so perhaps ‘Ghost Light’ was a little ahead of its time.

‘Ghost Light’ is a near flawless production, and the fact that you get more from the story the more you watch it means it stands up well to repeat viewings. It doesn’t do anything for a sizable minority of fans, and for the first few times I saw it, it did nothing for me either. In fact after first viewing the mid-nineties video release, I actively disliked ‘Ghost Light’. Now I have a better grasp of the complexities of the plot, however, I can’t fail to enjoy such a rich Doctor Who story. Season twenty six was building to go out with a real bang.

"That would be... another Dalek?" asks Ace.

"Yeeeessss," mutters the Doctor darkly, his eyes darting momentarily deeper into the cellar.

The Dalek in question emerges from silently from the darkness. Spotting the intruders it screams in metallic rage.

"Stop! You are the enemy of the Daleks! You must be exterminated!"

"The stairs!" calls the Doctor, Ace ascending two at a time. The Doctor, in his haste, trips on the first step, which eats up valuable seconds.

At the top, Ace collides with the sinister Headmaster. He brings up his knee, winding her.

The door to the cellar slams shut.

The Doctor bangs on it desperately. "Ace!" he cries.

The Dalek continues its climb up the stairs, a ring of energy propelling it relentlessly upwards.

"You are the Doctor! You are the enemy of the Daleks! You will be exterminated!" it screams.

The Doctor's terrified expression fills the Dalek's crosshairs.

And then the credits roll.

I'm fairly sure that's not exactly as it happens, but it is the way I remember it.

Every fan has a moment in their life where Doctor Who stops being simply a "programme what I watch," to meaning something more. Well this was my moment. Everything that came after: BBC video collections; New Adventures; conventions; fandom can be traced back to a couple of minutes of television footage broadcast way back in October 1988. It's why I'm here, now, writing this review.

I feel intensely fortunate to have jumped aboard the good ship Doctor Who at this point in its history - just when it was about to get good again. At the time of course, I didn't know this, didn't know that my love affair was about to sink just 28 episodes later and didn't know anything about the 24 years of history. Oh, parents and grandparents would talk about Jamie or William Hartnell or hiding behind the sofa but these are things that are irrelevant when you're 8 years old and the Doctor has just blown up a Dalek with Ace's Nitro-9.

There's a reviewer on these pages, Joe Ford, and I must confess to loving his reviews. (If you're reading this Joe - hello.) He seems to retain the same boyish enthusiasm for Doctor Who that I'd like to think I do myself, but for Colin's Doctor. I'd guess this means he's but a slip older than I am 'cos let me tell all those naysayers who tiresomely bang on about Hinchcliffe or Season 5 all the time that when I was 8 and seasons 25 and 26 were on they were just fantastic.

When Ace gets all excited at watching the military fire grenades into the lean-to I was getting all excited too! Then the soldier gets shot through the air with a fizzy green skeleton effect and the Dalek gets blown up. Hell, even the barrels getting knocked over seemed the height of televisual excellence. But if the Dalek getting blown up wasn't enough, over the course of the next three episodes the explosions get bigger and bigger and bigger thanks to super-powered baseball bats, the special weapon Dalek (which was the coolest thing, like... ever) and remote stellar manipulators. (As a bloke, and I think I speak for most of us here, we like to see things get blown up on screen. I'm not sure why but I suspect it's genetic). And most importantly, to my wide-eyed 8 year old self - it all made perfect sense.

Looking back now, it still makes sense to me. I'm still a little vexed by the brouhaha that insists Remembrance, like Ghostlight, is incomprehensible without repeat viewing. If you'll allow me to digress for a moment, I'm sure I'll eventually get around to my point.

There's a story that is probably apocryphal, about a fan telling Cartmel to look at Talons and a couple of other stories that dear Tim Munro from DWB would consider 'real Doctor Who' and having some kind of Damascene conversion. It's always struck me that one of the first things any incoming script editor/producer/production designer would do is look at some past serials from different eras to gauge relative successes and failures; don't forget that there's now a nine month break between seasons so there's even less reason for Cartmel et al not to do this. What in God's name Saward was doing when he was given eighteen months to have a think is anyone's guess? (I apologise if I use any chance I get to bash season 23 but frankly it deserves it. Saward can have no excuses. I'm still gobsmacked that in the DWM interview he wasn't asked what the hell he did in that enforced sabbatical. Inventing the Trial format on the back of a fag packet it seemed!!! D'oh!!!) But anyway, Cartmel wasn't alone in doing some homework; the break has clearly done McCoy the world of good, while Andrew Morgan shoots the Daleks from the same low angles that David Maloney was using 13 years previously.

But to return to the "incomprehensible" stick that's wheeled out like some batty old relative on day release from time to time, I think that Cartmel's real change is in his approach to the narrative. He effectively junks his part one and starts his narratives from part two. So whilst in previous eras we would have seen the Doctor reprogramming the Hand of Omega or carving the chess pieces from bones in Fenric, here we're as much in the dark about the Doctor's motives as the supporting cast. Don't however think that this hasn't been done before; Williams and Read pulled the same stunt in The Invasion of Time, but that of course has Tom Baker in it so it is almost a "classic" by default. By the same token, imagine Talons where the Doctor (pre-serial) witnessed Greel's escape from the 51st Century to the 19th; the plot wouldn't change but for a couple of lines in episode 5 where Tom would reveal that he was trying to hunt Greel down from the very beginning (much like the Doctor's throwaway line to much that effect in Greatest Show). Come on people, I wouldn't have thought that the watching fan-audience needed it spelled out all the time!

I have no problem with a little bit of innovation and in Remembrance it goes a hell of a long way. I'll happily claim that this is the best serial of the 1980s UP TO THIS POINT. It's practically a Tim Burton-esque re-imagining while at the same time reaffirming the Doctor's position as an outsider. To do this it goes back to where it all started - 76 Totter's Lane. Unlike the TARDIS's last appearance there in Attack of the Cybermen, this piece of continuity does not feel gratuitous, in fact it's there because the Totter's Lane site is integral to the plot and so that Cartmel and Aaronovitch can expressly subvert our expectations of it. Same too is Gilmore's presence a nod to UNIT and the Brigadier, but this isn't the cosy Pertwee set up; the seventh Doctor does not need the army in the way that Pertwee did - by virtue of his exile - and in fact resents their presence.

He doesn't try to get to know Gilmore, appease him or even offer him any explanations (in fact, anyone looking for explanations from this Time Lord should join the end of the queue), all he does is remind him how gloriously out of his depth he is. The Doctor should count himself lucky that Professor Jensen concedes that point at the first sign of 'death ray' because Gilmore seems on the verge of having the wee man shot. This is the 'new' seventh Doctor in a nutshell, a much more dangerous and sinister figure - he doesn't sit everyone round a projector in a darkened pub to talk about "HORNS!" and generally exposit the plot because he doesn't need to. He's not trying to win them over; he just wants them out of the way and despite his best efforts the military find themselves relying on the little Time Lord more and more over the course of the serial.

I love this incarnation of the Doctor. I like having this wall built between him and the audience. The lauded cafй scene is the only moment in the four episodes where the Doctor actually lets his guard down, and as such seems all the more beautiful and intimate for it. And of course this paves the way for the first proactive companion since Romana. Regardless of Sophie Aldred's acting ability, the character of Ace is a breath of fresh air after six years of Adrics, Nyssas, Peris and Mels. Ace's ability to carry a subplot on her own becomes increasingly important over the next two years as focus shifts ever so slightly away from the Doctor. Don't be fooled into thinking that this incarnation of the title character becomes sidelined in his own series however; he snaps the focus back so quick you can almost feel it across your knuckles.

I love Ace. She leaps through windows. She attacks a Dalek with an atomic baseball bat. And did I mention she blows things up?

I love these Daleks. Regardless of the "cobble-wobbling" the Daleks have not looked this good since Death to the Daleks. The twenty-year-old casings that the Beeb had been re-using ad infinitum looked shabby by Destiny; by Revelation they are absolutely atrocious. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I think there's only one of the battered old casings here and it still sticks out like a sore thumb. But I can excuse the one sh*te casing 'cos in exchange we get the Special Weapons Dalek. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the budget wouldn't stretch to a floating weapons platform really because the Special Weapons Dalek is a joy. Although it begs the question - why don't all of the Daleks look so battle-scarred? For me it makes them far more "solid" and far less like pieces of moulded fibreglass. And it blows things up in a really spectacular fashion. Why aren't all explosions in Doctor Who as good as the one that demolishes the gates to Radcliffe's yard?

If you've got the impression from this overwhelming positivity that this is my favourite Doctor Who serial of all time, you're wrong - it isn't. But it is where my love affair began and as such holds a special place in my heart. Oh, and did I mention the explosions?

More so than any other serial from the final two years of the programme, The Happiness Patrol can be held up as evidence by those who would either champion or deride Cartmel era Who.

On the prosecution bench we have Justin Richards and Verity Lambert who will tell you that The Happiness Patrol is so devoid of merit that fans are forced to assign political meaning to it as justification; it is evidence of Doctor Who straying too far into the realm of camp.

On the opposing bench are Cornell, Topping and Day who proclaim this to be a Doctor Who serial for and of its own generation; a joyful anarchistic satire that we should all take to our hearts.

Who's right? Well they both are really, as I'll try to illustrate.

In the case of the prosecution let me say this first and foremost, the design on this serial is a shambles. It is possible to say that the artificial sets, gaudy costumes and theatrical makeup are there to reinforce the serial's underlying message about the paucity of Helen A's ideology, but really... it's bollocks, isn't it? As a Doctor Who fan you get used to ignoring the programme's budgetary limitations, but here there's no reason for it. The Kandyman looks amazing - a pat on the back is due to Dorka Nieradzik - but for God's sake, if she can produce that costume within the design budget then why does everyone else fail so spectacularly.

Stand up John Asbridge. Doctor Who is NOT art house cinema, a genre even less popular with the general public than science fiction. There are not going to be a load of pipe smoking critics commenting on how 'Fritz Lang' the whole thing looks, or how the design ethic is sympathetic to the underlying message. Doctor Who is a piece of populist entertainment watched by a mostly passive television audience that is not going to take too kindly to a set design that wouldn't look out of place in the theatre, no matter how well intentioned it might be. I can believe that there were a LOT of people who switched on only to last as long as it took for Georgina Hale's mad be-wigged harridan to cock her red and yellow stripey gun.

Take a bow Richard Croft and poor Dorka. Before the dowdy painted backdrops of Terra Alpha stand the gaudy colours of the Happiness Patrol themselves. It's like lurching from one extreme to the other between each celluloid scene. Instead of complimenting the design they simply undermine it further, looking as they do extremely silly.

And last but not least a round of applause for Chris Clough. There's another one of those - probably - apocryphal tales about poor old Chris. Apparently he wanted to shoot it in black and white at weird angles but was vetoed by JNT. In all honesty, does anyone believe that this man has the ability to do any more than point and shoot in a by the numbers fashion? More likely, this approach would have made the final product even less watchable than what we do have.

When Verity Lambert, a woman who can justifiably speak with a lot of authority about television, stuck the knife into the McCoy era on 'The Story of Doctor Who' last Christmas, it was accompanied by a clip from The Happiness Patrol and my heart sank. It felt like an attack on Sylv and Sophie and theirs is a corner I will fight to my dying day. For the reasons outlined above, The Happiness is a very easy target - it looks silly; the people in it are dressed silly; oh look, there's Bertie Bassett, isn't he silly?

But if that's all you've got, then bring it on. Because Doctor Who fans know that deep down, 95% of the programme looks silly.

And so to the defence, or as Justin Richards might say, to read meaning into sh*te in the search for justification.

I'll leave the deep and meaningful discourse on cottaging and gay rights to far more informed commentators than myself. I'm sorry, chaps, but I was still a slip of a boy in 1988 and I have every reason to believe that any such allegory will have gone well over my head. Having read other reviews and insights I think that anything I have to add will seem trite at best so I'll concentrate on the frippery instead.

I am happy to argue that Happiness Patrol is more evidence of Doctor Who spreading its wings in a narrative sense and looking to tell more complex and involving stories, a move that is more successful the following season after this imperative filters down to the writers proper, but can be seen here, Remembrance and Greatest Show. Proof, if any were needed that the upward curve (despite a couple of blips) from the tail end of season 24 is continuing.

I call Sylvester McCoy to the stand. This was the last serial of season 25 to be recorded and it shows. 99% of the time he's on screen, he's excellent; seeking out trouble, wanting to speak to Helen A and the Kandyman almost as soon as he's identified them. It seems odd that the Doctor makes straight for the bad guys at the outset, having spent the 24 previous years seeking out the oppressed and giving them a leg up. It's more evidence of the seventh Doctor's increasingly proactive nature; next year his plan will have been set in motion before he leaves the TARDIS rather than the vague "rumours" and knockabout planning here.

And then there's the scene on the balcony with the snipers. It's the antithesis of the cafй scene in Remembrance; there it was the Doctor's decision to be made, here it's the snipers. Interestingly of course, we don't know the decision that the Doctor is agonising over in Remembrance - the destruction of Skaro - but he does go through with it, bringing the moral dilemma that troubled Tom Baker in Genesis to an end by wiping out his nemeses. But here he turns the tables; we have always seen the Doctor face down injustice and cruelty before, but never has he done it with such cold detachment. Sylvester is clearly furious here, and his anger proves to the snipers that they are better human beings than they thought they were. Of course, this Doctor did look Davros in the eye and end his life (or so he thought) but that's just part of this incarnation's moral ambiguity, and you know what - I like it.

As a side note, it's interesting to note that as Cartmel was realigning the Doctor's position on the psychological scale by asking what drives this character to seek out monsters and destroy them, Tim Burton was doing the same to Batman, but that's a discussion for another day.

I call Sophie Aldred. "I want to make them very, very unhappy!" Constrained by the pre watershed nature of the programme, Ace the character is incapable of expressing herself with the colourful Saxon metaphors that she needs to carry the necessary weight, but all credit to her - like Sylvester, I think this is her best performance of the season.

David John Pope, next to the stand, please. I've already covered the Kandyman from a design perspective so I'll avoid retreading the same argument here by singling out the actor behind the liquorice. The Kandyman wouldn't be half as much fun without Pope playing him like a cross between surly mass-murdering psychopath and surly teenager. Pope keeps it dead straight and is matched for every line by Harold Innocent as Gilbert M, their bickering hinting at a shared history that remains frustratingly unexplored on screen.

And finally, I call Sheila Hancock. Regardless of her thoughts on the role today, she puts in a great performance here. As much a victim of her ideology as her citizens, she's caught in an unfulfilling and loveless relationship with Harold C to the extent that the only creature she has feelings for is her pet, Fifi. The camera pan as she cries over Fifi's body is majestic and had the programme ended here it would be proof positive that the newfound maturity and confidence of season 25 were here to stay. That Doctor Who could end on an emotional climax rather than a narrative one would have realigned what the programme was capable of, but instead we get a typically trite coda. Oh, well. At least we can take heart that twelve months later, shorn of Clough's less than dynamic direction, Curse of Fenric can pull off what Happiness Patrol cannot.

So, in summing up, Happiness Patrol is a rather schizophrenic serial where the truly awful sits alongside the triumphant. Derided for being camp and tacky, what Happiness Patrol really demonstrates is that although the BBC design teams are still stuck in a inescapable nosedive, Cartmel is championing a script and narrative ethic that if not 100% successful, is still full of promise.

The learning curve continues.

It’s difficult to find anything good to say about this season twenty four opener, but here goes. The Rani’s bubble traps look quite good, and… err… You see, ‘Time and the Rani’ is perhaps the worst Doctor Who story the McCoy era produced and probably the worst ever. I say probably only because I’ve yet to see other clangers such as ‘Timelash’ or ‘The Twin Dilemma’. In my growing Doctor Who video and DVD collection it is perhaps equal only to ‘The Chase’ in its extreme crappiness. Perhaps the worst thing that could be said about ‘Time and the Rani’ is that there is very little to say about it.

The plot, concerning the Rani gathering together the greatest minds in the universe (for a purpose so tedious I won’t even begin to explain), is un-involving, one-dimensional and just plain rubbish. The performances, particularly by the lead actors, are either completely over the top or wooden, the Tetrap monsters are about as scary as a pet hamster, the dialogue is ridiculous… I could go on. To be fair to the writers, Pip and Jane Baker, apparently they wrote this serial without knowing who would be playing the Doctor, so had to be as generic in his characterisation as possible. Less forgivable is the completely over blown dialogue they write. Why they feel the need to do this is unclear. Perhaps they are trying to cover up deficiencies in the plot.

Sylvester McCoy gets off to a bad start as the Doctor. His performance throughout this serial has a certain pantomime quality to it, complete with spoon playing and over the top physical movements, and you never get the sense that he (or any of the other performers for that matter) really believe in any of it. Probably due to the poor script. The Doctor McCoy plays in this adventure is completely different to the mysterious and dark traveller we get in later McCoy stories such as ‘Ghost Light’, with his performances improving greatly from him playing the role much straighter. It goes without saying that Bonnie Langford as Mel is awful, and in my opinion the reason many fans have a big problem with season twenty-four is because of this one character. Thankfully this would be her last season with the show. The Rani is played by Kate O’Mara, and although she appears to be having a great deal of fun, she comes across as not especially villainous. This is the only Rani adventure I have seen – I’m still yet to see ‘The Mark of the Rani’ – and, assuming this is the same Rani we get in her debut adventure, it is difficult to see how this character could ever earn a second outing. The idea of a female Master is a nice one, but Pip and Jane Baker have written this character like a pantomime villain.

‘Time and the Rani’ was the first Doctor Who adventure I watched as a small boy of four years old. Unbelievably, it was also the story that got me hooked on Doctor Who and as a result good film and TV science fiction in general. Looking back on it now, however, it is perhaps fortunate I was so young when I first saw it, for I fear that if I was only three or four years older ‘Time and the Rani’ would have turned me off Doctor Who for life.

In summary, whereas I can usually find things to enjoy even in bad McCoy adventures, such as ‘Silver Nemesis’, which is so bad its good, ‘Time and the Rani’ is so bad its bad. Doctor Who had reached its lowest point, and after this awful McCoy debut adventure, things could only get better.