Like The Armageddon Factor this is another show where "the memory cheats". When I was a kiddie, this was my all-time favorite Dalek show. Now it's an episode that causes headaches while watching it. A lot of things don't make sense. Davros explains how and why he was able to come back, but it all sounds like baloney. There are lots of unanswered questions and plotholes you could herd a fleet of Drashigs through. After the Daleks "killed" Davros at the end of Genesis, it looks like they rolled his body into the Dalek equivalent of a broom closet, so how does the Doctor know exactly where to find him? Why did the Daleks save his body anyway? Why does Davros "wake up" the moment the Doctor finds him? Since when are Daleks slaves to logic? How can K9 catch laryngitis? ARGH! 

There are other things that give this story a tacky look: Davros wobbles a lot whenever he moves, the Dalek operators are constantly re-adjusting their upper casings, and the fight scene between the escaped prisoners and the Movellans in Episode Four just looks sad. Then there's the Movellans themselves. Looks like they're going to a disco after they leave Skaro. 

Anything good? Yeah. Lalla Ward in her debut as Romana is great. Well, apart from the scene where she blubbers in front of her Dalek interrogators. I don't think Mary Tamm's Romana wouldn't have done that. David Gooderson is also good as Davros. His scenes with the Doctor are the highlight of the story.

Death to the Daleks' has a fairly poor reputation, but I've never quite understood why. It may not be a classic, and indeed has several flaws, but it's still an entertaining, fast paced little story that generally works rather well on several fronts. 

Firstly, I said when I reviewed 'Colony in Space' that I'm a sucker for ancient races, super weapons and mysterious powerful alien races. Whilst the City isn't a super-weapon as such, the principle remains the same, and like the Uxariens, the fruits of their once mighty technology have slowly destroyed the Exxilons. I'm also a sucker for B-movie plots involving quests through labyrinths riddled with traps, so all in all 'Death to the Daleks' has a certain appeal for me thanks to the Exxilons and their City alone. The City works very well; it looks effective, and lives up to the threat that Bellal insists it poses; not only is it capable of draining power from the TARDIS in addition to the other ships on Exxilon, it also proves able to defend itself and has regenerative capabilities. The roots are surprisingly effective, despite the occasional glimpse of a wire holding them up, and the screeching noise they make as they attack is suitably chilling. The seeming ease (relatively speaking) with which the Doctor and Bellal reach the heart (or rather, the brain) of the City seems suspicious until they actually get there, when the Doctor realizes that the traps are designed to let intelligent visitors through so that it can add their knowledge to its own; having proved a threat to it, the City responds with the Antibodies, which are fairly creepy, especially as they are seemingly indestructible. The Exxilons themselves are a fairly basic primitive tribal society, which are rife throughout science fiction in general and Doctor Who in particular, but they look quite good and Bellal makes for a pleasing pseudo-companion (he doesn't actually do much besides allow the Doctor to explain the plot to the viewers, but he's quite likeable). The notion of the two Exxilon factions isn't really exploited, but then again there isn't really time to show them at odds; in plot terms, Bellal's breakaway group exists to explain the origins of the City and they do little else. The religious divide between the groups is plausible enough, although personally I suspect that Bellal's group is persecuted because they insist on walking around stark bollock naked. 

Considering how utterly ghastly their last outing was the Daleks are used well here. In many respects, they benefit from the plot, which sees them landing on Exxilon after the humans have been dithering and getting nowhere for some time, and quickly taking charge of the situation. After briefly panicking when they discover that their guns don't work, they make a bargain with the Exxilons to secure the parrineum, and to buy them time whilst they devise alternative weaponry, which is a least a nod in the direction of their old cunning and intelligence. It also speaks volumes about the Daleks that they quickly come up with a substitute weapon; this is understandable considering their helplessness when unarmed (note the Dalek that glides at the attacking Exxilons in Episode Two screeching "Exterminate!" almost instinctively and thus gets destroyed), but it also showcases their technical brilliance. Incidentally, their ability to move about on Exxilon is interesting; the script explains it away by stating that they move by psychokinesis, which is a rather startling new development, and one which suggests that Terry Nation suddenly noticed a plot-hole whilst he was writing and decided to hurriedly gloss over it. However, an upshot of this is that it also makes the Daleks look good, since however they do it, the fact remains that they retain motive power when even the TARDIS has been incapacitated. The irony of the Dalek involvement in 'Death to the Daleks' is that it is crucial to the success of the Earth mission; it is the Daleks who organize the mining (admittedly through their usual unpleasant tactics), and it is the Daleks who provide the explosives to destroy the beacon and end the power-drain. In addition, whilst we only see the two Daleks in the City tackling two of the five tests faced by the Doctor and Bellal, they don't seem to have much trouble with any them. In short, 'Death to the Daleks' makes the Daleks look pretty good. Having said that, the self-destructing Dalek in Episode Four is just annoying; it may be standard Dalek policy not to allow failure, but on an important mission to a dangerous planet on which three Daleks have already been destroyed it would surely make more sense for it to try and recapture its prisoner! 

The human characters are less effective, with only the unpleasant Galloway (Duncan Lamont, who played doomed astronaut Victor Caroon in The Quatermass Experiment) standing out. John Abineri is wasted as Railton, and Julian Fox is rather dreadful as Hamilton. Joy Harrison has to suffer with being the token female, which is one of my main criticisms of 'Death to the Daleks'; Jill Tarrant is a member of a military expedition, and yet she spends a great deal of time panicking, or on the verge of tears, or asking a journalist with no military training what to do. It's utterly ridiculous; she's like the embodiment of passive sexism. 

The Doctor and Sarah are there usual reliable selves. Sarah gets sidelined for much of the story, but Liz Sladen does what she can with her limited scenes; her clobbering of the Exxilon in the TARDIS is a great scene, in part because it's rather claustrophobic, Sarah frantically trying to open the door of what should be a safe haven whilst her attacker starts to recover on the floor behind her. Pertwee isn't at his best or worst here, he simply puts in an average performance, although I do like his "a hit Sir, a palpable hit!" routine when the root attacks the Dalek. 

Production wise, the story is mixed. The model work of the city looks good, as does its final destruction. There are moments of impressive direction, including shots of the expedition's photographs of the City superimposed over Sarah approaching the edifice, and the surreal final test in the City. Showing us the attacking Exxilons from the point of view of a Dalek in Episode Two also works well, conveying the unarmed Dalek's panic at being unable to defend itself. Serves it right. However, as in 'Planet of the Daleks', the contrast between location footage and studio footage is rather jarring, especially as the extensive rocky sets look decidedly plastic. This is doubly unfortunate, since the location work is very atmospheric. I also wish that they hadn't used the static Dalek to bulk up numbers; I'm not sure why, but I actually find it far more distracting than photographic cardboard cut-outs used in the black and white Dalek stories. There is unfortunately some crap editing; it is obvious before the end credits role in Episode One that the Dalek guns don't work, and the cliff-hanger to Episode Three is beyond belief, consisting as it does of a shot of a tiled floor. There's also a pointless frame of Galloway screaming after he detonates the bomb at the end, which isn't remotely convincing. My strongest criticism of the story however, is the stupid incidental music, which robs several scenes of any dramatic tension that they might have had. A very silly musical sting for example, accompanies the first sight of the Daleks as they glide from their ship.

Despite these criticisms however, 'Death to the Daleks' is well paced and entertaining, and makes effective use of its eponymous villains.

'Planet of Evil' has fallen on hard times. Back when fans' only knowledge of old Doctor Who stories were hazy memories story guides like that in Doctor Who: A Celebration, 'Planet of Evil' was a terrifying story that drew on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to great effect and was even compared to Alien, as a monster picked up on an alien planet slaughtered the crew of a spaceship. With the video release however, opinions became rather more divided, and 'Planet of Evil' was found by many to disappoint. But 'Planet of Evil' doesn't really deserve its poor reputation. Whilst it is overshadowed by the stories on either side of it, it still has much to offer.

Firstly, the jungle set, one of the story's most famous aspects, is pretty good. It looks suitably different from any jungle on Earth, and its rubbery vegetation gives it a very alien feel, which is enhanced greatly by the wise decision to shoot many of the jungle scenes on film. Indeed, Zeta Minor is one of the most unearthly alien planets seen in the series, with its weird foliage, non-reflective black pool and the Anti-Matter monster. The monster too is far more alien than many seen in the series, due to its appearance as a red outline (an obvious, but effective homage to Forbidden Planet), and the fact that unlike many intelligent aliens in Doctor Who it doesn't speak English, its only communication with the Doctor achieved through a surreal scene in a black void. 

Set amidst this alien landscape, Episode One gets off to a promising start. Sorensen sets the scene with his terse assertion that the planet is alive, and the deaths of the two Morestrans are dramatic and disturbing, as they vanish screaming in agony, only to reappear as quite convincing shriveled corpses. The sense of danger established in these early scenes is maintained throughout, with the Anti-Matter Monster and the Anti-Men well nigh unstoppable; the tension in Episode Four as the marauding advance through the ship and agonized screams are heard over the communications system, whilst the ship plummets back towards Zeta Minor is palpable. However, flaws start to appear in Episode One as the Doctor and Sarah are imprisoned in a room from which they can easily escape; admittedly the script addresses this, and it gives Sarah something to do since it is she who realises that with the failing power the magnetic window locks will have weakened, but it feels very contrived. 

I'm in two minds about the Morestran probe ship sets. They are very sparse, and this contrasts sharply with the jungle on Zeta Minor, and this makes a certain amount of sense since it further enhances the planet's alien feel and also military vehicles are not renowned for their dйcor. On the other hand, these sets are so stark and featureless that they are actually boring to look at, and ironically the comparatively moody lighting in the corridors makes them marginally more interesting than the command area. The Morestran costumes are also pretty awful, which doesn't help the story's visual appeal during the latter two episodes. 

In addition to these minor flaws, there are two aspects of 'Planet of Evil' that I originally considered to be weaknesses, but as the story progressed I found that, bizarrely, they actually added to the story. The first is the anti-matter plot line. As Kate Orman has pointed out, anti-matter does not cause people to turn into ape-men, it simply causes huge explosions in collision with matter. Initially, this makes this plot seem like pure technobabble, but then in Episode Two, during a conversation between the Doctor and Sarah, it is pointed out that matter and anti-matter in collision causes a massive release of energy (as seen in 'The Three Doctors'). Suddenly, by addressing this inconsistency, the script makes the anti-matter plotline seem less like technobabble and more like intentional fantasy, and in doing so adds further to otherworldly nature of Zeta Minor, subtly reminding us that this unique planet is a gateway between universes, neither entirely in this universe nor the universe of anti-matter. This also ties in with the Doctor's implication that if the Morestran ship manages to get too far from Zeta Minor with anti-matter on board, there will be a cataclysmic explosion that will threaten the entire universe, suggesting that Zeta Minor exists in a state contrary to the laws of physics. 

The second aspect is Salamaar. In my opinion, there is no evidence in Doctor Who that Prentis Hancock can act; he was wooden in 'Planet of the Daleks' and he's wooden here, although it doesn't help that he's playing very similar characters in both stories. Nevertheless, Salamaar the character is rather interesting. He's ludicrously unstable and clearly unfit for command, making reckless decisions and twice intending to execute the Doctor and Sarah simply because it will make his life easier if they are responsible for killing the Morestrans on Zeta Minor. When he eventually accepts the truth, he adopts a death and glory attitude, launching a suicidal and misguided attack on Sorenson that further endangers the surviving crew. Initially, I found it absurd that such an unstable character could become commander of a military expedition, but as the story progressed this too made me think; there are hints that Sorenson's influence back on Morestra will get him whatever he wants, and once these hints of corruption are sown it raises the obvious possibility that Morestra is so corrupt that Salamaar himself reached a high ranking position because of friends in high places. This is further supported by the fact that the much more competent but disruptive Vishinski holds a lower position, raising the possibility that his outspoken nature has harmed his career. 

The acting in 'Planet of Evil' is variable. Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen by now play their roles with ease, and the Doctor gets to be suitably impressive here, claiming that he is not without influence and proving able to communicate with the Anti-Matter Monster. Sladen is convincingly frightened at appropriate moments, especially the cliffhanger to Episode Three and during the final attack of the Anti-Men in Episode Four. Frederick Jaeger is superb as Sorensen, playing the tortured scientist with great emotion. Sorensen's initial obsession with his work is so all consuming that he blames the Doctor and Sarah for the deaths of his colleagues and strenuously denies both the Doctor's claims about Zeta Minor and also the transformation that he is undergoing. But Jaeger suggests that Sorenson is also troubled by his conscience, and his quiet confession to the Doctor in Episode four that "My hypothesis… was false" has rather a noble ring to it. In story terms, this admission seems to bring him redemption, and the Anti-Matter Monster unexpectedly cures him at the end of the story. Vishinski is also well acted by Ewan Solon, but the other Morestrans are utterly forgettable, with one or two (Ponti being a prime example) being quite bad. 

In summary, 'Planet of Evil' is flawed but effective and certainly doesn't deserve its recent poor reputation. In a weaker season it might stand out more, but as it stands it is overshadowed by both 'Terror of the Zygons' and the story that follows…

'The Masque of Mandragora' is very well made and contains almost all the right ingredients for a successful Doctor Who story. Despite this it remains rather overlooked, perhaps because, for all that it should be a classic, there is a slight impression of something that is less than the sum of its parts. 

The plot of 'The Masque of Mandragora' perfectly fills the story's four-episode length, and contains a number of subplots. The main threat is that of the Mandragora Helix, a mysterious and powerful alien entity that seeks to subjugate humanity because it believes that mankind will one day reach out into space and encroach on its territory. It therefore hijacks the TARDIS and uses it to travel to fifteenth century Italy, intending to destroy leading thinkers of the time and keep mankind in the dark ages. Tying in with this is the Cult of Demnos, a sect that practices human sacrifice and which is secretly headed by Hieronymous, court astrologer to Count Federico, the local tyrant. Finally, we have the power struggle between Federico and his nephew Giuliano, heir to the thrown of San Martino; Federico is a butcher who brutally rules the people and who killed his own brother for power, whereas Guiliano is a quiet, thoughtful and intelligent young man who wants the best for his people and who also has a thirst for knowledge that makes him eager to meet leading Renaissance thinkers and artists. These three plot threads mesh perfectly, making for a well-paced and interesting story. My only criticism of the plot is the Doctor realizing that Sarah has been hypnotized because she asks how she can understand Italian; the implication is that having been given this "Time Lord gift", she automatically understands how it works and should take it for granted, but it doesn't seem that odd that she should bring it up in conversation. This is, nevertheless, a minor criticism.

The production looks great, with superb location work prominent throughout (as a trivial aside, it's quite strange recognizing bits of San Martino from The Prisoner, both having been filmed in Portmeirion). The sets are generally very impressive; the stone walls of the catacombs are obviously fake, but unconvincing stone walls are a common problem of nineteen-seventies Doctor Who and easily forgivable. The palace interiors and the temple however are well realized. On the subject of sets, I'd also like to mention the debut of the TARDIS' wood-paneled secondary control room, which remains my favourite TARDIS control room set to date; dusty mahogany dйcor rather suits the Doctor's vaguely Edwardian wardrobe. The period costumes on display here also look very good (they were apparently recycled from a 1954 movie version of Romeo and Juliet) and contribute significantly to the story's rather convincing fifteenth century feel. 

In addition to all this lush production of the scenes set in Florence, the story also opens with some decent model work. When I first started buying old Doctor Who stories on video, I absolutely hated the spinning-model-police-box-against-a-backdrop-of-space effect, but nowadays I find it rather quaint and endearing. The surreal appearance of the TARDIS in the heart of the crystalline helix also looks rather effective, and although on first sight the red sparkler effect of the Helix energy approaching the TARDIS just looks cheap and nasty, once the story shifts to San Martino it somehow seems to fit in well. 

So why exactly do I find 'The Masque of Mandragora' vaguely unsatisfactory? The first clue lies in the acting. Gareth Armstrong is slightly wooden as Guiliano, but the rest of the guest cast is very good, especially Tim Piggott-Smith as Marco, Norman Jones as Hieronymous, and John Laurimore as Count Federico. Part of the reason these three are so good is that they seem to take the script very seriously, and that is part of my problem with 'The Masque of Mandragora'; ironically, it's taken too seriously. The principle human villains seem very earnest; Norman Jones portrays Hieronymous as seething with anger and resentment after years of ridicule and waiting to serve his dark god, and John Laurimore plays Federico as a humorless, vicious thug. They are both convincing performances and are unusually realistic in a series with more than its fair share of over-the-top ranting lunatics, but compared to villains such as for example Harrison Chase, they aren't quite mad enough to be memorable. I really wish I wasn't criticizing a Doctor Who story for having villains who are acted with conviction and restraint, but I am. Remind me about this when I review the next story…

Having recklessly criticized 'The Masque of Mandragora' for having good acting, I should point out that the real root of my problem with the story is actually the script. The fact is, the actors are quite right to take their roles seriously, because the script is rather serious. There is very little wit in this story, even from the Doctor; there are characteristic flashes of humour, such as when the Doctor casually slides an orange onto the point of a sword being waved next to his face in Episode One, but they are few and far between. With the Doctor and Sarah separated for quite a lot of the story, their usual light hearted banter is interrupted; even in 'Pyramids of Mars', when faced with Sutekh, the tension exhibited by the Doctor was occasional diffused by Sarah making half-hearted jokes, but there is little of that here. Again, I feel slightly churlish for making such a criticism, and in fairness I should point out that we do instead get some moments of very convincing concern for each other from the Doctor and Sarah. 

I have to conclude that anyone who hasn't seen 'The Masque of Mandragora' should not feel put off by my opinion of it; it may not be the most memorable story of the Hinchcliffe era, it may not boast an eccentric and charismatic villain, and it may not be the series' wittiest script, but it is a well-made and polished Doctor Who story with much to recommend it. It just doesn't quite work for me as well as I think it should.

'The Hand of Fear' is a story made memorable only by Sarah's departure and in a season boasting 'The Deadly Assassin', 'The Robots of Death', and 'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' it would probably be completely overlooked were it not for this fact. In fact, it is rather entertaining and possibly deserves slightly more recognition than it gets, but despite that it also suffers from some serious flaws. 

'The Hand of Fear' starts off badly. The early model sequence of Eldrad's obliteration module looks unpleasantly cheap and an irritating scene in which the Doctor and Sarah completely fail to become alarmed by a screeching siren and men gesticulating at them in obvious agitation quickly follows this. After this slightly rocky start however, the first two episodes are actually very good, and I can't help but be amused that when Sarah asks the Doctor where the TARDIS has landed he tells her that it is obviously a quarry. Irony on that scale cannot be accidental. The first two episodes quickly gather momentum and benefit from generally decent special effects work of the disembodied hand moving about, as well as some interesting direction. When shooting people who are under Eldrad's control, Lennie Mayne uses close-up shots of the actors walking towards camera, and this is highly distinctive. In addition, the nicely sinister incidental score adds to the effect, and on top of this there is some rather effective filmed location work for the interior of the Nunton complex. 

'The Hand of Fear' also benefits from some nice bits of characterisation. Renu Setna's Intern, who cheerfully lectures the bruised and battered Doctor on the subject of pain, is quite wonderful. Later, we get Glyn Houston's Professor Watson realizing that he could be facing a nuclear meltdown, telephoning his family for what could be the last time. This could have been a cloyingly sentimental moment, but is acted so well that it just seems quietly touching instead. 

By Episode Three however, things start to fall apart. For starters, Watson is very easily able to arrange a tactical nuclear strike on his own nuclear power plant on the coast of Britain, which frankly beggars belief. Amusingly, this is made even sillier by the fact that he and his remaining staff take shelter from the impending nuclear blast by crouching behind land rovers parked a few hundred yards away. Just when you think it can't get more moronic, Watson tells Sarah to hold her nose and open her mouth to protect herself from the blast. It seems that Bob Baker and Dave Martin haven't learnt anything more about nuclear physics since 'The Claws of Axos'. And then there's Eldrad.

In Episode Three, Eldrad works really well. Judith Paris brings an aloof alien feel to the role, and her costume (which I gather she had to be sewn into) looks pretty good. More importantly, the character of Eldrad works very well at this point. She has already caused the deaths of Carter and Driscoll during her attempt to regenerate herself, and she displays obviously violent tendencies throughout, but on the other hand the fact that she is millions of years and millions of light years from home and seemingly rather confused raises the possibility that she is just as scared as, for example, Professor Watson, and is reacting accordingly out a desperation to survive. This being the case, it is easy to believe that when she reaches Kastria she isn't going to prove to be a straightforward villain, since she seems to be a rather more complex being with interesting motivations. She is also forced to trust the Doctor, and seems to gain genuine respect for him as the story progresses. In short, Eldrad is an interesting character whose true motivations are suitably intriguing. Then she turns into Stephen Thorne. 

It has probably become clear by now that I do not like the Doctor Who work of Stephen Thorne. His horrendously melodramatic and unsubtle booming worked reasonable well in goatskin trappings for 'The Dжmons', but he was horribly amateurish as Omega in 'The Three Doctors', and little better as Maximillian in 'The Ghosts of N-Space'. Here, he is astonishingly bad as Eldrad, a character whom the script in any case reduces to the status of a clichйd ranting megalomaniac. Thorne is so ludicrously unsubtle that at one point, when Eldrad indulges in maniacal laughter, he doesn't actually laugh, he shouts "Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!". After Paris's much more interesting and, crucially, less pantomimesque, performance, it is very disappointing that Eldrad is reduced to this, although fittingly he does have least have a large moustache, which he can possibly twirl when the situation demands. He doesn't even get a decent final scene, since the Doctor just trips him into an abyss with his scarf, but then again he doesn't really deserve one. 

Whatever shortcomings 'The Hand of Fear' has however, they are more than made up for by Sarah's leaving scene. As her final story, 'The Hand of Fear' generally works well; she gets a reasonable amount to do, since it is Sarah who first discovers the hand in the quarry and promptly gets taken over by it. In addition, there are some wonderful character moments between the Doctor and Sarah throughout, from the Doctor's uncharacteristic irritability when he's worried about Sarah in Episode One, to the pair of them admitting that each worries about the other and agreeing to be careful in Episode Three. Sarah's actual departure is probably my favourite companion-leaving scene from the entire series. Her initial tantrum, in which she sums up the various times she's been hypnotized, kidnapped, tied-up, etc, is a great summary of the bad times with the Doctor, but the hurt and disappointed look on her face when she finds out that she really does have to leave because he's been summoned to Gallifrey is a reminder that, however dangerous travelling with the Doctor might be, she also enjoys it enormously. There's a real feel in this scene that these are two best friends who aren't going to see each other again, or at least not for a long time, and that they both find it enormously painful to part company. Tom Baker gets a remarkable amount of emotion into the Doctor's line "Oh, Sarah… don't you forget me." It's a superb farewell, and the final freeze-frame shot of Sarah glancing skyward after the TARDIS dematerializes feels like a fitting tribute to one of the series' finest companions.

There are Doctor Who fans who feel that, after Philip Hinchcliffe left, the series took a downturn, with a greater emphasis on comedy and family viewing, partly due to the criticisms about the programme's violent content from the National Viewers and Listeners Association. Whilst the change in emphasis is demonstrably present in the series once Graham Williams took over, the downturn in quality is debatable, and whilst I do think that the Hinchcliffe era has a greater number of good stories than the Williams era, the actual change in style is not in itself detrimental. Given Tom Baker's mammoth seven-year stint in the role, I feel that his era is large enough to accommodate such a change in tone. For those fans who do bemoan this transition however, 'Horror of Fang Rock' must be welcome indeed; the first story to be produced by Williams it may be, with Holmes still script-editing it is far closer to the gothic stories of the previous two seasons than what would come later.

'Horror of Fang Rock' is in my opinion the best story that Terrance Dicks has written for Doctor Who in any format, without the extensive rewrites from Robert Holmes that elevated 'The Brain of Morbius' to classic status. The story is economical, and perfectly tailored to its format, boasting minimal sets, a memorable monster, and a cast of adequate supporting characters whom Dicks kills off one by one to maintain the tension. The setting is inspired; in many ways a basic "base under siege" story, 'Horror of Fang Rock' could have easily been set in a remote outpost in outer space, but by setting it in a Victorian lighthouse on a fog-shrouded island, he allows the story to benefit from the BBC's famous skill at creating period settings. There are very few sets on display, but they all look authentic, and a lighthouse proves to be an ideal choice as the "base" in question. With supporting characters in period costumes and suitably Victorian dialect, the story is lifted above its simplistic origins in an impressive example of style over content. Add to this a dark sky, a stormy sea, and thick fog, and the scene is set for a simple horror story as a shape-shifting monster kills off the humans on the island one by one. Claustrophobic and tense, 'Horror of Fang Rock' thus manages to be impressively creepy. 

Helping to create a feeling of tension, the story is light on wit, most of the best lines going to Leela and the Doctor and most of these working largely due to the acting of Baker and Jameson. The Doctor's retort to Leela after she has told him not to be afraid is hardly quotable ("What do you mean, do not be afraid?"), but Baker says it with such indignation and shortly after that the fact that it works very well. Indeed, 'Horror of Fang Rock' is almost entirely carried by the regulars, both of whom benefit enormously from the script. Unusually, the Doctor arrives shortly after a suspicious death, but is not suspected; Reuben is vaguely suspicious of him on principle because he suspects that he is foreign (which technically of course, is extremely true), but by the end of Episode One as the ship crashes on the rocks, he seems to have more-or-less accepted him. With no need to prove his innocence, the Doctor instead launches himself straight into the problem of finding out what is at large on the island and stopping it; interestingly, Baker's performance here is so terse that the Doctor's usual dedication to fighting evil wherever he finds it is portrayed almost as an obsession. As noted, the script is grim and almost humourless, and so indeed is the Doctor. He takes command easily throughout, ignoring any complaints from the newcomers about his abrasive attitude and showing obvious contempt for Adelaide. When Leela tells Palmerdale, "Do as the Doctor says or I will cut out your heart!", he doesn't berate her, because he needs Palmerdale to stop arguing. Leela too benefits from uncompromising characterisation, pragmatically dealing with the prospect of death and seemingly relishing the chance of facing a powerful and devious enemy. Her disgust at Adelaide's hysterical reaction to death is memorable and a stark reminder of her savage origins, as is her gloating over the dying Rutan. Equally, the changes that she has undergone under the Doctor's tutelage are also on display, as she dismisses superstition and tells Adelaide that "It is better to believe in science", continuing to show her developing character. As an aside, I find Leela's "pigmentation dispersal" highly amusing; I'm dubious that anyone would have noticed her change in eye colour had Jameson simply stopped wearing her contact lenses without using what is basically technobabble to explain it. 

The supporting characters on display here are so vaguely sketched that they are more caricatures than actual characters, every one of them a walking clichй. Reuben and Vince are prime examples, one an old and superstitious yokel with a distrust of new-fangled technology, the other young, wide-eyed and naпve. Once the ship crashes at the end of Episode One, this trend becomes even more obvious, with the four newcomers each distinguished by the most basic characteristics; Adelaide is pampered and hysterical; Palmerdale is a greedy business man, Skinsale is a corrupt politician, and Harker is a plain spoken, honest sailor. I have mixed feelings about this; on the one hand, all the members of the guest cast put in solid performances which makes their dialogue work, and they are in essence only present to act as "cannon fodder". In this respect they fulfill their function adequately enough, as the rising body count drives the tension of the story. On the other hand, their characterisation is so sketchy that individually their deaths have very little impact; their motivations and backgrounds are conveyed so simplistically that the I failed to develop any real emotional investment in them (a failing incidentally, that renders most of Dicks' original Doctor Who novels barely readable in my opinion). Ultimately however, I do nonetheless find 'Horror of Fang Rock' to be both gripping and creepy, which suggests that all the supporting characters are fulfilling their basic function. 

The Rutan is well used, and as the principle antagonist is crucial to the success of 'Horror of Fang Rock'. It is perhaps remembered more than it deserves to be, for the simple reason that the Rutan have been mentioned in both 'The Time Warrior' and 'the Sontaran Experiment', and this story thus gives us a glimpse of the ever-popular Sontarans' perennial foe. For the most part, the Rutan is not seen, and works very well as an unseen killer lurking out of sight and killing stealthily. The fish-eye view of the Rutan scout is effective, and its ability to change shape and kill on contact makes it a suitably formidable foe. Colin Douglas also contributes to the story's success as "Reuben the Rutan", proving to be capable of a very unsettling smile just before the disguised alien kills anyone. Unfortunately, the realization of the Rutan as an enormous green testicle is far less impressive, and rather deflates the tension thus far created, but by this point the emphasis of the story changes; with virtually everybody dead, the story suddenly concerns itself with a last minute race against time, as the Doctor struggles to convert a lighthouse and a small diamond into a laser beam capable of destroying the Rutan mother ship. It remains for me a rather contrived ending, but works well enough and does provide an explosive climax.

In summary then, 'Horror of Fang Rock' is a story that works well within its limitations, managing to work as an effective horror story on a small budget with shallow supporting characters. Despite its shortcomings, it makes an great start to the new season, and shows considerable promise for the new producer's era. A promise on which the following story utterly fails to deliver…