Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars

“Don’t drink the water. Don’t touch it. Not one drop.”

I’ve written three pages of notes for this one, possibly a new record, and trust me, I’m well concise. This review could be a bit long.

Doctor Who certainly looks great, these days. The CGI is simply incredible; this is the Martian surface at its most iconic. And the first few minutes set up the “base under siege” scenario with superbly economical handling of the exposition. We’re introduced to the whole crew, all of whom have the required degree of depth for their respective life expectancies, and there’s a comedy robot to lighten the tone. Best of all, the excitement starts quickly enough for us to avoid any of that tiresomeness that often ensues when people become suspicious of the Doctor.

It’s an interesting future, too, a reality sketched out by the odd line here and there. It’s 2059, and after forty years of environmental struggle, humanity is finally stepping towards the stars with its first colony on another world. I love the fact it’s called Bowie Base One. It’s a multinational group, too- there’s a large bunch of flags on the wall of the control room. Base under siege, multinational crew… it’s just like the late ‘60s all over again. Oh, and there’s the “Branson Inheritance”.

We have Lindsay Duncan as the tough but principled Adelaide Brooke, who understandably dominates given her role in the story. The other characters are there for background and flavour, really, but it’s impressive that you can’t tell which ones are going to be the redshirts.

The threat besieging this particular base, a kind of sentient water, isn’t as scary for me as many have said it is. That doesn’t matter, though; the possessed people still look amazing and the sense of threat is very real. For me the effect was more that of a disaster movie than a horror movie, but that’s no bad thing. The threat is effective, that’s what matters. I love the scene where we slowly see and hear the change in Maggie from over the shoulder of the oblivious Yuri. And there are some very human tragedies, particularly Steffi’s tearful final moments watching footage of her daughter to Roman, who spends most of the episode as an annoying young smarty-pants, courageously accepting that the one drop that fell on his face means he must stay and die.

It’s nice that the Ice Warriors get a nod, too. And that 42nd century spacesuit has probably finally featured enough to become part of the Tenth Doctor’s iconography.

But all that is the surface. More than any episode we’ve seen before, this story drills deep into the core themes of the programme, and does this brilliantly. The concept of changing history has been around since the early Hartnells, and has come to the fore again in recent years with the added concept of “fixed points in time”. The Doctor mentions The Fires of Pompeii to Adelaide, of course, and the echoes of this story are loud indeed. But I’m reminded equally of The Aztecs. It’s a benchmark, a line in the sand, which shows us how far the Doctor has come since those days. Because he is, of course, the last of the Time Lords.

Twice before the climax the Doctor has a chance to leave; two moments of temptation. He may only stay, once he finds out where and when he is, because he’s forced to remain, but he changes his mind about leaving, just as he warns Adelaide that anyone could be infected. And, of course, there’s the long, drawn out moment of temptation just before the climax.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This story is our first real example on screen of the much-mooted concept of an “historical” set in our future. To the Doctor, this “history” is every bit as immutable as the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day or the destruction of Pompeii. But, at this point, with no other Time Lords to set the boundaries and no companion to stop him, will he act in the way he advised Barbara to act, long ago at the beginning of the Marathon? The whole story pivots on the Doctor’s decision and what it means for his character.

The character of Adelaide is important here; as someone the Doctor respects, she’s made privy to the Doctor’s deliberations. As an historical figure, she was even spared by a Dalek fifty years earlier, implicitly because of the weight of her historical importance. It is because of her sacrifice that her granddaughter is set to become the first human to reach Proxima Centauri by faster-than-light travel. And she’s shown, and portrayed, as someone with gravitas, dignity, but also integrity and humanity. The Doctor trusts her enough to know that she will release him from the airlock even as he tells her the full, horrible truth. These are very deep dramatic themes.

We know what’s going to happen, and the thought is terrifying. He’s the only Time Lord left, with no peers to condemn him. He has no companion to temper his Time Lord arrogance with humanity. And he is alone, a Lonely God. He makes up his mind, and sets out to do all the things he implored Barbara not to do. Because he can. His self-imposed limits are gone, and he becomes dizzy with dangerous, tempting, corrupting power.

These scenes are brilliantly written; the Doctor is a subtly different character here. All of his usual mannerisms are present and correct, but he’s so arrogant and self-centred, even self-obsessed. Having not mentioned the hints of his future thus far this episode, now his” Three knocks is all you’re getting!” shows us the fear of death which perhaps underlies what he’s doing. Sounds like the denial phase to me. Worst of all is “It’s taken me all these years to realise the laws of time are mine. And they will obey me!” The echoes of the Master are deliberate, I’m sure. We see where this path must ultimately lead.

After a dramatic countdown the Doctor saves the day, and the survivors stand in shocked silence on a central London street. There’s an awkward mood. Adelaide, understanding what the Doctor has done, is appalled: “No one should have that much power!” Mia and Yuri are simply scared of this capricious, godlike figure, who cavorts with mortals for his sport. Worse of all is Adelaide’s realisation that he has no idea whether or not humanity’s future in the stars will now happen. The Doctor, in the knowledge that his song is ending, has become so fixated on saving lives which are a proxy for his own that he has lost sight of the things which he once found so important. And he’s oblivious of this, demanding why no one is thanking him. Only when we hear the shot from inside Adelaide’s home (a surprising moment for a family show, although the suicide isn’t too explicit) does he realise what has happened. He has indeed gone too far. And the vision of the Ood is not just a rebuke bit a reminder that he must finally accept that his song will end. He isn’t quite redeemed, though. He spends the last few moments clearly terrified of what awaits him. His sudden and symbolic pulling of the lever inside the TARDIS to escape the scene of his crime indicates that he is still afraid to face what is to come.

Sublime, perhaps the Boom Town of the specials (and I loved Boom Town, personally) in that this episode wraps up the deep, thematic stuff in preparation for the fireworks that are to come. 5/5.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Enemy of the Bane

Part One

“UNIT have their uses, but, in my experience, guns never solve a problem they didn’t first make worse.”

It’s good to see the Brig again. Of course it’s good to see the Brig again. But is it just me who’s a bit underwhelmed at this by-the-numbers attempt at a season closer?

Things start well, with lots of screen time for lovely, lovely Gita being particularly lovely. But then we get a load of quick set-pieces which don’t seem to add up to anything particularly coherent. It’s a bit of a surprise to see Mrs Wormwood again, but she’s a fairly standard example of the scenery-chewing baddie. Yes, it’s a bit of a surprise to see her people have turned against her and she apparently wants to help our heroes, but we (and our heroes) know she can’t be trusted. Sarah Jane believed the story about the Black Scrolls on very little evidence to the point where she decides to break into a top secret vault. And both she and Rani are cauight on camera- surely there should be consequences? This is the organisation that imprisoned Tosh without trial!

Worse, the Brig doesn’t question Sarah Jane’s reasons for doing this, either. Still, it really is great that we get to see the Brig one last time, especially as we’ll almost certainly never see Nick Courtney on screen ever again, given his health problems. It’s just a shame this wasn’t a more Brig-focused story, although I understand how that wouldn’t have been realistic, and he was a last-minute replacement for Freema Agyeman, intended to appear as Martha. I like the Brig’s comments to Major “Homeworld Security” Kilburne, making it clear that the good old Brig has no truck with the unpleasant undertones of today’s UNIT.



Part Two

“You alien chaps never get the message, do you?”

To no one’s surprise, Kaagh is back, and he’s as deluded and incompetent as ever. One of the more amusing and successful elements of this episode is the power relationship between Kaagh and Mrs Wormwood; she’s definitely the boss, however much he may protest.

Unfortunately, there’s not overmuch dramatic tension here. We know Luke is not going to be tempted by Wormwood (hmm…character called Luke… “I am your mother”… naaah, can’t think what that reminds we of). The reveal of Kilburne being a Bane does work rather well, mind, and it’s good that the Brig gets to deal with him, showing a bit of heroism in what must surely be his last ever appearance.

Unfortunately, the ending (Kaagh sacrificing himself to save the day out of sheer mardiness) is a bit predictable and a bit by-the-numbers, much as this whole story has been.

This whole story is shockingly uninspired. It may not quite manage to be awful, but the plot and the set-pieces just plod along mechanically, with absolutely no verve or excitement. 2/5.

Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End

The Stolen Earth


“Rose is coming back. Isn’t that good?”

The sight of a milkman shows us things are about to happen, Survival-style…and then immediately we’re straight into the Big Things Happening. Earth has disappeared! Martha’s back, with UNIT, in the USA! Torchwood! Sarah Jane and Luke. My, even RTD himself is getting a bit irritated with that fanfare of Mr Smith’s.

Things pretty much go on like this, really. More than any other episode this one is constantly “up”. This is what happens when an episode of Doctor Who gets a sugar rush. We get Wilf and Sylvia. Rose! The Shadow Proclamation. Ooh. Thing is, it’s nice to see the Judoon again but the whole Proclamation is a bit disappointing, little more than a “posh name for police”. Still, we learn the truth behind all this season’s missing planets, sort of. “Someone tried to move the Earth once before. Long time ago.” So the Daleks are trying to attract the Doctor’s attention by means of continuity references to The Dalek Invasion of Earth? Well, why not…

The excitement keeps on coming. Davros! Dalek Caan! And he’s utterly doo-lally, courtesy of a particularly great performance by Nick Briggs! Not all bees are aliens, apparently. Good to know. And I love Wilf’s paint gun. “My vision is not impaired!”- this is RTD’s last chance to play with the Daleks and he’s bloody well going to have fun with them. Quite right too. And the Doctor was taken to see the Medusa Cascade when he was “a kid, about 90 years old”.

Things now get serious. Donna has to reassure the Doctor that things are going to be ok. Harriet Jones (yes, we know who she is) heroically sacrifices her life to bring the Doctor to Earth. Rose can’t manage to become anyone’s friend on Space Facebook.

We’re told Davros died in the Time War. The Doctor is devastated to see him again. He’s now played by Julian Bleach, who is fantastic, instantly better than anyone since Michael Wisher. The mask in particular is far superior to anything we’ve seen before, with facial muscles and everything. It seems Dalek Caan managed to get into the Time War, time locked though it was, but at the cost of his mind. And Davros created a whole new race of Daleks from his own cells, Kaled cells, so they’re pure-blooded Aryan Daleks. Urgh. Of course, Dalek Caan predicted all this. In no way will these predictions rebound on the Daleks in an ironic way. Oh no.

We end with the Doctor and Rose running towards each other’s arms, but the Doctor is shot by a passing Dalek. And we end with the ultimate cliffhanger. So who’s he going to regenerate into next week? My money’s on that Simon Cowell fellow.






Journey’s End



“This is a fully-fledged Dalek empire at the height of its powers. They can do anything.”

…Well, well, well. That cliffhanger resolution was simultaneously an inspired work of genius and an utter cheat. Plus the Doctor starts acting vain again. Grr. Still, Mickey and Jackie are back. Yay! And, er, there are no Daleks on Francine’s street, apparently. How convenient.

But… Donna touches the Doctor’s magic hand in a jar and creates some kind of half human “Doc 2”. Er… sorry, but this is silly. Still, at least this presumably gets rid of the hand forever. It was starting to outstay its welcome. After a bit of exposition the two of them take a break from the story for a bit so they can tread water until their next appearance on stage in the final act. Meanwhile, Jack escapes from captivity by cunningly getting himself killed.

Surprisingly, the talk about Donna’s “destiny” sort of works; a human / Time Lord meta-crisis is a big space / time event which sends ripples backwards as well as forwards. It’s also an interesting twist that Davros, confined to the vault, is not in charge and is merely kept around for amusement by his somewhat ungrateful offspring! Also intriguing is Dalek Caan’s insistence that “One of them will die!” This will be followed through, right?

There follows an extremely interesting scene in which Julian Bleach is outstanding. Davros draws together a lot of the thematic threads of this season as the Doctor’s companions start threatening the Daleks with weapons of mass destruction. Who exactly was it that made them like this? Why exactly is it that Martha is working for an ethically dubious military outfit in the first place, for that matter? “The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons.” Thing is… genuinely brilliant this exploration of the Doctor’s character though this is, I tend to think it’s based on a misunderstanding of the Doctor’s character that has been growing for a long while, perhaps even since McCoy. In the ‘60s and ‘70s the Doctor would occasionally use guns when he had to, without any qualms. He’s never been a pacifist. He didn’t used to think that weapons were unethical if used in the right cause, merely that they cramped his style. Far cooler to walk around unarmed and defeat the baddies through cleverness and wit. And blow them up at the end, of course.

The Doctor’s perceived ethical faults are thrown into sharp relief by the Daleks’ plans, of course. With the Reality Bomb they intend to destroy the entire universe outside their own little bubble in which they are somehow apparently going to survive, thereby ethnically cleansing the entire universe. Nasty.

Still, Sarah Jane and Davros get a touching little reunion. How nice.

Anyway, Doc 2 and Donna emerge, and Donna saves the universe. I love this bit. Unfortunately the TARDIS towing the Earth back to its rightful position is exactly as silly as people keep saying it is, and these overcrowded TARDIS scenes feel uncomfortably like fanwank. There are some insights here, though- Sarah Jane so misses the point in telling the Doctor that he’s “got the biggest family on Earth” immediately before they all bugger off and leave him alone. Mickey, by now a real action hero, returns to “our” Earth, following Jack and Martha, while Jack and Martha say goodbye with a salute, interestingly in the light of what Davros said earlier. It’s particularly interesting that Jack is trying to persuade Martha to leave UNIT.

And then we have Bad Wolf Bay. I can see the cleverness in how this is done, but I really don’t like it. It’s such a cop out for Rose (who’s been somewhat neglected, inevitably) to settle with a half human ersatz Doctor she knows deep down isn’t the real deal. Yes, it’s clever of RTD to try and tell us that this Doctor is vengeful, as he was when he and Rose first met, and needs Rose to make him into a better person as she did with the real Doctor, but emotionally this feels very wrong to me.

As for Donna, I’m not sure about this either. Yes, it’s sad, but frustratingly so rather than tear-jerkingly so. The character deserved better. She was magnificent.

Still, aside from some unsatisfying character departures and a little too much of a fanwank feel towards the end this is epic Doctor Who at its best. 4/5.

As for the season- better than remembered. It joins four other seasons in joint eighth with exactly 4/5.

Doctor Who: Turn Left

“You’re not gonna make the world any better by shouting at it.”

Right. This is me back. The final push starts now. Still, it looks as though Series Three of The Sarah Jane Adventures won’t be out on DVD till November 1st, so there would have had to have been a hiatus, and it’s all worked out quite well.

Er, that’s the best excuse I can think of, anyway. Back to Turn Left…

It’s the pre-titles sequence, and the Doctor and Donna are nosing about on the Planet Of The Ever So Slightly Dodgy Ethnic Stereotypes. Donna sees a fortune teller (ever so slightly dodgy ethnic stereotyping within slightly dodgy ethnic stereotyping?), who seems uncannily similar to our late friend Chantho. Said fortune teller proceeds to use her alien reality-warping powers to force Donna to re-enact scenes from Planet of the Spiders. So that’s what all the “something on your back” foreshadowing was about.

Billie Piper’s name is in the credits. Ooh! And then it’s straight into that old TV sci-fi stand-by; the alternate universe. This is a trope which never fails, although sadly nothing can ever trump the example of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which had Evil Willow in it. Mmm… Evil Willow…

The episode is of course all about Donna, and thus reliant on Catherine Tate to put in a good performance. She really comes up trumps; this is probably the finest individual performance of any member of the regular cast in Doctor Who ever, even after Tennant’s stellar performance last episode. It’s also the Doctor-lite story, of course, and by far the most successful, being about the Doctor’s absence in a way no previous example has been.

We get to see a parade of recent episodes, starting with the appearance of the Racnoss star, except that this time Donna has been promoted, and so is both materially more successful- for now- and shallower than she would have been. She isn’t there to stop the Doctor, and so he dies. This is what we alternate history geeks (*cough* Alternatehistory.com *cough*) call the “point of departure” or “POD”, and it’s interesting to consider this story as an example of this sub-genre. Because, on the one hand, the world changes entirely because of one apparently minor decision by an apparently ordinary person, yet there is also an awful lot of convergence as regards the alien invasions. It looks as though the butterfly effect hasn’t spread as far as the Adipose or the planet Sto. It’s a nice touch how the Doctors could-have-been companions (especially Martha) all get noble deaths. Of course, the Master never gives his pocket watch a second thought in this reality! It isn’t Harold Saxon who order’s the destruction of the Racnoss ship, I notice.

Oh, and how come the satellite pictures of the falling Titanic seem to be looking from the ground up? Ahem.

This is a very different Donna, at least on the surface: her reaction to being laid off does not present her in a good light, and she shows no interest in Wilf’s alien obsession. But this is the last point in the story in which she’s relatively untested by adversity. And Sylvia’s casually delivered “To be honest, I’ve given up on you” hits like a punch.

Donna is visited a number of times by a very Doctorish Rose, and her reaction is a little more accepting each time, showing how the hardships she suffers bring out her resourcefulness. Things start to get very dark, giving us a glimpse into the bleak world view that lurks behind RTD’s light touch, as also seen last episode (interesting comment by Nuallain on Midnight about RTD using his last chance to write the sort of crowd-pleasing episode which Moffat has so far had the luxury of writing- we seem to have another example of this here). The inhabitants of radiation-soaked southern England become refugees, France has closed its borders, people are billeted, dozens to a property, in the residential streets of northern cities while the army patrols outside; there’s some kind of “emergency government”; and finally the obvious foreigners, including a rather likeable example of the ever so slightly dodgy ethnic stereotypes, are sent off to “labour camps”. It’s not spelled out for the kids, but Wilf knows exactly what’s going on.

Sylvia, by this point, is quite horribly, cripplingly depressed; Jacqueline King portrays this brilliantly. Her final scene with Donna (“I suppose I’ve always been a disappointment.” “…Yeah…”) is understated and utterly heartbreaking.

It’s clear something is coming; not only is Rose warning of “The Darkness” that’s coming. We seem to have heard this before; a very similar phrasing was used in They Keep Killing Suzie. But far more effective is Wilf’s realisation that the stars are going out. So on we zoom towards the final scenes, with a Rose so Doctorish she might as well start calling herself Romana, a dying TARDIS, and a nice little re-enactment of the mirrors scene from Kinda. Catherine Tate really is sublime here in her delivery of every line- I love her desperate denial of her own certain death. Well, sort of certain. It’s a bit timey-wimey.

Everything returns to normal with Donna’s sacrifice, the Doctor notes all the odd coincidences surrounding Donna’s life, and the phrase “Bad Wolf” suddenly appears everywhere for no obvious reason. That’ll be a season finale coming up, then.

Brilliant. Something that could only be attempted once, so it’s great that it was done well. The amount of fanwank was nicely judged, nice but not excessive, and there was just the right amount of dystopian pessimism. And then there’s Catherine Tate. Wow. Best actress in Doctor Who ever. 5/5.

Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp

“I say! What are you doing with that lead piping?”

For the second story in a row I’m very pleasantly surprised. From my vague recollections I was expecting this story to be a fun but inconsequential bit of fluff. In fact, it’s brilliant, one of the very best comedy episodes the series has ever produced. It helps that Catherine Tate, who has a lot to do here, is such a brilliant comic actress, but the script is superb.

There’s little in the way of overt season arc stuff here (although Donna and the Doctor continue to relate to each other as they have been doing and Donna gets a quick line about the bees), so we have a standalone episode which reminds me very much of Gareth Roberts’ Missing Adventures novels, particularly The English Way of Death; a superbly realised historical pastiche, this time of course based on the Agatha Christie-style Whodunit. Actually, the whole thing feels very Season Seventeen in the best possible way, and Catherine Tate has never seemed more like Lalla Ward. Yes, I know how weird that reads.

The pre-titles teaser gives us a pretty clear example of both the tone we can expect and the kind of tropes we’ll be playing with. We’re immersed in the genre through overdosing on the trappings of the genre and period- flapper gear, gramophones, a very Twenties soundtrack, a vicar, a colonel, a professor. I love the blatantly excessive number of Cluedo in-jokes!

This feels nothing like Black Orchid, though. Aside from the nicely handled personal stuff regarding Agatha- her prickliness about her philandering husband, the chat with Donna, her very Victoria-esque admonition of the Doctor for enjoying himself as people die- the tone is quite rightly kept firmly tongue in cheek. There are a lot of postmodern in-jokes, of course (“I mean, that’s like meeting Charles Dickens. And he’s surrounded by Ghosts. At Christmas.”), and I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. And the story is able to use our familiarity with the trappings of the genre to have a bit of fun; I love the wibbly-wobbly flashback scenes which contrast with what everyone is claiming to have been doing.

The whole think climaxes in the Poirot moment as Agatha and the Doctor take turns in revealing everyone’s secrets. Colonel Curbishley’s is the best, of course, as is Agatha’s surprised reaction. Of course, claiming that Agatha Christie is the greatest novelist of all time is a bit much. I devoured dozens upon dozens of her novels when I was about twelve but these days I find the prose and casual class stereotyping makes it hard not to hurl said novel across the room and reach instead for the nearest Margery Allingham. Still, her plots are rather clever and so is this. 5/5.

Doctor Who: Planet of the Ood

“The circle must be broken.”

Bit hard to know what to say about this one, really. It’s sort of… average. Not that it doesn’t have lots of things going for it, of course; there’s Ood, Tim McInnerny, and the still great chemistry between Tate and Tennant. And I love the scene with the claw. It’s just that it’s all a bit… “meh”, as I’m told the young folks say. Even the dialogue hardly sparkles at all, unusually for the RTD years, hence the desperate choice of quotation above.

There’s a bit of political subtext (What? You noticed?), but it doesn’t really go anywhere beyond “Slavery is bad, mmmkay?” and a bit of superficial dialogue about culling cows during outbreaks of foot and mouth. Even the whole “Who do you think makes your clothes?” thing rather comes across as fence-sitting in the execution. Otherwise there’s little that particularly stands out about the plot, good or bad. I had to raise a smile when the lovely Solana betrayed our heroes, though; by the laws of the programme she’s signed her own death warrant.

There’s lots of good Doctor / Donna stuff though. Again we get the “We’re not married”, again we get Donna experiencing both the wonder and the horror of the universe. And Donna’s turnaround from despair at the Ood’s singing and wanting to go home to euphoria and enthusiasm again echoes last week very well. Their mutual character development is being very well handled.

There’s another mention of the bees disappearing, I notice, confirming its significance, and another pleasing reference to the show’s early days as the Sense-Sphere gets a name check. This story pretty much confirms the likely exploitation of the planet by humans after our original TARDISeers left, incidentally, but then it was clear at the time that this was bound to happen. Oh, and this is 4126, so RTD is sticking to his habit of often setting the future stories in defined periods, including the year Five Billion and the 42nd century.

The ending’s a bit odd- the Doctor and Donna have been rather passive throughout the episode, so what’s Ood Sigma thanking them for? We finish on an ominous note, though, as the Doctor is told “I think your song must end soon.” 3/5.

Doctor Who: Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

Utopia



“It’s like I’ve got a sports car, you’ve got a space hopper.”

I watched this episode on Tuesday and ended up filling up two pages of my notebook while watching it, which was twice as much as usual. I then started to write it up, and realised that these three episodes were in one single thread. Gulp. I’ve since watched the other two and made similarly expansive notes, so this is going to be a bit long.

There’ll be some proper nostalgia coming up later on, but the episode begins with a couple of welcome nods to the recent past. Once again the Doctor lands at the Cardiff rift to fill up the tank, and once again… it’s Jack! This doesn’t quite tally with the corresponding scene at the end of the first series of Torchwood, but never mind. Jack clinging on to the TARDIS as it vworps through the vortex is top stuff.

I like this alien planet, and I like the Futurekind… the overall vibe reminds me of Nottingham Rock City and other Midlands rock clubs I used to visit back in the ‘90s. So more nostalgia then. It’s the very far future, close to the unspecified end of the universe, and the Doctor is nervous- there are no longer any Gallifreyan laws for him to break, Frontios-style, but he clearly feels he’s being naughty by daring to be here.

The Doctor is not exactly pleased to see Jack again, for reasons which are not immediately revealed, but Jack is immediately back to his old self, dropping the world-weariness he showed on Torchwood. And where before I used to criticise this as an inconsistency in character, the Marathon has changed my mind. What we’re seeing here is a Jack who relishes the weight of his heavy responsibilities being lifted from his shoulders in a situation where he knows he can leave all that to the Doctor. I still think Jack was too miserable in Torchwood, but it isn’t inconsistent characterisation.

We learn a lot about him here. He used his vortex manipulator to travel from Satellite Five to Earth in 1869, and then waited 139-odd years for a version of the Doctor coinciding with his own time stream to crop up, deliberately placing himself by the Cardiff rift where the Doctor was bound to appear sooner or later. Blimey.

And then Derek Jacobi appears. Bloody hell. Forty-four years of Doctor Who plus spin-offs and forty-four years of great actors appearing, but this instantly tops everything. I would mention how great Jacobi is, but that would be a tautology.

Yana (gosh, what a peculiar name) is a likeable old buffer, a scientist and quietly a genius, with a female companion who quietly adores him. Remind you of anyone? He’s definitely human, though. I love the scenes in which the Doctor is in awe of his genius- Tennant really shines here. Yana has no real hope that he can ever get the ship to fly but, naturally, the Doctor has the solution. Oh, and Yana hears an ever-present sound of drums…

Oh, and Chantho’s great, too. I love her animatronic mandibles. It’s going to be a huge effort to get to the end of this review without talking like her, but I’m going to try.

For all that the actual plot and surroundings pretty much take a back seat to the story of Yana and the regulars here, it’s a well-realised and sketched out future, perhaps the ultimate in RTD’s determination top make future life look tough. There’s one unfortunate moment, though- apparently human evolution has led them to spends time as clouds of gas and a million years as downloads, but they “always revert to the same shape.” Aaargh! Once again an RTD script causes me to point out that that’s not how natural selection works!

The episode’s otherwise great, mind, and full of nice character moments. It reminds me of Boom Town in that respect, actually. The Doctor’s chat with Jack about his immortality is incredible; Jack simply undercuts the Doctor’s dislike of his immortality (everything has its time and everything dies) by pointing out that he’s prejudiced. And the Doctor immediately realises he’s wrong. It’s a great moment for both characters, and enables them to re-establish their friendship. Oh, and we get our first reference to “a fixed point in time”. Interesting. There’s a more general piece of possible foreshadowing in the Doctor’s admission that a Time Lord who looked into the heart of the TARDIS, as Rose did, would become a “vengeful god”. It almost feels as though the entire character arc for this Doctor can be summed up in these words.

Yana, meanwhile, hears from Martha about her and the Doctor’s lifestyle, and seems to be quite affected by it. Ruminating on time, he plays with his watch, which looks rather familiar…

This is such a charged and awesome moment. As soon as we hear Delgado’s voice from The Dæmons we know who Yana really is. The double whammy of the watch and the flashback to the Face of Boe immediately shows this to be a superbly handled season arc far surpassing anything we’ve seen in the previous two seasons. Oh, and it’s the Master!!!

Jacobi’s performance utterly changes from the minute the watch is opened, and the Master shows how evil he is by being nasty to that lovely Chantho. But she eventually shoots him, and he regenerates into John Simm. Blimey! I don’t think there’s been a single episode of the “new” series which left me more gobsmacked than this one when watching it unspoiled on its original transmission. And before the Master hops off in the Doctor’s TARDIS, leaving our heroes stranded in mortal peril, there are some more hints of what the nest two episodes will bring. The Master clearly knows all about the mysterious Utopia, and Martha knows the voice of the new Master…



The Sound of Drums



“I like it when you use my name.”

Well, that’s a quick, and in hindsight rather obvious, resolution to the cliffhanger. Still, on with the story: the Master is Harold Saxon, the prime minister, and in his timey-wimey way has been a shadowy figure plotting behind the scenes since The Runaway Bride, and indeed the Captain Jack Harkness episode of Torchwood. That’s good subplotting!

Oh, and I love David Tennant’s delivery of “The Master and his wife?” It speaks volumes…

John Simm is great in the cabinet scene. His Master is a total nutter, of course, but his unpredictability makes him genuinely scary. And, just to underline hoe evil he is, he’s been endorsed by Ann Widdecombe. Sends a shiver down me spine, that does. And sop does his discordant musical theme, courtesy of Murray Gold.

It’s rather clever how the Master seems to have appeared just 18 months ago and used a satellite-controlled low level satellite field to subtly brainwash people to not notice how blatantly dodgy he is. And the fact, revealed early on, that the Doctor locked the TARDIS between now and the future of Utopia is ultimately going to lead to some quite clever timey-wimey plot stuff.

The plot strand of Martha’s betrayal by her mother at the hands of Saxon finally comes to a head- and interestingly it’s her hitherto useless father who’s brave enough to warn her of the danger. Our three TARDISeers are now fugitives, as a charged phone conversation between our two Time Lords clearly shows. It seems the Master was regenerated especially to fight in the Time War, but proceeded to run very far away. That’ll be a whole new regeneration cycle, then. And also our first hint that the Time Lords of this era may not be all sweetness and light.

Best of all, the Master now prefers the Teletubbies to the Clangers…

Never mind that, though- it’s only a flashback but for the first time since the series came back we get to see Gallifrey! In CGI! And it all looks completely right, with Time Lords in Prydonian(?) robes and everything!! Plus there’s a bit of mythology with the continent of Wild Endeavour and the Untempered Schism. We’re shown the Master as an eight-year old boy (no Looms, it seems, fellow NA fans) and told that the drums began to sound once he’d looked into the schism. The Doctor ran away, of course; a coward, every time. Wonderful stuff.

There’s also a bit I’d forgotten where Jack tells the Doctor about his Torchwood connection, and the Doctor’s not at all pleased. Jack protests that Torchwood are not what they were, sort of implying he’s only been involved post-Canary Wharf. Hmm.

Then we get more cool stuff: the Valiant, the paradox machine, the Master acting all silly in front of the American president, the Master’s laser screwdriver (“Who’d have sonic?”) before the arrival of the mysterious Toclafane spheres. One gripe regarding the next bit, though; even I know the difference between a president and a president elect in the USA. As with the Aliens of London two-parter, RTD seems strangely ignorant of political institutions.

Still, at this point things are going very well indeed…



Last of the Time Lords



“Human race. Greatest monsters of them all!”

…But sadly the payoff doesn’t quite work. It’s a pity; the build-up, not only in the previous two episodes but right through the season, has been great. But as a finale this is flawed.

There still a lot that’s great, of course. It’s a brave move to have a year pass between episodes; this gives a real sense (deeply ironic, of course!) that all of these events matter and will have long-term consequences. And it gives Martha, in her final episode as a regular, to be magnificent.

We’re introduced to the status quo; the Master is keeping Martha’s family as servants, Jack as a prisoner and the aged Doctor as a pet. Most horrifyingly, there are plenty of subtle signs of domestic abuse in his relationship with Lucy. Her fate is particularly horrifying, particularly as we come to see how she came to be with the Master.

The escape plan fails, as we knew it would, because the Master’s laser screwdriver has “isomorphic controls”! He and the Doctor then have a quick chat about Axons and Sea Devils before the Doctor is turned into a little Gollum. Oh dear. This crosses a line into silliness.

It’s a great moment when Martha and her new, er, “friend”, Tom Milligan, capture a Toclafane and discover what it is; an evolved and infantilised human from utopia. The monsters are in fact humans from the future, exterminating their own ancestors; this is what the paradox machine is for. This is very clever, timey-wimey plotting of a sort not often said to be associated with RTD.

Martha seems to be on a quest to assemble parts for a gun with which to kill the Master but, betrayed, she is captured, and all seems lost. But it seems this was a cover story, and the real plan was to get the entire population of the planet to, er, pray at a certain time so that the Doctor can be restored, arms outstretched, and forgive the Master. Gosh, do you reckon there might just be a certain subtext here? This doesn’t feel right, which is a problem as it’s the main climax to the whole series. Still, again we get some clever plotting; the whole idea feels misguided but it was done well.

The paradox machine is destroyed, thereby pressing a great big reset button. It’s the only possible resolution, really, but it’s hard to get away from the fact it rather devalues what we’ve just seen. I don’t like the Doctor’s reaction to the Master’s overemphasised “death” either, great though Tennant is at playing it. I can accept that the two of them are close in a way, and that they’re the only two Time Lords left, but we all know the Master’s indestructible (cue the ring scene), and this degree of mourning is really rather excessive. On the other hand, I suppose it’s good preparation for a certain other part Tennant is to play in a year or so’s time…

Jack returns to his team, with Torchwood implicitly receiving the Doctor’s blessing. This makes me somewhat uncomfortable; as we’ve seen, the team are not necessarily a force for good. The hints about Jack’s future are… interesting though!

The misguided unrequited love strand of the season means the only way for Martha to keep her dignity at this point is to leave, and that she does. And I’m glad that she gets a final speech making it explicit to him why she’s doing so. Still, she makes sure they can phone each other; this is not a final parting.

It’s all over except for the “what, what, what”. For once, an RTD episode works well plotwise but doesn’t quite succeed when it comes to theme and character. It’s a pity, as the build-up has been great. The previous two episodes would both have been 5/5’s, Utopia a very high one indeed, but this flawed conclusion drags the whole thing down to a 4/5.

As for the season, at 4.375/5 it enters the chart at number 12, a pretty good placing. But as far as internal coherence and ongoing plot arcs are concerned this has outstripped any previous season, and in Human Nature and Blink it has given us the finest two Doctor Who stories yet.

Doctor Who: 42

“Using your mobile is cheating!”

This was rather good, I thought: a nice little real-time thriller with some nice direction, a real disaster movie feel and plenty of tension. Michelle Collins was underwhelming, but there’s not much else wrong with this. For all the (sometimes justified) criticism that Chris Chibnall often comes in for, this is not a bad debut script for Who proper.

It’s interesting that the whole aesthetic here is very much the same as the Impossible Planet two-parter- it’s a tough, gritty, frontier existence with dust everywhere. Earlier stories such as Earthshock and Dragonfire were clearly influenced by Alien, a relatively recent film at the time, but by now, almost thirty years on, its template of a “lived-in” future has become much more of a sci-fi standard.

It’s interesting how the Doctor takes charge immediately; McDonnell clearly resents his usurping of her authority (“Go on, do as he says”), but she’s too weak, and eventually too morally compromised, to compete. The characters are quite well-sketched for the running time, and there are some nice funny lines from the crew, including that one. You know the one I mean.

Martha gets some nice character stuff too, and shows bravery at the prospect of an imminent and unpleasant death. But it’s interesting that, as the escape pod detaches, the first thing she says is “Sorry”. What does this say about her? We seem to be past the worst of the unrequited love stuff, but I’m not keen on this sort of thing. Martha is being portrayed as a bit of a weak character at times, and it can make uncomfortable viewing. I don’t like the final scene in the TARDIS either, with Martha being suddenly silenced by the stony-faced Doctor, who again ostentatiously refuses to confide in her and changes the subject. There’s something uncomfortable about the way she’s expected to be grateful for such “privileges” as universal roaming and a key to the TARDIS. Both of these things echo similar instances with Rose, and the comparison makes it clear that the Doctor considers Martha to be very much second to her. All of this is awfully misjudged.

The season arc stuff, with Martha’s mother and the machinations of the mysterious Mr Saxon, is cleverly done. So far this season’s arc feels much more natural and assured than either of the previous ones.

It’s well plotted, with the sort of logically and emotionally satisfying ending we don’t always get. McDonnell, who’s ultimately responsible for the while mess, redeems herself at the end in the traditional Doctor Who manner.

Good stuff, a surprisingly good 4/5. Mind you, I must admit that I haven’t yet seen Sunshine, in spite of having owned it on DVD for ages, so I can't comment on any similarities.

Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks

Part One

“You forgot I’m a doctor. When they slice me open I’ll know the name and function of each organ that plops out.”

It’s quite alarming to see Eric Saward’s name in block capitals at the start. Is this the first time the writer’s name has been displayed like this or have I not been paying attention?

Aside from this piece of apparent self-aggrandisement on the part of our glorious script editor, it’s a promising start. The snowy landscape looks great and, uniquely for this season, the TARDIS lands immediately with no faffing about.

This is Necros, and for some reason the Doctor has decided that he and Peri are to attend the funeral of some bloke called Arthur Stengos, which is an odd thing for a time traveller to do; what particular connection does he have to the particular time period where Stengos has just died? Anyway, he and Peri are still keeping up their veggie lifestyle with the Doctor rustling up some nut roll, and Saward mentions his Speelsnapes for the first time.

We meet the embalmers- chiefly Jobel, a git with a toupee, and poor Tasambeker, who bewilderingly has unrequited feelings for this total arse, brilliantly portrayed by Clive Swift. There’s an agreeably realistic undercurrent of gallows humour which helps to carry along the exposition- Glen McCoy could learn a thing or two from this sort of thing.

More groups of characters appear: a couple of infiltrators skulking about; Alexei Sayle being quite brilliant as a DJ and almost making you forget the utter pointlessness of the character, who doesn’t really cut it as Greek chorus material; and Davros (well, above the net) with some white Daleks. Pleasingly we get the traditional Dalek hum which as Deadly Lampshade pointed out (and I unaccountably failed to notice having obsessed about it for every Dalek story thus far) was absent from Resurrection of the Daleks.

The whole thing looks great, and is as brilliantly shot as one would expect from Graeme Harper- the shot where the camera pans down through several floors is magnificent. Admittedly the Dalek voices are a bit crap but I’m sure this is counterbalanced on the sound front by a top drawer rock n’ roll sound track which we’re unable to hear on DVD for sodding copyright reasons.

Eleanor Bron is a delight as Kara, with the mutually insincere conversation between her and Davros being great fun. Thing is, though, with all these different groups of characters it’s noticeable that the Doctor and Peri are being sidelined somewhat, not actually having entered the building where all the stuff is happening by the end of the episode. Still, we learn that the Doctor is now 900 years old. He’s aged a bit since he last mentioned how old he was then- he was 760 when he was Tom Baker, I recall. It seems we can only fit in those extra 140 years by assuming it happened while he was travelling with Romana.

I don’t like the Doctor / Peri relationship here- not only is there too much bickering and, yet again, no indication that they’re friends, but Peri actually seems afraid of his disapproval in a way which makes this feel far too much like an abusive relationship for comfort. For all that this story is very well made and cleverly scripted, it’s entirely lacking in charm or a sense of fun.

The glass Dalek scene is a case in point. Conceptually, yes, it’s great. But Stengos begging his daughter to kill him is not the sort of thing we should be seeing in a teatime adventure serial. Oh, and it’s odd to hear the Stengos Dalek speak of “racial purity” where that’s precisely what isn’t involved in the whole idea of turning humans into Daleks.

I like William Gaunt’s Orcini, a blackly humorous character with a dodgy artificial leg whose prattling on about “honour” does nothing to dissipate the obvious fact he’s going to turn out to be an utter buffoon. The fact that he almost leaves before Kara gives him the sequence for the bomb is highly revealing and a nice touch. Still, this is rather a lot of characters for a story this length, and it’s clear Saward is not going to involve the Doctor any more than he has to.

Isn’t it nice of Davros to cheaply sell his source of protein throughout the galaxy, thereby eliminating famine? I’m sure there’ll be no downside to this at all…

We end with the Doctor and Peri still outside the bloody building, with the Doctor disturbed to discover his own tombstone “as I am now”, meaning he will “never again regenerate”. I’m getting a bit tired with all these frequent and unnecessary references to regeneration we’ve been getting ever since Colin Baker took over- they do real harm in that by reminding us of other Doctors all the bleeding time they give his Doctor a real sense of impermanency which threatens to undermine the character.

Part Two

“But did you ever tell anyone that they might be eating their own relatives?”

“Certainly not! That would have created what I believe is termed ‘consumer resistance’”.

Again we start with some nice touches; Clive Swift quite brilliantly portrays the creepiness of Jobel’s attentions towards Peri, while the computer’s sexy female voice as it speaks to Takis is a nice little detail, and the Doctor’s reaction to the DJ reminds us that this story was made back in the midst of the Dark Ages of Radio One.

But mainly this episode consists of characters double crossing each other and the complex of betrayals untangling itself. It’s all very clever and well plotted, but we get moments of character along the way, such as Eleanor Bron’s brilliant reaction to the extermination of Kara’s secretary, telling us everything we need to know about their relationship. And the conclusion of Davros’s manipulation of Tasambeker and Jobel is horrifyingly predictable, but that doesn’t make it any less gripping as we watch it happen. The way Jobel’s toupee falls off as he dies is an inspired directorial touch.

Orcini and Bostock seem to kill Davros, but it seems that what they killed was only a fake, put there to divert the bullets of potential assassins from their real target- did he and the Borad go to baddie school together? He seems to have survived more or less intact since we last saw him, and is now able to hover in the air and shoot blue lightning from his fingertips like Emperor Palpatine did at the end of Return of the Jedi. It seems he survived by means of an escape pod; the small matter of the Movellan virus is, naturally, glossed over.

It seems that Davros takes the “best” bodies from the Tranquil Repose to become Daleks and uses the rest to feed the galaxy, to let them know it’s Christmas time. Must be an awful lot of bodies then.

It’s a great twist that Takis has invited Daleks from Skaro to arrest Davros, and for the first time since Evil of the Daleks we see a sort of mini-Dalek civil war. Delightfully, this bit gives us some Dalek poetry as the lines “My vision is impaired / I cannot see / My vision is impaired / Emergency” are delivered in perfect iambic pentameter by one of the Daleks.

Echoing the ending of Genesis of the Daleks, the Dalek incubators are finally destroyed by a great big bomb, and the Doctor makes it out by the skin of his teeth. Peri then demands to be taken somewhere fun, and the Doctor resolves to take her to somewhere which may or may not be Blackpool.

This is very well made- Graeme Harper has done an excellent job. The performances are universally great, too, and the script is very cleverly constructed. But the tone is getting quite seriously worrying by this point- this is one story about cannibalism too many; the Doctor is sidelined, appearing far too infrequently and affecting the plot hardly at all; and the Doctor / Peri relationship is by now looking very, very wrong. I can’t give this any more than a 3/5.

As for Season 22- well, with a relatively poor score of 2.571/5 it’s my least favourite so far, and I seem to be making a habit of saying that!

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

Part One

“I can take an insult. I just don’t want to be shot.”

Let us rejoice! Robert Holmes is back after six long years! May there be public holidays and dancing in the street! Never before have I squee’d so much at the name of the writer at the beginning of a story.

We begin with a great location and a bit of exposition- we’re on Androzani Minor, the smaller of two double planets and somewhat prone to mud-bursts- but the dialogue also serves to cement the relationship between the Doctor and Peri with admirable swiftness, considering they hardly know each other at the end of Planet of Fire. The Doctor and Peri potter about for a bit and Peri falls into some stuff. Still not to worry; as the Doctor says when he helps Peri up, getting a bit on his hand, “It’s probably quite harmless.”

The dialogue between the Doctor is great, well-written but with a real lightness of touch. The tongue-in-cheek riff about celery and gases in the praxis range of the spectrum is great stuff and perfect Holmes. But there are other characters, of course; this being Holmes, there are gun-runners in the shape of Stotz, Krelper and some red-shirts. There’s the over-promoted and out of his depth General Chellak, who looks the part but lacks confidence, relying heavily on the “advice” of his deputy, Salateen. And finally for now there’s Morgus, a deliciously evil corporate big-shot. 

All these characters have depth, charm (however nasty some of them may be!) and good actors playing them. They’re also all recognisably (with the addition of Krau Timmin, Morgus’s underling), ahem, “Holmesian double acts”. And as such they’re interesting characters to see in the series at this point, with Eric Saward as script editor and cynical mercenaries the new house style for guest characters. But while this set of characters may seem to fit this house style superficially, being a bunch of cynics all out for themselves, it’s all done with a wit and sense of fun reminiscent of an earlier era when, well, Robert Holmes used to write for Doctor Who.

I love John Normington as Morgus- particularly his speeches to camera! But his motives are also deliciously apparent in his reactions to various “tragic” events imparted to him by Timmin. He makes a great pantomime villain to contrast with our tragic villain, Sharaz Jek, of whom more later.

Graeme Harper makes a particularly impressive debut- there’s a great moment, following the Doctor and Peri’s capture by Chellak and their being paraded on a screen before Morgus, where we cut quickly between Morgus, the Doctor, via a screen, and Jek in turn watching Morgus through a scene. Impressive too is a later short scene involving Jek where we see a series of dissolves.

The later scenes consist of essentially of preparations for the Doctor’s and Peri’s execution, but these scenes further develop the characters and the world: Chellak believes the Doctor but is powerless to save him, underlining what a weak character he really is; the method of execution is to be “death under the red cloth”, a detail which imparts some local colour; Peri waits for her death in the cell, scared but impressively dignified, and extremely well played by Nicola Bryant. She doesn’t blame the Doctor for her predicament.

Hang on- so “Morgus said that Spectrox was the most valuable substance in the universe.” No he didn’t! But I’m nitpicking, and I’m doing that because there’s not an awful lot wrong with this episode.

Morgus meets the President, and there ensues another scene which nicely and economically develops character whilst engaging in some world building at the same time. Apparently Spectrox extends the human lifespan, and the war against Jek is to wrest control of the supply from him. But the President’s starting to go wobbly…

A flawless first episode. The master is back!

Part Two

“You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes. But your eyes tell a different story…”

The Doctor and Peri are apparently shot, and Morgus and the President return to their discussion. Morgus is closing camps in the west, rendering his workers unemployed and so liable to slave labour in camps- which Morgus owns and is constructing more of in the east, so swapping waged workers for slave labour! How deliciously evil, and also how very ‘80s. I suspect Robert Holmes may not quite have been an ultra-Thatcherite.

The Doctor and Peri are, of course, alive, if not well, rescued by Jek, who starts to perv over Peri from the moment he meets her. Nicola Bryant plays Peri’s freaked out reaction to this very well indeed. We learn a lot about the mysterious masked Jek here; he wants Morgus’s head. My, and Morgus seemed such a nice chap to me.

We also meet the real Salateen, who in a brilliant piece of writing bursts out laughing before explaining to Peri and the Doctor that “You’re dying!” It seems that they’re suffering from Spectrox toxaemia, the only cure to which is the milk of a queen bat which lives in an area with no oxygen and guarded by fearsome beasts. The Doctor, being the Doctor, resolves to just escape and go and get some! Holmes writes for Davison’s Doctor with absolute perfection on his first go, easily as well if not better than all of his predecessors. And the great thing is, I suspect, he achieves this by just writing the Doctor as he always has and to hell with who might be playing him!

We end with a splendid rant from Morgus over his appearance, the Doctor leading an escape but being rendered unconscious, and Salateen moving off with Peri. The closing scene shows the Doctor about to be attacked by the, er, fearsome magma beast.

Part Three

“I owe it to my friend because I got her into this. So you see, I’m not going to let you stop me now.”

The real Salateen arrives back at Chellak’s HQ, and proceeds to reveal to Chellak what a complete and utter twonk he’s been, with the robot Salateen having ensured Jek’s known of his every move for months. Fortunately, the real Salateen is now on hand to “advise” on what to do.

Jek abandons the Doctor to the gun-runners, who want to “interrogate” him back on Major. And if that’s not bad enough, he’s now entering the third stage of Spectrox toxaemia! But even while held captive in Stotz’s ship the Doctor has the effect of a catalyst on the plot; Morgus, now revealed to be the gun-runners’ mysterious supplier, becomes paranoid at the appearance of the Doctor, and begins to think the President may be plotting against him. So, in a brilliant scene, he casually assassinates the President! Just to finish the scene, he casually remarks to Timmin “And have the lift maintenance engineer shot.”

Jek is notably cagey with Peri about his complicity in abandoning the Doctor to Stotz’s mercenaries, and in his guilt he lashes out by having another bit of a rant. These scenes work brilliantly, with both Bryant and Christopher Gable playing their parts to perfection.

But the cliffhanger- surely the Davison Doctor’s greatest ever moment?

Part Four

“What’s happened?”

“Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon.”

The Doctor crash-lands the ship, escapes, and begins an epic chase from Stotz and co- nothing’s going to stop him from saving Peri’s life. Fittingly, this often passive Doctor gets to be truly heroic throughout his final episode; battling against overwhelming odds to save his friend from the dangers he himself exposed her to. After an epic chase, he seems to be caught, but a mud-blast saves him; from now on the mud-blasts become increasingly frequent, mirroring the frenetic series of events that follow.

Stotz and co return to their ship to find- Morgus, here to lie low in case he’s under suspicion and wanting in on the Spectrox. But once again the tables are turned as he speaks to Timmin on screen; Timmin has betrayed Morgus, he’s a wanted man, and even his fortune has been seized! Now that’s bloody good plotting from the esteemed Mr Holmes.

More stuff happens; Chellak closes in on Jek, Morgus and Stotz agree to go on and split the Spectrox between them, and in another brilliant twist Stotz walks back and guns down his former comrades.

It’s fascinating seeing Jek’s hold over Peri weaken throughout this episode- with Peri now very ill, he can no longer terrify her. There’s a great moment where, following Jek’s tussle with Chellak, Peri sees Jek’s face, screams, and then Jek falls to his knees and wails. Suddenly it is she who seems to have power over him. Indeed, as the Doctor arrives Jek is as helpful as he can be as the Doctor resolves to collect some bat’s milk.

We end with Stotz shooting Jek, the android Salateen killing Stotz, Jek killing Morgus, and Jek finally dying in the android Salateen’s arms! But finally the Doctor carries Peri through the mud-blasts back to the TARDIS, although not without spilling some bats’ milk on the way. There’s enough for Peri, but the doctor slumps to the ground, asking “Is this death?”

This is possibly the finest regeneration sequence so far, better even than Logopolis. The doctor only says he “might” regenerate and it “feels different this time.” But we get a nice montage of companions- fittingly, the Fifth Doctor’s dying word is “Adric”- and a brilliant use of the Master, and then… it happens. And doesn’t it look great! Colin Baker gets a fantastic first few lines as we cut to the new Doctor’s face over the closing titles…

Not only is this a 5/5, but it’s taken the top spot from City of Death. Ridiculously good, perfect in all ways.