(612) Frontios - Part 4

I was hoping that the episode would do its job of ending this episode in the way that it should. However despite it working, one thing I can say is that it didn’t have the feel that this was quite the epic finale that it should have been. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty to like about this episode but there was just something missing that I was hoping would be there. Something that is there in this episode is a bit of meat about the story of the tractators. We learn that the tractators basically lured them into a false sense of security by letting them settle for a decade before bombarding the planet with asteroids. This shows a sense that they are quite clever and are also very patient.

Bits of the TARDIS start popping up which shows that the show is starting to build to a finale. It seems like the next couple of minute are a bit of a rush job because the Doctor tries to lure the Gravis away. I actually like inside the TARDIS with bits of rock appearing all over. It adds something to the console room and it’s a shame that we return to the bright white layout. There is one shot where the Gravis appears to be nibbling on the side of the TARDIS console which I thought was quite amusing. The fact that the tractators are basically harmless when the Gravis is separated from them is quite a good idea and one that lends itself very well to the story. Sadly we don’t see the Doctor dumping it on a random world but I suppose its not really relevant to the story. The cliffhanger of the episode is suppose to lead into the Daleks’ return and so it’s a very intriguing way to end the episode and the story.

Frontios has really impressed me with just how good the performances and also the story has surprised me. I think that at the moment this may go down as one of the strongest Peter Davison stories and its definelty one of those which has changed in my opinion. After a rocky start to the twenty-first season, its fair to say that Frontios has been the first good story of the season and I genuinely didn’t think I would be writing that before I started this.

(611) Frontios - Part 3

The good form that this story seems to be going through continues with this episode. I haven’t been this surprised with a story since Kinda. The thing I didn’t mention was that the pink effect used in the cliffhanger and in this reprise does look rather dated. It’s one of the few (maybe only) dud effect that the show has had. It’s good that Tegan gets to save the day when freeing the Doctor and Norna. The supporting characters continue to impress with Brazen being the standout performance. Norna is also a good character that could easily have become a companion after this story, that is how good Lesley Dunlop has been during this story. I also quite liked William Lucas as Range, his character has been consistently good.

The tractators don’t really shine in the early stages of this episode but once they start speaking then they seem to improve greatly. I like the voice used as it seems to mix well with the design. It would have been nice for them to be involved in the story before now because there is clearly a story behind them and it could have worked out quite well into the story. It makes the threat that they pose over the humans even greater and something to look forward to in the final episode.

We learn a bit more about Turlough’s madness. He has experienced them before on his home planet. At first I was quite unsure with how the tractators managed to cause any problems. Despite this its fair to say that this is definitely Turlough’s episode as he gives another superb performance. Even though she’s not on the same level as Turlough, Tegan has one of her better episodes but I don’t think that she is given a great deal to do so it shows how hard Janet Fielding is working to make something out of nothing.

The appearance of Captain Revere is the cliffhanger which is lacking on drama but I like the visual and that is the main thing about this episode is that it lacks something dramatic there is still something great to watch. I do think that there is a lot for the final episode to achieve and I hope that it doesn’t disappoint because so far the work that has been done has been really impressive and I am perhaps more impressed that it’s a Christopher H Bidmead script more than anything.

(610) Frontios - Part 2

I like the idea that the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are basically forced to live on an alien world. The idea also that they cant just get up a leave is also something that works well for me. The episode starts off well enough but seems to take an unexpected shift in tone (for about a minute). Turlough threatens the people with the coat stand because they believe that the coat stand is the thing that’s causing the trouble. Who says that Christopher H Bidmead can’t do comedy and is obsessed with being 100% scientific? Clearly the years have mellowed him.

The whole business of Plantagenet about to die is something that works quite well. It ends with the Doctor saving his life and Plantagenet starting to believe that the Doctor is there for good. I like how Plantagenet starts to act a bit strange just moments later when he involuntary rolls onto the ground. His falling into the ground which is similar to what was seen at the beginning of the previous episode is a bit of surprising thing. Plantagenet’s change in attitude would normally happen in a later episode so it’s a bit of a relief that it happened when it did I have also grown to like Brazen in this story. Peter Gilmore has a bit of a odd position in this story because he is clearly the strongest character in the serial but has to try and not outshine Plantagenet.

Norna and Turlough spend the episode together and go on a bit of an adventure where we are introduced to some slug looking creatures which Turlough names Tractators. For some reason this causes Turlough to have a bit of a nervous breakdown. This is perhaps the first time since the Guardian Trilogy ended that Turlough has shown any character development and its great to see Strickson get to do something other than just be in the background.  Even Janet Fielding seems to be a bit more active in this story. She is actually trying to piece things together.

The tractators don’t have the greatest start to a story. All they seem to do is wander around and then put some pick ray over the Doctor and forcing him to move next to Lorna. It’s not a particularly good cliffhanger by any means but I still enjoyed the episode and think that after two episodes there is still plenty to like. Christopher H Bidmead has managed to see that the show has moved in the short time that he has been away from the show and has developed his story telling skills. Two episodes in and I think that this is still a strong story and easily the best story of the season (so far).

(609) Frontios - Part 1

Back to four parters and the return of Christopher H Bidmead who was the script editor for about 10 minutes in Tom Baker’s final season and wrote Castrovalva. I have never really had much fondness for this story but if there has been one repeating pattern over the period that I have been doing this marathon is that there is the possibility that my opinion might change. I have to confess that the omens for this story are very good. The opening scene is quite good and ends with a body disappearing. The first scene that sees the Doctor, Turlough and Tegan (thankfully no Kamelion) is a strange one because it doesn’t have any drama to it. Even when things seem to be going wrong then the Doctor didn’t show it. The Doctor doesn’t want to land but this is a clear sign that they are about to do this. It’s the standard TV thing of doing the opposite of what people say or do.

The Doctor goes from telling Range that he couldn’t get involved to basically offering his assistance. All in the space of one scene. He does make his stance more clear when he says to Plantagenet that he is going to leave as soon as possible. Plantagenet is played (brilliantly) by Jeff Rawle. Plantagenet seems to be enjoying his dictatorship but there is a part of this performance which suggests that there is an internal struggle. He doesn’t trust the Doctor and this that the stuff his father did for the colony is very important. Lesley Dunlop appears in this story, she would go on to appear in May to December (1989-1994) and has appeared in Emmerdale since 2008. In this she plays Lorna who is quite a nice character and nice characters are few a far between.

The story of the colonists is a nice one explained by Range. It turns out that they didn’t start the problems but a mystery force is wreaking havoc. The planet is being bombarded by meteors and something that isn’t referred to is that there isn’t any wood around. It’s all metal and I think that the whole planet is rather grim which probably plays into what Bidmead is trying to do with this story. Ron Jones returns to the directing chair after his previous attempt in the form of Arc of Infinity and he directs this episode in a solid way and its pace works quite well.

The cliffhanger is rather good because if you were watching this for the first time in 1984 then you genuinely wouldn’t see it coming. The TARDIS has been destroyed and all that survives in a white handstand that was given more screentime than would have been the norm. I like it as a visual symbol and what it represents. It’s a sound opening episode and I am really surprised that I have liked this episode as much as I have. After being somewhat bored with The Awakening, its nice that something of note has happened.

(557) Castrovalva - Part 4

Before I start with todays episode, it doesnt really need pointing out that today is Doctor Who's 51st anniversary and weird to think that this time last year I was at the cinema watching 'Day of the Doctor' and enjoying it. This time last year in my marathon I was watching Episode 1 of 'The Web of Fear'. Today I have been watching the two Dalek movies so I decided to end today with the final episode of Castrovalva.

The final part of Peter Davison’s opening story is an odd one. I mean odd in a good way because I liked it but not in the way that I would have expected. The episode started off with the reprise of the broken glass CSO effect but then the episode seemed to slow down in terms of pace which is a brave thing to do in a final part. This is an important episode because it is where the Doctor is suppose to put the turbulent period of his post-regeneration to an end. For the last couple of weeks I have been actually making notes as opposed to just writing the review whilst I was watching the episode. This is the first episode where I have found myself actually watching the episode instead for most of the episode.

The moment where the Portreeve is revealed to be the Master is perhaps the most understatement of the series. I wrote that I knew that it was the Master and so for me this wasn’t the big moment in the episode that it should have been. On a more positive note, the effect of revelation is good. From the moment the revelation happens, the mood of the episode changes because the Master becomes obsessed with seeing the Doctor before he dies. The Master now has a reputation for coming up with convoluted plans and then realising the error at the very last minute. In this instance he has a convoluted plan but at least he doesn’t chicken out and the plan falls apart because the Doctor is able to work things out.

Adric doesn’t appear until the latter stages of the episodes is interesting because as much as I have liked Adric since he joined the show, I can’t say that I have missed him in this episode and I think that the overcrowded TARDIS problem is starting to show. Ok in previous years the show has had a trio of companions but in this instance, it just doesn’t work and on this occasion it is Adric that has suffered. Adric’s involvement in the episode might be limited but its fun because when they are heading back to the TARDIS its clear that Matthew Waterhouse is a little worse for wear.

I haven’t really commented on the direction. Fiona Cumming is only the third woman to direct a Doctor Who and at the moment the issue of women writers and directors in Doctor Who and at the moment there have been 46 directors in Doctor Who so only 7% are women and yet the figure for women writers is 0%. Fiona has done a good job during the four episodes and has directed it very well. I thought that all the special effects worked really well and I know that she returns for future stories and that’s a good thing because she’s a really good director.

The episode worked well and managed to finish Peter Davison’s opening story with a surprisingly good feeling as I approach the rest of his stories. This wasn’t the first story that Peter Davison recorded as the Doctor and this was a good idea because this is the one that people would have judged him and that meant that he could use the other stories to get to grips with the character but the downside to that is that stories some of the stories aren’t going to be as good as this one. I thought that Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton have done really well over the course of the four episodes and even Matthew Waterhouse had a good story in the early episodes. One thing is for certain, the show is going to survive without Tom Baker and whilst the TARDIS line up is a little crowded, the stories are going to ensure that this season is one of experimentation and its going to be fun.

(556) Castrovalva - Part 3

The third episode is where the story really gets going. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the first two episodes weren’t any good but they were more about the Doctor’s instability and running around the TARDIS whereas todays episode is more about the place of Castrovalva itself. The episode starts of with the Doctor not being in the place where Tegan and Nyssa left him. The tension as to just where he is doesn’t last a great amount of time but I suppose that it’s a bit silly to put him in too much danger at this early stage of his run. Anyway whilst I still liked the forest location that was shot, I still have reservations about the model shot that is used. Thankfully the quality improves once we get inside Castrovalva and I like the set which has multiple levels and seems quite large compared to usual sets which seem quite closed in .

The Master doesn’t really feature in this episode until quite close to the end but that doesn’t mean that Anthony Ainley was left doing a crossword or watching cricket but he was doning and white beard and wig to play Portreeve who is the elderly leader of this group and this is where I have to pick up on the weaknesses of the story because I can tell that its clearly Ainley. I don’t know whether it wasn’t so obvious in 1982 but I cant imagine that they were fooled for long. Anyway I like the characters that we meet in Castrovalva. I wasn’t wild about the masks that they were wearing at the beginning of the episode but the buckets that some of them seem to be wearing in later scenes are even worse. I work in a stationary shop and the buckets could easily be sold as bins.

I am surprised at how long Adric and the Master are kept out of this story. It was good in the previous episode because it gave Nyssa and Tegan some screen time because they were newer characters whereas Adric had been in the story for about 12-15 episodes before ‘The Keeper of Traken’. When Adric does make an appearance he does so in what was quite an atmosphericly shot moment because Adric appears in darkness and a solitary light shows his outline. Another shot is when he appears to Nyssa in a mirror which is clearly a CSO shot but I thought it was well done.

This was a more lesuirly paced episode than the previous two, although there is a fair amount of running around in the final few minutes. The cliffhanger is another CSO effect which has a sort of shattered glass effect of different aspects of Castrovalva and shows that its not quite the place that they thought it was. There are a few moments which highlight this and it was clever of Fiona Cumming to do this quite subtltly. Some might say this was an error on her part but it could easily be passed off as a good piece of directing. With one more episode left of Davison’s opening story and I have to say that I am enjoying Castrovalva more than I thought I would.

(555) Castrovalva - Part 2

So this episode doesn’t air a week after the previous episode but the very next day. I suppose in this day and age where series are aired daily (mainly on channels like CBS Drama) so I suppose watching in 1982 was a weird kind of feeling. Anyway back to the story and after not being sure of how I was suppose to be feeling, it seems like the story was back on familiar grounds in today episode. The episode starts off with the TARDIS about to reach event one but the way that the Doctor and the others stop this from happening is quite a simple way that isn’t done in a straight forward way and I like that. The Doctor who ends up in a wheelchair manages to stay himself long enough to tell Tegan how to jettison 25% of the TARDIS.

The build up to the moment where the jettison happens is quite good and the idea that this scene doesn’t actually involve the Doctor is something that would have seemed totally out of place in previous regeneration opening stories but somehow this new style allows this to work. The Doctor doesn’t really have much of an impact in this episode really because he’s either rolling around in his wheelchair or holed up in his Zero Cabinet. It seems quite odd that they went to the decision to keep the Doctor so much out of the action. The upside to this is that it means that Nyssa and Tegan get a fair amount of the action which I like.

The location footage looks rather good and reminds me of the filming for ‘The Android Invasion” where the weather looked marvellous and the location itself was lovely to watch and where they filmed todays location is equally good. The only problem with this portion of the episode is the model shot of Castrovalva looks rather poor. That said that is the only thing that I didn’t like in the episode.

The episode ends with the Zero Cabinet being empty after Nyssa and Tegan found some blood which is an ok way to end an episode but I think that the cliffhanger didn’t really work as well as the rest of the episode which I thought was very good from start to finish. The episode never seemed to be slowing down or waiting for something to happen. As soon as it changed direction it did and did it in a seamless way. Two episodes in and the story is working well and I think that things are starting to settle down and the show is managing to survive without Tom Baker.

(554) Castrovalva - Part 1

This is quite an important episode of Doctor Who which might sound like a stupid statement but bare with me on this because there are multiple reasons for this. Firstly there is the matter of a new Doctor in the form of Peter Davison. Another is that it’s the first time in the shows history that its not airing on a Saturday. Instead Doctor Who is airing on a Monday and Wednesday. This might seem like a sign that the BBC were showing a lack of faith in the show and that might be true but the most alarming fact is that whereas Season 18 would take about seven months to run through, Season 19 would be on screen for just three months. The gap between the final part of ‘Logopolis’ and the first episode of this was 289 days which is a record and beat the previous season’s record of 231 Days.

The episode starts with a pre-title scene which is basically the reprise from the previous and the thing that is different is that the music is more upbeat which I like cause its basically saying that there is a no sheriff in town. The episode was never going to have Davison’s Doctor running around as he would normally do but instead he’s a bit all over place and doing a bit of running. I think that Davison’s Doctor is underrated and this episode shows this because he does a great deal whilst appearing to not be his self. There are little nods to previous Doctors and I like the impressions but I don’t know what to make about his untangling the Doctor’s scarf. I don’t think they should have done that.

With this being the final story in the Master trilogy this means that it will involve a rather convoluted plan. At the moment it doesn’t look like this is going to be the case. The Master is using Adric to plunge the TARDIS into ‘Event One’ also known as the Big Bang. I like how Adric is being used because its an interesting way of using a character. The Adric that’s on board the TARDIS isn’t the real Adric and it gives Matthew Waterhouse the opportunity of playing two different aspects of the same character.

Apart from a few minutes at the beginning set on Earth, the vast majority of the episode takes place inside the TARDIS and I love the idea that this happens. With a lot of things up in the air there is a sense of not being as they were and after seven years worth of episodes with the same Doctor it’s a weird feeling with the scenes in the TARDIS of a familiar setting but with unfamiliar people. The Zero Room only appears in this story but its such a good idea I wish they had kept it and used it in future stories.

The cliffhanger is a good one and it’s the ending that the episode should be. As an episode I thought that it was a good if slight understated episode. It’s hard to judge how Peter Davison’s era is going to be after one episode but I think the signs are promising. It’s not going to be as good as the Tom Baker era or even Jon Pertwee’s but I think that there will be things in future stories that I will like and then there are smiling Silurians and the Murka. For now I am just enjoying this opening story of the Davison era and liking it.

(553) Logopolis - Part 4

Today is the 172^nd and last episode to feature Tom Baker as the Doctor. It’s hard to believe that tomorrow will see a new Doctor. It’s something that I have been building up to for the last couple of weeks but here we are and the end has been prepared for. I was really wondering what I was going to feel as I started to watch this episode and it didn’t take long for me to feel a huge sense of sadness. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five and a half months and it seems like only five minutes since I started watching Robot. It does feel odd that Tom Baker’s seven and a half years comes down to this 25 minute episode and no episode in Doctor Who has had such importance placed on it. The episode starts off with the Doctor’s handshake with the Master and the look on his face which is one of disgust.

The Monitor doesn’t last very long in this episode but his death wouldn’t be a cop-out because visually it was very good and it was the start of things to come. The problems with the Master continue to show up when just after the Monitor was wiped away, the Master decides to just get up and leave which seems like the Master as a character has taken a step backwards.

The stuff where Tom Baker is running around when the story moves to Earth is perhaps the most action packed that his Doctor had been perhaps ever. I thought that the stuff on earth was better than the stuff on Logopolis. The build up to the big scene was quite good and the fact that it was on location was a nice addition because it felt like it was injecting some energy which it was needed.

The performances were good but in particular there were two that stood out. The first was Tom Baker’s obviously. There were times were he clearly knew the end was coming and whilst he didn’t have the energy that he would have had during the early days of the show but there was still some of the original Doctor in that performance. The second was Anthony Ainley who seemed to be up to speed with the character and I liked the combination of Tom Baker and Anthony Ainley and it’s a shame that they didn’t have more stories together because I think they could have had some good stories together.

The regeneration scene was really good and was perhaps more emotional than when Jon Pertwee turned into Tom Baker. The music used was really downbeat (which would change in the next story) and the watcher walking towards the Doctor and the two merging was a really good effect and the transformation was also rather good but I think that if it were done today then it would be more gradual whereas in this regeneration its still done well but does look a bit slow compared by todays standard. The sight of Peter Davison is a definitive sign that the Tom Baker era was well and truly over.

No matter how many times I have watched this story I always wish that the Doctor hadn’t tried to pull that cable off the gantry. I wish that something would happen which meant everything was alright but sadly it doesn’t happen and the final few minutes are truly sad and I haven’t felt like this since the goodbye scene between the second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. This episode may not have had much in terms of dealing with the main issue in it but to be honest that could have been dealt with in the first couple of minutes and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the story. I cant really decide whether the episode was what it needed to be. As a four part adventure it did what it needed to be and we said goodbye to the longest serving Doctor in the style that it needed to. Whereas ‘Planet of the Spiders’ did seem to have thing that were put in to indulge Jon Pertwee, here there wasn’t anything like that.

Well that’s the biggest part of the journey over with. Tom Baker has been a mesmerising Doctor and he is going to be a difficult act to follow. Already I worry that things aren’t going to be quite as good but maybe time will tell but one thing is for sure, the show isn’t going to be the same again.

(552) Logopolis - Part 3

The penultimate episode is perhaps the one where there is the most advancement happens in terms of plot. It where all the various elements from the past couple of episodes finally meet up. Firstly there is the companion line up having a decent amount of time together and I quite like it. I like how they all have different things that they bring and something I hadn’t clued on before reading the information text that they actually all have something in common and that is they have all suffered a loss before joining the Doctor. The episode restarts with the shrunken TARDIS and it reminded of the recent story ‘Flatline’ where the TARDIS is the same size. Due to the TARDIS being smaller that it meant the Doctor was out of action for a while and when he does get back to normal size he is rushing around like a mad man (in a blue box).

There might be a new Master but the problems with the Master are still the same. He doesn’t think things through until its too late. This is the first time that we get to see the Anthony Ainley version of the Master. I think that it’s a solid performance but its hard to judge really at the moment. I think that the problem with Ainley’s Master is that he is always going to be judged against Roger Delgado so I am going to try and be fair and judge Ainley’s Master against what I see.

As far as the narrative is concerned it feels like its trying to do two things at once. Its trying to tell a story right here and now but its also getting the groundwork done for Peter Davison’s arrival. The appearances of the Watcher felt like they were more significant in this episode than in previous ones and as the ending draws closer it feels like there is no real way for the Doctor to get out of things. There is a line that the Doctor gives where he says “I’m going to stop him if it’s the last thing that I do”. There is a sadness behind this that I cant figure out whether its acting or Tom Baker being real.

As far as the cliffhanger goes its another good one because it sees the Doctor and Master form an alliance and more importantly shake hands. It’s a handshake that’s going to be bad for the Doctor but I like that its not necessarily dramatic but its more what it signifies and I think that this is why the cliffhanger is so good. As an episode I really enjoyed it and for a while I almost forgot that the next episode would be the final episode for Tom Baker.

(551) Logopolis - Part 2

The first thing after the titles are finished that appears on screen is the sight of the Watcher. The first couple of minutes are back on the lay by where the Doctor is about to be taken to the police station and gets Adric to create a diversion to give the Doctor the opportunity to escape and to be honest he doesn’t have to try very hard because all he does is pretend he’s fallen off a bike and that’s all that is needed. Once the story leaves the lay-by that is when it starts to go up a gear.

Tegan appears to have found her voice in this episode and despite spending most of her time running around in the TARDIS, when she does eventually meet the Doctor and Adric, the noise levels go up and the number of TARDIS crew is going up to pre-1970 levels. Nyssa doesn’t appear until the final couple of minutes which is a bit of a surprise. What is also a bit of a surprise is that at the half way point of the story that the Master still hasn’t appeared. There are a couple of chuckles but that’s about it.

The story moves to Logopolis and the first thing that we see is a model set which isn’t the greatest if I am being honest because for me the scale of things in the shot don’t quite add up to me. I know that I maybe (and probably am) wrong but it just doesn’t work for me. When we get down onto the planet then a number of things strike me. The first is that the person playing the monitor looks a lot like Noel Edmonds and I cant get rid of that thought at tall. The idea that the Logopolitans mainly use their heads to come up with mathematical sums instead of using computers even though they do have a giant satellite.

The cliffhanger is rather good because of the fact that the Doctor is about to be shrunk to a rather small size. At the half way stage the story is starting to take shape and things are working out well. This episode might have a certain amount of glumness about it but compared to the previous episode it does seem that the narrative moves along at such a speed that there isn’t the time to worry about it. Two episodes left and there is a part of me that wishes the story would end differently but sadly that’s not going to happen but at least the moment has been prepared for.

(550) Logopolis - Part 1

Logopolis is the 41^st and final story to feature Tom Baker as the Doctor. It feels a bit of a shame that Tom Baker chose now to leave the show as I think that with the renewed freshness that the show has had since John Nathan Turner became Producer, he could have done another season but I suppose I might be in the minority there but this is the middle story in the trilogy of adventures featuring the Master although really if I am going to be pedantic (and I can cause this is my review), then out of five episodes he has only really appeared once. Anyway the thing about this episode is how glum everything is. It’s not just the fact that 95% of the action takes place in a lay-by but the fact that everyone’s performance lacks an excitement. Most notable is that of Tom Baker who looks very different from the previous episode.

I think that the relationship between the Doctor and Adric has been quite good and they spend most of the episode together. They seem to have the most interesting time in the story. This is a story which has a lot of real science in it then what we have are few moments which are a bit difficult for me to understand. The sight of the TARDIS prop inside the console room is one that is so good I wonder why it wasn’t used before. The idea of them walking into a new console room everytime they walk into the TARDIS prop is something that looks good but if the science was explained then I might lose track.

This serial introduces Janet Fielding into the show as Australian air hostess Tegan. It’s a bit generous to call her an air hostess because she has never actually done it as a job and infact is about to start when this episode begins but that aside, Janet Fielding has a rather understated debut. Knowing what she will become in future episodes, its fair to say that she starts off quite perky and jolly. She spends her time in the show with her Aunt Vanessa. Spending a moment to talk about Aunt Vanessa, if she were in todays Who then she wouldn’t have been killed off so quickly and she would have become a regular visitor to the show. She was by far the happiest person in the episode.

A strange white figure appears in the middle of the episode which as the story progresses is announced as ‘The Watcher’ but at this point he is just a strange figure but when the Doctor spots him the look is one where its clear he knows what is coming and its not good. The only aspect of the episode which I didn’t think worked was the final few minutes which led to the cliffhanger. The involvement of the DI is something that seems to offer very little and the shot of the policeman seen at the beginning of the episode and Aunt Vanessa who are action man figures dressed in the clothes of the policeman and Aunt Vanessa. I would have expected something with a bit more action.

As an opening episode which needs to be as epic as the man about to leave the show it was a good one because it set the tone right and did a good job of introducing the new companion. I watch these future episodes knowing that the Davison era isn’t too far away and whilst I am looking forward to the arrival of Peter Davison, I know that the Tom Baker era is coming to an end and after four an a half months, I am trying to get use to the idea that the show will have changed and I don’t know at the moment whether its for the better.