The Twin Dilemma & Extras Discs (S21 - The Collection)

The Twin Dilemma:

The last of the story discs is number 8, and this features Colin Baker's debut.

Often voted the worst story ever (though I'd argue there have been some right old clunkers recently), one of its problems is that it came the very next week after the story usually voted best.

This is the only story of the entire set not to have any new VFX as an option, either new or legacy, but it does finally get a Making-Of documentary. The DVD only really had a costume featurette (the one where they replaced Baker's costume with a dark suit, just to show what the actor himself wanted - though a darker Doctor in a black suit might have been just a little too close to the Master). 

Regarding the clown suit, it's interesting that the Doctor himself actually acknowledges that he no longer has any dress sense - so you'd think that they would have seen sense themselves and changed it for Season 22 (and certainly for Season 23).

Some of the model shots - the freighter and the surface of Titan 3 are rather good - and video effects are okay, which is why they probably thought it not worth commissioning new VFX.

The main issues with The Twin Dilemma are the variable acting on show, the presentation / character of the new Doctor, and the gaudy sets and costumes. It's the end of season, so the money has run out and that might go towards explaining some of the production values problems. Peter Moffatt's rather bland direction is another issue.

Watching it again last night - first time in a long time - I actually thought that the twins did a reasonable job considering they weren't really actors. They'd only done a stage version of Oliver! before this.

Performances such as Helen Blatch's - an experienced actor - are worse, though she's a victim of the material she has been given. (The story might be credited to Anthony Steven but the second half is basically Eric Saward's).

Edwin Richfield is totally wasted as Mestor. They could have simply employed him for his voice and had an extra play the Gastropod itself.

The biggest issue is the Doctor, of course. In hindsight it was certainly a mistake to launch the new Doctor at the end of a season when you are going to present him as a bit psychotic - murderous, manic, or cowardly in turns. When he says "I am the Doctor... whether you like it or not", it comes across more as a threat to the audience than a reassurance. Leaving this performance in the audience's minds for 9 months was a mistake, which even JNT finally acknowledged.

The documentary is very good. Presented by Toby Hadoke it interviews cast and crew, including Kevin McNally and Colin Baker at a pub near one of the quarry locations (which Baker claims is where his rubbish now goes - I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere...).

It starts by acknowledging the story's poor reputation, but I think you may have a little bit more respect for it after watching this. The Conrad twins and Noma actor Barry Stanton are amongst the interviewees. The latter has never watched it, and is quite impressed by Azmael's death scene when Hadoke shows it to him.

For Behind the Sofa, the guest viewers are Paul and Andrew, the titular twins (Gavin changed his name). They join Baker, Langford and Bryant. 

Janet Fielding is very critical of the new Doctor's behaviour. Davison has mock annoyance at seeing Baker in his costume, and jokingly stomps off the set, leaving the others to carry on watching without him.

The rest of the disc is TV spots, and quite a mixed bag. Not just Baker items but Jon Pertwee on Pebble Mill at One and Mat Irvine on Saturday Superstore (visiting London's Science Museum with K-9).

Discs 9 & 10:

Considering that the special edition could surely have fitted onto the Planet of Fire disc, I'm not entirely sure why they felt the need to have two discs of extras. As well as that SE, Disc 9 has two of those dreadful Escape Room features - one each for the Fifth and Sixth Doctors. Other than that there is a 2013 Fifth Doctor overview and Matthew Sweet in conversation with Matthew Waterhouse. 

The fact that this appears on this set, as does the Earthshock Tales from the Tardis, gives the extras a bit of a Davison era leftovers feel.

Waterhouse does actually talk quite a bit about Doctor Who in his interview. We also hear about how he got into acting in the first place, his experience of conventions, theatre, working in New England, and moving into writing. Can't say I buy his interpretation of the exploding console scene in his final episode.

The only other big new extra is the latest road trip with Davison, Sutton and Fielding. Or rather, boat trip, as they take to the River Wey to journey to the studio to do a Behind the Sofa. Mark Strickson was supposed to be involved as well, but had to drop out.

This isn't a straightforward travelogue, as they have elected to employ elements of earlier extras - cooking from the Doctor Who Cookbook, and dining at the Doctor's Table (joined by Colin Baker). 

These were extras in their own right on other sets - so it feels like a bit of a jumble. The travel section I was fine with - the scenery is lovely - but the cooking session and the restaurant bit I could have done without.

How you take these all depends on how much you like the Davison / Fielding double act.

Last, but certainly not least, on Disc 10 we have the 50th Anniversary's wonderful The Fiveish Doctors, which comes with optional commentary. Great seeing this again.

The Caves of Androzani (S21 - The Collection)

Disc 7 contains what has often been voted the greatest Doctor Who story of all time. More recent polls might favour some of the post 2005 episodes like Blink or Heaven Sent, but The Caves of Androzani still holds its own as arguably the best of the classic era.

It had a reissue in one of the "Revisitations" box sets, so we've already seen most of the extras. 

What we get here new is a version of the story with optional new VFX - the fifth story to feature this on the set.

Other than establishing shots of the twin planets and the Monument Valley-like TARDIS landing site, these effects mainly deal with the Magma Beast and spaceships.

The monster is a lot more mobile than the very static costume, though that hasn't been replaced totally here. It's primarily close-ups which benefit from the new CGI, giving it more animated features.

Model work of Stotz's ship is replaced on a couple of occasions.

There has been a lot of criticism regarding the use of AI in the recent box-sets. This has been used to sharpen the image, but on occasion has interfered with actors' faces.

Its use is particularly noticeable in Part One of this story, in the scene set in Morgus' office where he has his video-link chat with Chellak. Morgus' face loses all movement, the lips hardly matching his dialogue.

Quite unnecessary to have employed this at all, especially if it is actually going to spoil the image rather than improve it. You'll notice the AI in operation on other stories, especially in TARDIS scenes.

Luckily the Behind the Sofa panellists are only watching edited highlights of the regular version, so director Graeme Harper's thoughts on this go unrecorded.

He joins the Fifth Doctor sofa, and unlike other guest viewers so far has a lot more involvement in the discussions about what they are watching. 

Everyone comments on how adult and dark this story is, with Aldred and Padbury stating they would have liked to have seen at least a little humour to lighten the mood occasionally.

As a story it is unrelentingly bleak, like Logopolis having an ominous feel throughout. (We go into these knowing that the Doctor is going to "die" at the conclusion, and this mood permeates the entire story in both cases).

Other than the Magma Beast costume, which was never all that prominent in the original broadcast, you really can't fault the story. Casting is perfect for every role - no stunt casting this time; the lighting is kept low and atmospheric; and - despite rehashing elements from the less than perfect The Power of Kroll - the writing is some of Robert Holmes' best. It just goes to show the difference it makes when the same material, more or less, is given to an innovative director.

Interestingly, it's not Davison who gets teary-eyed at the regeneration scene, but Colin Baker, who has nothing but praise for his predecessor's Doctor.

Of the extras we've seen before, this being Davison's last story, they have included the regular stuff like "Tomorrow's Times" and "Stripped For Action" covering the Fifth Doctor era. 

That big documentary presented by Davison's son-in-law (what ever happened to him?) is also included here.

This is the last time we'll see Davison watch his own stories. Hopefully he'll be back on a sofa for some of the Troughton ones when they finally get round to releasing them, as that was his favourite Doctor.

Planet of Fire (S21 - The Collection)

Disc 6 of the set could be described as the runt of the litter.

If you want a Special Edition of Planet of Fire then you have to look to Disc 9, one of two Extras discs in this set, for the previously released 75 minute omnibus version. As well as new VFX, director Fiona Cumming drastically edited it down and added a prologue featuring the crash of the Trion spaceship carrying Turlough's father and brother.

As for the main story disc, apart from the Behind the Sofa there are no new extras either - and this doesn't even have a guest viewer on the Fifth Doctor sofa.

Personally, I wasn't too keen on the SE as too much detail was cut, and the prologue rather jarred with the broadcast version in its look and feel.

The similar re-edit on Cumming's Enlightenment worked a lot better.

As for the story itself, Peter Grimwade was given a huge shopping list of things to include - writing out Turlough, including providing some background to the character; writing out Kamelion; writing in new companion Peri; having the Master involved (and potentially writing him out as well); plus making extensive use of a foreign location.

He argued that he should have been invited to the location recce, as he could have fed this into his writing. But JNT didn't want another director possibly interfering with Cumming's ideas for shots. Also, JNT had fallen out with him by this stage due to his perceived snub following the postponement of "Warhead", when Grimwade didn't invite him to a meal.

Saward did attend the recce, but claimed he was employed as little more than a chauffeur.

This will prove to be the writer / director's final contribution to the series.

Considering the shopping list, Grimwade does well incorporating everything in a fairly satisfactory manner. Turlough gets his background (the writer having introduced him and already plotted a backstory for him) and it's fitting that the Master be involved in Kamelion's demise as he was there in the beginning. Peri takes some getting used to, as initially she's a bit of a spoiled brat.

The plot is a bit clichéd, with a society worshipping an ancient alien visitor, and there's the obvious inspiration from She, which had already inspired The Brain of Morbius. (I find it hard to believe the similarity in planet names is just coincidence).

The location looks great - just a pity they couldn't have used a British location for the opening to act as contrast. It looks like the TARDIS has simply moved elsewhere on the island.

Resurrection of the Daleks (S21 - The Collection)

The first of the Season 21 stories to have had a Special Edition release on DVD with lots of extras, so Resurrection of the Daleks covers Discs 4 and 5. 

On the first we have the original two part, 45 minute episode version - necessitated at the time due to the BBC's coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics.

The four part version - how it was meant to be screened had it not been for Torvill & Dean - is on Disc 5. Whichever version you choose to watch, the option to do so with new VFX applies to both.

The most noticeable changes are that the Dalek battlecruiser and the prison space station have been replaced, so the brief attack by the former on the latter looks much better. Their final destruction is also new.

Other than that, new effects work is light - mainly weaponry energy beams. The Daleks now have a slight blue outline added when hit by a gun - suggesting some sort of forcefield or the energy is simply bouncing off their armour.

The Supreme no longer appears against a bright white backdrop on the TARDIS scanner. It's now backed by the red-lit control room.

Leela has now been included in the flashback sequence as the Doctor's memories are being drained.

Resurrection of the Daleks is a story which was fairly rapidly reappraised after being repeatedly voted second best of the season (after The Caves of Androzani, though one Australian fan poll placed it top).

It was popular for being the first Dalek story for several years, the new iteration of Davros, and lots of action. It was always claimed it had more on-screen deaths than The Terminator.

However, it soon began to be looked upon less favourably - mainly due to the script. It simply had too much crammed into it, with subplots which weren't terribly well developed - the main one being the sudden plan to have a duplicate Doctor assassinate the High Council of Time Lords.

The violence isn't really an issue - even though it includes the use of non-fantasy pistols and machine guns. The toxic gas effects are a different matter, however.

Eric Saward has himself claimed it's the worst script he ever contributed to the series. (In the new documentary he steps back a bit from that comment).

Watching it again (the two part version) some of the violence does stand out, and not always in a good way - and you can see problems with pacing and those non-starter subplots.

Tegan's departure isn't terribly well set up. It's a lovely scene, but there's just no build-up to the moment - it just comes out of nowhere. Fielding herself now claims to be okay with it - arguing that motivation for actions often lies beneath the surface, and only seems to spring from nowhere.

The Behind the Sofa is on Disc 4, and the guest viewer for this one is Rula Lenska, who played prison medic Styles.

They all comment on the fact that one of the characters is seen smoking. There's regret from Padbury, Waterhouse and Sutton that they never got to do a Dalek story - but then they are all pleased to see themselves included in that flashback sequence.

This disc also has a brand new Making-Of documentary (50 mins), with Davison and Fielding interviewed at the Butler's Wharf location. "Terror on the Thames" includes contributions from Saward, Mark Strickson, Terry Molloy, director Matthew Robinson and surviving guest cast members, plus an archive appearance from JNT.

The rest of the material is a collection of brief TV spots. One of these is the odd Walrus piece - a BBC Wales series, in which a housewife talks with the Dalek Invasion of Earth Supreme.

A compilation of clips from Saturday Superstore all deal with JNT's threatened scrapping of the Police Box TARDIS.

Disc 5 is given over to Janet Fielding, this being her final story. As well as a couple of archive interviews we have her in conversation with Matthew Sweet. The most interesting part of this is the story of her journalist ex-husband and his arms dealing. There's also much talk about her days with experimental theatre companies. She speaks about her cancer diagnosis, though this is covered more in the latest Toby Hadoke "Weekend With..." feature. Usually recorded over a weekend as the name implies, Fielding only had limited time to film this so it's simply "48 Hours of Fielding".

Recorded in and around her current home town of Ramsgate, she introduces Hadoke to some of her friends oveer coffee, visits the local wildlife sanctuary, and they pay a call on the youth club which she is involved with. There's a bit more mention of Doctor Who this time.

I've been critical of Fielding in the past, but this has been when she has been part of a larger group - on the sofa, in documentaries, or as part of the DVD commentaries, especially if Peter Davison is also present. She tends to dominate in such settings and others - notably Sutton - tend to be frozen out.

I enjoyed a lot more seeing her speak just on her own - showing more of a vulnerable side. Like her companion co-star, it's a remarkably eventful life she has led.

Frontios (S21 - The Collection)

Disc 3 covers Frontios, and it also has the option to watch with new VFX. 

The first thing you notice is the view of the planet on the TARDIS scanner. It was grey originally but is now red, to match the studio establishing shot of the crashed colony ship. This looks a lot better. We also have new meteorite effects.

For the scenes where Tegan, Turlough and Norna go up to the top of the ship with the acid battery, the sky is now reddish. It was an annoying brilliant white in the broadcast version.

Victims of the Tractators are still bathed in a purple light, but the creatures themselves now have a purple glow at the tip of their antennae when they use them. 

The biggest change comes with the sequence in which the Gravis reconstitutes the TARDIS in Part 4. As well as an overlaid video effect we have some CGI scenes of the rocks dissolving. We also get a glimpse of other parts of the TARDIS interior.

As well as a hitherto unseen area - almost TV Movie-ish - there's actually a glimpse of Kamelion in one of these. It was always an annoyance that he was never even referred to in any of the stories between The King's Demons and his departure in Planet of Fire, with one scene in The Awakening being deleted. He should certainly have been talked about when the TARDIS is seemingly destroyed in this story.

As far as the extras are concerned, the sofa panels all seemed to like this one. On the Fifth Doctor sofa for this story is Jeff Rawle, who played Plantagenet.

There is a short (3' 53") interview with Verity Lambert from the Did You See? programme as well as other TV spots and trailers.

A series I used to watch due to its sci-fi trappings was The Adventure Game. The butler always reminded me of the First Doctor. We have an instalment of it here, featuring Janet Fielding as one of the trio of competitors. I shan't say how she got on...

The Awakening (S21 - The Collection)

On to Disc 2 of the Season 21 Blu-ray box set, and The Awakening also offers viewers the chance to watch with new VFX. But if you're expecting any new Malus - big or small - you're in for disappointment. The only new effects concern the apparitions, getting rid of the blocky BBC Micro computer graphics and replacing them with twinkling lights. The phantoms also fade in and out in more satisfying fashion - but that's your lot. There's not a lot you could have done with the big face in the church, other than to give it more expression, but I did think they might have replaced the smaller creature which appears in the TARDIS. Even the church's destruction remains intact from the broadcast version - a none too bad model sequence.

This two-parter had a larger than usual percentage of location filming, and this is where this new remastered version really impresses. The footage looks great, and there's not really much more to say about this one - other than I think it is the best of the three Davison two-parters.

As the Behind the Sofa teams say, everyone really looks like they enjoyed making this. After the overly-lit studio work in the season opener, we have a lot more atmospheric lighting in the secret passages and church crypts designed by Barry Newbery - his final contribution to the show after joining it for the very first story back in November 1963. The BBC always excelled at historical costume drama, and this little story certainly benefits from that expertise.

Keith Jayne, who played Will Chandler, joins the Fifth Doctor sofa line-up for this one. Sadly he doesn't contribute much. Waterhouse and Padbury get competitive as to who was the greater genius - Adric or Zoe. It's a shame no-one pointed out to Padbury that writer Eric Pringle had Peter Bryant for an agent - the producer who cast her as Zoe.

This disc is the new home to The (TV) Centre of the Universe - originally split across two DVD releases.

A highlight of this disc - and of the set as a whole - is the Matthew Sweet conversation with Mark Strickson. Fascinating mainly due to the fact that he has led such an eventful life. As with all these items, there isn't a great deal of talk about Doctor Who, but in Strickson's case this is no big deal as his career, and personal life, have been so full of incident - especially his later vocation as a wildlife filmmaker. Definitely one of Sweet's more memorable interviews.

Warriors of the Deep Special Edition (S21 - The Collection)

On previous occasions, when it's come to The Collection box sets, I've waited until I've watched all the stories plus the extras before posting one big review of the whole set. This meant me not reviewing until almost 2 weeks had passed, by the time I'd worked through everything.

This time, as most of the stories of Season 21 have been given updated VFX and there is a lot of additional material, I thought I'd do it differently and post individually on each disc.

We start with Warriors of the Deep, which not only gives you the option of watching new effects but has been quite radically reworked.

Usually, new VFX means replacing model shots with CGI versions, but in this case all of Mat Irvine's model work is preserved. They've simply overlaid new effects to make the models look as though they really are underwater. The only CGI added is an exterior shot of Sea Base 4 with the missile silos opening in Part 4, plus internal shots of the base seen on the control room screen, depicting the missiles in their bay and a small internal harbour in which a mini-submarine can be seen.

The biggest change to the broadcast episodes is the total replacement of the Myrka. The only time you see the original costume is when the beast is already dead, and Nilssen falls on top of it.

The Myrka does other things now as well. Its first victim is killed by it lashing out its tongue to electrocute him.

The notorious scene in which Ingrid Pitt's Dr Solow attempts to kung-fu it is now quite different. We see only her begin her moves, then the Myrka lurches forward and snatches her up in its jaws. This scene was followed by a shot of the command disc lying on the floor, with the dead Solow's outstretched arm. The arm is now seen to be detached from the rest of her!

If you've read the recent DWM Chronicles 1984, you'll know that additional Silurian and Sea Devil material was filmed and edited into the episodes. This comprises mostly close-ups, either of them speaking or of their weaponry in action. All the weapons now fire VFX shots.

One thing you'll notice right away on watching is that the Silurians' third eyes no longer light up when they speak, and the rather squeaky voices have been deepened to make them sound more menacing.

The only time a third eye lights up is when Icthar uses it to show some clips from their previous stories on the control room screen, when he tells the Doctor about their earlier disastrous encounters with humanity.

The episodes have also been reedited to tighten up the pace, so there are fewer scenes of the Sea Devils ambling rather slowly down corridors.

We no longer see any wardrobe malfunctions either, of which there were several on view back in 1984. CGI has also been used to add the occasional eyeball movement to the Sea Devils.

One thing this Special Edition might have benefited from was an omnibus version, if they really wanted to make it feel more fast paced.

Of course, no amount of CGI and reediting can fix all of the problems. The sets are still over-lit, the performances variable, and the continuity errors with those earlier stories persist. Actually, The War Between the Land and the Sea now fits chronologically between this and The Sea Devils - but as that didn't feature the Doctor, the Myrka or Silurian battle-cruisers then those problems remain.

Apart from trailers and other brief TV spots, the only new extra for this story is its Behind the Sofa. They're doing it differently this time by having a guest actor from each story on the sofa with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton. For this story we have Tara Ward, who played Preston.

The two other sofa line-ups comprise Matthew Waterhouse, Sophie Aldred and Wendy Padbury forming a companions one, and Colin Baker with his two companions, Bonnie Langford and Nicola Bryant, making up the third.

Having just watched the Special Edition, it is a little jarring to watch them watching the original broadcast version. It would have been nice to see their reaction to the new Myrka, but of course these panels will have been recorded long before that work was completed.

Personally I found the Aldred / Waterhouse / Padbury one the most entertaining. When one of them observes "Look at them trying to look macho, in their camp outfits", Waterhouse replies that they've just summed up 1980's Doctor Who in a nutshell...

It's a long time since I watched Warriors of the Deep, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed watching it again, thanks to this new version. I know there are a lot of purists out there who are only interested in watching the original versions, but I really can't see myself ever revisiting the broadcast version.

Worth the price of the box set alone? Maybe not quite, but there are another 9 discs to come...

DWM Chronicles - update

I recently posted that the next edition of DWM's 'Chronicles' was going to cover 1966, to be released some time in May. Having received a copy of the latest Special Edition - the 2026 Yearbook - I can now confirm that the next one will actually cover 1984, and it will be in shops from 12th February. It does now seem that these are being released to coincide with Blu-ray Collection season box-sets, assuming that those years haven't already been Chronicled (we've had issues covering 1963-65, and 1967).

Season 21 next for The Collection

It has been announced that Season 21 will be the next to be released onto Blu-ray. 

We are promised a special edition of Warriors of the Deep, re-edited and with new VFX, whilst four other stories get optional new effects - The Awakening, Frontios, Resurrection of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani.

There are new making-of documentaries, a visit by Toby Hadoke chez Janet Fielding, and Matthew Sweet conducts interviews with her, Mark Strickson and Matthew Waterhouse.

There is another Davison, Fielding, Sutton travelogue, this time by river.

The "Behind the Sofa" segments are different this time, judging from the number contributors, suggesting story specific combinations.

The "Tales from the TARDIS" version of Earthshock is also included, as is the "Five-ish Doctors (Reboot)" piece created for the 50th Anniversary.

The set is likely to be released in April, as that is when the Sixth Doctor Escape Room, included here, is added to the official YouTube channel.

Update: just pre-ordered a copy and release date is given as 16th March 2026.

What's Wrong With... The Twin Dilemma

Just where does one start? One of those stories where it might be quicker to say what went right with it, as there really wouldn't be very much.

I'll start with one big thing that went wrong - and that was screening this story immediately after The Caves of Androzani.

Whilst Troughton had been introduced part way into Season 4, all subsequent Doctors had their debut proper at the beginning of a season.

JNT's reasoning for having Colin Baker star in the final story of the season was simple - to allow the audience to go into the 9 month break already familiar with the new guy, rather than be left wondering for all that time what he might be like.

That's fine if it's someone we're looking forward to seeing again. I don't think we get that feeling at the conclusion of this story. Indeed, the Doctor's "...whether you like it - or not" comes across as a threat to the audience, rather than the reassurance it was intended to be.

Let's breakdown where we think things went wrong...

First things first, a little more on what it is following. Written by Robert Holmes, and delivered in a dynamic, atmospheric manner, with excellent performances all round, Caves was always going to be hard act to follow, and there's no way JNT could have known that when originally planning his season (though I'm sure Eric Saward would have alerted him to the dangers).

The Twin Dilemma has some very poor performances, tacky sets and costumes, little menace - except from the person who's supposed to be the hero - and zero atmosphere or dynamism.

It's also the last story of the season and everyone knows that's when the money has run out, and you're never going to have terribly good production values.

Secondly, the new Doctor's outfit. It was a brave move to have a darker and more alien Doctor - but the effect is totally ruined by putting him in a clown costume. Hartnell and Troughton had outfits which somehow came across as neutral. Their appearance is very rarely commented upon - a bit like the convention that everyone in the Universe speaks BBC English. Pertwee had a uniform style but went through a whole line of different coloured velvet jackets, and Tom Baker went through a number of outfit changes, whilst managing to maintain a consistent overall look thanks to the hat and scarf.

The rot starts with Davison and JNT's insistence on turning outfits into uniforms. This really annoys when you have things like the Doctor and his companions attending a 1920's funeral in what would look like fancy dress to the Cranleighs and their friends. Then there's Mark Strickson being asked to change his hair colour because people might mistake him for Davison - despite the fact that one permanently wears a beige outfit, and the other a dark schoolboy uniform (and why would someone who loathed Brendon School continue to wear his school uniform for months after he no longer had to?).

Colin Baker's clown suit is so overbearing that it stretches credulity that no-one questions it.

How is the audience supposed to take this character seriously? Look like a clown, get treated like a clown.

Before we move on from costume disasters, let's not forget Hugo's garish tinfoil tunic. He has an entire wardrobe to pick from, and goes for this monstrosity.

Thirdly, the Doctor's personality and its impact on Peri. It's one thing for this to be a darker and more dangerous Doctor in character, but violence towards anyone, let alone the companion, and overt acts of cowardice simply aren't traits we want from the Doctor. What was it that Terrance Dicks used to say of the Doctor? "Never cruel nor cowardly...".

I've always said that I thought the Capaldi Doctor was the Sixth Doctor but done properly. He isn't cowardly, though he could be cuttingly cruel to people - usually only verbally - and this was explained by his lack of empathy (and the fact that he was a grumpy Scotsman, played by a grumpy Scotsman, and created by a grumpy Scotsman).

Something we'll come back to again for the next few stories: you really have to wonder why Peri isn't asking to be taken straight home after Part One.

Things aren't helped by Baker's performance. Personally, I've never rated him as a screen actor. He's more of a theatrical performer, where you have to project and play to the back of the gallery. He lacks subtlety at this stage of his career in my opinion. I'm not a Big Finish listener, but I believe he gives much more nuanced performances, presumably because of the recording studio environment.

Next, if you're going to build a story around a pair of distinctive characters then it's best to get a couple of good actors to play them. JNT was offered a number of female twin actors, who were experienced in TV work, but he insisted that the twins be male - despite there being a dearth of talented male twins in the business at that time. The Conrad brothers were the sons of Les Conrad, who was a frequent extra on Doctor Who - including an appearance in Caves. Their inexperience wasn't helped by an obvious speech impediment. This is one of those many occasions when JNT insisted on something and wouldn't back down when told it wouldn't work.

Not so much a dreadful performance as poor dialogue comes from Helen Blatch as space police commander Fabian. Referring to her latest orders, her "And may my bones rot for following them..." is rightfully derided.

The usually reliable Dennis Chinnery struggles with what he's been given to say, and how he's supposed to deliver it, as well.

Other stuff:

Escaping the Titan base, what possible difference could it make if the Doctor and Peri arrive in the TARDIS a few seconds apart?

Why do the Time Lords tolerate one of their number, no matter how venerable, ruling a relatively primitive planet? Surely this is intervention in other race's affairs on a grand scale?

There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for Azmael to be using the Prof Edgeworth alias.

A little bit of silver powder on the floor is automatically taken to be a sign of teleportation, and that means aliens. How? Are aliens popping down to Earth, leaving powdery residue behind, so often that you can tell at a glance?

If the twins' abilities are as awesome as their dad claims, why are they ever left unsupervised? He goes out for dinner and leaves them home alone, just after he's gone on about how their mathematical abilities could crack the universe in two.

Azmael hasn't spotted what Mestor's real plan is, but surely a basic computer model would have shown him exactly what would happen if they moved the outer planets. Newton could have worked it out in an afternoon.

Why go to the extremes of blowing up planets to spread his eggs when Mestor has access to spaceships?

Why exploit a couple of brainy brats when you already have a captive Time Lord mind to plunder?

Philip Hinchcliffe once remarked that he couldn't see the Kraals as possibly being a technologically advanced species, as the costume just didn't fit this idea. The Gastropods just don't convince as a universal threat, even if they do have a smarter than normal boss (just like the Tractators, who we only saw a few stories ago).

Mestor sometimes can get into people's heads and know what they are thinking - and other times he can't.

Going back to Hugo's horrible jacket (sorry, but we must), of all the hundreds of costumes available to him in the TARDIS wardrobe, he just happens to pick the one in which the Doctor hid the power pack of his gun.

If Azmael's rule over Jaconda was dubious to say the least, why does the Doctor happily allow a humble gun-toting Earth police lieutenant he hardly knows to stay and take over the planet? It's actually all very racist. Funny looking aliens can't be trusted to govern their own affairs and need human types to rule them?

Any why, ever since, has no-one been able to spell Jaconda / Joconda the same way twice...?

What's Wrong With... The Caves of Androzani

A quick one this I suspect. Is it only the Magma Beast?

Let's get that out of the way straightaway. It's quite an impressive costume, but looks plasticky and is far too rigid, so looks like a costume. It isn't all that necessary for the plot either, as there's so much monstrous human villainy on show - but JNT was insistent on monsters in every story at this point, whether or not they were needed.

Another thing I find wrong isn't anything to do with the four televised episodes. It's other people trying to shoehorn adventures in between Planet of Fire and this one. That the Doctor is sacrificing himself to save the life of a woman he has only juts met is one of the things which make this regeneration story great. Stick loads of book and audio stories in a gap which doesn't exist - including an entirely new companion - and I'm afraid I object.

Peri is wearing the same outfit she was wearing when she left Sarn, and where was that brand new companion in the regeneration scene? Everyone else is there, even the Master, but I see no ancient Egyptians.

As for the story itself, well there's some confusion about just what Spectrox does. Jek treats it like some elixir of life, claiming that Peri will live with him forever, but we know from the chat between Morgus and the President that it only slows down ageing. It doesn't stop it.

A miracle substance which prolongs life ought to be well known across the galaxy, so you do wonder why the Doctor hasn't already heard of it. Is it confined to just this one planet?

It's obviously a capitalist society on Androzani Major, so why isn't it being marketed widely?

Jek knows all about the antidote, and his androids can easily go to the hostile nether regions where the Queen Bat hibernates, so why has he never availed himself of a supply - just in case he or an ally were to accidentally contract Spectrox Toxaemia?

The Doctor claims that Androzani Minor has absolutely nothing to commend it, so why does the Doctor simply not take off again? He's supposed to be treating Peri to the scenic route back to Earth, so a deadly ball of mud in space is hardly worth sticking around for.

(If he already knows Minor, then that makes his ignorance about Spectrox even more unbelievable).

He decides to stay because he's spotted signs of a spaceship landing and wonders why - despite the fact that he has just randomly landed there himself.

Stotz and his men have the right idea. They wear mushroom-coloured uniforms which act as camouflage in this sandy terrain. But multi-coloured shell-suits for Chellak and his men? It's no wonder the war's going badly. They might as well wear big targets.

It's a bit too obvious that Davison is hanging a couple of rubber hearts on a bit of string round his neck when it comes to the android's X-ray POV of the Doctor. They're clearly on the outside of his coat. And we only see the hearts - no other bones or organs.

Lastly, the antidote works remarkably quickly. Why did the Doctor not simply take some himself before carrying Peri to the TARDIS, spilling half of it as he went along? We could have had another year of the Fifth Doctor...

Which brings us to the definitely last thing - why didn't Season 21 just end here?

What's Wrong With... Planet of Fire

 

A production problem: the opening Earth scenes are set on Lanzarote - and the planet Sarn scenes are filmed on Lanzarote. It is so obvious that they are at the same location. The opening section should have been filmed somewhere in the Home Counties, so that the Sarn scenes made more of a visual impact once the TARDIS moved there. With the previous two trips abroad, City of Death was set wholly in Paris, with only a few studio-bound prehistoric sets and Florentine interiors, whilst Arc of Infinity juxtaposed studio-bound Gallifrey with Amsterdam.

Peter Grimwade was not invited to the Lanzarote shoot, or its recce, thanks to JNT falling out with him. (He felt slighted that he wasn't invited to a meal which Grimwade arranged as a thank you to the crew who had prepped the cancelled Season 20 Dalek story which he was due to direct). 

Grimwade said that he could have better matched his scripts to the locations had he been able to experience them. As it is, he made use instead of his Greek holidays, though a lot of that local colour didn't make it into the finished story.

JNT had also fallen out of love with Anthony Ainley, and for a while this really was going to be the Master's swan song - in this incarnation at least.

He and Saward thought seriously for a time about having the Master confirm his blood connection with the Doctor, but decided to drop it in the end - thankfully.

Turlough's history seems odd. Why should he be sent off to live on Earth whilst his brother gets to stay on the planet on which they crashed? Why not send both to other worlds? What exactly was so bad about his past that Turlough kept it secret from the Doctor? There's nothing shameful about being a political prisoner, especially when he must have been very young at the time of his exile. Indeed, he could have got the Doctor to help him, if Trion is under some sort of oppressive regime. (Maybe his family were actually the dictators, ousted in a popular uprising).

After rescuing Peri, why does Turlough bring her into the TARDIS? Why not simply carry her to the beach and summon help, so she is dealt with in a conventional manner - rather than have her wake up in a bigger-on-the inside space-time machine, where she might want to ask an awful lot of questions?

Where has Kamelion been all this time? He came aboard the TARDIS in The King's Demons, and hasn't even been referred to since. Surely Saward could have dropped the odd line in to explain where he was and what he was doing or, as I previously suggested, have him take on a humanoid form and have an actor in to play him for a story or two.

Kamelion reacts when he senses the psychic shock of the Master's mishap with his Tissue Compression Eliminator, so takes the TARDIS to Sarn - but there's all this business with the Trion artefact which doesn't quite fit with the rest of the narrative.

What was a Trion beacon doing on a Roman or Greek ship in the first place? Have they been using the Earth as a depository for exiles for centuries? The script introduces elements then (in)conveniently forgets all about them.

How exactly did the mini-Master manage to build a whole control room if all of his equipment is of gigantic proportions in relation to his diminished status? Was the whole room shrunk around him? (If so, why no doors?). Bit of luck that it just happens to house the device which enables him to control Kamelion.

How did he come to end up on Sarn? Because of his accident, or was he going there anyway? Bit of a coincidence if he was.

If the numismaton gas is on record in the TARDIS databank, then surely the Master must have known about it himself long before this. Surely it would have been a lot simpler coming to Sarn, instead of his convoluted schemes on Gallifrey and Traken.

And once the flame begins to turn into a conventional one - i.e. a wee bit burn-y - why not simply jump out? He stands there blabbing when he ought to be saving himself. 

The Doctor's a bit too brutal in this story as well - far too readily accepting that Kamelion is irredeemable, and then doing nothing as his old enemy is seemingly burnt to a crisp. And they call Davison the bland Doctor...

Finally, Peri is on Sarn purely by accident, and the Doctor has hardly had any interaction with her throughout the story, so what makes him think she is companion material? 

What's Wrong With... Resurrection of the Daleks

First of all, Eric Saward himself has been saying almost from day one that he doesn't think much of his own story - despite it doing well in polls at the time. It's generally felt that there are too many subplots, like the whole "Assassination of the High Council of Time Lords" plan.

The Daleks have hidden their samples of Movellan gas in 1980's London, in a building which is sure to be investigated by workmen - and indeed this is exactly what has happened. Workmen find the blue cannisters, and promptly call in the army as they think they're probably unexploded WWII bombs. The Daleks have time travel capability and are actually hiding the cannisters in time as well as space, as they're based in the far future.

Surely that warehouse isn't a terribly safe location for such important objects - they need Davros to examine the samples to find an antidote as they're being thrashed in their war with the Movellans - and surely they could have checked how secure their hiding place was at this point in history. Or was it always the plan that people would find the cannisters? If so, why?

Apparently it's all a deliberate ploy to trap the Doctor - but how would the Daleks know that he would fall into their time tunnel? It happens when he's in their far future.

Tegan is left prisoner at the warehouse. Why not transfer her to the Dalek ship as she's also be duplicated? Stien specifically states that the Time Lords - who they want to assassinate, remember - would be suspicious of the Doctor without his companions. When they do finally despatch her there, she's left free to wander around. No Daleks, or even one of Lytton's men, waiting for her, despite her apparent importance.

Why use Lytton and his mercenaries if the Daleks can create their own duplicates, who look exactly like the people copied?

The duplicates have to be mentally conditioned - so why not just do that to the originals?

Why do only some people fall down when the time tunnel is operated? Why would you have a device which knocked people out every time you switched it on?

The Daleks fail to properly guard the self-destruct chamber, so serves them right for getting blown up when they hang about the space station instead of just grabbing Davros and flying away. Davros claims he needs to be near his cryo-chamber, but the Daleks ought to have (a) thought about providing such a thing themselves on their ship, or (b) just ignored him as they don't trust him anyway.

How did Davros manage to get that mind-controlling drug dispenser installed in his chair if he's been frozen / imprisoned / tried / frozen for the last 90 years? Was it always there? If so, why not use it earlier on Skaro?

He appears to be surprised to hear about the stalemate between his creations and their robotic foes - even though he saw it in action in Destiny of the Daleks.

Not something wrong as such, but the actors playing the duplicate soldiers compete to have the most dramatic death when exterminated. They really milk their deaths for all they are worth.

Dalek death rays don't always appear on screen in the final episode.

Leela doesn't appear on the flashback sequence of companions - a mistake, or has the Doctor deliberately blocked her as she's on Gallifrey and might be able to foil that assassination plan? 

Probably a mistake...

What's Wrong With... Frontios

It was always thought that the TARDIS was infinite in size within, but then Christopher Hamilton Bidmead came along and said that a certain percentage of it could be deleted. You can't have a percentage of infinity, so the TARDIS had to be finite in internal dimensions. Bidmead then had the ship lose a full 25%  of its internal mass, so possibly not even of vast size internally.

It should still be of such a scale, however, that a single representative of an alien species shouldn't be able to tear the entire fabric apart and then put it all back together again - and certainly not by simply waving drunkenly to and fro.

More than a bit lucky that most bits of TARDIS are embedded in rock, yet the console and its room are seemingly intact and at least partially operational.

If the Gravis knows about Time Lords and their time machines, why split up the ship in the first place? Why not simply pull it underground, open the doors and get access. If he's so smart, the Gravis ought to be able to work out its operation eventually.

The Doctor tricks the Gravis into reconstituting the TARDIS, as it will cut off its mental link with the rest of its kind. But since when did the TARDIS ever keep any sort of signal out. Psychic projections and even radio waves have penetrated it in the past.

Turlough knows of the Tractators from his own planet. They're going to turn Frontios into a giant spaceship to get them about - but how did they manage to visit other planets in the past? They don't appear to be a very technologically advanced species. They have only very crude mining machines, reliant on human beings (or bits of them), and only the Gravis seems to have any special powers. The rest are pretty useless without him.

Is his nose the seat of his powers - as he's the only one that has one?

Just why is the Doctor so afraid to be so far in the future? He has never bothered too much about what the Time Lords would do, and has visited Earth colonies at crucial moments in their history in the past.

Something everyone notices is the metal bar, which Tegan places across the middle of the door handles to delay a pursuer, magically moving to the top of the door handles all by itself.

The run up to this scene shows that Tegan needn't have bothered as her pursuer takes ages to reach the door anyway - long enough for her to run out, look round, grab the bar, then put it in place. He was only a few feet away from her in a relatively small room.

The spaceship crashed decades ago, and yet no-one has gotten round to putting a proper floor in the infirmary. It is basically a dirt floor, which is hardly hygienic for a hospital setting. Why are sick people not being treated in the spaceship? Surely it would afford more protection than a shelter built out in the open.

There's no electricity, but Mr Range uses an electronic keypad to open filing cabinets.

A number of cuts were made - one of which leads to a continuity error as Tegan is aware of the Doctor's plans when he hasn't told her them.

There's a lot of 20th Century language on display, despite this being in the very far future, yet no-one knows what a coat / hat stand is - despite people still wearing hats and coats.

What's Wrong With... The Awakening

It's just a short two-parter - but that's one of the problems. Originally four episodes long, it was heavily edited down to half the length and this leaves it rather rushed.

The anachronisms should have been prolonged, so that the audience would be unsure as to when this story was set - the 17th or 20th Century. The fact that it's a contemporary story with characters just dressed in English Civil War costume is given away far too quickly.

The whole ghosts thing is confusing. Why do some people materialise corporeally, like Will and the disfigured thief, whilst others are just phantoms? And why do some of the latter look real whilst others are a sort of ghostly silver colour?

Everyone connected with the village seems familiar with the name "Malus" - but how would they have known its name?

A couple of directorial issues. Tegan is walking along, minding her own business, when she gets abducted. But you can see that her attacker must have been standing right in front of her in the open to have achieved this.

The Doctor and Jane confer as they're hiding under the stairs in the secret tunnel - despite their searchers only having just walked past (after ignoring the only place in the tunnel where anyone could hide).

What exactly happens to Sir George at the climax. He falls into the crack, but what happens next? Does he get eaten, or is the big malus of the same proportions as the little one, meaning there's a huge unseen drop below the face that he falls down? 

The story borrows (very) heavily from The Daemons, but in that story Chris Barry managed to show that Devil's End had a population. Where are the inhabitants of Little Hodcombe?

That 1970's story was also set at May Day. Here we see lots of sunshine, and no-one's wearing their big coats. So why does Sir George need a roaring log fire in his little study.

These days, the showrunner would devise a whole three season story arc around the fact that relatives of Tegan fall foul of alien interventions.

Finally, it's yet another Davison story in which lots of people get invited into the TARDIS and hardly bat an eyelid, and owning a dimensionally transcendental time machine apparently makes everyone automatically believe everything you say.

What's Wrong With... Warriors of the Deep

Let's be kind and point out that some of the problems with this story were outwith the production team's control. Mrs Thatcher announced a surprise General Election in the UK, which meant that TV studios had to be made available for political programming. JNT could have asked for Season 21 to be held back, but elected to push ahead. Added to this, VFX designer Mat Irvine was delayed in joining the production as he was still working on something in Scotland. Instead of the usual 8 - 10 weeks lead time, he had to deliver effects in only 3 - 4.

The biggest issue was the inclusion of the Myrka, which not only had to be built but the two-man team operating it needed time to rehearse in the finished costume. As they were seasoned pantomime horse performers, having worked the horse Dobbin in children's comedy series Rentaghost this wasn't felt to be too big a problem. They were experienced working together in this sort of setup.

Unfortunately, the Myrka simply couldn't be finished in time to allow them the rehearsal they needed. They only got to don the costume on the day it was due to be recorded, when the paint was still wet and the glue hadn't dried properly. 

Janet Fielding would get green paint on her costume, and you can actually see it getting onto the set in the finished programme.

Irvine and director Pennant Roberts urged JNT to drop the creature, rejigging the script to replace it with a Sea Devil vanguard. JNT, intending the Myrka to be a selling point for the story, refused to budge.

The Myrka quickly came to be regarded as a joke, a dodgy costume on a par with the Ergon and the Taran Wood Beast.

It's not just the actual Myrka costume which is a problem. As well as its bizarre off-centre walk, the door it breaks through is obviously not metal. You see it bend.

There are some poor performances. Ingrid Pitt claims that she simply didn't have time to properly rehearse her martial arts attack on the creature, leaving her looking rather stupid.

Tom Adam is wooden, and Ian McCulloch gives the impression of someone not taking things very seriously at all.

Design-wise, writer Johnny Byrne wanted the Sea Base to look dark and dank, with low lighting and rusty surfaces, as though it had been under the see for decades. This would have really helped the Myrka.

The harsh lighting affords no atmosphere whatsoever.

It is often claimed that this was an unused Space: 1999 script by Byrne, or a remake of one of the broadcast episodes. None match, however, though one of the very last shows of the second series - "The Beta Cloud" - sees a large monster moving inexorably through Moonbase Alpha, with the base personnel attempting to stop it.

Warriors of the Deep is supposed to be a direct sequel to The Silurians and The Sea Devils but - despite Byrne having had the chance to see the episodes and read the scripts - the new story does not match up with what went before.

The 1970 story did feature three prominent Silurians - the Old, the Young and the Scientist. They are never named - only in the novelisation - yet here we have a Silurian named Icthar who is supposed to be one of these, and that this group were known as "The Triad". The Old Silurian was killed, and the Young apparently so - shot by the Brigadier before the cave roof collapsed on his head - so Icthar can only be the Scientist. Where has the name come from, and how did the Doctor know that their leadership was known as "The Triad"?

It certainly can't be that the Doctor recognises the scientist, as Icthar looks nothing like him thanks to the costume redesign.

Part of this redesign is the third eye losing all of its earlier powers, reduced to flashing just to let you know who's talking.

Other knowledge which the Doctor gets from nowhere is the recognition of a Silurian battle cruiser, when no such thing has ever been seen before. He also knows about the Myrka, when he has never met that either.

He's not the only person demonstrating knowledge he shouldn't have. Vorshak starts talking about "Sea Devils" when no-one has told them what they are called.

Fans have tried to square the circle by postulating an unseen story in which all these things featured - but the problem with that is that the dialogue here clearly states that the Doctor has attempted peace twice before - which can only refer to the pair of Pertwee stories.

The monster costumes pose problems. The Sea Devil actors trip over their feet and the heads droop to the side or wobble when they move. The costumes come unstuck in places and you get to see the white T-shirts being worn underneath. You can see the eyes of one of the Silurian actors through their mask.

There's some terribly clumsy plotting - like the mention of both reptilian and marine life being susceptible to Hexachromite gas seconds after the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS. How lucky to have a big stock of it when Silurians and Sea Devils are going to attack. And it's one of those coincidences too far when the enemy agents just happen to pick the day the base is invaded by monsters to carry out their sabotage.

Maddox is the back-up Synch-Operator, but is only a student and clearly mentally unfit. If this base is so vital then why was an experienced Operator not jetted in immediately to replace the dead one? That death alone should have been treated as suspicious and acted upon.

The Doctor decides that it would be a good idea to wander around the base and ask for permission to carry out TARDIS repairs - despite knowing that he's in the middle of a war zone and the ship has only just been attacked.

Why leave the ship to carry out the work in the first place? He knows that no-one can get in, unless he's really, really stupid and leaves the doors open... Oh look! He's been really, really stupid and left the doors open...

And when the Doctor does come across some crew, he hides!

Not for the first time, seeing that he really does travel in a weird spaceship makes everyone automatically accept that everything he says must be true.

Not for the first time either - the monsters kill every single person they meet until they encounter a regular or guest star, then switch to just taking prisoners, like they've been working their way up the cast list in Radio Times.

I did notice that Tegan's limp suddenly vanishes in the final episode, but failed to spot that she acquires a bra between episodes...

K.O Round 1.9

This round sees Season 8 up against Season 21.

Season 8 was the first to be made entirely by the Barry Letts / Terrance Dicks partnership. The previous year had been set up by Peter Bryant and Derrick Sherwin, so Letts' hands had been tied. He didn't like the restriction to Earth or the seven episode story lengths. This year he got more stories, by reducing the episode count, and managed to find a way of getting the Doctor back into outer space. And a regular villain was introduced - a Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes, and the Brigadier's Watson. The Master appeared in every story, which Letts and Dicks quickly came to regret as it became too predictable for the viewer. Letts took on the role of producer with a number of conditions - one of which was that he could get to direct the odd story. he does this on the season opener Terror of the Autons. Something else Letts intended was experimentation with the latest VFX techniques. He was a great champion of CSO (Colour Separation Overlay, as the BBC called it).

Autons stands out for the number of shots per episode, as well as the use of CSO to replace backgrounds - with the unfortunate result that Mrs Farrell appears to have a kitchen half a mile long. As well as introducing Roger Delgado's Master, we also get Katy Manning as Jo Grant, and Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates.

The Mind of Evil is notable for its prison setting, armed ambushes and convict gangs - brutally realistic ingredients for a family fantasy show. The monster is kept well down in the mix, so these harder elements are more prominent.

The Claws of Axos is another four-parter, and another very bright, colourful story. The Axon monsters are a great design. Director Michael Ferguson shared Letts' interest in experimenting with new VFX techniques.

Colony in Space got the Doctor back onto an alien planet, thanks to the clever idea of the Time Lords occasionally using the Doctor as their unofficial agent, thus managing to keep the exile in situ. This was the first story to be directed by Michael E Briant.

Finally, we get The Daemons, co-written by Letts using a nom de plume. Thanks to the mix of Paleolithic archaeology, paganism and black magic, set against the backdrop of a quaint English village that has the Master for its vicar, this one is a cast, crew and fan favourite.

Apparently, had Peter Davison known how good Season 21 as going to be he might have been tempted to change his mind about leaving. He hadn't enjoyed Season 20 very much - even though it was supposed to be the big anniversary year.

It doesn't get off to the best of starts. On paper, Warriors of the Deep should have been a classic, what with the return of both the Silurians and the Sea Devils, and a base under siege. There was also a new dinosaur-like monster, called the Myrka. The realisation was awful, however. Overly lit sets that should have been dark and dank, a pantomime horse Myrka, poorly redesigned Silurians and Sea Devils, a couple of dreadful guest performances, and messed up continuity.

The Awakening was the last of the old two-part stories, and it has obvious inspiration in a story from Season 8 - The Daemons. Quaint English village, ancient buried alien evil, and a church blowing up at the end. Frontios was written by former Script Editor Christopher H Bidmead and gave the character of Turlough some much-needed character development.

When Peter Davison announced his departure, it was decided that companions Tegan and Turlough would also depart. Janet Fielding did not want her departure overshadowed by that of the star, so she elected to leave first, in Resurrection of the Daleks. This was the rearranged 20th anniversary Dalek story. This saw the return of Davros, who would be played by Terry Molloy until the end of the classic series. The body count in this story is higher than The Terminator.

It was Mark Strickson's turn to leave in Planet of Fire, which also saw the introduction of new companion Peri Brown. Writer Peter Grimwade's shopping list also included the Master and a foreign filming locale - Lanzarote. It was then time for Davison to depart, in the highly regarded The Caves of Androzani. It has often topped polls, and never been excluded from any Top Ten.

But then we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. Producer JNT decided to introduce the new Doctor in the last story of the season, rather than have the audience wait for the start of the next.

If Caves tops polls, The Twin Dilemma tends to sit obstinately at the opposite end.

A difficult decision this one. Season 8 has the creation of the UNIT Family, the introduction of the Master, and The Daemons. Season 21 has The Caves of Androzani.  Caves isn't quite enough to see off a whole season of Roger Delgado, so I am going to declare Season 8 the victor. The first and last stories of 21 also drag it down.

Next time, it's a battle of the Bakers - Season 18 versus Season 22.