Season 13 - The Collection (Review)

I actually received this latest Blu-ray box set two days early, thanks to HMV, but have only been able to work my way through it a bit at a time due to one thing or another - but better late than never.

I shan't say too much about the stories themselves as I've covered them elsewhere, and will eventually get round to looking at the individual episodes in detail.

Needless to say the picture quality is much improved, though I did see a bit of image shake on a couple of film sequences on Terror of the Zygons. That story is the only one this time to have optional VFX.

This comprises a few new shots of the Skarasen, using good old-fashioned model work rather than CGI.

There's a brief glimpse of the monster towards the end of Part Two, with a bit more for the final Thames appearance sequence in Part Four.

Now onto the Extras, of which there are many as we've come to expect of these sets (and one of the reasons it's taken me so long to get through it).

Two big new documentaries this time - one focussing on producer Philip Hinchcliffe with specific emphasis on this season, and another on Ian Marter, who played Harry Sullivan in two of these stories - his final work on the series.

The Hinchcliffe doc sees him meet up with Toby Hadoke in the West Sussex village of Charlton, which doubled as Tulloch in Terror of the Zygons. Here they discuss the story and Hinchcliffe is reunited with the original Skarasen model, lovingly restored by Neil Cole of the Museum of Sci-Fi in Allendale, Northumbria.

They then move on to discuss Planet of Evil at the rural home of designer Roger Murray-Leach, who provided the stunning jungle sets.

After that it's another home visit, this time to actor Gabriel Woolf who played Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars. He does the voice and is reunited with the original mask. His return in the Series 14 finale is mentioned.

The latter two homes visited are in the country, and it actually looks like they all live in the same village the way it's filmed.

At the Oxfordshire village of East Hagbourne Toby and Philip meet Sadie Miller, daughter of Lis Sladen, to discuss The Android Invasion. Again, there's a feeling that they've just gone a mile or two up the road from where the other interviews were filmed.

Stunt performer and fight arranger Stuart Fell is the next to be visited, to discuss The Brain of Morbius in which he played the patchwork monster. They have a zoom meeting with a collector in the USA who now owns the original brain / brain-case and claw from the costume.

The final venue is Athelhampton House, location for Harrison Chase's mansion in The Seeds of Doom. There they are joined by Graeme Harper who was Douglas Camfield's PA on the story.

Nice to see everyone again, but little new information offered.

The other doc, and the highlight of the set in my opinion, is the biography of Ian Marter. Fans will know that he died on his 42nd birthday in 1986, so it's a poignant affair. His wife and son are amongst the people interviewed, and one very good thing about this production is that there's no presenter or narrator. The friends and family simply talk about Ian, and we get to see lots of images from his varied theatrical career (working with Richard Burton on a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus being an early highlight). After his year with Doctor Who Marter went on to write some of the most critically acclaimed novelisations - sometimes controversial in their use of violence and first ever instance of a swear word in a Doctor Who book. The man himself appears courtesy of convention footage and his "Myth Makers" video appearance, recorded at the Zygons locations only a couple of weeks before his death. One thing which is mentioned in the doc was his refusal to take his illness - diabetes - seriously. 

His struggles to come to terms with his bisexuality are also discussed.

The Matthew Sweet interview is with the aforementioned Graeme Harper. As well as PA'ing on Seeds, he also featured in Morbius as one of the pre-Hartnell Doctors. Unlike the others who contributed to this most divisive of scenes, he didn't get dressed up especially. They used a photo of him from Colony in Space, used for the real Adjudicator ID badge, and he was wearing Roger Delgado's costume.

He spends much of the interview, after talking about his early acting career and move into production, praising Camfield. Harper remains only semi-retired, with a few new ideas in the pipeline.

"Behind the Sofa" comprises three panels as usual. The first has Hadoke (the Doctor Who fan version of mansplaining at times) with Katy Manning and Sadie Miller. Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding have Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. With Davison off working somewhere else, Fielding isn't as annoying as usual. The third sofa has Maureen O'Brien with Sophie Aldred, companion actors spanning the classic series.

Favourite story amongst the lot seems to be Pyramids. Katy sides with the monsters often and is highly entertaining, reducing Sadie to tears at one point.

There's an archive convention panel and an assortment of short miscellany filling out the 8 discs. 

We get Tom's links from his Disney Time stint, which linked into the Zygons story as he receives a message from the Brigadier whilst at the cinema. 

A schools programme - Merry-Go-Round - sees the presenter watching a bit of Zygons by way of introducing the kids to the idea of the Hero. (He is going to go on to discuss The Odyssey, and I for one would have liked to have seen the whole programme).

We get a bit of a Bruce Forsythe-era Generation Game - a Star Trek spoof during which a Cyberman turns up.

Another Cyberman makes an appearance in a Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) sketch. There are two of these, one of which runs to almost quarter of an hour. Set on the Moon, it sees the two main male performers - Peter Sensorites Glaze and Don Maclean - dressed in Thal spacesuits from Planet of the Daleks. Host Ed "Stewpot" Stewart turns up at the end dressed as the Fourth Doctor.

The other is the full "Hallo My Dalek" sketch, a tiny bit of which you'll have seen in the (More Than) 30 Years in the TARDIS 30th Anniversary documentary.

Now I loved Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) as a child, but watching these I simply could not see what the audience were laughing at at all. Maybe JNT was right and the memory does cheat...

Only three more sets to go before they have to visit the 60's monochrome seasons, all of which have missing episodes or complete stories. They're 11, 16 and 21.

General consensus on-line is that 21 will be next (though artist Lee Binding made some cryptic comments about the colour blue in his colour palette reveal the other day, which might point more towards the set with the visit to the famous blue planet of the Acteon Galaxy...).

Have just received the second season of Blake's 7 on Blu-ray, so I'll take a look at that soon since there are always a lot of Doctor Who crossovers.

Pyramids of Mars - A TARDIS Tale

The latest of the Tales of the TARDIS sees the Doctor and Ruby in the Memory TARDIS at some point after last week's episode, yet after the opening of the finale - so at some point during Empire of Death.

He's telling her about his previous encounter with Sutekh, which leads us into an edited down version of Pyramids of Mars. This has been given some new VFX, and the music has been mildly mucked about with. We get bits from Season 18, and inappropriately loud bits overlaying dialogue scenes which simply didn't need it (such as the Marconiscope scene).

I do think messing with a Dudley Simpson score should be a criminal offence.

The new VFX aren't too intrusive. A shot of the TARDIS in space and a new sarcophagus time tunnel effect. The energy barrier now showed a rippling effect when touched. The jackal-headed Sutekh was tidied up a little at the end.

I expected the trip to the possible 1980 to have been cut, or been given new FX, but it was retained as was, with just the CSO stabilised.

One way of cutting things down was to overlap scenes, such as how Sutekh's instructions to Marcus Scarman were played over non-dialogue shots of the Doctor and Sarah at the barrier.

The most noticeable deletions come from the concluding episode, where the pyramid puzzles are mostly dispensed with. 

The main story beats were still there, with the best known lines of dialogue of which there are many. The credit may be someone else's, but this is pure Robert Holmes.

Remastered picture quality was superb.

Back in the present, the Doctor tells Ruby that Sutekh has evolved and is now far more powerful.

Tales of the TARDIS: Pyramids of Mars

It has been confirmed that the new Tales of the TARDIS on Thursday evening (8pm, BBC Four) is indeed a condensed version of the Season 13 story which introduced Sutekh. Apparently it is going to be gaining some new VFX. The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby provide the framing device - which of course provides some pesky canon problems. They can't surely be meeting up to review an old adventure in the middle of a crisis; nor can it be such a coincidence that they discussed Sutekh just before he shows up again; and if it's after the finale then that's somewhat undermining the drama of Empire of Death. 

RTD has begun second episodes after a considerable time has elapsed since the first, so it may fit in then.

What's Wrong With... The Seeds of Doom

The Doctor wields a gun and throws punches. The tone of this story sits awkwardly alongside the other early Tom Baker stories. Douglas Camfield liked his military / action stories, as well as those Euston Films crime dramas - and it feels like he's imported that sort of feel into this.

The Doctor far too quickly opts for the RAF bombing solution - when he has usually been scathing of military responses.

Criticised by Mary Whitehouse for recent violent incidents in the series, Robert Holmes claimed it wasn't as if they were teaching kids how to make Molotov Cocktails. What do we see being made and used here...?

The Krynoid pods travel in pairs, and can be located only a few feet from each other despite having been buried for years. We don't know how long - there's talk of when Antarctica was covered in vegetation thousands of years ago, but that's when the scientists think the pod is native. It may only have arrived days or weeks ago - especially when it is found so high in the ice layer.

Irrespective of how long they've been there - how do they manage to retain such close proximity? From an evolutionary standpoint, why pair up when the adult Krynoid can self-germinate? Wouldn't two of them actually compete, with only half the available food supply for each? Or is one simply a back-up, in case the first is destroyed?

The Doctor knows enough about them to find the second pod - yet he doesn't know anything else about their origins (he only speculates on their planet being volcanically active) and never tells us anything useful like why - and how - they travel in pairs.

By digging up the second pod, the Doctor directly triggers all the death and destruction of Episodes 3 - 6. If he had just left it where it was, and quietly collected it later on, only the base personnel would have been killed (as a result of their own actions before he got there anyway). Scorby and Keeler would have still turned up, but may have simply left empty-handed, or with the opened pod for Chase at best. They might still have blown up the base to hide their tracks, but everything that happens in England is down to the Doctor.

Major Beresford. Just how long has he been serving with UNIT that he ridicules the Doctor's warnings?

If John Levene had been available for this story, would he have taken the part Sgt. Henderson played - and if yes, would he have been killed off in the compost making machine?

At one point the Doctor puts Sarah's life in jeopardy by leaving her in the grounds of a mansion full of insane millionaires, mercenaries, alien plant monsters, and a trigger-happy private army, whilst he goes to make a phone call. Er, surely it should have been the other way round?

When he writes the cheque for Miss Ducat, Chase rips two cheques from his book instead of just the top copy he has signed. That's what you get for wearing black leather gloves all the time.

The one everyone mentions - the TARDIS arrives at the South Pole and Sarah says the Doctor forgot to cancel the co-ordinates, despite the fact that they arrived in Antarctica earlier by aeroplane. This can be got round if we assume the Doctor was going to use the TARDIS, then changed his mind to use conventional transport. However, he's in a hurry to get to the pod before it germinates - so why mess about with 'planes?

Sarah's breath clouds in England, but not at the South Pole. She's in a bathing costume, yet she stands around joking with the Doctor for a while. Mind you, she has form in this area - having spent ages in her swim suit on Exxilon before finally changing into something more practical.

Something which went wrong behind the scenes on this very sequence - the TARDIS prop collapsed on top of Baker and Sladen, prompting the building of a new Police Box for the start of Season 14.

What's Wrong With... The Brain of Morbius

Had I written this piece a couple of years ago, the only really big problem with The Brain of Morbius would be the mind-wrestling sequence suggesting that William Hartnell wasn't the first Doctor. 

The Three Doctors had already clearly contradicted this, the Time Lords themselves saying so.

Hinchcliffe and Holmes thought there might have been earlier Doctors, which is why they included this scene in this form, but we could easily dismiss it by pointing out that it is Morbius who loses the battle - so the faces we saw must have been his. He's the one who is pushed back along his timeline.

Unfortunately, some hack writer decided that this sequence couldn't simply be left alone as a bit of an aberration, and it just had to be addressed when he was put in charge of the programme...

We now have the whole Timeless Child thing to put up with, all because of this one scene. The problems of the mind-wrestling sequence are multiplied.

If these incarnations of the Doctor were wiped from his mind, how can he picture them?

If the Doctor being a white man for 13 incarnations has been a problem for some people, he's now been a white man for 21 consecutive incarnations, thanks to Chibnall.

Everywhere the Doctor goes, he encounters people who look just like us. So how come, out of a dozen or so wrecked spaceships, not one of the passengers or crew had a humanoid head? 

Why did Solon not use Condo's head? Why just one of his arms?

Terrance Dicks' criticism of this story is perfectly valid. If Solon is the greatest surgeon in the universe, why has he come up with such an ugly, mis-matched body for the person he idolises? Surely he knows Morbius will have some concerns about the way he looks, if he is going to seek to pick up where he left off?

Why does Solon only want to use the Doctor's head? Can't he simply transplant Morbius' brain into the Doctor's intact body - especially when he finds out he is a compatible Time Lord?

Is Kriz, the Mutt, a Solonian mutant, or just a reused costume? If it is a Solonian then what is it doing flying around the galaxy during this period of transformation? Do they still transform if away from Solos, where the atmospheric changes of the seasons are supposed to play a role?

Why did Maren not use the Elixir to make herself younger and fitter?

If the Sisterhood can see into people's minds - other than those of the Time Lords - why have they not seen what Solon or Condo were up to?

Why don't they tap into Sarah's mind and find out what she has seen and heard? They would have known the Doctor wasn't here by choice for a start.

Why did Solon insist on continuing to work on Karn - right under the noses of the Sisterhood, and only a short hop away from Gallifrey? Why not smuggle the brain to an obscure planet with lots of humanoids he could have used?

Sunrise on Karn look remarkably like the turning on of a light bulb...

How does the Doctor recognise where they are from the stars when the sky is overcast and a thunderstorm is about to commence? 

His perception varies. He knows he's on Karn, and that Solon was reputed to be a member of the Cult of Morbius, yet takes ages to recognise the bust as that of the evil Time Lord.

When trapped in a locked room, the Doctor thinks the way to go is to poison the only people who can let you out.

What's Wrong With... The Android Invasion

The first of two really, really stupid story titles from Hinchcliffe-Holmes, which give away a major plot point and thus help ruin the story overall.

The story opens with a UNIT soldier walking off a cliff to his apparent death - only to be seen a short time later by the Doctor and Sarah quite unharmed. 

This ought to have set up a mystery which the story could have prolonged as much as it wanted - or to the first cliff-hanger at the very least. However, we have been told since the week before that this story is about androids. Tension, mystery and drama go out the window.

It's a Terry Nation story, but one of only two of his not to feature his most famous creations - so we're denied the "surprise" reveal of a Dalek at the end of Part One.

What we do get is another example of his total ignorance of the TARDIS and its modus operandi. 

It was always patently obvious that Nation never actually watched Doctor Who, perhaps not even his own episodes. When he submitted his scripts for Season 10, he had included episode titles - despite them having been dropped in 1966.

This time round the Doctor is unable to tell that the ship has not landed in present day England - despite it having been his base for several years.

Sarah leaves the key in the lock of the TARDIS, and we are told that it has a procedure to carry on to its programmed destination when this happens. As a defence measure, this is particularly stupid. 

Basically, the Doctor can be left stranded anywhere if he is interrupted in unlocking the doors.

I have occasionally allowed massive coincidences to pass in these posts, as they have been necessary for the drama. However, here we are expected to believe that the TARDIS, out of every single planet in the universe, has landed in an exact replica of the place the Doctor planned to go to. 

And, purely down to a hitherto unseen technological quirk, the TARDIS goes off by itself to the location which the aliens happen to be heading for. If the TARDIS was programmed for Devesham, why does the Doctor not know where they are when they first arrive - before he discovers it's a fake on an alien planet.

The Kraals make replicas of Devesham village and its nearby Space Defence Station, plus the villagers themselves. Why do they not also make copies of the station's personnel. Why only Harry and Benton and a couple of soldiers? Why not the Brigadier? Why not the mission control staff?

They've lifted their replicas from the mind of astronaut Guy Crayford. Bit of a coincidence that Harry and Benton just happened to be there, both when he took off and when he returns several years later - despite them never being permanently based there. 

If they are raiding Crayford's memories, why do they not know that coins in a pub are likely to be mixed chronologically (with the odd franc or peseta mixed in), calendars have more than one date, and dartboards are full of holes?

If you think this is being pedantic - why have they made real ginger beer for a village full of androids?

Why do the Kraals destroy the village, when it's on a planet they are abandoning anyway?

Why do the Kraals employ a "Disorientation Chamber" - an unwanted side-effect relating to human beings only?

Styggron's little spy hatch. Why? Who is he expecting to spy upon? You'd think he half expected visitors to turn up...

The one everyone comments on - Crayford's eyepatch. Seems he has gone a couple of years without realising he still had an intact eye under it. Why did the Kraals even bother to make him believe otherwise? He's loyal to them because they saved his life - but he is going to think that anyway (presumably through some form of mental conditioning - unless they really did rebuild his body).

Maintaining the eye delusion simply leaves the door open for him to realise he has been duped - and so puts the entire invasion plan at risk. All for a meaningless action.

Why do the Kraals turn tail when their android scheme fails? They still possess androids and a supply of the poison, so presumably can use the former to spread the latter somewhere else. They must also have conventional weapons.

The Doctor knows Sarah has been copied because she is wearing her scarf - but she was copied after she lost it, so shouldn't have been wearing it anyway.

As with nearly all the alien invasion stories - why come to Earth at all? Surely there must be equally suitable planets closer to home which are uninhabited or have populations which don't threaten them.

How does the android Doctor continue to function after the real Doctor has deactivated them all?

The last we see of Benton in the series is him lying lifeless on the floor. If it wasn't for a mention of him in Mawdryn Undead, he might be dead for all we know. A dreadful finale for a popular character who was such a big part of the UNIT Family - despite this being directed by the UNIT Family producer.

Behind the scenes, Philip Hinchcliffe was unhappy with the Kraal costume design - arguing that Rhino-like creatures with thick stubby fingers didn't match the notion of a race capable of intricate robotic circuitry.

The same piece of stock footage of a rocket launch is used as was seen in Revenge of the Cybermen. At least there, the rocket looked a bit like the Skystriker, but Crayford's ship looks nothing like a Saturn 5 rocket. And why would either ship have "United States" written along its flank anyway?

What's Wrong With... Pyramids of Mars

A hugely popular story - but not without its problems...

A lot of these revolve around the scene where the Doctor takes Sarah and Lawrence Scarman into the future to see the Earth as it would be, should they fail to stop Sutekh in 1911.

The TARDIS has gone into a potential future - and it has never been seen to do this before as a controllable function. It did once visit a potential future due to a fault - in The Space Museum - and the human guerrillas and Daleks could come and go with ease from a 22nd Century which would ultimately never exist in Day of the Daleks.

But we've never seen the Doctor deliberately pilot the TARDIS into what must either be a parallel universe, where Sutekh does win, or a future which gets shut down. The latter is more likely, as we saw that the Doctor didn't exist in the Inferno universe, and is apparently unique to our own one.

If the TARDIS is able to do this with ease - why has the Doctor never used this function before? We know he likes to explore, so would find it boring to always time travel to see how things work out, but it would surely be a useful function where there is a particularly high risk to himself, his companions or to the universe in general.

An additional problem is that he claims that this is 1980 they are seeing - and Sarah claims that she comes from 1980. This feeds into the whole "UNIT Dating Controversy", as it suggests that the UNIT stories, of which she is part, are set in a near future.

It has long been confirmed that the UNIT stories are all set at the time of broadcast - thanks to Sarah's own spin-off series and her crossovers with the parent programme.

One of the SJA stories sees Sarah using her super-computer Mr Smith to block a NASA live relay from Mars, in order to conceal the presence of a large pyramid structure- clearly a reference to this story. However, the earlier The Ambassadors of Mars had already seen at least two lots of astronauts (from the UK) already spending time on the Red Planet.

In the pyramid, when confronted by the deadly puzzles Horus has set up to stop anyone from freeing Sutekh, Sarah comments that it is just like the city of the Exxilons.

The problem is, she was left outside to steal the minerals from the Daleks, and only the Doctor and Bellal actually entered the city and experienced the puzzles. Maybe the Doctor told her all about it afterwards?

The Doctor is a bit mixed up about his previous companions. Sarah is wearing a late Victorian / Edwardian dress, but the Doctor claims it belonged to Victoria, who arrived wearing high Victorian fashion, with hoops, bustle and stays, of the 1860's. He also refers to Victoria as "Vicki" despite that being an entirely different person. At no time was Victoria ever called "Vicki" by the Doctor.

UNIT HQ is now established as being out in the country, but Sarah states that they are heading for London when knocked off course.

If the Priory is the site of the future UNIT HQ then it most certainly isn't in London.

It's odd that a building either totally remodelled in Gothic style by the Victorians, or new built in the 1800's, should still have a priest hole within its walls - something which dated back to Tudor / Stuart times.

Namin has stored the mummies and some crucial Osirian tech in a wing of the house which he has locked off - not wanting anyone to go there. But it's on the ground floor, and has an unlocked window, so any passing burglar - or Time Lord - could easily get in.

Why does the mummy kill the valet? He claims Sutekh needs no other servant, but why does the reanimated Scarman cadaver kill Namin as soon as he arrives? Surely he would have been useful for a bit longer?

It's clear that Ernie the poacher doesn't know that it is Scarman who he has just shot in the back. Why was he shooting at anyone through the window, without knowing who or what they are?

He is trapped in the woods, but surely a wily old poacher would have been able to find a decent hiding place to sit things out?

Why has Horus hidden Sutekh on a populated planet - one which is clearly developing technologies which might ultimately lead to his freedom? Why wasn't he stuck immobile on Mars itself, or some other planet or moon? Why leave puzzles to guard Sutekh, when something more deadly would have been more efficient?

Light and sound emerge from the sarcophagus time tunnel - so why doesn't Sutekh use his great mental powers to stop the Doctor sabotaging it?

Some people find the fate of Sutekh a bit confusing. He seems to perish in a matter of seconds, but the Doctor has moved the end of the time tunnel so far into the future that the Osirian takes more than 7000 years to get to the end of it - which is just beyond his lifespan.

Last, but by no mean least, there's the hand that holds down the Cushion of Sutekh when he first stands up - suggesting some poor soul is lurking behind his throne, maybe for centuries.

What's Wrong With... Planet of Evil

Planet of Evil is the first Doctor Who story courtesy of the Philip Hinchcliffe / Robert Holmes partnership which is solely theirs from start to finish. Up to now, all the Tom Baker stories have had some involvement from Barry Letts. Here we get to see what the new production team really want to do with the series - and that's to "homage" genre films and books. This story is a mash-up of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Forbidden Planet - which in turn was inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, and would itself go on to be an obvious inspiration for Star Trek.

For many, this isn't a problem, but the few fans who think this era over-rated complain about this lack of originality.

Zeta Minor is said to sit at the boundary between the universe of matter and that of anti-matter. It's interesting to know that an anti-matter universe exists right next door to ours without them destroying each other. Also good to know that it's somewhere that any mad scientist can visit, having a specific geographical address.

The planet must sit on our side of the boundary - otherwise no-one would have been able to land on it. How then do the anti-matter crystals manage to exist on the matter planet without catastrophic cancellation?

If the black pool can act as a route between the two universes, why did Omega never consider exploiting it?

How does Sarah manage to find her way back to the TARDIS when they're in the middle of a jungle that she's never set foot in before? What makes the Doctor think that he can locate their position manually (by sight) when they're in the middle of dense jungle? What's the point of a distress signal that doesn't tell you where it's coming from?

The crystals are said to be destroying Professor Sorenson's brain cells, reducing him to a mindless brute. How then does he make a complete recovery once the anti-matter has been drained from him? Shouldn't he still have some sort of physical health issues?

Why has he come all the way to the very edge of the universe in search of a new energy supply for Morestra? We know that his planet isn't local, as everyone goes on about them being at the limit of their fuel reserves. Sorenson must have passed lots of planets and suns to get to Zeta Minor that might have offered something useful.

There's some contradictory information about the fuel situation. In the opening episode, Salamar decides against a quick survey orbit as it will use up fuel, then later they spend ages trying to fly away from the planet on full power - and still think they'll have enough to get back to their territory at the conclusion.

The decision to spare Sorenson was a late one, and throws up an inconsistency: the anti-matter monster kills all of the professor's crew then starts on the spaceship people, yet spares him - despite it all being his fault that these people came to Zeta Minor in the first place.

Behind the scenes, Roger Murray-Leech went ahead and designed his sets without consulting with the VFX team who were building the spaceship model - leading to a mismatch. The model team had to adapt their design, but it still looks like a vacuum cleaner. It was also badly lit, meaning that the internal lights could not be seen on screen.

On the main set, the spaceship landing hatch is clearly operated by thin wires, which get in the way of those entering and leaving.

The jungle set at Ealing is so good that it really shows up the deficiencies of the TV studio version.

The TARDIS console room is seen for the first time since Death to the Daleks, and doesn't look quite right. It is missing its scanner and the lighting seems wrong. It might, at first glance, look like they didn't get things right until the next story - except Pyramids of Mars was recorded first.

Michael Wisher provides the voice for crewman Ranjit - in a very Peter Sellers / "Goodness, gracious, me!" stereotypical manner. A shame, since they went to the bother of hiring Louis Mahoney to give the Morestrans a bit of ethnic diversity.

What's Wrong With... Terror of the Zygons

Producer Philip Hinchcliffe often bemoaned the fact that some of his favourite stories were let down by one particularly bad special effect. There are a couple of things he probably had in mind when he said this - the giant rat in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and the Skarasen in Terror of the Zygons.

If you're going to do a story about the Loch Ness Monster, you have to show the Loch Ness Monster. Despite all the problems the previous production team had with dinosaurs in Season 11, "Nessie" was to appear.

Two versions were built - a model to be animated using stop-motion photography and a more basic glove puppet. Unfortunately there was insufficient time and money to produce enough material using stop-motion. We get a small amount as the Skarasen chases the Doctor over the moors, which looks okay. For the story's conclusion, however, we get the glove puppet - looking just like a glove puppet - badly superimposed against some film of the Thames by Millbank.

Director Douglas Camfield was so unhappy with the animation that he elected to only use the small amount - meaning he had to add the material about the Brigadier and his men being gassed at the inn to make up the running time.

How long have the Zygons been lurking at the bottom of the loch? The first recorded sighting of the monster was in early medieval times. St Columba, founder of the community on Iona, is said to have encountered a great water beast in the River Ness (not the loch itself). Modern sightings of "Nessie" only go back to the early 1930's when a new road was opened that gave relatively uninterrupted views of the loch.

If the Zygon ship has been down there for centuries, why does it take so long for the Zygons to repair it? Even if only there for decades, it is very clear that they aren't quick workers.

However long the ship has been there, when did Broton start impersonating the Duke? It appears to be only a very recent thing, with the current Duke, yet there has been a tunnel between ship and castle for a long time.

The chronology is further confused by the fact that it will take centuries for the Zygon refugee fleet to reach Earth. How many inhabitable planets will they pass to get here? Earth isn't even suitable as it stands - it will need to be totally terraformed to make it fit for Zygons.

What exactly is Broton's plan? How does destroying a conference allow him to take over the planet and enslave its population? The Skarasen might be virtually indestructible - but Zygons aren't, and there are only three of them. The Skarasen needs the Zygons to direct it. Look what happens at the end of the story. Once Broton is dead, it simply swims off back to Loch Ness.

The Doctor whispers to the Brigadier that the inn might be bugged - clearly not wanting whoever is listening to know that he is on to them. What does the Brigadier do in response? He loudly orders Benton to search for bugs...

There's no explanation on screen why the Zygons change back to their natural form when they are going to attack people. The novelisation at least gives them a deadly sting. Why does the Zygon copying the nurse kill Angus, but only shut Sarah in the decompression chamber?

Benton claims never to have seen a death like that of the soldier stepped on by the Skarasen - despite having seen at least one of his troops trodden on by a Giant Robot not that long ago.

Why does everyone traipse back up to Scotland at the end? The Brigadier might want to go and clear things up, and the Doctor is returning to the TARDIS, but why are Sarah and Harry there? The latter is planning on staying in London anyway, and Sarah hasn't committed to continuing in the TARDIS at this point - the Doctor has to talk her into it, and she only appears to agree on the condition that they go to the very place that she's just travelled away from.

The Zygon costumes are very good, but we do get to see the top half of John Woodnutt's costume come unstuck from the bottom half when he gets killed. You can also see the microphone hidden in one of the nodules in his chest.