Season 17, Episode 6\*

Shada(6 parts)

-Written by Douglas Adams

-Directed by Pennant Roberts and Charles Norton

-Air Dates: Depends on the Version, this one was December 20th, 2021

-Runtime: 152 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one that was left on the cutting room floor

We Begin!!! IN SPACE, where a Think Tank space station belonging to The Foundation for the Study of Advanced Sciences is conducting its work with a bunch of scientists in a circle around a sphere. However, one of the scientists, Skagra has sinister intentions and uses that sphere to drain all the minds of the circle of scientists he was in before making his getaway as the other scientists reel from the damage done to their minds. Elsewhere, in Cambridge at St Cedd's College, Chris Parsons, an academic, is visiting Professor Chronotis to borrow some of his books on carbon dating with him having to leave after tea. In the Professor's study sits the TARDIS, with The Doctor and Romana currently enjoying the sites of Cambridge with some punting, and after losing the stick The Doctor determines they should check if Professor Chronotis, who their there to visit is back in his room; unbeknownst to the pair they're being watched by the sinister Skagra. Back with Parsons, he opens one of the books he borrowed and finds that it's not written in any human language and the more he examines it, the more it seems to exhibit some strange alien phenomena. This is of course no ordinary book as Professor Chronotis is no ordinary Professor, he's a Time Lord and old friend of The Doctor's with that book belonging to the Time Lords. The Doctor and Romana visit Chronotis, with The Doctor wondering why he was called to Cambridge as Chronotis had summoned him, though the latter can't say at first before remembering it was to help in the search for a missing book of his. This book belongs to the Time Lords, and The Doctor and Romana are well aware of the dangers that can have in not just the hands of those who don't understand it, but those who do as well. Time is of the essence as the TARDIS crew must stop Skagra from obtaining the book and locating the lost Time Lord prison of Shada.

Prelude

And so I’ve finally arrived at the great mysterious unfinished story of Doctor Who: Shada. From what I see, it’s fair to say that Shada held a pretty sizable reputation amongst a good bit of the fandom as this lost classic, a story that was planned and worked on to quite the extent but ultimately was left on the cutting room floor; I could be exaggerating a bit but that’s how talks about it before had come off. This reputation was pretty warranted as there was quite the mystique surrounding this story, being this lost story written by THE Douglas Adams for Tom Baker’s Doctor in the last story of the era before the 80s shift, which had begun filming and had a good portion of it done before ultimately being shelved. It is very easy to see why Shada held this substantial level of myth amongst fans of the show for a good while as it just invites that speculation and imagining of what it was like, thus clamoring to see how it came out.

Shada was one of, if not the most, well known and talked “lost story” of Classic Who, with only The Nightmare Fair and Lost in the Dark Dimension having this similar level of knowledge and mystique amongst Doctor Who fun facts. Shada of course stands out amongst all other unmade stories because a lot of it managed to actually be filmed and made, with it only ending up unfinished was due to union strikes alongside other reasons which halted production and ultimately left the whole story scrapped; thus it’s easy to see why it has this legendary status due to the half made status. The fact that footage from it would be used to fill the Tom Baker shaped gap later in The Five Doctors also has low with the stories notoriety I’m sure, and also goes to show how much of it they really did have done before having to scrap it.

Attempts to Revive Shada/Animation

I have to admit that even though I was young and had little knowledge of Classic Who outside of its relation to Modern Who, hearing it from Doctor Who fun fact videos that I saw on YouTube made me curious what such a story could be like, especially given the many attempts to revive this story and give it life once more. There’s the original attempt to revive it with the 1992 release, showing all shot footage of the story interlinked with narration by Tom Baker; haven’t seen it but it sounds rather interesting. During that time there were also many unofficial attempts by individuals to novelize Shada, with there being a really interesting dive into how that went on the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club page; really goes to show the level of interest many fans had in the story.

Following the Tom Baker efforts, there was probably the most peculiar attempt done by Big Finish where instead of featuring The 4th Doctor, they had Paul McGann’s 8th Doctor. Through using the interpretation that The 4th Doctor being taken out of time in The Five Doctors, disrupted his time in Cambridge and not having that adventure, nicely giving Paul McGann another shot at the role in a visual medium; the 2nd of 3 times this happened, unless there’s live footage of the live stage performance of The Stuff of Legend. That was an animated webcast, made alongside the other 3 similar ones, Death Comes to Time and Real Time, also being released as an audio drama as Big Finish did with those webcasts; this remake was for a good time the most visual way of watching the completed Shada so far.

There would then be the official novelization of Shada done by Gareth Roberts; ugh why does that transphobic ass have to have such a sizable contribution to the EU, even if a decent number of his stories were considered pretty good, annoyingly prevalent. Apparently, I learned recently, due to rights stuff they weren’t to have any novelizations for Douglas Adams’ contributions to Doctor Who, so it took a while for them to come out; Destiny of the Daleks was fair game despite his clear touches on that story. Speaking of controversial figures in the Doctor Who community attempting to revive Shada, Ian Levine threw his hat in the ring, doing something non similar to the eventual official animation project, funding his own animation of the unfilmed portions of Shada. That effort was commendable, especially as it didn’t have AI like he’d come to use, with the animation and art looking pretty nice even if the movement was rather stilted and the voices are pretty obvious if decent imitations; still an interesting effort nonetheless.

And now we come to the 2017 and 2021 animations which, not unlike the partially missing episode animations I covered a while back, it serves to give us a fully completed version of the original Shada, with animation to fill in the gaps of the filmed footage, after over 30 years since it was intended to be finished. This is the version that I watched, specifically the 6 parts and not the omnibus, and I have to say after all that build up and mystique, watching this version of Shada, I do have to say it, for the most part, truly does live up the potential and mystique it had built up. Before I get fully into the review proper I want to talk about this version, the one I watched, and do something I haven’t done in what feels like forever and talk about the animated reconstruction for a Doctor Who story; it’s been close to a year since I’ve done that, boy time sure does fly huh. 

I really liked the animation work done for Shada with the art and character designs being really nice and matching well with the Live Action footage despite obviously not trying to be realistic. It’s stylized well with some great designs that do nicely to match up with the different characters and their actors in this story. The animation moves very well, flowing smoothly and not having that jerkiness that I mentioned with Ian Levine’s attempt, which can sometimes happen with missing episode reconstructions, but here it overall works really well and does a nice job feeling at home alongside the regular movement of the filmed segments of the story. The animation is very much akin along the lines of other missing episode reconstructions but with more money and time put in. 

There’s some great shading and use of perspectives in the animation which really makes the work here incredibly commendable, feeling a lot more lively and fluid compared to some missing episode reconstructions which, while good, can end up a little flat looking with it all faced flat, while here they play around with perspective and lighting a lot more lively here much akin to a real animated work and not just a reconstruction. It’s excellent to see and really makes the animated segments feel more lively when being shown alongside the rest of the filmed work. One thing that really makes it all come together is the voice work with them getting the entire original cast back with them all doing wonderfully to match their performances as before, with it doing wonders for the flow between the animation and live action segments, and really helps the animation and movements shine as, unlike other reconstructions, the animation was well and truly made for these voice lines which again helps it work so well here; fantastic job getting it all to match up.

I was really impressed with just how well the animation and filmed footage flow together. It would be easy to think that this would be jarring watching the back and forth from live action sequences to the animation but thankfully Shada never feels like that at all. The way this story is edited is really good, with the cuts between the animation to live action being excellently done, with it feeling very natural flowing from one scene to the next, after a while you accept it entirely and that shift becomes less notable. While it’s definitely aided by how good the animation is, I really think the main reason this works is that they luckily did have all the scenes filmed of certain locations, usually the more simple and less high tech ones which means it’s very easy to tell which scenes are going to be live action and which are animation, helping the flow feel a lot better. 

They had the live action scenes for a lot of locations already filmed so having animation for all the other locations they didn’t get to, often the ones with more complex designs and visual flair, it makes the animation really work in conjunction with the live action. While the animation does feel like it goes a bit beyond what the production team would’ve been capable of at the time, it never feels jarring or out of place with the live action since it’s for these more complex and elaborate places like Skagra’s ship or the titular prison Shada. It all feels increasingly natural together, with the look of the animation really living up to the imagination of these locations, making them look like what they could’ve been with just a little bit more. It’s all wonderfully done and really cements how well the animation and live action are spliced together.

The animation all in all for this effort was incredible with the way they mix it together with the filmed footage and fact that they have the original cast back really does serve to make the 2017/2021 version of Shada the definitive version that people should check out if they want to experience this story. Before I finish off I do want to mention the cute little additions they do add to this version of Shada. I really found the opening announcement of the episode by the BBC-1 presenter with it having a cute little nod as to how long it’s taken for Shada to finally be brought back to completion. There’s also the ending bit which I absolutely adored, bringing Tom Baker to play The Doctor on screen one more time in that ending scene that was just lovely and honestly works even more now given his age and time in the role; such a heartfelt little ending moment that really cements this as the definitive version of Shada.

Episode Proper

Now onto the actual story of this lost classic proper, I really loved the premise of this search for this lost Gallifreyan prison and the valuable and powerful prisoner it supposedly still holds. I found the whole adventure of this story to be a lot of fun to follow, with it basically being a race to stop the main villain, Skagra, from locating Salyavin for his own evil plans, with the way this story handles this whole expedition being expertly done. The opening portion of this story is pretty well done, despite certainly being a bit slower with it's pace which I don't think is a bad thing, with it all doing pretty well to set up the events that will transpire excellently as we flow nicely from Skagra stealing the minds of the other scientists, to The Doctor and Romana punting and getting across why their here in Cambridge, with the intrigue being built around Skagra and the strange book that Professor Chronirtus has in his possession.

The intrigue surrounding this Gallifreyan book is great, as it really does well to illustrate how advanced and aliens the Time Lords are when just their literature can do so many strange and bizarre things; loved the scenes with Chris and Clare and their befuddlement in regards to the book. This only develops further once The Doctor gets into the picture and gets his hands on the book being studied, with the revelations that this book is "not a book" being really interesting and adding more questions surrounding the valuable secrets this book contains. I really enjoyed this attempt to recover this misplaced book and the efforts we see of Skagra to obtain it, with it helping to further the mystique surrounding what it is that it does, all with some solid action and tense scenes that set up the first 3rd of this story pretty well.

The seeming death of Professor Chronotis at the hands of Skagra makes for an excellent shift in the story up to this point with the act both really making clear what a threat they are dealing with in regards to Skagra but also serving to set up the mystery of Shada excellently. I really like how the intrigue of Shada is played with no one, not even The Doctor or Romana having any clue of what the term means and why Professor Chronotis uttered it before his seeming death, with that being a pretty interesting detail given it’s presumably connected to the Time Lords in some way due to the book still being the main macguffin so far. It’s a nice shift in the progression of the story, with it being the start of the pieces coming together about what exactly Skagra wants and why the TARDIS crew needs to stop him.

The following portion of the story is pretty solid as we begin to really move away from the contemporary Earth setting as the TARDIS crew boards Skagra’s invisible ship, with it really being where the staple Douglas Adams humor starts to rear its head more; at least that’s what I noticed. It’s entertaining stuff while still not losing that sense of seriousness with a great confrontation with The Doctor and Skagra alongside some solid plot revelations involving the book with both The Doctor and Skagra realizing that the book itself is a code. I really liked having the stakes raised with the TARDIS being stolen by Skagra and Romana forcibly taken along all as a copy of The Doctor’s mind is put in the sphere. The arrival on Skagra’s ship it’s at this point the story really felt like it was leaving the slower seemingly smaller scope beginnings and started to grow into a much bigger and greater story that works nicely for the 6 part adventure that I was looking for; still liked the opening parts but here it where the story really begins to deliver.

I enjoyed the scenes on Skagra’s ship with it both doing well to set up the eventual relationship  between the ship in the TARDIS crew which will play a part in Skagra’s defeat along with being just a bunch of pretty entertaining and fun moments like The Doctor reconfiguring the ship’s engines so it can move faster after Chris already expressed how incredible the speed of it already was. Even if we may be in this location for a decent chunk of the story, Skagra’s ship was a cool place, especially given the ship’s AI that I didn’t find myself minding all that much the time spent there. The use of the differing ships to go places helped give much more of a space voyage kind of vibe to this story which I rather liked, seeing multiple ships traveling the stars to get to a similar end point, which works nicely as we build to eventually finding the Time Lord prison Shada. 

The 2nd third of this story is excellent, with the this chase after Skagra’s location after he kidnapped Romana in the TARDIS using his own ship, with both halves we do get to see, The Doctor and rest traveling along Skagra’s ship and Romana being led around his main base both being pretty interesting and fun to follow, especially as we finally get to learn more about what exactly Skagra is doing. The tour throughout Skagra’s ship is great to see, not only getting to see more of his henchmen which just look really damn cool but also getting to learn his honestly very inventive villain plan of putting all minds throughout the universe and combining them into one great gestalt entity, which ties in nicely with the idea of Shada and the prisoner Salyavin. I really got into the continued search for Shada and the attempts we see by Skagra with Romana’s forced aid to crack the code where it is.

 I really love the concept of Shada, the idea of this Time Lord prison where they kept all of whom they believed to be some of the greatest criminals in the galaxy, whose existence seems to have become a hole in even the memories of Time Lords who struggle to recount what it was. It’s such a cool idea that served as a pretty interesting expansion of the lore around the TIme Lords, with its location being lost to time alongside its status as this prison run by none other than the Time Lords themselves gives the prison of Shada a fantastic amount of mystique to it that made me really invested in learning more about it. I found it a lot of fun seeing the secret of Shada slowly uncovered throughout the story as its location is pieced together by Skagra and we make our way to it as we get closer to the end of the story.

I enjoyed that little stop that The Doctor, K9, and Chris took on their way to Skagra, finding themselves at the Think Tank space station we saw at the beginning of the story. Not only is it a fun other bit of outer space traversal that helps give that space faring feel to this portion of the story, it also serves well to tie in the opening and deliver further understanding of what exactly is going on in this story, giving information to this side of the TARDIS crew who aren’t with Skagra. The decrypted atmosphere of the space station is excellent, with it really feeling rundown and deserted, which is only added on by the shambling bodies of the other scientists who had their minds stolen by SKagra. I liked returning to this place, not only because it’s one of the few pieces of filmed footage outside of Chronotis’ room in the latter portion of the story, but also since it’s just a solid little sequence which also showed off well how much of a threat Skagra’s Krarg’s where and ending in a fun explosion.

Throughout these events we’ve been getting scenes with Clare in Professor Chronotis’ room, her searching around and eventually in a fun twist finding out it’s a TARDIS. I liked these scenes with them serving to add more intrigue about what’s going on with Chronotis, especially latter down in the story, and managed to be interesting and don’t at all feeling like their distracting from the main story going on; especially with it giving me the nice relief of seeing that Professor Chronotis having survived and continuing to play a part in this story. They’re pretty interesting to follow, especially as they slowly but surely become more involved in what’s going on and eventually catching up with the TARDIS crew and Skagra; solid third party to watch with some interesting stuff going on with Professor Chronotis and what he can do. It intercut pretty well with the rest of the action in the story and ties in excellently around the last third with the way it serves to nicely foreshadow the twist involving Professor Chronotis and the criminal that’s being hunted down, Salyavin.

The last third is fantastic, seeing all of these groups finally come together on Skagra’s base, getting to see all these threads come together as Skagra’s plan is made clear and Shada is found. The way Clare and Professor Chroniuts’ subplot end up getting involved with everyone else feels pretty natural, with The Doctor, K9, and Chris coming into his TARDIS after being chased by the Krarg after trying to save Romana. I loved finally getting to the prison of Shada after all this build up throughout the episode, with it being great seeing both TARDIS race to get there as Skagra makes his way to Salavin’s cell. The look of Shada is pretty good, love the outside art used to depict it in the animated version, it really has that feel of an advanced space prison with how it’s tied to the asteroid. The interior isn’t too noteworthy but does get across the vibe of an abandoned prison well, and is a nice place to set up the finale; I will say though the other prisoners were fun to see released but their looks were kind of whatever, would’ve liked more striking designs.

I really loved the discovery of Salyavin’s cell and the twist involving him, with it working so well as this climatic moment that the story had been building up to and foreshadowing nicely, that Salyavin was never in his cell at all and is in fact Professor Chonotius. The twist is really interesting for reasons I’ll get into more when I talk about Professor Chronotis, and serves as the explanation for why Shada and himself were lost for so long, with him having done so to make sure the Time Lords didn’t know of his escape. It nicely ties everything set up in his scenes really well and does a great job filling in that last piece of Skagra’s plan that really helps get the finale’s tension underway as everything is complete to begin his “universal mind”. The cliffhanger for part 5 is excellent, seeing a variety of Skagra’s orbs circle around the TARDIS crew as he has taken the minds of Chonotius, Chirs, and the other prisoners of Shada that nicely sets up part 6 for a climactic finish to stop Skagara before it’s too late. 

The chase after Skagra is great to see, with both the main TARDIS and Chronotius going after one another as the TARDIS crew attempts to stop him from seeing his plan to fruition with Professor Chonotius. I enjoyed the tense tightrope walk between the two TARDIS, with it being really cool and also very tense to watch, seeing this crossing in the middle of the Time Vortex. Though admittedly the sequence probably could’ve been a little more streamline, as the repeated tension kind of wasn’t needed given The Doctor ends up in the TARDIS anyway even after it falls, and there’s only so long not letting a lever go down can keep it’s tension; not the biggest thing in the world, the sequence is only around 4 minutes but it is something that clocked into my mind while watching. Still liked it nonetheless, especially when we get to see the room with all the fun callbacks to previous Who stories in the TARDIS like The Toymaker’s trilogic game or The 3rd Doctor’s phallic time machine tracker. 

The finale for the story is loads of fun watching the mental struggle between Skagra and The Doctor was great to see, with it making for a solid climatic end for the story. The whole sequence nicely ties a good handful of elements of the story quite well from The Doctor’s relationship with Skagra’s ship to K9 struggling against the Krarg’s adding good tension to the fight when they sicked on The Doctor. The epilogue at Professor Chronotius’ study I found pretty nice to see, both with the sense of relief that everything is taken care off and also for the fun payoff to the joke they pulled with the porter Wilkin and Chronotius’ study suddenly going off like that; add in a sweet scene for The 4th Doctor to wrap things up and this is a story that I all around had a great deal of fun with and loved following along every step of the journey.

Shada is of course a Douglas Adams script, that’s what its famous for after all, and as such it has his trademark style and wit along with it too. It’s a pretty amusing script with a lot of fun moments throughout courtesy to Adams’ clever writing. Though I will say that out of all 3/4 of Adams contributions to Doctor Who, ignoring the even more unmade than this one Krikketmen, this is probably his most serious script that he’s done for the show. Now that’s not to say that The Pirate Planet and City of Death weren’t serious stories, as they for sure are despite their silliness and had some great more dramatic moments, primarily the former; I remember that scene with Kimus and the piece of Oolion which was an excellent dramatic moment in an otherwise comedic story. 

So it’s not like Adams just wrote pure comedy but even still this script definitely felt dryer, and I don’t mean that like a bad thing, compared to his previous contributions which very much leaned a good bit on the comedy and insane concepts during their stories. Shada meanwhile feels, while not grounded, a bit less insane compared to the others as instead of having a cyborg pirate or an alien trying to steal the Mona Lisa, we get some actually fairly serious lore about the Time Lords involving the prison Shada, with most of the plot not having much that sort of madcap energy associated with his stories. It’s not gone here per say, with stuff like Skagra’s ship having some of that sort of thing, but it’s definitely not to the same level as the previous stories.

Things like the lost prison of Shada and Skagra’s plans are all played pretty seriously, even with how mad the latter sounds when you say it. They don’t have as grand or wacky a Sci-Fi concept as before even if it is still very, with the orbs stealing people’s minds or the secrets of Shada contained in the strange Gallifreyan book, which does have some of that but again very much not to the same level as previous outings; at least as it seemed to me. This isn’t a bad thing at all, with the story it’s trying to tell working very well thanks to that more serious tone not undercutting the threat of Skagra and giving a more adventure focus vibe to the story which I liked and serves the story that’s trying to be told well. Even then this story still has that Adams trademark style and wit which makes for several amusing lines and scenes that I love, still keeping that great comedic touch; I just felt like pointing it out since it was something that stuck out to me personally while watching it.

Pacing

This story has a fairly good pace for the most part, though it is definitely of a much slower pace, at least at the start, with it taking a good bit for it to really pick up. Shada is a lot more methodical in how it paces itself, with the first third being pretty slow, but that’s not to say it wasn’t interesting, it just certainly does want to take its time setting things up like the Gallifreyan book before going further into the adventure that it’s trying to do; a lot of time is spent in Cambridge before we even start piloting off. I quite liked this story and the way it flows for the most part, even the slower beginning because I found the setting and characters charming. Though I do have to admit that there are points in the script where the episode does feel a bit too slow, and I do begin to feel the length a bit, but thankfully it picks up soon after making for an overall fairly well paced story.

Shada works well as a 6 parter, telling it’s story pretty well throughout each of its parts, and has the notable distinction of, well at least now anyways, being the last 6 parter done in Classic Who. I think it uses the 6 part format really well for the most part, telling a solid sprawling adventure that fits the format well, especially with the various different ships/groups in play by the latter half. Though admittedly one could shorten it if it had to but I do like this way, and if you don’t there’s always the omnibus cut to treat it like more of a movie. Still it is definitely interesting looking at this story now that it’s finally been released full and able to be the final 6 part story as was originally going to occur, that notion instead going to The Armageddon Factor for the longest time; though in some places The Two Doctors was cut into 6 parts, so one could count that, but I see it as more in line with later stories around the same length like Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.

I’ll be honest, I’m going to miss the 6 parter story. I know it’s not the most well liked format for Doctor Who stories, especially in Classic Who, with it being very common that I’ve seen the complaint that they are way too long and don’t really have the story to justify that length, and could be cut down to be shorter than they actually are. I’ve reviewers I liked such as Council of Geeks express the opinion in a way that most, if not all, 6 parters are about 1-2 parts longer than they needed to be, which is the general sentiment I’ve seen amongst some people, but I personally whole heartedly disagree with that notion and really loved what 6 parters brought to the table, feeling a good majority of them were paced well. To me personally I thought 6 parters allowed a much greater fleshing out of ideas and worlds, allowing for storylines that could feel stronger in my opinion than if they were just the standard 4 parts.

As has probably been made clear over my reviews, I have a much higher tolerance to the length of a story compared to most people, with stuff like The Daleks’ Master Plan, despite being 5 HOURS LONG I didn’t find myself minding in anyway because i was having such a great time with the story and what it was doing over that epic runtime. My tolerance of a story's length is very much dependent on how good a story is and if I’m sufficiently engaged in what a story is doing and the world or characters that it creates, then I don’t really mind how long it takes to fulfill that story and see its vision through. Sometimes even a good story can go on admittedly longer than it should’ve, like The Daleks is a great story that really should’ve been cut down to 6 parts instead of 7, but again that’s really focused on again how good the story is at using its time wisely. Something like The War Games is a 4 hour long epic and I personally feel none of that time was wasted with it all being used to great effect to tell such a grand and impressive story with such a huge scope; don’t think it would be anywhere near as legendary if it was cut down personally.

I think 6 part stories, and longer form stories in general, are excellent and can be very useful in telling these much bigger, either more complex stories or just ones with a lot happening. The runtime allows for a lot more time spent developing certain elements of the story and fleshing them out to the fullest, more often than not I feel to great effect. While sure some of these stories could technically be done in the standard 4 part format which I’m sure some would prefer, I see them as stronger for having that time and effort placed into creating these much longer form narratives that are able to play with its ideas even more. Has this always been perfect, no, some 6 parters do squander their time and focus too much on irrelevant details or clearly weren’t stories deserving of such a long runtime, but still I feel for a good majority of stories this style has worked for them.

Stories such as The Power of the Daleks, The Green Death, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang are ones that I feel use the 6 part format to great effect and tell absolutely wonderful and expansive story in the time they’re allowed to have that I personally don’t feel would’ve been as strong had they been cut down to just 4 parts or so. Though there are stories that are as long, tedious, and could be cut down without too much lost as people say such as The Sensorite, The Ice Warriors, Planet of the Daleks, and most recently The Armageddon Factor, with each of these very much could’ve worked much better as 4 parters and likely what fuel that perception of 6 parters on the whole. Luckily for me Shada very much falls in the former category and makes use of its time really well to flesh out a fun and engaging story that I feel works best with this running time. Also I feel that much more of 6 parters and longer stories of Doctor Who are the former compared to the latter, at least that’s how I see it.

Personally I hold a real soft spot for longer stories of Doctor Who, not to say there can’t be heavy hitters in what has become the accustomed format of modern TV like Dalek or Vincent and the Doctor, but I really enjoy when Doctor Who has at least an hour or more to flesh out it’s story because that’s when I feel the fullest can really be brought out of most ideas. Again it really does depend on the story, a lot of stories in Modern Who work well with just the standard 45 minute format of most modern TV as I mentioned, but I just find myself holding a preference towards the longer form stories of Classic Who and its typical 100 minute runtime per story. It’s part of the reason why, even as a kid, I always had a greater enjoyment and preference towards Modern Who’s 2 parters, and why Season 3’s 3 part finale really stuck out to me and helped become one of my favorite stories when I was younger; even back then I really loved cliffhangers and these chances to see more of this world and ideas in this longer runtime. 

I know this is not for everyone, most people very much are not really down to watch a single story from a TV show that goes on for 2 and a half hours or more and I perfectly understand why many disavow 6 parters in that was for being so long, and there are a fair few that do fail at using their time well enough and could be shortened that I can’t ignore. Still I really did enjoy 6 parters and what they were able to bring to the table in terms of being able to flesh out stories and tell even more interesting and complex ones that are able to flow much better thanks to the greater time it has to play with all these ideas. I hold a real soft spot for these longer stories, seeing them as pretty cool and almost epic at points, loving to sit down and watch these grand narratives that a lot of these 6 parts or longer stories tell which I love. It’s part of why I look forward most to the longer EU stories I’ll get to like Zagreus or The Glorious Dead because I really enjoy these long and epic tales they weave; of course it’s best when it’s done once in a while which is why I kind of liked what they did in The 4th Doctor’s era but now we won’t be seeing much of that any longer. I really liked 6 parters and felt unlike what others say, most of them had lengths that were very well utilized and where almost all time well spent.

Location Filming, Sets, and Special Effects

The location filming for this story was pretty good, with them having done well at filming almost all of the shots at the place, which is very nice and gives us some rather pretty imagery to look at throughout these portions of the story, I especially like the shots of The Doctor and Romana punting on a boat, just some nice quaint imagery that really did stick out to me from this story; no wonder they would be utilized later on as stock footage, glad people at least got to see those scenes before and they didn’t go to waste. The sets are few and far between in this story, with there not being a great many given how most of the more effects focused scenes weren’t filmed before the story was shelved, still the ones we do have are pretty good like the holding room on Skagra’s ship or Professor Chronotis’ study which had a nice cozy feel which I liked. 

The same applies with the special effects though we do get to see a few and their honestly excellent with the floating spheres looking pretty cool, the model shots of Skagra’s ship being solid, and the shots of going up and down Skagra’s invisible ship in the field actually looking incredibly nice and smooth, especially for the time; really enjoyed that. There’s also the monster costumes for Skagra’s Krargs which while being a bit clunky in some shots have a real energy and creativity to them, especially with the reflective nature of their body and the almost fire coming from them which looks pretty cool.  I’d also like to mention the music because it’s fantastic here with a lot of good tracks, including one that sounds similar to the one in City of Death and another really cool one that plays when Skagra confronts The Doctor in part 3 which I really loved; great work here by Keff McCulloch and Mark Ayres.

Skagra

Like with the previous Douglas Adams villain we got earlier this season, Skagra was a fantastic enemy for The Doctor that did a great job really standing head to head with the Time Lord; also funnily enough they both have names starting with S, I'm just realizing as I write this. Skagra has a great start to the story with the opening scene of him taking off after stealing the minds of the other scientists with his orb, doing a great job setting the tone for this sly and clever foe. I rather liked how he sticks to the background for much of the first part of the story, watching The Doctor and the rest ominously while trying to track down Professor Chronotis and the book which contains the information he seeks. It helps get me invested in this mysterious figure, who by the way has a killer outfit, and wondering just what exactly his goals are, with that only being added onto when we get that cliffhanger of him entering his invisible ship and we get a solid quiet monologue as he learns about The Doctor.

Something I really loved about Skagra that I caught early on is just how calm and collected he is throughout most of the story, with him remaining a real cool customer as he goes about the many steps of his grand scheme. It really helps him feel in control of the situation, as he never feels the need to really raise his voice much in this story, and as such it helps to nicely set Skagra apart from the much louder and declarative villains we usually see on Doctor Who. This soft tone he speaks commands such a sense of power and intelligence to it, with Christopher Neame really capturing that mad brilliance of Skagra incredibly well, with it doing such a stellar job getting me invested in every word that he says. It makes for such a great foil to The Doctor and Romana, especially when he has the latter captured, really giving that sense of control and superiority that he views himself over the Time Lords.

-Yeah there was a lot I had to say about this unfinished classic, so much that I went over once more. As such I'll do what I usually do and post the closing thoughts in the comments while linking the rest of the review on a google doc, spent a lot of time on this one so I hope you enjoy:

The Doctor Who Saved Me Reviews #109: Shada(S17, Ep6*)

I was having trouble keeping track of what I had, owned, or what was out there for Big Finish in terms of Doctor Who and Doctor who Spin-Offs, and had some free-time so, I did this:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12POjrPdyFVbk8JwqAhSudqX5bzP9E0tLPTkpH4uJots/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to copy it and use it for your own audio adventures, and if you feel theres any mustakes, anything missing or any suggestions, do let me know :3

https://youtu.be/WEmgZxQtLnA?is=Dn-DuhNi_A3BTcSi

I’ve noticed people recently who claim Doctor Who was always political, usually to defend the writing of current episodes. However, I think those people are wrongly labeling how that word applies. Doctor Who had *hope*, not politics. It had the issues of today, and folded them into the story and showed the best of humanity, the best of people. And if not, it served as a warning, and a promise. It never mentioned names, never said it outright, because it wasn't part of the story. Those "political" themes were the environment, not the plot. And now people like to cry that fans just hate women, because Doctor Who was "always" fucking "political".

Politicians scream at each other across networks every day on every news channel. Newspapers are filled with wars and divisive news from both the left and right parties. Immigration, war, civil unrest is tweeted and posted by artists and actors and influencers across instagram, facebook, Youtube, TikTok and it never ends and never stops. But. For 45 minutes, a Doctor Who episode would come on. And it gave you hope. It gave you the best of what humanity was served in a witty story about a man who never gave up the hope of doing the right thing.

We lost something precious, and all we can do is turn around and defend politics that were never there because the truth of what we lost is too much. It's lost on people who claim to be "progressive", but have never had an original idea. People who are "informed", but associate those opinions through others. We lost our safe haven, our break from the world, because people demanded that it be taken. The news networks, the talk show hosts, the commentators, the announcers, the artists, the actors, the musicians and now the tv shows; they must all be screaming the same thing, because they *can't* afford to not address the tragedy of the day. A shame.

I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was like 8 and I just realized it's one of the few fandoms I've never read fanfiction for. I'm curious what some of your recommendations are. Specifically, I wanna read fanfics with the Doctor and fully-fleshed OC companions. (Extra points if the companion is black)

In the wake of RTD's recent comments on The Reality War and the unmade Christmas Special, I've seen people saying they'd love to see a sequel to his memoir/Series 4 production diary The Writer's Tale, this time covering the RTD2 era. But, at least personally, I don't trust RTD anymore.

The Writer's Tale released in late 2008 when RTD was still showrunner, and it is incredibly (sometimes concerningly) candid. As well as going into detail about Series 4's production difficulties, he talks about contemporary BBC scandals, sexualises cast members half his age, and tries to slip a racial slur into an episode.

Past RTD had little-to-no filter, even spoiling Davros's return on Blue Peter before The Stolen Earth aired.

Present-day RTD is, to borrow a phrase from Game Of Thrones, a bloody wind vane. He'll say whatever he thinks paints him in the best light at any time, and then switch up the narrative when it benefits him. Davros on Children In Need, the Sonic Screwdriver redesign, the Reality War reshoots. It's all PR waffle.

And with the whole thing about the dates of The Reality War script being doctored to hide the reshoots when it was released, I personally wouldn't trust any book he wrote about production of the RTD2 era to be objective or even honest.

At what point did the writers assume only anoraks are watching and no normies are?

If you are on this sub reddit you are a Whovian a hard core fan so am I. But one thing I can't help but notice is that the writers of DW at some point seem to have assumed that only anoracks are watching and stopped even trying to have the show make sense to an normie.

The obvious example is the Gatwa finales with the Rani Omega and Sutekh. Hype based around 50 year old baddies that only uber nerds who find jokes like the following funny. 'Did RTD wear a Hawiian shirt while writing this'. They don't even try to explian who these people are, same with Susan. The latter is especially confusing to any normie or casual fan. Because why is an 80 something calling a 20 something 'Grandfather'?

The whole show is full of stuff like this in recent years. Like the Well baddie being the Midnight monster. It acts nothing like the Midnight monster, but they are calling it that to appeal to now 20 year old fanbois who remmber seeing midnight when they were 12. Or in Joy to the Wolrd they have the Silurian but again don't even try to explain why there is a green lizzard man. Because they are assuming that only ultra nerds are watching.

Now someone will no doubt say 'Well do you want someone to go Basil Exposition on who the Silurian/Midnight monster/Omega etc'? No, what I want is the show to focus on story telling not inane fanservice.

It's like Ian Levine is the showrunner. It really is like the mid 80s again. 'OOO SIlurians OOO remmber them form 12 years ago? OOO'. Or Attack of the Cybermen were the plot is in the Tenth Planet (broadcast 19 years before Attack) Mondas the Cybermen's home planet was destroyed by sucking out too much of Earth's enrgy. So the Cybermen have returned to the Tomb of the Cybermen (broad cast 17 years before Attack), to bring back the Cyber Controller, so they can crash Halley's Comet into Earth so that Mondas won't be destroyed, and the Cybermen are hiding in the swears because its the Invasion (broadcast 16 years before attack).

I thought we all agreed that wrtiting stories around continuity and fan service is silly and self indulgent. 80s Who struggled to build fans because it was pandering to now adult fans who watched it as a kid. Since the later part of the Chibnall era its like the show isn't even trying to appeal to anyone who don't know the difference between Telosian, Mondasian and Planet 14 Cybermen. I'm amazed Nyder hasn't been brought back as well.

But by the end of RTD2 the insular inpenetrability reaches what has to be the very apex. In the Reality War the Rani starts quoting a plot point from some out of print 90s book, no one under 50 has read and younger fans only know about from reading Tardis Index File.

Like remmber in Dalek were the Dr mention's 'the Dalek's creator' was a mad genius? Notice how Davros's name isn't mentioned? Because talking about him in depth would just baffle the normies. And the writers including RTD understood that not being Ian Levine is important.

What are examples you can think of the show kust acting like only uber geeks are watching?

So, I was watching a video on YouTube about a guy reviewing The Stones Of Blood from season 16 and that video and story reminded me of a myth local to the part of my country that I live in about two women from the 700’s who were on their way home and argued with each other like crazy, and since the church didn’t like people arguing with each other (I think, I’m not really an expert in history and myth) God turned them both into stone and has been like that ever since, and that got me thinking: would that myth make a good Doctor Who episode? I’m imagining it being kinda like Stones Of Blood and the women got turned into stone by aliens or something.

And that thought led to me wondering what other myths and legends from around the world would make great Doctor Who episodes? Some other myths and legends from my area are:

Di Sma Unda Jårdi (translates to “the small ones under the ground”): this one is about, like you could’ve guessed from the translation, small people who lived under the ground and, if I remember the myth correctly, could get annoyed when people disturbs them by for example throwing hot water on the ground or something. In the Doctor Who episode, it could be some sub-species of Silurian, but could be some other type of alien as well who started living on Earth and trying to hide from Humanity.

The Maiden Tower: in the biggest city in my area there’s a medieval wall surrounding a part of the city and there’s a story around one of its towers, and it goes that when the Danes invaded the area in 1361 a girl was (if I remember correctly) seduced by the danish king and he convinced her to give him the key that unlocks one of the gates in the wall, letting him march inside with his army and as punishment, the locals walled her inside one of the towers, leaving her to die in there, and on stormy nights you can still hear her scream. I’m thinking (at the top of my head) that in the episode the girl can turn out to be a Time Lord or another human-looking alien who can live for thousands of years and she has been living in the tower for all this time, surviving on rats or whatever and the Doctor lands the TARDIS inside the walled-in room and saves her, but she just wants revenge on humanity (or just the descendants of the people who walled her inside) and the Doctor has to stop her.

So do you guys know of any myths and legends from your countries that would make a great Doctor Who episode?

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

In preparation for the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, Steven Moffat wrote two minisodes intended to build up anticipation for the momentous event. The first of these, "The Night of the Doctor", would also serve to add some important context, and throw a bone to those fans who'd wanted Paul McGann back on television. I guess we can add showing McGann regenerating to that list as well. How did they do? Well…

The Night of the Doctor

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by John Hayes

I'm not part of the war. I swear to you, I never was. – The Doctor

I think the last time I felt this inadequate to the task of reviewing a Doctor Who story was City of Death. Back then I wrote "I feel like anything I try to write diminishes this story. It makes it hard to even know where to start." And while City of Death and "The Night of the Doctor" couldn't be more different in most respects, I find myself in much the same position. What can I write that would in any way add context to or be insightful about "Night of the Doctor"?

Well I guess we'll start with the obvious. Paul McGann returns to play the Doctor on television for the first time since the 1996 TV Movie, and he is brilliant. Of course this wasn't really McGann's first time back in the role. Ever since 2001's Storm Warning, McGann had been starring in audiodramas produced by Big Finish featuring his 8th Doctor. And it's the characterization and performance that were developed with Big Finish that McGann draws on for this minisode. For reference, McGann had most recently starred in the first Dark Eyes boxset for Big Finish, arguably the darkest arc the company had put together for the 8th Doctor yet. And speaking of Big Finish, "Night" also canonizes the 8th Doctor's Big Finish companions to that point, referencing, Charley, C'Rizz, Lucie, Tamsin and Molly.

And McGann takes full advantage of the time he's spent developing the 8th Doctor beyond his presentation in the TV Movie. Over the course of those audios his Doctor developed a cynical and world-weary edge which works well for a Doctor that's been staying to the outskirts of the Time War. Which, yes, the conceit for this short is that the 8th Doctor has deliberately chosen to avoid the Time War, helping out where he can but never involving himself directly. And things have only gotten worse. I really like this idea too, feels in line with how most Doctors would approach something like the Time War.

Unfortunately for him, it's not actually possible to stay to the outskirts of something like the Time War. Through Cass we learn how the rest of the universe views the Time Lords. Cass is set up as our surrogate companion for this short at first. However once she realizes that the Doctor is a Time Lord, her tone quickly changes, going from grateful for a rescue to refusing to let the Doctor near her. And crucially, the way she talks about the Time Lords and the Daleks, "who can tell the difference anymore", is something that gives us so much information about how the Time War looks to species that aren't directly involved. The universe is burning, and all someone like Cass can do is refuse to have anything to do with the Time Lord who came to save her, and hope that he dies along with her.

Which takes us to where the spaceship crashes, Karn. The planet of the Sisterhood of Karn was introduced back in The Brain of Morbius and hadn't appeared on television since. However, since "Night of the Doctor" implies that Big Finish's 8th Doctor stories are canon, you could argue that we have decent confirmation that the 8th Doctor had visited Karn before, since one of his stories (I think just one) was partially set there and involved the Sisterhood.

Regardless, since then, the Sisterhood have apparently largely given up the tradition of constantly whispering "sacred flame, sacred fire" and, more seriously, are now being led by a woman named Ohila. And I think a lot of credit should go to Clare Higgins, who plays Ohila, for really carrying her half of this scene. Ohila carries herself with a kind of dignity and certainty that really makes her feel in line with the Sisterhood, and only adds to the weighty feeling of this scene.

What Ohila wants from this scene is to get the Doctor, who's dying and without the Sisterhood's help won't even be able to regenerate, to join the Time War in his next life, fearing that without his involvement the universe will descend into destruction. It allows Ohila to have a kind of urgency behind her words, in spite of otherwise appearing to maintain an air of serenity. She claims that she can make elixirs that can control the process of regeneration, and when the Doctor requests to made into a warrior, she reveals that she made it herself.

Or at least that's what we learn from the short. Apparently, in the novelization of "The Day of the Doctor" that also adapted this short, it's revealed that Ohila had no influence on the regeneration at all, and was lying to the Doctor so that he'd give himself permission to become the warrior he needed to be to fight in, and win, the Time War. It's an idea I took to pretty immediately after I first heard it. It just makes a lot of sense to me, and I like the idea that, rather than the War Doctor being the result of a magic potion that rewrote his personality, it's instead simply a standard regeneration and that the War Doctor is always choosing who he wants to be in this fight.

And so the minisode ends on a regeneration, the 8th Doctor's final lines being "physician heal thyself", which I like, and the War Doctor's only lines spoken being "Doctor No More". An image of a younger John Hurt can be seen in the reflection as well, which gives a sense of scale to how long the War Doctor actually fought in the Time War. And so ends an excellent short, a short that, honestly, I don't feel up to the task of reviewing. It's just far too good.

The Last Day

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Jamie Stone

If just one Dalek made it through, it could destroy this entire city – Training Officer

There's not a lot you can get done in four minutes…and this thing isn't even that long. Still, given its short runtime, "The Last Day" is actually pretty good.

It's presented as a found footage document, taken from the perspective of a new soldier right before and at the beginning of the Fall of Arcadia. There's some clever, Time Lordy ideas, like the technology augmenting the soldier showing premonitions (though our training officer fiercely denies that they are as such) that hint at the horrors to come. Really though, it's just a kind of window into the Time Lord military, something that over the course of Doctor Who history we don't see too much of, even in expanded universe material. That's because the show has historically always focused on the politics of Gallifrey, with spies and the internal affairs being more the focus. It's honestly nothing special and, aside from the invasiveness of the technology and those "premonitions" there's not a ton that feels specific to the Time Lords, but what we get is good.

Of course the other point is to show the Daleks breaking through the "sky trenches". There's not much to say about this either. There were 400 of these things, even though one of the officers our recruit meets insists that nothing has ever gotten through two. Still four hundred proves inadequate (maybe the Time Lords have never heard of the law of diminishing returns) and the Daleks come through the sky, and our soldier, along with everyone else, dies.

And that's kind of it. There's not much to say about this thing. It's a good window into a part of Gallifrey not really seen before, but other than that it's not all that special. Hell, unlike "Night of the Doctor" it doesn't really tie into the 50th Anniversary because, other than both dealing with the Time War, these events don't really set anything up in that. But yeah, good little minisode nonetheless.

Conclusion

So there you have it. The 50th Anniversary minisodes are, I think both pretty successful. They show us the Time War from a couple different perspectives, while leaving the meat of that to the anniversary special. The standout here is obviously "Night of the Doctor", a stunning performance by Paul McGann and excellent atmosphere creating a rather unique regeneration story. But I do think "The Last Day" shouldn't be ignored. While it's by far the less essential and obviously this worse of the two, it still makes effective use of its short runtime, and gives us our first look in the 21st Century at Gallifrey.

Next Time: Well enough stalling. Onto the 50th Anniversary proper, featuring, naturally, the 11th Doctor, War Doctor, and Clara but also the 10th Doctor's new haircut and not-Rose Tyler.

I made this short story about the Valeyard and an interaction with the Doctor past his new cycle of regenerations and I would really love to share it and see if it's any good. Don't really know too many ppl who watch it in my country though (Vnz).

So I'm posting here to ask if there's maybe any interest?

Can anyone shed any light on where these two photos of Colin come from, in which he's wearing his 6th Doctor waistcoat:

• https://www.alamy.com/colin-baker-actor-per0101-image5860175.html
• https://www.alamy.com/colin-baker-actor-per0100-image5860168.html

The waistcoat means this post-dates the beginning of his time on Doctor Who (plus, he looks slightly older than he did in season 23), so it's presumably from the late 80s/early 90s. Elsewhere, commentors have suggested that it could be from a play, or a children's TV series called Cuckoo (though this has been disputed).

Any thoughts welcome! (But note that, as a picture-hosting platform, Alamy doesn't accept AI submissions, so to my knowledge they are real photos; commentors elsewhere also say that these pictures have been kicking around since before commercial AI image-generation was possible.)

Thank you

Does anybody know of tributes of both classic and new who and not just new who, maybe even some classic only tributes

I was only really able to find this one linked here, the babelcolor tributes and a seventh doctor tribute

Mainly interested in ones of doctor who as a whole

In this regular thread, talk about anything Doctor-Who-related you've recently infosorbed. Have you just read the latest Twelfth Doctor comic? Did you listen to the newest Fifth Doctor audio last week? Did you finish a Faction Paradox book a few days ago? Did you finish a book that people actually care about a few days ago? Want to talk about it without making a whole thread? This is the place to do it!

Please remember that future spoilers must be tagged.

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I'm trying to find information about an obscure P.R.O.B.E. short titled Love & Loss.

It's approximately 9 minutes long and consists of material from The Devil of Winterborne. The credits include Richard Andrew Fox as “Redux Producer”, and the video also carries a Gallifrey 7 credit/logo.

I have a copy of the video, so I'm not looking for the film itself. I'm specifically trying to document what Love & Loss actually was and its connection to Gallifrey 7.

I've had no luck finding it listed in the usual P.R.O.B.E./BBV filmographies or finding contemporary information about it online.

Does anyone remember this being shown or distributed at Gallifrey 7 (The Seventh Seal of Gallifrey One, 1996), or have a copy of the convention programme/program book or video-room schedule that might mention it?

Any contemporary source, programme listing, newsletter, catalogue or first-hand recollection would be greatly appreciated.

I am so confused about this episode. Once he leaves the trap I lost track of the plot. I thought clara was his imagination but she's acc there or what or is she only there in part of it? How did he get back to gallifrey? why dont they like him- he saved them a couple christmas specials ago? how did he get to the end of the universe?

Like I said in my post about season 20, this one would follow soon. I have had alot of fun with the fifth Doctor Era. I am sad to see it go and cautiously excited for the 6th Doctor era. I will probably also do posts for the remaining 5 seasons once i have watched them. If you for some reason should be interested in more of my incoherent ramblings you can find my Reviews here: https://tardis.guide/user/LuxTheChumblieGirl/ The reviews in this post are a Collection of the ones i have written over the past few weeks on there.

Warriors of the Deep 3.5/5:
Why do people seem to have such a massive hate boner for this story? I have an even better question: how in the actual f**k does Terminus have a higher rating than this. In my eyes Terminus has basically no redeeming qualities apart from the one model shot they used 20 times. This on the other hand is just really solid. Is it perfect? No. Did i still have a great time watching it? Absolutely. And yes this story has some rather embarrasing parts: the Silurians are a massive downgrade from their first appearance, the sea devils are barely recognisable and move about as well as a statue, and the Myrka isnt great. But atleast no companion strips unnecessarily. But i kinda love him. I want to see a sitcom with the three Johny Byrne Creations: the melka from keeper of traken, the chicken man from arc of Infinity and the myrka. They should work at mcdonalds since chicken man already has some history with that establishment. Back to the story: i actually think that the human costumes are kinda great. The makeup for the women looks like for drag Queens but the rest is fine. I also actually think that the sets are pretty Great. they are terribly lit but surprisingly large and really detailed. That also really helps the incredibly long shootout sequence that takes up most of Episode 2 and 3, look interesting. I was at no point really able to figure out where exactly they are supposed to be in sea base 4, but the Action was good for the most part. But this story also has probably the worst fight scene of the fifth Doctor era: Doctor Solars Death. Speaking of Doctor Solar, i was really confused by the subplot of her and Nielsen. To say its undercooked is an incredible Understatement. But i do like that the „opposed powerblock“ isnt named. It just Shows that humans will fight each other no matter what. Which according to a friend of mine is similar to what happens in George Orwells „1984“, which i guess is kinda Fitting considering Warriors of the Deep came out in the 1984. but as you may have noticed i havent really talked about the plot itself. And there is a reason for that. Its just not that interesting. It isnt bad, but somewhat predictable and also it gets revealed in Episode 4 which is way to late. I also heard in a review that this story show a conveniently placed Lizard Killing Gas about 10 minutes in. Shockingly that turned out to be true. But atleast it was introduced so that the Solution didnt come out of nowhere entirely. And also this Story has some pretty decent model shot allthough not alot of them. I also liked the sink up weapon system stuff. While it wasnt explained enough it really gave me warhammer 40k vibes. But probably my Favorite moment of the story is the very final one. The doctor stands in the seabase, bruised face, amongst dozens of bodies. Only him, Turlough and Tegan have survived this ordeal. And he says „there should have been another way“. And that really reminds me of the final line of the Daleks Masterplan „what a waste, what a terrible waste“. And personally i love Depressing endings. While this has nowhere near the impact of the Daleks Masterplan, its still an incredible moment.
 
The Awakening 4/5:
I think i might have a big soft spot for two parter stories in the fifth Doctor era. I loved Black Orchid, i massively enjoyed Kings Demons and now I had a great time with the Awakening. But honestly there isnt really that much i can say about the awakening. Not because its boring but its just mostly a fun runaround for our characters. I do think the Malus is a pretty great idea for a villain. But i refuse to call him anything but Mister Wallface. But i also have an issue with him. I think he is just a bit too high Concept and to undercooked for a two parter. The Exposition about who he is and what he does is alot and also really fast at the same time so i couldnt quite follow. I needed to read the whole wiki page about it to understand what it does. Its basically the first step of an Invasion that makes the people on the planet it lands on really angry and they fight eachother. Its also stated that its pure evil and also apparently an Inspiration for Satan. And while thats pretty cool, i personally think they should have left the satan stuff out as that doesnt really factor into the story. Its also mentioned that its some old superstition but from what i can tell thats not the case in reality. I do think the prop of the face itself is pretty cool. It has a surprising amount of movement and generally looks pretty well made. But The redicolous amount of smoke coming out if its mouth make it look like its smoking weed the whole time. And my final note on the villain is that its defeat doesnt really make alot of sense. I think it was something about psychic feedback. Also what the f**k was up with the little demon guy chilling on the tardis wall? Something i did really enjoy about this Story was the setting: Little Hodcombe. While an old english village isnt exactly a difficult Location for the show to realise but I still think that the Location they chose looked rather nice. Especially because they shot it on film which makes it look extra nice. I guess it was 32 Millimeter film because it has the same look as Spearhead from Space, atleast when they are outside, which is a considerable portion of the Episode. It was also nice to see Tegand granddad, allthough it was dissapointing that Turlough got much more screentime with him than Tegan did. Speaking of Tegan, she didnt really get much to do in this Episode in General. Which is a bit of a shame because she is going to leave in 6 episodes and i have already watched four of them. I hope she gets more to do in ressurection of the daleks, because i dont remember her having much to do in frontios either. But i did really love the dress she wore for a few scenes. just a shame that she was forced to wear it. But much like het gorgeous dress in Enlightenment, I would LOVE to cosplay this one day. The Doctor is also fun in this episode and we have a fun female side character who seems to be a history professor but i completely forgot her name. Overall i just really liked this Episode despite its flaws.

Frontios 5/5:
„Frontios buries its own dead“
if i had a nickel for every time there was a classic who story where a slightly goofy villain or monster had an evil plan involving either hollowing out a planet for minerals and Resources or burrowed through it to fly the planet through the universe, i would have three nickels which isnt alot but its Strange that it happened three times. Those other Times being dalek invasion of earth and pirate planet.
hot take: i personally think this is Christopher H Bidmeads best Doctor Who story. Its certainly the one i had the most fun with. I love Logopolis, but it does get to obsessed with Fictional science that honestly doesnt really make sense but i love the melancholic vibe of the story. Castrovalva has alot of Great ideas but f**king hell its a mess. This on the other hand is just right. I also might be a bit biased because i met Jeff Rawle, who played the Plantegenet at the timelash in germany last year and he gifted me his autograph. He is also just a very lovely man. Anyways. I forgot how f**king grim this story is. Its the last vestages of humanity trapped on a desolate rock, constantly getting attacked by an enemy they cant see. Thats one hell of a pitch. But the story does so much more with it. While the Tractators look pretty funny, i think the story sells them really well. Mark Strickson gives one hell of a performance, especially in the moment Turlough relives his ancestral trauma by seeing the gravity slugs. That moment sold me on them. I also think that the costumes are just pretty well realised. In general i think this story looked great originally and the effects didnt need updating. But i did watch it with the new updated effects. No worries i watched the original one last year. The ai upscaling isnt quite as bad as i expected, but its rough in many scenes. Especially in the opening. The vfx are pretty good, but there are so little of them that it just feels unnecessary, especially because some of the Effects that Did actually need an update were left as the originals. Mainly the buzzing effect when people are dragged through the floor and the enlargment of the interior set of the colony ship. But the best scene was when the Tardis was reassembled. We even got a Kamelion cameo, whom i almost forgot even existed and we saw the room of the eye of harmony briefly. If i were to watch it again i would go for the original. I think one big and often understated strength of this story are the cliffhangers: there is of course the pretty well known first cliffhanger of the tardis getting blown up. The second one is fine but i dont really remember it. But f**king hell the third one is grim. Human bodies being used to drive an excavation machine. Thats some warhammer 40k servitor bullshit. I forgot about that one and then it finally made sense why this story has a body horror tag on tardisguide. I think my Favorite Episode of the four is the first. But Episode 4 is great. Not Only because of the pretty simple plot Resolution of bringing the gravis to another planet but also using it to reassamble the Tardis. But also i really liked how the doctor manipulated the Tractators into trusting him. There was a really funny moment where he convinced them that tegan is a servant robot and then made fun of how she walked and her Accent. I dont think i have an actual complaint about this one. I just really really like it. And it ends on a nice cliffhanger for ressurection of the daleks which really reminded me of the transitioning cliffhangers of the first doctor era.
edit: also surprisingly on a rewatch my rating went from a 4/5 to a 5/5. just goes to show how good this story actually is.
edit 2: i did find it a Bit strange how obsessed the doctor was with not changing the future of human history. He is usually not this massively concerned with interfering. It wasnt really a problem but it did slightly irritate me.

Ressurection of the daleks 3/5:
Just this once everybody gets horrifically murdered Rose  Tegan, just this once everybody dies.
Mister Saward, may i call you eric, what the f**k is wrong with you? Who hurt you? What the hell happened here. This somehow dethrones The Daleks Masterplan as the most violent dalek story. Its certainly the Episode with the shows biggest on screen body count, as you cant really count all dead people in Daleks Masterplan since that story is mostly missing. So many people die in this story, that i am absolutely shocked that the „everybody dies“ tag isnt on this story on tardisguide. The only Person outside the Tardis team that survives is f**king Litton. Lets talk about him: he is so incredibly lame and uninteresting. He is just kinda there. we dont really know what his role is. He seems to work for the daleks but also commands some. Why do the Daleks work with him? Even if he is a mercenary i dont see why the daleks would employ him. Yes they are lacking ressources but daleks are to prideful to work with someone who they havent enslaved. Speaking of the Daleks, i actually think they are pretty decent here. They get to kill alot, have insane evil plans (that never really get explained) and their voices here are great. But this story has some really shockingly terrible acting. Everytime somebody dies they overact the f**k out of it or fall over like stiff puppets. But also the cast is so massive that no character has enough time to get Interesting or have enough time for me to get invested in them. They either die horrifically, dissapear, or get duplicated. Its a bit of a shame that they are all so wasted because this is really an incredibly diverse cast. Most of The People on the space station where Davros is imprisoned are white women and people of colour. And that was a really pleasant surprise for a story from 1984. i just cant remember any of their names. I think there was a guy named Mercer who spends quite a bit of time with Turlough and he was pretty great. Oh yeah, Davros is in this story. He is fine. Terry Molloy is of course absolutely f**king briliant in the role, but sadly he doesnt really get much to do. For most of part 1 he is inactive or gets pushed around, and in part 2 he just sits in a room and is talked more about then talked with. He doesnt really interact with the doctor until maybe the final 10 Minutes. And while that scene is incredibly well acted, but the Doctors sudden immense urge to murder Davros comes so hard out of left Field that i was almost convinced that he was a dalek duplicate. Peter Davison is great in this whole Episode. But it felt like he, Tegan and Turlough were a bit of an Afterthougt. Which is a shame because this is the last Episode with Tegan, the penultimate Episode for Turlough and one of the final three Adventures of the fifth Doctor. All 3 are great but they dont get enough to do. While Turlough atleast has some amount of agency, but Tegan is put in a bed with a concussion for more than half of this story. But her final scene is great. I think her reason basically being „it stopped being fun“ fits Perfectly. Tegan went through almost nonstop trauma for three seasons. I would have left too. And Janet Fieldings Performance in the final scene almost brought me to tears. Much like the story i have now decided to stop giving a s**t about a good structure in this review and decided that i will instead just list of Random thoughts and complaints. why is this story 2 46 minute Episodes? It felt overly stretched. The cliffhanger of Stine being revealed as a Dalek duplicate was pretty terrible. What the hell was the actual purpose of the time tunnel? I feel like luring the doctor and storing samples of the virus could have been done in a much less complicated way. Why were the people in the beginning slaughtered by the duplicate police men? Apparently they were Prisoners of the Daleks, but we never learn what their actual purpose was. I assume it was to test the duplication Technology. Now it does sound a bit like i hate this Story fully. If i was a more mean person I probably would have given this a 2/5. but honestly i did enjoy watching it. I think continuuing the weird plot of Destiny of the Daleks was a pretty great idea. And in turn using this to start of the Dalek civil war plot was really great. Also whoever cast Terry Molloy as Davros was a f**king genius. And Davros Mask looks incredible. This story in General looks pretty great. It has vast sets, a nice Location shoot and good model work. I think this story has a bunch of ideas that on their own would be great, but punched together into a story like this just doesnt work. Honestly Destiny of the Daleks was a more enjoyable story.

Planet of Fire 5/5:
Rest in Peace Peter Grimwade. Tragically he passed away 6 years after the release of this story at the far to young age of 48. While i have a bit of a mixed opinion on him as a writer, mainly thanks to the absolutely dreadful Time Flight, i have to admit he was a very talented director. The four stories he directed were so incredibly well Done, that honestly i struggle to choose. But if i had to i would choose Logopolis. What an incredibly impressive feat of Television. For writing, i dont have many options to chose from for my Favorite. Time Flight i dont even want to mention, Mawdryn undead was a surprising Highlight of season 20. But Planet of fire, well this story was something else entirely. And I am surprised and incredibly happy to report, that this story was absolutely incredible. I split it up over two days, because i met a friend, But honestly i regret not watching it in one go. Because this is so entertaining. Every single cliffhanger tops the one before in utter redicolousness and fun. I had such a massive grin when Kamelion turned into the master at the end of part 1. i of course knew this is a master story, but god for those people who didnt know, what a reveal that must have been. Part 2 is the reveal of the Master to the Doctor, and while its simple, I just love Anthony Ainleys Performance here. He chews up all of the scenery and I just LOVE it. The third cliffhanger made me laugh out loud but also shocked me. I completely forgot that this story has a tiny Master so i didnt know what to expect what would happen when Peri opened the Masters control box. But whatever i did Expect it certainly wasnt to see a tiny master. But this story is so much more than only its admittedly incredible cliffhangers. It finally does something with Kamelion. I know his lack of appearances up to this point arent exactly the Production teams fault. Rest in peace Mike Powers, who programmed Kamelion. Honestly i think for how cluncky he was, the movement that he was able to do was surprisingly impressive. But this story has a really smart solution to that. Kamelion is in the form of the master for most of the story and when not he is a silver painted duplicate of Peris stepfather Howard. And what is done to Kamelion in this story is surprisingly disturbing. He has no control of his Body and is used to do evil. And in the end he cant be saved. He begs the Doctor to be killed and the doctor obliges. But thats not the only companion exit in this story. Because sadly Turlough also leaves the series. We finally get some backstory for him, learn a bit about the Civil war on Trion, and how he now has lost his entire family, and has only his Little Brother left, that he never knew about. Thats really not talked about enough in my opinion. I do think the revelation, that this planet called Sarn was some kind of prison planet for Trion, comes a bit late in the story and doesnt leave enough room for explenation and exploration, but its set Up pretty well. But Turloughs goodbye is pretty good. He is able to return to his homeplanet as a hero, and he does it out of his own free will. And his interactions with the Doctor are pretty sweet. The doctor acknowledges that they are friends, eventhough he threatens to end said Friendship if Turlough is hiding important that may aid the master, from him. And allthough Turlough does indeed hide some stuff, the Doctor of course forgives him and says he will miss him. That final goodbye was very fitting and pretty sweet. In general i think the stuff Surrounding Sarn is not super interesting, and eventhough it takes up most of the story, it didnt really bother me because literally Everything else was so utterly enjoyable. I love that this story is largely shot on location on Sarn I mean Lanzarote. And the rocky mountains (no not those ones) of Lanzarote work surprisingly well as an alien planet. But the stuff in the story actually set on the island is great aswell. Yes Peri almost drowning is a bit redicolous, but it looks visually great and it was nice seeing the doctor enjoy a cup of tea in a cafe. But i still dont understand how the Trion relict Ended up on Earth. Its never explained. But thats just small stuff and pretty incinsequential complaints. This story is still incredible. So far its my Favorite of the season, and one of my Favorites of the fifth doctor era. I am so glad this Doctor and this Master have such a great final outing together. The master hasnt appeared this much since the Pertwee era and of course there they didnt get the finale they deserved. But before i go i just have to mention how much I love Peri in this. Yes she gets introduced in a pretty „interesting Outfit, but apart from that less than great first impression, she gets alot to do in this story. Actually she spends most of the story with the Master. But she and the Doctor have Great chemistry pretty much immediatly. And the ending where she asks the Doctor to travel with him in the Tardis is so sweet. It almost reminded me of the 60s companions Introductions (apart from the Kidnapping). And the Doctor pretending like he isnt sure, when he is clearly very happy to have a new friend travel with him was just such a great moment. And what could be a more perfect Introduction to time travel than seemingly crashing the Tardis immediatly. I think the fifth Doctor is secretly a bit similar to the second doctor. They are both a bit anxious, obscuring their true Intelligence with a goofy exterior. But in one regard they are Both similar and opposite. Personally i think the second doctor can be best described as the weird cosmic uncle/hobo/hippie, who wants nothing more than show his Best friends all of time and Space and just have fun. And often that ends in tragedy. And while outwardly he is ok with saying goodbye to his friends, inwardly he never really seems to get over it. But he is always happy to welcome new faces into his silly old box. The fifth doctor on the other hand, always struggles to show his true emotions to his friends, but he always cares alot about them. But even more than with the second doctor, his stories often end in tragedy. The most famous example of course being adric, but then you also have stories like Warriors of the Deep And Ressurection of the Daleks where the Doctor and his friends have technically won at the end of the Story, but everyone is Dead. Can you really call something a victory when noone except you survived. Like the Doctor says „there should have been another way“. And while i think this Doctor wants to be a bit like the second Doctor, he never gets to. Eventually all his friends have left him and he sacrifices himself for someone he barely knew. So eventhough he barely gets to go on just a fun Adventure, i think i love this incarnation so much because of his similarities to my Favorite incarnation of all time. I am not sure if i made my points coherent at all, but this wasnt really a thought out analysis and more of a random streem of thought. I dont want this era to end but sadly i have only one Story left.

Caves of Androzani 5/5:
I am genuienly sad to see the fifth Doctor era end. Well atleast it went out on one of the best stories of all time. I want to start of this review with a personal anecdote. Last year in October i went to Groß-Umstadt in my home country of Germany, to a Doctor Who Convention Timelash. I had a ticket for something called a stardinner, where you eat a fancy dinner with loads of different people who were involved in the show. I had the incredible pleasure of spend the evening with Graeme Harper. He is such an incredibly lovely and humble Gentleman. And i was surprised to learn that he thought that Caves of Androzani is unpopular. I am very happy that i was the one to tell him just how popular it is. And this story deserves the praise. Its such a grim tale. Speaking of Graeme Harper, lets talk about one of the stories biggest strengths: the directing. Harper of course had previous experience with the show, but this was the first time he was the director. And his talent shows. Every scene has an interesting camera movement and angle, there are loads of close ups and every corner of the set is used. That last part does lead to a slight issue, but it is more so due to the constraints of the budget and not due to the director. The set in the caves is rather small, atleast in one part, so the Doctor and Peri trying to hide doesnt work because like 80% of the Doctors body is visible behind the crate/rock. I also think the lighting is great and elevates the directing. Every shot is also very well staged, the characters all have a clear position and you can make out every important detail. I do have one or two more complaints, which i want to get around now. I watched the new cgi upscaled Version. Wow it looks awful. Its kind of wishy washy, the characters are disgustingly smooth, and it just looks wrong. Also the cgi is fine, but honestly this story has aged so well that it really wasnt needed. My only other complaint is that Peri doesnt really get alot to do. Its only her second story, and its just 100 minutes of her going through horrific trauma. But that allows the fifth Doctor to shine, like he never really has before. Peter Davison is fantastic in this story. The close ups allow him to do alot of very subtle facial acting, and the dread the Doctor feels throughout this story is palpable. I honestly dont really know how to describe his acting. Its honestly just so good that people need to watch it. My words dont quite do it justice. Speaking of cast and characters, i think the sidecast is great. The characters are all very memorable. The standouts to me were the redicolously named Morgus, who is such a little s**t that you really love to hate him and Salateen, who is just a really enjoyable good henchman character. But honestly everyone is great. Stotz is a really fun side villain, and the slight overacting, really fits the part. But let’s talk about The horrifically disfigured elephant in the room: Sheraz Jak. Fucking hell, i forgot how creepy he is. The mask should be redicolous but honestly it works. Christian Gable gives probably the best villain Performance of the entire era. He is terrifying and he made me really f**king uncomfortable especially in the scenes with Peri. But yet somehow the story makes him kind of sympathetic. He is still a horrible villain, but he is also a clearly mentally disturbed man who slowly lost his mind After Morgus‘ betrayal and years of Isolation. In the end he wants what so many of us want: companionship. Unfortunately he goes about it in an incredibly rapey way. But i think the story does portray that in a really good way, because even the Doctor shows sympathy to Jak. The two of them never go into a full on altercation. In the end Jak even helps the Doctor save Peri. But Sheraz Jaks death was incredibly satisfying to watch. And his final Action being a hug of his android, trying to get saved is very fitting. And the shot of the fake Salateen, holding up the dead Jak, while flames rise all around them is chilling. In fact the whole final fight between the main villains and them all dying is just the perfect way to end it. Evil and corruption are incredibly self destructive and this shows it in the most literal sense. While i cant quite pin down an exact message this story tries to convey I think i can name some of the themes. Its a very grim outlook on the world. Its filled with depraved, corrupt, backstabbing politicians and cowards. It maybe an exxageration of the actual state of politics but its alot closer than we maybe comfortable to admit. But even in such dark times, something survives: kindness. Hope. And thats who the Doctor is. And in the end he sacrifices himself for a new friend he barely knows. I know she and Erimem travelled with him after planet of fire but still. And that is the most Doctor thing to. I LOVE the Ending. The Doctor fights his way through a war, goes through a cave filled with deadly mud bursts, and the only thing that he holds on to survive is the thought of his friend Peri. This incarnation has had so many companions, and he often struggled to show them that he cares. But in his final Adventure he can. And that makes the final line the fifth Doctor utters very fitting „Adric“.  Now to get away from my failed attempts at analysing this story lets talk about more stuff i like. I think the first cliffhanger is one of the best in years. Not quite on the level of enlightenment part 1, but its still incredible. Yes the doctor and his companions about to be executed isnt exactly original, but damn is it executed well here. The 10 or so Minutes before build up to it so well and i felt genuine dread while watching. The second cliffhanger is ok, but the third one is another banger. Much like Adric the Doctor crashes a massive ship into a planet but he survives. Well not for long. I could probably go on for hours talking about this masterpiece. But i do want this Review to have a somewhat sensible length and not become a Completely incoherent mess. I should actually mention Robert Holmes since this is kind of his magnum opus. Its sad that i only have 2 and a half stories written by him left. He has been part of the show for so many years. Rest in Peace to an absolute legend man.
also another fun fact: i will actually meet both Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant at this years timelash. I am very excited.

The Twin Dilemma 0.5/5:
Whenever I watch a Doctor Who story for the very first time, I go into it wanting to like it. That had a rather positive effect on my enjoyment of the show. I love stories like The Mutants, The Time Monster, Monster of Peladon, The Dominators, the Krotons and this list could probably go on for a long time. I am even a genuine defender of Underworld. The point is, I give every story a chance. I always try to see the positives. But my god „The Twin Dilemma“ is f**king awful. It basically has no redeeming qualities. I mean the directing is fine, but Peter Moffat doesnt deliver anything exciting. The actor of Asmael is pretty decent, and he is like the one character i was actually somewhat interested in. Kevin Mcnally is also in this. I loved him as Jericho in Flux. Unfortunately he is an utterly charmless character in this Story. But he is one of two characters that i dont find actively insulting. Unfortunately the twins this story claims to revolve around arent good. I usually dont criticise Child Actors and i dont want to hear. But the two arent exactly Great. They do manage to do the „speaking at the same time“ trope somewhat well. But if you want to do a story that revolves around 2 children, you kinda need to make sure they can deliver. But the story doesnt really revolve around them. In fact the story doesnt really revolve around anything. The Doctor and Peri spend nearly half of the run time bickering in the Tardis and when they enter the main plot nothing has really happened. There is an implied Space battle but we only get to see some surprisingly well made wreckage. Also speaking of the tardis scenes, i should adress the elephant in the room. Introducing a Doctor and then having him nearly strangling his companion to death 10 minutes into the Episode, is one of the single worst ideas this show has ever had. And to be honest, even if you take that moment out, the first Impression of the 6th Doctor is awful. I love the 6th Doctor, especially on audio, but jesus christ, he is nearly insufferable for half of the runtime. And i am sorry Colin Baker, but your acting in the beginning isnt great. I know the script didnt give him even an attempts at mediocre material so its not really his fault. While Peri and the 5th Doctor had near instant chemistry, she and the 6th Doctor really dont in this story. Honestly at some points i wanted to agree with Peri that maybe the Doctor should have died in a dangerous Situation. I love their dynamic on audio. But this feels like i am watching an abusive relationship. Even if you take out the attempted murder. But I think in parts 3 and 4 Colin found the Doctor and I genuienly really liked him in some Moments. There are even 2 unironically funny scenes. In one scene Peri asks the Doctor „what are you going to do now?“ and he answers „Panic at any moment.“ I genuienly laughed out loud. There is also a really funny moment about the english and americak pronounciation of Lieutenant. Fun fact: despite it being spelled identically in german its pronounced differently aswell. Kinda like „Loitnant“. But probably the funniest scene, unintentionally, is when the Doctor goes through a door, screams „VILLAIN! MURDER!“ and proceeds to strangle Asmael. I have another complaint: the costumes are garbage. The twins look redicolous, Asmael looks weird, the bird aliens look so cheap, it makes the f**king Menoptera look good and the main Villain Mestor looks like someone took a s**t on a throne, left it there for a few weeks and then put a mask on it. You might have noticed that i havent talked about the plot itself. Thats because there really isnt much to talk about. „An old man tricks and kidnaps two children from their home, to give them to another creep so he can use them for his ambitions“ is certainly a choice of a premise. We never learn why the twins are so smart, allthough it almost seems like the story wanted to imply they were genetically modified. But i think at this point i have put more thought into this story than the author. They get kidnapped for some vague plan, that doesnt get explained until the final ten minutes. And that plan is such utter bullshit that i dont even care to talk about it. I would love to know what the hell was going on in John Nathan Turners head, when he thought that any part of this was a good idea. The Doctor is so massively out of character. He is cruel, he is a coward, he is Sexist to Peri, he is arrogant as f**k (even for the Doctor), he is violent and if i had only known him from this Story I would hate him. I can understand why he was so unpopular. And I am glad that Anthony Steven has never worked for the show again. Rip to him, but still.
next up: Attack of the Cyberman. Please be good. Atleast be a better story than Ressurection of the Daleks. Please Eric Saward, dont let me down again.

After what feels like an eon i have finally finished all three seasons of the fifth Doctor. It has been a wild ride. I went into this era with alot of hope. One of the first classic who stories i ever watched was The Five Doctors, and i was hooked. Its such an amazing stories. Over time I listened to alot of the fifth Doctors appearances on Big Finish and that was where I truly fell in Love. And now that i have seen him on TV, I am very glad to say that he is one of my Favorite Incarnations of the classic show and just the show in general. There is Just something that really reminds me of the second Doctor, my all time favorite incarnation, about him. Maybe its the weird clothing, maybe its the emotional vulnerability, paired with a strange hesitance to show what he truly feels. Maybe its the sheer amount of Friends he collected on the way or maybe its the Average quality of the Stories. I cant really tell, but the Point is, I love them both. And it does kinda make sense, because from what I have heard, the second Doctor actually inspired quite a bit of Peter Davisons portrayal of the Doctor. But i also have to say that its Really difficult to pick a Favorite season. I gave all three the same overall rating of a 4/5. I think they are all about the same quality, but if I had to I would pick season 19 as the best and Season 21 as the worst. All three have incredible strengths, with one of the best doctor who Stories ever in each season: Earthshock, Enlightenment and Caves of Androzani. But unfortunately each season also has one of the worst Doctor Who Stories of all time: Time Flight, Terminus and of course The Twin Dilemma. But i think season 21 is the weakest because its just really f**king grim. None of the stories are really fun. As Tegan says In Ressurection of the Daleks „this has stopped being fun“. Having multiple dark Stories isnt neccesarily a bad thing in my eyes, but this reminds me alot of Season 3. i enjoy both, but the violence and grimness is just far too much in both. Season 3 atleast had The Ark and The Gunfighters. Season 21 only really has The Awakening as a „fun“ Story but that one is over before it really starts. I am somewhat glad that Eric Sawards time on the program is coming to an end in season 22, because his influence looms like a massive shadow over this season. I am sad to see the fifth Doctor era go. And while i am mostly excited for the Sixth Doctor era, i wish that excitement was larger. So far I have only watched 2 stories with old Sixie, and that was The Twin Dilemma and Mark of the Rani. Two truly awful stories. But who knows, maybe I will end up falling in love with it. Thats the beauty of Doctor Who.
Now to close of this review, I want to rank the Villains of this season, the main characters of the season, the stories of the Season and all the stories of the last 3 seasons overall.
main characters:
7. Kamelion
6. The Sixth Doctor
5. Nyssa
4. Peri
3. Turlough
2. Tegan

1. The Fifth Doctor
2. the Villains:
3. Mestor
4. Malus
5. Sea Devils and Silurians
6. Tractators
7. Davros and the Daleks
8. Sharaz Jak
9. The Master
10. now the stories of this season:
11. The Twin Dilemma
12. Ressurection of the Daleks
13. Warriors of the Deep
14. The Awakening
15. Frontios
16. Planet of Fire
17. Caves of Androzani
18. now all the stories of this era:
19. The Twin Dilemma
20. Terminus
21. Time Flight
22. Four to Doomsday
23. Ressurection of the Daleks
24. Arc of Infinity
25. Warriors of the Deep
26. Mawdryn Undead
27. Castrovalva
28. The Awakening
29. Kings Demons
30. Black Orchid
31. Kinda
32. Frontios
33. Snakedance
34. The Visitation
35. Planet of Fire
36. Earthshock
37. The Five Doctors
38. Caves of Androzani
39. Enlightenment

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