Planet of the Daleks Episode Four

The one where a Dalek chases the Doctor up a ventilation shaft...

The Daleks may not be able to construct their own hot air balloon, but they can follow our floating Thal pals up the ventilation shaft on one of their anti-gravitational discs! How cool is that? The disc itself is literally a black disc, and nothing like the hoverbouts which have populated Doctor Who spin-off fiction since they first appeared in the Cadet cigarette sweets stories of 1964. In fact, it's a real shame the hoverbouts (sometimes called transolar discs) never appeared in the classic TV series properly, only ever in comics, novels and audio stories.

In a nice nod to the scene in The Ambush where the Doctor and friends bung a heavy object down the lift shaft to stop the approaching Dalek, the Doctor and the Thals chuck a load of rocks down the ventilation shaft and send the anti-gravitational Dalek crashing back down to the bottom. All very satisfying!

Planet of the Daleks Episode Three

The one where Jo smuggles herself into the city...

This third, beautifully recolourised episode is less than the sum of its parts, because while it seems quite busy, by the end of it you realise that almost nothing has happened at all! But to be honest, it's done with such conviction and flair that it doesn't really matter. What Terry Nation wrote, and David Maloney realised, is perfectly entertaining, like one of those runaround Saturday morning serials where danger and jeopardy supersede plot.

The Thals, their number now boosted by the survivors of the crashed ship, decide to make their way into the city via the ventilating cooling tunnels. The only problem is that the tunnels are connected to an ice volcano, which spews molten ice in the same way a regular volcano would erupt lava. This is classic Nation, making part of the landscape an obstacle to be overcome (a strong element of the first Dalek serial, and The Keys of Marinus), but there are such things as ice volcanoes in real life, also referred to as cryovolcanoes, which erupt with cryomagma or cryolava.

Planet of the Daleks Episode Two

The one where the Doctor believes the Daleks have murdered Jo...

Once the entire Dalek has been thoroughly sprayed with the colour aerosol it becomes really obvious just how stumpy and short the Daleks are compared to the 6ft 2in Jon Pertwee! The Doctor towers over the Dalek, which has the effect of diminishing the Daleks' screen presence considerably. I remember back in 2010 the Doctor Who production team said that the newly designed Paradigm Daleks (yes, I dare speak their name!) now stood with their eyestalk on a level with the taller Eleventh Doctor. If only they'd thought to do something similar back in 1973!

The Doctor and the Thals talk of this dormant Dalek as if it's a robot, saying it's deactivated and that an alarm will go if they open the casing. But surely there's actually a living being in there, a little creature which we've seen plenty of times before and since. Isn't the fact there's a potentially deadly mutant Dalek inside a better reason not to lift the lid than the fact an alarm will go off?

Planet of the Daleks Episode One

The one where the TARDIS gets squirted with deadly alien plant sap...

It's surprising to get a reprise from the end of the last story, at the start of this new one. I expected it would just follow on, but actually it all feels like one long epic story, the longest since Season 3 (but with two different titles).

After calling the Time Lords on the telepathic telephone, the Doctor collapses, and Jo activates the completely incongruous MFI sliding bed and wardrobe combo which has miraculously appeared in the control room. It's flush, clean white lines may actually be more Intergalactic Ikea than the slightly shoddier MFI, but its very presence is startling. At least in the 1960s they used to walk through a door, or onto a different set, when they showed the recreation areas. The same happens when the Doctor uses the emergency oxygen supply later in the episode - the little white cabinet on wheels just happens to be there, inches away from where he stands!

Frontier in Space Episode Six

The one where the Master reveals who he's been working for all along...

As predicted, Jo's fear centres throw up an image of a terrifying Drashig from Carnival of Monsters, as well as a rather benign Mutt from The Mutants and a somewhat sinister Sea Devil from, er... The Sea Devils. What, no Gell Guards, Jo? Still, it's lovely to have a menagerie of monsters!

Back on Earth, the people are restless and calling for war to be waged on Draconia. We see this communicated via telecast by a particularly irate Congressman Brook, leader of the Opposition, who was mentioned by the futuristic Trevor McDonald back in episode 1. The President of Earth and her pastel chiffon dresses are in trouble, and there's only one man who can forge peace before it's too late - Doctor Who (dressed as Miss Marple).

Frontier in Space Episode Five

The one where the Doctor gains the Draconians as allies...

As this initially promising space opera slowly tries to get back on track, we travel to the planet Draconia and meet the Emperor, who does like to remind everybody that he is the Emperor as much as he can! He has an outspoken son whose ideas about intergalactic diplomacy are at odds with his father's, but the arrival of the Doctor puts a new spin on things. Because the Doctor's been there before...

It's always fun when the Doctor mentions adventures we've never seen, such as his earlier visits to Karfel, Dido or Dulkis, and here he says he helped the Draconians overcome a plague 500 years previously. He manages to convince the Draconian Emperor he is the same man by stating that his name is the Doctor and that he travelled in a ship known as the TARDIS. This is hardly convincing testimony, seeing as anybody could say they were the Doctor, and said TARDIS isn't present as proof. It's interesting the Doctor doesn't use his own description as evidence (a white-haired man in fancy dress, for example!), which could quite easily describe either his third or first incarnations, so perhaps that earlier visit to Draconia was by the Second Doctor?

Frontier in Space Episode Four

The one where the Master gets the Doctor out of prison...

It's such a nice twist that it's the Master who saves the Doctor from suffocation by pumping oxygen back into the airlock. For the Master wants the Doctor alive and well for his own purposes, yet to be revealed. It is mentioned that the Master has "employers", which is very Season 8. Who's employing him to stir up trouble between Earth and Draconia? And why? And what do his employers want with the Doctor?

The Master struggles at first to get the Doctor out of the penal colony, as the Governor places him into solitary confinement for an entire year as punishment for trying to escape. But the Master manages to bribe the Governor into letting him have the Doctor (I'm surprised he doesn't just hypnotise him), reeling off a string of trumped up felonies, including fraud, tax evasion, assault and battery, stealing a spaceship, failing to tax or insure said spaceship, and finally trespass! What's forgotten amid all this tongue-in-cheekery though is the fact the elderly Professor Dale is left in solitary confinement, presumably for the 12 months he's been sentenced to. And nobody - not least the Doctor - seems to care.

Frontier in Space Episode Three

The one where the Doctor is sent to a prison on the moon...

Malcolm Hulke really is taking the piss now, isn't he? After being locked up endless times throughout episodes 1 and 2, what's the first thing that happens to the Doctor and Jo in episode 3? They escape their Ogron kidnappers, only to be immediately apprehended by their former human captors - and locked up again! "The time has come for extreme measures," says General Williams. Yes, I agree - perhaps sack Malcolm Hulke?

I've barely mentioned General Williams so far, but he is played with glowering intensity by Michael Hawkins so well. On the surface he's your typical brusque military boor, but there's a beautifully written conversation between Williams and the President which casts light on their relationship and softens the office politics somewhat. It seems the two were "friends once", and despite their opposing ideologies, she still trusts him, and he still respects her. It's a touching moment amid the political posturing, carried by two sensitive and talented actors.

Frontier in Space Episode Two

The one where the Doctor and Jo are locked up again and again and again...

It's frankly ridiculous how much of this episode the Doctor and Jo spend locked in a cell. They've already been incarcerated more than once in episode 1, but in this second episode they are banged up no fewer than four times! In fact, much of the episode is pointless as it merely recycles the same ideas for 25 minutes: the Doctor and Jo are accused of being spies, they insist they're not, and they're locked up. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam.

The one good thing about the episode is that it's a great showcase for the chemistry between Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning, whose scenes together are warm and endearing. Having the Doctor and Jo locked up so much slows the story right down to a crawl, but the time they spend together in jail is nice to watch because the two actors are so good together (I love Jo's "no need to push!" when the guard shoves the Doctor into her back).

Frontier in Space Episode One

The one where the Doctor and Jo are mistaken for 'dragons'...

It's feels like too long since Doctor Who did a space opera, the last one being the largely missing The Space Pirates four years previously. Frontier in Space opens with a scene-setting info-dump which is as intriguing as it is clunky (and the incessant ticking on the soundtrack makes it quite difficult to discern), but it's great that Doctor Who is finally spreading its creative wings again after too long cooped up on Earth. Doctor Who is about infinite possibilities, and those possibilities were severely restricted by the Doctor's exile on Earth. It's time for the show to regain its imagination (and Carnival of Monsters was an admirable start to that!).

The modelwork of the spaceships is excellent, with not a wire or wobble in sight, and the whole conceit about people seeing things differently to what's actually there is very intriguing. Stewart see the Doctor and Jo as "dragons" (aka Draconians), while Jo sees Stewart as a Drashig (apparently it's the creature she fears the most - that last adventure really had an impact on her!). Everybody except the Doctor seems to be affected by the strange noise that fills the air.

Carnival of Monsters Episode Four

The one where the Drashigs break out of the miniscope...

I love the look of disgust on Shirna's face when the Doctor emerges from the miniscope and begins to grow. Everybody seems to view the Tellurians (ie, Earth people) as a lesser species, despite the fact they look just like Lurmans. Shirna shows the disorientated Doctor some compassion when he's coming round, like a nanny might a child!

I also love how the Doctor completely takes over the situation the moment he arrives, questioning the Inter Minorian tribunal, reprimanding the Lurmans for operating the scope illegally, and blaming Pletrac for allowing its importation. Pertwee is on fire in this scene, commanding the set and putting every character in their place.

Carnival of Monsters Episode Three

The one where the Drashigs break out of their environment...

Fair play, the Drashigs are a damned good creation, a classic Doctor Who monster in my opinion. They look really monstrous ("horrible things", as Jo says), they have bloody great teeth, six eyes, spikes and scales, and they wriggle along like worms. It's Doctor Who's version of Tremors! And the noise they make! They sound like a mix of a woman screaming from a distance and a slowed-down hippo roar. Wonderful sound design, and to be fair to director Barry Letts, he uses his beloved CSO very effectively, blending the puppetry with the live action well.

The Drashigs - creatures lifted from a satellite of Grundle - are terrifyingly efficient in this episode, basically latching onto the Doctor and Jo's scent and pursuing them everywhere they go, which includes back into the miniscope's innards, and on to the SS Bernice environment. It's bold storytelling from Robert Holmes, and Letts directs with fine pace. The scene where the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to explode the marsh gas and scare off the Drashigs is spectacular, especially for 1973.

Carnival of Monsters Episode Two

The one where the Doctor and Jo become part of the machine...

Not until episode 2 does director Barry Letts show Vorg reaching into the miniscope and extracting the TARDIS (or bric-a-brac, as he sees it), but I still maintain it would have been better to show this at the end of episode 1 as part of the cliffhanger. The sight of a giant hand picking up the TARDIS is a corking OMG moment in itself, but to make it clear to the audience that the SS Bernice is actually inside Vorg's scope would be the icing on the cake. It's a good example of why I don't really rate Letts as a director, I find his work too choppy in the edit (The Enemy of the World is another example of abrupt editing, and the fact he doesn't give us a shot of the fully-grown TARDIS when it's taken out of the miniscope in this episode is unforgivable).

What also confuses me is why Vorg doesn't put the TARDIS back where he found it (in circuit three), if he's so bothered about destroying the illusion. Later in the episode, Orum fishes the police box out of the machine's circuitry, not the SS Bernice.

Carnival of Monsters Episode One

The one where a giant hand picks up the TARDIS...

I never knew until I researched this story before watching it that Carnival of Monsters was actually recorded at the end of the Season 9 recording block, and held over for Season 10. I just thought I'd drop that in at the start as an example of the sort of pointless trivia that we Doctor Who fans love.

The story opens with a crashing mix of impressive and underwhelming in quick succession. There's an all too brief model shot of a spaceship coming in to land which is gorgeous, followed by a studio-bound alien world drenched in Colour Separation Overlay and cheap-looking sets. In fact, almost everything about this alien planet is cheap-looking, from the awful wigs and make-up of the cast, to the embarrassingly ill-fitting masks of the Functionaries. Oh, and there's some of Dudley Simpson's cringy plinky-plonky "fun" music for good measure. Not a prestigious beginning.