Arc of Infinity Part Four

The one where the Doctor chases himself around Amsterdam...

There are a good many things wrong or disappointing about Arc of Infinity, but one of the biggest is the waste of some potentially great actors. Director Ron Jones managed to get Leonard Sachs, a veteran actor with a frighteningly impressive CV stretching back almost five decades, as well as Elspet Gray, a future baroness whose work with husband Brian Rix gave her an instinct for comedy timing. But they get virtually nothing of any great note to do or say (particularly Gray), and to be fair don't really bring anything of their own either. Their delivery is leaden and unengaged, although Sachs does seem to burst into life in part 4.

Yes, they're playing stuffy, uber-formalised Time Lords, but that doesn't mean they can't have self-expression, or a bit of individuality. Michael Gough manages to make Hedin both urbane and ruthless, almost sympathetic perhaps, but Sachs, Gray and Max Harvey (Zorac) are content to wander numbly through their scenes. All credit to Paul Jerricho for making the Castellan a more recognisable character, so it'll be good to see him return in The Five Doctors.

Arc of Infinity Part Three

The one where the real identity of the Renegade is revealed...

Just as with the resolution of part 1's cliffhanger, the resolution of part 2's shows that the Doctor isn't really dead. He's actually floating in the black nothingness of the Matrix, wobbling like an ocean wave and subjected to the soundtrack of maniacal laughter. In fact, the Doctor spends an entire 13 of this episode's 24-minute duration wobbling in the Matrix, floating like an upturned tortoise. You can tell it's part 3...

The special effects in this story have a lot to be desired. I suppose they're indicative of the limitations of the time (remember the candy cane lasers in Earthshock?), but the effects used for the lasers and the Matrix in Arc of Infinity are particularly poor. No wonder they wanted to replace them with something better on the DVD (it's arguable whether they managed it or not though).

Arc of Infinity Part Two

The one where Tegan comes back...

It was kind of obvious that the Doctor wasn't really dead. The very first cliffhanger of a brand new series, and they tried to make us believe that Maxil had killed him. Not likely, is it? In actual fact, the Doctor's barely stunned, and groggily sits up within seconds of being gunned down. At least viewers in 1983 only had to wait 48 hours to see what happened next, rather than seven days.

In The Deadly Assassin, when the Doctor was imprisoned and interrogated by Hilred, our hero was stripped to his shirt sleeves and strung up by the wrists in a cavernous chamber. Things seem to have become more civilised in the intervening years, as this time the Doctor is incarcerated in his own TARDIS, specifically in Nyssa's bedroom. It's an odd place to imprison him. I do love how the Doctor looks at the glass of orange juice Nyssa gives him, then absently places it to one side as if he's not sure what to do with it. I also love the evils Nyssa gives Maxil. At last, Sarah Sutton gets to do some emoting!

Arc of Infinity Part One

The one where an anti-matter creature tries to bond with the Doctor...

It's a new series, and Doctor Who's twentieth no less. Although Season 20 kicked off more than 10 months before the anniversary proper, fans were promised something special in each of the run's stories, something from the series' past. In the event, this promise of nostalgia wasn't quite what fans would have hoped for, with the complete loss of a Dalek story to industrial action not helping matters. Arc of Infinity saw the return of the Time Lords and Gallifrey, but they weren't exactly the hot property they once were, The Invasion of Time having dulled their sheen. Season 20's opener also saw the return of a baddie from the programme's 10th anniversary special, but looking quite different and played by a different person. Snakedance brought back a monster from the previous year (hardly nostalgic), while The King's Demons saw the return of the Master (but only because it was contractual to have him in every year). Mawdryn Undead was originally going to see the return of Ian Chesterton, but due to William Russell's unavailability, we got the Brigadier instead (which is nice, but not quite as wonderful). The only elements from the past in Terminus and Enlightenment were the Black and White Guardians, but seeing as each of them had only previously appeared in one lone episode before, we were hardly talking dynamite nostalgia.

Season 20 promised much, but fell short on delivery. So let's begin, with the first episode of Arc of Infinity (known as The Time of Neman in early drafts, which suggested we were going to see the return of Proctor Neman from Johnny Byrne's previous Doctor Who story, The Keeper of Traken!).