Gavin WintersAdelaide is such an annoying drip that you wish Leela had slapped her harder. š
And it comes as a relief when the Rutan finally bumps her off. #DoctorWho
Doctor! Stop looking at naughty Edwardian cartoons and concentrate on the matter in hand! Thereās a bloody Rutan on the loose! #DoctorWho
Come on RTD, you gave us the long-held fan fantasy of āDaleks fighting Cybermenā first time round, how about letting us finally see a scrap between the Sontarans and the Rutans this time, eh? #DoctorWho
Leela at the end of Horror Of Fang Rock: #DoctorWho
Crystal Gayle - Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue (1977) - stereo (studio & live version)
The Invisible Enemy: and hereās where the Graham Williams era really begins (you can read that whatever way you like!) Bob & Dave are back, with their overactive budget-busting imaginations. Combined with Williams new production style itās all a bitā¦ slapdash. š #DoctorWho
Itās a story that feels like itās being made up as they go along. Just lots of interchangeable characters being infected and saying āContact has been made!ā #DoctorWho
Still, it does have the one saving grace of course. Itāll always be memorable for his debut.
Love the bit where heās sneaking up on someone, motors grinding as loud as a car engine, and the actor gamely pretends he canāt hear him. š #DoctorWho
Love the bit where heās sneaking up on someone, motors grinding as loud as a car engine, and the actor gamely pretends he canāt hear him. š #DoctorWho
The Nucleus Of the Swarm thoughā¦ Jesus, this has to be in the āTop Ten things in #DoctorWho we never want non-fans to see because theyāll rip the piss out of us.ā šØ
Image Of The Fendahl: this immediately seems like a bit of a throwback to the Pertwee era, with its time scanners and satanic covens. You half-expect the Brig and UNIT to burst in and arrest everyone.
(In factā¦ they *should* be all over this. Where are they? š) #DoctorWho
So who did unlock that door and leave the Doctor out in episode two? Adam or Thea? Or are we supposed to infer it was a delayed reaction from the sonic? Which means it worked on wood back thenā¦ #DoctorWho
āYou must have been sent by providence.ā
āNo, I were sent by the council to cut the vergesā¦ā
š
Still not entirely sure of Maxās motivation in all of it, but he does get some hilarious bad-guy dialogue:
āItās too lateā¦ā
*pauses, looks off-camera*
āā¦TOO LATE FOR ALL THE MEDDLING FOOLS!ā
Jesus, Graham, what happened to the BBC edict to ātone down the violenceā? Fendelman is shot in the head!
And the Doctor giving Max the gun so he can commit suicide rather than succumb to the Fendahl is quite the eyebrow-raising moment tooā¦ š #DoctorWho
The Sun Makers: another brilliantly witty script from Bob Holmes. Just as well really, as some of the studio sets are a bit cheap looking. Almost seem half-finished and in front of black backdrops. Fortunately the storyās so good you donāt notice. #DoctorWho
The scripts are also now being adjusted to accommodate the last-minute addition of K9, after his near-total absence from Fendahl. Love the bit where heās beating the Doctor at chess, and the Doctorās petulant reaction! #DoctorWho
The presence of Michael Keating and a bunch of scruffy rebelsā¦ all wanting to overthrow their despotic rulersā¦ plus mind-altering gases pumped into the cityās air to suppress dissentā¦ all very reminiscent of Blakeās 7. #DoctorWho
I love Cordoās character arc: from terrified subjugation to reluctant rebel to daring-to-dream-they-might-win and finally cocky overconfidence. #DoctorWho
Underworld: oh boy, āunderwhelmedā more like. š
To be fair, the first episode on the Minyan spaceship is passable enough, itās only once we dive into the glorious world of full-on CSO (greenscreen for you under-40s) that it all goes to pot. #DoctorWho
Given the budgetary restraints Graham Williams was working under, itās baffling why he always opted for so many outer-space/alien planet stories, an immediate strain on resources.
The earth-based stories like Fang Rock & Fendahl worked great. Just do more of those! #DoctorWho
RTD was right about the robots in this story and their silly ānosesā. Theyād look much better without them. #DoctorWho
The problem with this one is thereās *nothing* to grab on to. No likeable characters to root for, no interesting plot, no memorable or funny villain for the Doctor to clash withā¦ in fact the Doctor barely meets or interacts with the bad guys at all. #DoctorWho
Best moment is at the end when the Doctor chastises Jackson and forces him to take the escaped slaves from the planet away with him on the ship.
The only other noteworthy thing about this story is it inspired the name of the knicker-factory in Coronation Streetā¦š #DoctorWho
The Invasion Of Time: a very jarring and unusual opening, with the action already underway and the Doctor up to something mysterious. They keep you hanging for two whole episodes, with no quick answers coming as to why the Doctorās apparently gone mad. #DoctorWho
The Chancellery Guard have never been portrayed as so stupid as they are here, almost getting to Keystone Cops levels of incompetence, with how the Doctor and everyone else run rings round them.
And the Sontarans are almost as bad when they turn up. #DoctorWho
One of the Time Lords in this story is said to be very old and slow, because āIām on my tenth regeneration, you know!ā #DoctorWho
Nice to see lots more TARDIS interior beyond the console room, but hard to buy the location as being part of the same place
And the budget may have been small, but itās coming to something when the awesome machinery of Gallifrey is represented byā¦a grotty factoryā¦š #DoctorWho
āDIE, SUN LOUNGERS! MORTAL ENEMY OF THE GLORIOUS SONTARAN EMPIRE!ā
Leelaās departure is so bizarre and rushed, thankfully the last example of the stupid āmarrying someone youāve known 5 minutesā ending. (Periās is at least a bit different)
Between the public favourite of Sarah Jane and the fan-favourite of Romana, Leela was brilliant and criminally-overlooked. #DoctorWho
The Ribos Operation: after the ups and downs in quality of the previous season, things get a bit more consistent from here on.
Bob Holmes delivers the goods again, with great characters and dialogue and his usual effortless worldbuilding. #DoctorWho
The costumes and set design for Ribos are very good. Using bits of historical periods from Earth as the basis for an alien planet helps avoid the usual problem of blank white corridors, shiny āspaceā outfits and so on. #DoctorWho
I like the Doctorās initial irritation at being lumbered with Romana(voratrelundar), and her cool psychological analysis of him.
Rodan from the previous story was so similar to Romana I that she must have been an inspiration, surely? #DoctorWho
The Pirate Planet: a fun and imaginative debut from Douglas Adams, with some huge bonkers sci-fi ideas. (and Chibnall cheekily ripped off the whole basic idea of the shrunken planets for Ranskoor Av Kolos, didnāt he? š) #DoctorWho
Douglas gets a lot of fun out of Romana upstaging the Doctor when it comes to piloting the TARDIS, charming the locals and later butting in with the technobabble explanations. #DoctorWho
Itās such a great, kid-friendly idea to give K9 a rival to fight in the form of the Captainās robot parrot. #DoctorWho
I always enjoy a good old-fashioned mad booming villain like the Captain.
Nice twist with the Nurse being the real power behind it all, as she gets subtly more visible and prominent over the course of the four episodes. #DoctorWho
The Stones Of Blood: when the Williams era tries to do gothic horror itās never with *quite* the same flair as under Hinchcliffe, but this is still very good. Plus itās earth-based, which automatically makes it look better than many of the space-y stories at this time. #DoctorWho
1970s Britain must have been convinced there were lots of devil-worshipping covens still active in the countryside. Weāve had The Daemons, Image Of The Fendahl, and now this. And just a few years until K9 & Companyā¦ #DoctorWho
Tomās Doctor seems to work well with dotty old ladies, and heās clearly enjoying Beatrix Lehmann as Amelia Rumford. #DoctorWho
The Androids Of Tara: thereās a definite Star Wars influence starting to creep in around this point, not with space battles or anything (still far beyond #DoctorWhoās budget) but just the general idea of taking old-fashioned stories/characters/settings and giving them a sci-fi upgrade.
And in little details like the electrified swords. They must have been thinking of how to do a low-budget version of lightsabers when they came up with that, surely?
This story only makes the barest acknowledgment of the Key to Time arc, with Romana finding the segment five minutes after landing, and then itās mostly forgotten about until the end. #DoctorWho
The Archimandrite is really a bit dim not to see through Grendelās schemes, but then what do you expect from a man who wears the Sixth Doctorās tea cosy and shower curtain. #DoctorWho
Thereās been some entertainingly theatrical villains in this season, but Count Grendel tops the lot. āNext time, I shall not be so lenient!ā #DoctorWho
Itās been funny watching this story, with all its royal pomp and coronation sequence, straight after the real one yesterday. But that one didnāt have someone grabbing the sceptre and bashing robot-Camillaās head in. Thatās why #DoctorWhoās version of events is always better. š
The Power Of Kroll: hmm, thereās nothing particularly terrible about this one, but nothing hugely exciting either. The least interesting story of the Key To Time season. Bob Holmes must have been having a bit of an off day. #DoctorWho
You have to feel sorry for all those poor extras, painted green and dancing around in loincloths in the middle of the night.
Fair play to John Abineriās performance as Ranquin though, being totally committed to the part while looking ridiculous. #DoctorWho
SvenI would get painted green and run around in a loincloth for fun.
I like the knowing-wink-to-the-audience gag of the first āmonsterā we see turning out to be just a man in a costume. āPerhaps he looked more convincing from the front!ā #DoctorWho
Poor old Rohm-Dutt: the moment his role in the story is finished and heās surplus to requirements heās *instantly* killed by Kroll, and his death gets barely an āoh well!ā from the Doctor and Romana, who just carry on. Ruthless! š #DoctorWho
Yikes - the bit with Tom on the ladder in the rocket siloā¦ š¬
The ladder, the rocket, even the sodding wall behind him ALL wobble, a unique achievement in the annals of wobbly set history! #DoctorWho
The Armageddon Factor: the opening āsoap operaā scene, with its cheesy melodrama and bad acting, is both funny in and of itself as well as then being an effective contrast in the pull-back-and-reveal of dying people in a war zone. #DoctorWho
Radiationā¦ two races engaged in a bitter nuclear warā¦underground bunkersā¦ TARDIS covered in rubbleā¦ are we sure Terry Nation didnāt write this??
(And the extreme radiation in the transmat room gets quickly forgotten, with everyone wandering in and out of there) #DoctorWho
After a season of entertaining villains, the Shadow is a bit rubbish. Wouldāve been better if it was the Master working for the Black Guardian.
And why is his domain called a āplanetā, full of underground tunnelsā¦ yet seen from outside looks like a space station? #DoctorWho
The budget always gets a bit stretched by the time we get to the last story of the season, so endlessly reusing that time-looped clip of the Marshal yelling āFire!ā probably saved a few quid. #DoctorWho
The final two episodes could have been just a boring runaround in dark tunnels, but the arrival of Drax perks things up. Nice for once to meet another renegade Time Lord who *isnāt* completely mad and evil.
And a Time Lord with a cockney accent! Whatever nextā¦ #DoctorWho
The ending is a bit muddled, with the Key getting scattered again without apparently being used.
The novelisation had to clarify that the White Guardian had used it during the time the Doctor had it assembled. Good old Terrance Dicks! #DoctorWho
Theta Sigma@gavinwinters I always assumed that the implication was that the white guardian had never actually been involved and it was all a black guardian trick - that there was nothing actually that needed to be fixed and that sort of power should never actually be used, even by a guardian.
@ThetaSigma Interesting - never heard that theory before. But then why use the Shadow? The Black Guardian would be working against himself.
SweetAI Belle 
@ThetaSigma @gavinwinters
To be honest, yeah, I kinda assumed that the initial white guardian had actually been the black guardian in disguise when I saw that ending, too...
To be honest, yeah, I kinda assumed that the initial white guardian had actually been the black guardian in disguise when I saw that ending, too...
Destiny Of The Daleks: straight after the previous story we again have a post-nuclear-war planet, with radiation, underground bunkers, the TARDIS covered in rubbleā¦ only this time it really is a Terry Nation script, bringing back all his familiar tropes. #DoctorWho
You totally accept Lalla Ward as the new Romana as she slips easily into the role, but itās fun to imagine the wacky parallel universes where one of the alternative incarnations became the main oneā¦
Um, yesā¦ crikey! š³ #DoctorWho
There are some poorly-directed extras in the scene where the Doctor orders the slaves freed. One minute they all look bored and donāt react while being exterminated one by oneā¦ then theyāre all full of huge grins while carrying their dead friendsā corpses away. š¤·š»āāļø#DoctorWho
Thereās good parts to this but itās a bit let down by some shabby production values, like the patched-up Dalek props, or David Gooderson trying his best but struggling with the old Davros mask.
And whatās this crap about the Daleks suddenly being robots?? FFS Terry! #DoctorWho
City Of Death: well, what can you say? Still brilliant. Still stands up as an absolute jewel in the crown of this era, if not #DoctorWho as a whole.
And itās got Dudley Simpsonās most memorable score. Go on, youāre all humming it now while looking at this image, arenāt you?
The Randomiserās supposed to make the TARDISās flight completely unpredictable, so it could end up anywhere in the universe, untraceable by the Black Guardianā¦
And since itās been installed weāve been to those rarely-seen locations of Skaro and 20th-century Earthā¦š #DoctorWho
The Randomiser Podcast@gavinwinters ā¦and contains the best double entendre in the history of the show.
@randomiserpod āThere are menā¦ young menā¦ out there dying for it!ā
Neil Corry@gavinwinters I should like a hat like that.