Leela’s departure is so bizarre and rushed, thankfully the last example of the stupid “marrying someone you’ve known 5 minutes” ending. (Peri’s 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

I like the Doctor’s 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

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 Androids Of Tara: there’s a definite Star Wars influence starting to creep in around this point, not with space battles or anything (still far beyond #DoctorWho’s 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?

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 Abineri’s performance as Ranquin though, being totally committed to the part while looking ridiculous. #DoctorWho

Yikes - the bit with Tom on the ladder in the rocket silo… 😬

The ladder, the rocket, even the sodding wall behind him ALL wobble, a unique achievement in the annals of wobbly set history! #DoctorWho

Radiation… two races engaged in a bitter nuclear war…underground bunkers… TARDIS covered in rubble… are we sure Terry Nation didn’t 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. Would’ve been better if it was the Master working for the Black Guardian.

And why is his domain called a ‘planet’, full of underground tunnels… yet seen from outside looks like a space station? #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 *isn’t* completely mad and evil.

And a Time Lord with a cockney accent! Whatever next… #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

You totally accept Lalla Ward as the new Romana as she slips easily into the role, but it’s fun to imagine the wacky parallel universes where one of the alternative incarnations became the main one…

Um, yes… crikey! 😳 #DoctorWho

There’s good parts to this but it’s 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 what’s 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 it’s got Dudley Simpson’s most memorable score. Go on, you’re all humming it now while looking at this image, aren’t you?

The Randomiser’s supposed to make the TARDIS’s flight completely unpredictable, so it could end up anywhere in the universe, untraceable by the Black Guardian…

And since it’s been installed we’ve been to those rarely-seen locations of Skaro and 20th-century Earth…😄 #DoctorWho

A very timely conversation between the Doctor and Romana about the value of art created by humans versus that created by computer.

As an experiment I prompted an AI to create this. You decide! #DoctorWho

Duggan is one of the all time great supporting characters, who kind of makes me wish he’d been a companion for a bit.

Or alternatively, if, say, Harry Sullivan had been written more like this and was constantly thumping people, to the Doctor’s annoyance. #DoctorWho

And of course it’s impossible not to speculate about the exact nature of the Count and Countess’s marriage…

I mean, unless that fake skin went over his entire body and was *very* realistic… 👀 #DoctorWho