Terror Of The Vervoids: an awkward debut for Mel, just suddenly there with no proper intro, with a character who’s little more than “fitness fanatic”. And Pip & Jane’s ludicrous dialogue doesn’t help.

On the plus side, they did write this season’s best cliffhangers. #DoctorWho

The dirty towels on the spaceship are *pulverised*, in a massive machine, and ejected into space??

Don’t they have washing machines in the 30th century? #DoctorWho

The fake Mogarian not using his translator is childishly obvious. Probably only there in fact to make kids feel clever by spotting it.

At least the Valeyard’s repetition of the words “arbitrary course” is slightly subtler and easy to miss. #DoctorWho

“…and that concludes the evidence for the defence, in which I committed genocide against an entire species.”

“You did WHAT!”

“Oh bugger…”

#DoctorWho

The Ultimate Foe: for a story half-written by #DoctorWho’s most revered writer (Holmes) and half by its most reviled (the Bakers), with the differing styles being clear, this ends up working incredibly well.

And given all that was happening behind the scenes, miraculously well.

These are the best ever Matrix scenes, with the creepy Victorian setting overdubbed with ghostly music, voices and laughter.

Shame Mel’s still not written very well, and as this was recorded first, Bonnie’s still finding her way and playing it very theatrically. #DoctorWho

(Me watching this in 1986)

“What’s that weird stuff behind him, if he’s in his TARDIS?”

(Me watching this in 2023)

“Oh, he’s got a funky Zoom background.”

#DoctorWho

Is the trial being broadcast on live TV? Hence the report of Gallifrey “descending into chaos” and the High Council being deposed immediately after their crimes have been exposed.

Maybe Runcible survived The Deadly Assassin after all… #DoctorWho

And that’s it. A sad ending for Colin, who’s run was plagued with problems and setbacks throughout, but struggled on regardless. Never mind Col, Big Finish beckons!

“Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice…” #DoctorWho

There was a real sense at this point of #DoctorWho now being completely out of touch, both with its own fans and the general TV audience. Stuck in a niche of JNT campness.

Thankfully Andrew Cartmel has arrived to start dragging it back down to Earth (literally and figuratively).

Paradise Towers: this is like a strange hybrid of JNT’s camper vision of #DoctorWho and the influences Cartmel was trying to bring in - e.g. contemporary sci-fi novels and comic books.

And its style has echoes in the modern series. A clear ancestor of episodes like Gridlock.

Richard Briers also seems to think he’s in a production aimed at very young kids, especially once he becomes zombified in part four.

McCoy on the other hand has improved a lot from the previous story and is now playing the Doctor as he will for the rest of his run. #DoctorWho

Does the TARDIS really need to pass through a toll port in space and pay a fee? Couldn’t it just, you know… dematerialise? 🤷🏻‍♂️

In fact you’d think most regular spaceships could avoid it too. They don’t really dwell on the logic of how they’d enforce the rule! #DoctorWho

Dragonfire: by this point you had the first generation of writers who’d not only grown up with #DoctorWho, but were also influenced by movies of the 70s/80s.

So we get budget versions of the Star Wars cantina… Terminator (Ace’s nitro)… Alien… Raiders for Kane’s melting face…

But anyway… Ace! 😃

I like the relationship between those two, especially when she brings out the nitro-flinging anarchist in Mel. Makes me wish Mel had stayed for a longer crossover period between them.

Not something I ever thought I’d say back in 1987! 😆 #DoctorWho

I love the philosophical guard: “What do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?”

(Yes, I’m sad enough to have typed that from memory!) #DoctorWho

Mel gets the weirdest departure ever, leaving for… no reason whatsoever. Just as well they diluted Glitz from the psychopath he was meant to be in his first episodes, or she’d be out the nearest airlock.

Oh well, RTD will be along soon with some decent writing Mel! #DoctorWho

Remembrance Of The Daleks: after all the minor niggles and flaws of recent seasons, it’s a relief to again have a story where everything just *works*.

All the set pieces are great. A Dalek going up stairs(!). Ace and the baseball bat. The shuttle landing. Top stuff. 😍#DoctorWho

This must be one of the most influential #DoctorWho stories ever, not just in how it inspired the whole character of the Doctor in the New Adventures novels, but also extending its reach up to the modern series.

As RTD said, blowing up Skaro was the first act in the Time War…