Doctor Who

(TV Movie)

Summary: Feature length and American…two terms that strike fear into the heart of any British TV fan. Still, Sylvester McCoy’s in it, so it’s canon. It’s got shootings, medical drama, high speed chases and snogging…we’re not in Perivale anymore. In fact, we’re in San Francisco on the eve of the millennium (or one year off, if you’re a pedant) and the world is in grave danger for some convoluted reason. Eric Roberts makes an admirably whackjob Master (who takes over a paramedic’s body via a blob of goo), Paul McGann is a credible alien-out-of-water and Grace is by no means the worst companion the Doctor’s ever picked up.

Watch it because: It would be a crime to miss out a whole regeneration.

Original Air Date: 27 May 1996 (UK).
Doctor: Paul McGann (plus a brief bit of Sylvester McCoy).
Companions: Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook).
Writer: Matthew Jacobs.
Director: Geoffrey Sax.
Producer: Peter V. Ware & Matthew Jacobs.
Executive Producer: Philip David Segal, Alex Beaton & Jo Wright.

Survival

(Series 26, Episodes 12-14)

Summary: Ace returns to Perivale where her friends thought she had either died…or gone to Birmingham. On her return, she and the Doctor become embroiled in a sinister version of Cats meets The Hunger Games and she makes a furry friend. And then the Master shows up, feline desperate for the Doctor to get him home.

Watch it because: "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace — we've got work to do."

Original Air Date: 22 November - 6 December 1989.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.

Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Rona Munro.
Director: Alan Wareing.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Curse of Fenric

(Series 26, Episodes 8-11)

Summary: This story has everything…Vikings, code breakers, Russians, evacuees, doubting vicars, possessed people, zombies, super weapons, booby-trapped chess sets and a baby. And nutters willing to go swimming in the North Sea.

Watch it because: Was everyone drunk when they recorded this?

Original Air Date: 25 October - 15 November 1989.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Ian Briggs.
Director: Nicholas Mallett.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Ghost Light

(Series 26, Episodes 5-7)

Summary: Pyromaniac Ace visited a house in Perivale in 1983 that gave her the willies so the Doctor decides to take a trip there in Victorian times to see what’s up. They uncover a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria and a house full of control freaks with a spaceship in the basement.

Watch it because: You could play a drinking game for every time someone mentions Java.

Original Air Date: 4-18 October 1989.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Marc Platt.
Director: Alan Wareing.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Battlefield

(Series 26, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: UNIT is back and a little more diverse, investigating Arthurian legends whilst the Brig shops for trees with his wife. Mordred is a sleaze, Ace rises out of a lake with Excalibur and the Doctor gets mistaken for Merlin. I’m not entirely sure what everyone is battling over but Ace makes a new buddy who likes explosions as much as she does and the Doctor gets a bit too into the role of Merlin. You’re left wondering: a) what the Doctor cooked for supper and b) where you can read about the crazy adventures of Ace, Shou Yuing, Bambera and Doris.

Watch it because: the new Brig is a worthy successor.

Original Air Date: 6-27 September 1989.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Ben Aaranovitch.
Director: Michael Kerrigan.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

(Series 25, Episodes 11-14)

Summary: The Doctor and Ace get tickets to a circus where acts perform for an underwhelmed audience of three who kill the acts they don’t like…which seems to be all of them. Ace joins forces with a werewolf and the brainwashed former owner of the circus to defeat an army of killer clowns and the Doctor ends up performing, quite literally, for his life.

Watch it because: Sylvester McCoy was born to entertain.

Original Air Date: 14 December 1988 – 4 January 1989.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Stephen Wyatt.
Director: Alan Wareing.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Silver Nemesis

(Series 25, Episodes 8-10)

Summary: The Doctor gets a reminder on his smart watch that the world is about to end as Nazis, a 17th century sorceress and the Cybermen race to get their hands on “the nemesis”, a powered comet containing a statue made of living metal. They must reunite the statue with its bow and arrow in order to obtain unlimited power. The Cybermen appear to have upgraded to the Vader vocal package, the crazy sorceress drinks time travel juice and discovers how to hitchhike and the Doctor and Ace spend a lot of time hanging out in a wood. Ultimately, Cybermen weaponry is no match for Ace and her slingshot.

Watch it because: The Cybermen are introduced to jazz.

Original Air Date: 23 November – 7 December 1988.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Kevin Clarke.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Happiness Patrol

(Series 25, Episodes 5-7)

Summary: The Doctor and Ace visit an earth colony on a distant planet in the future where unhappiness is outlawed, killjoys are executed and everyone is forced to listen to piped lift music. They’ve banned all my favourite things: listening to sad music, reading poetry and walking in the rain without an umbrella. And the lesson we all learn is that happiness can’t be forced upon us but crazy eighties’ hairdos can.

Watch it because: The Kandy Man – a baddy constructed from oversized liquorice allsorts who literally kills people by drowning them in liquid sweets. God, I love this show.

Original Air Date: 2-16 November 1988.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Graeme Curry.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Remembrance of the Daleks

(Series 25, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: Could that mysterious indestructible creature in the shed possibly be…a Dalek?! We’re back to where it all began, in a junkyard in 1963, where Daleks are appearing in the basement of Coal Hill school and searching for the hand of Omega. Ace experiences a bit of 1960s' sexism and it seems as if the Doctor has been playing a long game with himself. Personally, I ship Alison and Rachel and hope they are very happy raising begonias together.

Watch it because: Not since Barbara Wright ran them down with a truck has a companion attacked a Dalek with such vigour.

Original Air Date: 5-26 October 1988.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Ben Aaronovitch.
Director: Andrew Morgan.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Dragonfire

(Series 24, Episodes 12-14)

Summary: The Doctor and Mel visit an ice planet where they bump back into the cheerfully immoral Sabalom Glitz who is in a spot of bother. The Doctor and Glitz go off in search of a dragon and some treasure and encounter a stranded psychopath who’s literally as cold as ice, dissatisfied and displaced waitress Ace blows a lot of things up and, since Mel decides to stay with Glitz, the Doctor offers Ace a ride home via the scenic route.

Watch it because: This happens for no apparent reason and accurately sums up the Seventh Doctor.

Original Air Date: 23 November - 7 December 1987.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford) & Ace (Sophie Aldred)
Writer: Ian Briggs.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Delta and the Bannerman

(Series 24, Episodes 9-11)

Summary: The Doctor and Mel win a trip to the 1950s but the tour bus makes an unscheduled stop after a collision with Sputnik and lands in a holiday camp in South Wales. There’s a monotonous hitman on board, along with Delta the Chimeron Queen who is on the run from the nasty Bannermen. Everyone rides around a lot on motorbikes, somehow two random Americans and a beekeeper get involved and Billy is so very cool about the sudden appearance of a green baby.

Watch it because: Helluva soundtrack.

Original Air Date: 2-16 November 1987.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford).
Writer: Malcolm Kohll.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Paradise Towers

(Series 24, Episodes 5-8)

Summary: The overdramatic synth is still with us as Mel and the Doctor visit Paradise Towers, a luxury apartment complex that’s become home to refugees of an unknown war. The place is full of homicidal cleaning robots, cannibalistic pensioners, a caretaking team obsessed with regulations and Pex the muscled deserted. The Doctor mediates between warring gangs of teenage girls whilst Mel is just obsessed with getting a dip in the rooftop swimming pool.

Watch it because: The debut Sylvester McCoy deserved.

Original Air Date: 5-26 October 1987.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford).
Writer: Stephen Wyatt.
Director: Nicholas Mallett.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Time and the Rani

(Series 24, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: The Rani’s latest scheme is kidnapping geniuses, including the Doctor who is suffering from memory loss after his regeneration and doesn’t recognise the Rani when she disguises herself as Mel. Although some of them are collaborating with the Rani, the yellow-skinned Lakertyans of Lakertya do have rather snazzy hairdos. Mel teams up with some of them, the Doctor mangles his idioms and Mel screams a LOT.

Watch it because: The overdramatic synth.

Original Air Date: 7-28 September 1987.
Doctor: Sylvester McCoy.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford).
Writer: Pip and Jane Baker.
Director: Andrew Morgan.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe

(Series 23, Episodes 13-14)

Summary: Ok, so, here’s what happens…so…right…ok, so here’s the thing…it’s…well, the Master’s in it? Kind of like Inception on a BBC budget?

Watch it because: Colin Baker deserved better.

Original Air Date: 29 November – 6 December 1986.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford).
Writer: Robert Holmes/Pip and Jane Baker.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids

(Series 23, Episodes 9-12)

Summary: In this instalment, the Doctor takes a peek into his future to form his defence; a future in which his new companion Mel forces exercise bikes and carrot juice on him (and golly does she have a pair of lungs on her). They visit a spaceliner where Janet makes a wonderful cup of coffee and the killer plants embody the whole ‘scarier when not seen’ rule of horror (they look like primary school children playing flowers in an end of term production). Never before – or since – has the word ‘hydroponics’ been used so frequently in a TV drama. To the earth shall we all return, eh?

Watch it because: “As a security office, you’re an unmitigated disaster!”

Original Air Date: 1-22 November 1986.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford).
Writer: Pip and Jane Baker.
Director: Chris Clough.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp

(Series 23, Episodes 5-8)

Summary: The Doctor and Peri end up on a planet where the colour saturation’s gone a bit wrong and people are, well, pretty much warping minds. Peri and her dodgy do patronise a wolf man and Sil, the most spineless, self-serving bad guy in Who history, is back, chilling on a bed of ferns and eating sushi with his mate, the Magnificence. A surgeon performs the most half-hearted CPR ever (and only after finishing his cup of tea), Brian Blessed fits the role of booming, volatile warlord like a glove and the Doctor gets a memory wipe that renders him more selfish and arrogant than ever.

Watch it because: BUB-BYE PERI!

Original Air Date: 4-25 October 1986.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Philip Marton.
Director: Ron Jones.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet

(Series 23, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: So…Doctor Who meets Law and Order begins. The Doctor is once again on trial for meddling - a crime punishable by death on Gallifrey apparently. The Valeyard recounts the Doctor and Peri’s trip to a planet that seems strangely like earth where an old woman wants to marry Peri off to multiple husbands and the Doctor is used as slave labour by a power mad robot with a pair of squabbling henchmen.

Watch it because: The Doctor’s irreverent courtroom objections.

Original Air Date: 6-27 September 1986.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Robert Holmes.
Director: Nicholas Mallett.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Revelation of the Daleks

(Series 22, Episodes 12-13)

Summary: Alternative title: Everyone Wants to Kill Davros. Yes, he’s back, keeping bodies in suspended animation, enabling accidental cannibalism and conducting medical experiments. As a backdrop, Tasambeker and Mr Jobel enact a creepier, frumpier version of Romeo and Juliet and you might get whiplash from the mood changes. The Doctor and Peri spend a lot of this wandering around bitching at each other until they join forces with the Grand Knights of the Dodgy Ponytails and pitch two factions of Daleks against one another.

Watch it because: Stabby stabby stab stab.

Original Air Date: 23-30 March 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Eric Saward.
Director: Graeme Harper.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Timelash

(Series 22, Episodes 10-11)

Summary:Yet another time corridor and yet another power-crazed dictator with self-esteem issues, this time on the planet Karfel (apparently visited by the Third Doctor and Jo) where people who rebel against the Borad are sentenced to the Timelash, which distributes them throughout time and space (including nice fishing lodges in Scotland). An unexpectedly lookist Doctor is recruited to retrieve a lost amulet by means of threatening an increasingly irritating Peri. HG Wells is a misogynist, Peri screams a lot and the Doctor is massively wankerish (Peri must be annoying him too).

Watch it because: Well…there’s a brief glimpse of a photograph of Jo Grant?

Original Air Date: 9 - 16 March 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Glen McCoy.
Director: Pennant Roberts.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Two Doctors

(Series 22, Episodes 7-9)

Summary: The Second Doctor suffers an existential crisis and needs to find a Doctor for some answers. Doctor 6 enjoys a spot of fishing, tries to eat a cat and kills a man with his bare hands. The Sontarans are definitely involved somehow, there’s a good helping of casual murder and cannibalism and the grotesque Shockeye fancies himself a bit of Andalusian sausage. All in all, a pretty disturbing bloodbath of an episode…

Watch it because: Forget Sarah Jane or Rose, Jamie was undoubtedly the Doctor’s first love.

Original Air Date: 16 February – 2 March 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker & Patrick Troughton.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant) & Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines).
Writer: Robert Holmes.
Director: Peter Moffatt.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Mark of the Rani

(Series 22, Episodes 5-6)

Summary: The Doctor does battle with Luddites in the 19th Century and bumps into George Stephenson, Peri runs around in a ridiculous dress and another renegade Time Lord, the Rani, is introduced.  She and the Master team up to turn people into trees but end up hoisted by their own petard, or rather, menaced by their own creation...

Watch it because: The Master and the Rani bicker like an old married couple.

Original Air Date: 2-9 February 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Pip and Jane Baker.
Director: Sarah Hellings.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Vengeance on Varos

(Series 22, Episodes 3-4)

Summary: The Doctor needs to refuel the TARDIS and the only place he can do it is Varos, a planet stuck in a political quagmire of austerity and referendums (how painfully relevant) where the population spend their time glued to their televisions watching prisoners being executed. The Doctor and Peri interrupt one such execution and go on the run with a pair of rebels through a sinister version of the Crystal Maze to try and foil the corrupt capitalism of a shouty fish slug.

Watch it because: Martin Jarvis’ Governor takes stoicism to the next level.

Original Air Date: 19-26 January 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Philip Martin.
Director: Ron Jones.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Attack of the Cybermen

(Series 22, Episodes 1-2)

Summary: Hey – remember that one time the Doctor tried to fix the chameleon circuit and travelled through time and space in an organ? Me neither because it was terrible. Lytton is back, the Doctor is still a twat and Peri is still whiny (people really believed that American accent was genuine?!). The Cybermen are trying to stop the first Doctor from destroying Mondas in 1986 by redirecting Haley’s Comet to crash into Earth, everyone dies very slowly and dramatically and Lytton turns out to be not quite so bad as the Doctor originally thought.

Watch it because: Callback to a time when 1986 was the future.

Original Air Date: 5-12 January 1985.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: “Paula Moore”.
Director: Matthew Robinson.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Twin Dilemma

(Series 21, Episodes 23-26)

Summary: The Doctor comes over all melodramatic, makes terrible wardrobe decisions and then tries to kill Peri, all down to his regeneration crisis. A pair of a precocious twins are kidnapped by a bug-eyed monster because they are apparently the only people in the universe capable of maths-ing some planets out of orbit. The Doctor meets up with an old drinking buddy and yet another pervy alien develops a crush on Peri.

Watch it because: The sixth Doctor is such a twat. I love him.

Original Air Date: 22-30 March 1984.
Doctor: Colin Baker.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Anthony Steven.
Director: Peter Moffatt.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Caves of Androzani

(Episodes 19-22)

Summary: Everyone is fighting over Spectrox which is mined in the titular Caves of Androzani Minor; caves that are also haunted by bat dragons and plagued by mud bursts. The melodrama is off the scale, Sharaz Jek is basically the Phantom of the Opera with androids and the Doctor sets off on an epic quest to save Peri.

Watch it because: Feels different this time…

Original Air Date: 8-16 March 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Robert Holmes.
Director: Graeme Harper.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Planet of Fire

(Series 21, Episodes 15-18)

Summary: Planet of corny dialogue, more like. Turlough gets a backstory and a brother, Kamelion has an identity crisis and the phallic shrinking machine reappears. Turlough returns to his own planet and leaves the Doctor to take Peri on some gap year travelling (Howard’s gonna be in such big trouble with her mum!)

Watch it because: Turlough’s Tiny Shorts.

Original Air Date: 23 February – 2 March 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson), Kamelion (Gerald Flood) & Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant).
Writer: Peter Grimwade.
Director: Fiona Cumming.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Resurrection of the Daleks

(Series 21, Episodes 11-14)

Summary: The Doctor gets dragged into in a squabble between Daleks, with Davros taking on the Supreme Dalek. “Trust me,” Turlough hisses in a most untrustworthy manner, and it’s not exactly clear just who is on which side in this story – Dalek stooge Stein is terribly well-mannered, Davros throws a toddler tantrum and the Doctor seems pretty unconcerned when Tegan’s taken out by a Dalek. And it’s never explained what happened to those ominous police officers…

Watch it because: “It stopped being fun anymore!” Brave heart, Tegan.

Original Air Date: 8-15 February 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).
Writer: Eric Saward.
Director: Matthew Robinson.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Frontios

(Series 21, Episodes 7-10)

Summary: The Doctor starts a love affair with his hatstand as everyone disappears down the rabbit hole. On the whole, it’s a very dark story, with people being pulled into the earth, muggings and corpses driving mining machines. Turlough is traumatised by giant bugs and the Doctor does an awful lot to help the human colony on Frontios considering his insistence that he shouldn’t be getting involved.

Watch it because: The Doctor and Tegan up the bickering ante.

Original Air Date: 26 January – 3 February 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).
Writer: Christopher H. Bidmead.
Director: Ron Jones.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Awakening

(Series 21, Episodes 5-6)

Summary: Tegan tries to visit her grandfather and instead stumbles on a bunch of overgrown boys who’ve taken their historical re-enactment society too far. The Doctor discovers an evil presence in the village church and picks up a 17th century peasant.

Watch it because: It’s pretty pacey for Classic Who.

Original Air Date: 19-20 January 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).
Writer: Eric Pringle.
Director: Michael Owen Morris.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Warriors of the Deep

(Series 21, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: There’s something fishy in the water outside a nuclear base in 2084… Two superpowers are still at war so the Silurians and the Sea Devils conspire to get the humans to wipe each other out so they can reclaim the Earth. The Doctor has to wear a spacesuit belonging to a man with body odour issues and Turlough proves both his loyalty and his pragmatism.

Watch it because: “There should have been another way.”

Original Air Date: 5-13 January 1984.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).
Writer: Johnny Byrne.
Director: Pennant Roberts.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The Five Doctors

(Special)

Summary: A mysterious black-gloved hand kidnaps the Doctor and his companions – in all five incarnations – to help break into the Tower of Rassilon and gain immortality. One enjoys a bite to eat, Two rocks a giant fur coat and banters with an ever-sceptical Brigadier, Three builds a zipwire, Four gets stuck in the time vortex and Five learns to play the harp. The Master lasts about five minutes being the good guy before teaming up with the Cybermen. Mostly, it’s just a good fun “Doctor – this is your life.”

Watch it because: No. Not the mind probe.

Original Air Date: 23 November 1983 (US); 25 November 1983 (UK).
Doctor: Peter Davison, Richard Hurndall, Patrick Troughton & Jon Pertwee. Pus Tom Baker (scene from Shada) and William Hartnell (scene from The Dalek Invasion of Earth).
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding), Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson), Susan (Carole Ann Ford), Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), Romana II (Lalla Ward), Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury), Liz Shaw (Caroline John) & K9 (John Leeson).
Writer: Terrance Dicks.
Director: Peter Moffatt.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

The King's Demons

(Series 20, Episodes 21-22)

Summary: Sir Gilles Estram – you’re not fooling anyone, especially with your accent slipping all over the place. The Doctor gets mistaken for a demon and has to foil a plot to discredit King John in order to stop the Magna Carta from being signed. The Doctor shows off his sword fighting skills, adopts a robot friend that Tegan is jealous of and then jets off to see the Eye of Orion after some confusion over whether or not Tegan wants to go home.

Watch it because: Kamelion playing a lute – truly a thing of beauty. What a voice.

Original Air Date: 15-16 March 1983.
Doctor: Peter Davison.
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding), Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson) & Kamelion (Gerald Flood).
Writer: Terence Dudley.
Director: Tony Virgo.
Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Enlightenment

(Series 20, Episodes 17-20)

Summary:Is it bad that Turlough is such a dick that I miss Adric?  The TARDIS goes all explodey as wibbly visions of the White and Black Guardian (who, let me tell you, are really rocking that whole dead-bird-on-the-head look) warn that the winner takes all (who knew they were Abba fans?).  Team TARDIS join an Edwardian yachting crew who turn out to be racing on historical vessels through space, there are space pirates and eternals who read minds and think they can outwit the Doctor and Marriner has a crush on Tegan but courts her with all the social skills of a newt.

Watch it because: Lynda Baron makes a helluva baddie.

Original Air Date: 15-23 February 1983.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).

Writer: Barbara Clegg.

Director: Fiona Cumming.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Terminus

(Series 20, Episodes 13-16)

Summary: Turlough buggers up the Tardis and they end up on an abandoned ship haunted by spooky noises and gropey hands that’s being raided by raiders with impractically large space helmets and patrolled pasty guards who are hooked on drugs.  Turlough tries to flirt his way out of trouble but Tegan’s having none of it, the skull décor isn’t the most reassuring and Nyssa’s looking a bit peaky.  Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf robot?

Watch it because: Nyssa finally gets to fulfil her scientific potential.

Original Air Date: 15-23 February 1983.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).

Writer: Stephen Gallagher.

Director: Mary Ridge.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Mawdryn Undead

(Series 20, Episodes 9-12)

Summary: Mawdryn has returned…but who is he??  The Brig is back, telling some bare-faced lies and teaching maths for some reason.  Tegan’s all “nah mate with the brains poking out” whilst Nyssa and the Brig are a little more open-minded. However, it turns out Tegan was right to be so judgmental.  Turlough and his Talking Crystal do some anguished sleeping though it’s not clear why the Black Guardian picked Turlough to do his dirty work since he’s somewhat inefficient.

Watch it because: Blame it on the Blinovitch Limitation Effect!

Original Air Date: 1-9 February 1983.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) & Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson).

Writer: Peter Grimwade.

Director: Peter Moffatt.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Snakedance

(Series 20, Episodes 5-8)

Summary: So, it seems that we’re back in Tegan’s trippy dreams where the snake symbolism is off the charts. Awkwardly, a ceremony to celebrate the defeat of the Mara gets crashed by…the Mara.  Nyssa initiates stealth mode, people go gaga over broken pots, there’s some classic maniacal laughs and the Doctor has a stand-off with Tegan’s floaty head.

Watch it because: The snake on Tegan’s arm is truly a terror to behold.

Original Air Date: 18-26 January 1983.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).

Writer: Christophe Bailey.

Director: Fiona Cumming.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Arc of Infinity

(Series 20, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: Meanwhile in Amsterdam…  Tegan searches for her cousin and Omega is back, trying to become human, with the aid of giant chicken.  He steals the Doctor’s form and a gardener’s overalls before turning crusty face.  The Doctor utilises all the advanced technology at his disposal and finds where he needs to be by using the phone book.  And who's that familiar face?

Watch it because: Time Lords – nice collars, not much due process.

Original Air Date:3-12 January 1983.

Doctor:Peter Davison.

Companions:Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).

Writer:Johnny Byrne.

Director:Ron Jones.

Producer:John Nathan-Turner.