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.