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.