Imagine The Daleks Masterplan, The Robots of Death and White Ghosts mixed into one story. The result is Chase The Night. A dark and scary story fitting right into Season 18, with a hopeless tone all throughout. The pacing was a little off at first, but the action really kicks off in Episode 3 and it's such an exciting adventure!

Our main cast just shines in this story. The Doctor and Romana are against all odds, constantly fighting danger throughout, and the stakes are high. Sometimes, it feels more like that Tom Baker is playing himself rather than the Fourth Doctor, but not in this story, he's authentic and gets a mixture of his darker, angrier Season 18 self, with a mixture of the humour from the past, and it's a decent balance. Romana's will to maintain the peace between the Tantalus crew and the TARDIS team becomes more and more strained as the story continues and it gives her character a lot to do - there's a lot of passion Lalla Ward gives to the role in this episode, and her slightly snarky tone works a lot better in this story. Has there been an episode of Adric so far where he hasn't sided with the villains? Thankfully he wasn't too involved with this story, and so he's a lot more bearable - but I still want to punch him in the face. K-9 has insufficient data. That's all I got from him in this story. Anything he does is ineffective, and that makes a nice change of pace rather than him always just shooting up the villain and saving the day, but it makes his inclusion rather unnecessary. However, this is the strongest this TARDIS team has been, and the bond between them is so fantastically good. The moral debate that the Doctor, Romana and Adric have showcases the dynamic of the team, with three intellectuals structuring their points clearly, and discussing the ethics of saving people, and Jonathan Morris made a big risk in portraying our main cast as incredibly problematic and flawed, wanting to save their friends above all else, and letting the others die, but the risk paid off and makes these characters feel more real and the tension higher.

Unfortunately, the threat doesn't really take centre stage until Part 3, like I mentioned earlier. The buildup to the fungus is slow but effective as it becomes more obvious as the sun gets closer. The atmosphere surrounding the creature is tense and scary, but as the situation gets more desperate, the twist feels earned, but at the same time, like something bad is going to go down - but for once, it doesn't, and you're left with the message that it's not a bad thing to accept help from others.

The alien worlds are so vividly explored - the constant danger of the daytime, and the oncoming threat is just such an inspired idea. I love the contrast with the night being the safe time, when it's usually when the audience feels most vulnerable. I like it when writers indulge in the different societies and cultures of alien worlds and make them feel as different and unique as possible, completely different to our own world and that's just replicated masterfully here.

A problem I do have with this is the crew. You know how in most first episodes, the crew capture the Doctor and interrogate him and accuse him of being a spy and all that? Imagine that, but for all four episodes. The actors are doing a great job, especially Jane Asher, but they're incredibly predictable and annoying. However, there are some great moments with them all, such as when they're climbing on the ship and when they reveal that they're letting people burn to death.

This is a fantastic story - there's a few flaws, but overall it's a strong outing for our TARDIS team with cleverly written messages, high stakes and massive threats for them to face, both internally and externally. This really feels like a different universe with different physics in terms of the way light is dangerous.