Cacti, space pirates and Barbara - It's a bit of a mixed story, but on the whole underrated.

It's a very odd choice to have the Doctor, Romana and K-9 not even get involved in the action until halfway through Part 2. I suppose the time loop (not a historic diaresis or whatever it's called, it's just a time loop) was just used as a way to drag the story out as it could've been dealt with in two parts, and got extremely dragged out. Tom's still doing a magnificent performance, giving the role his all, even if he couldn't play the character how he wanted. Romana gets a mix of that independent, strong female lead as well as the stereotypical damsel in distress, and in general it's a fairly good balance, especially considering she's able to work her way out of most situations by herself. I'm surprised K-9 was able to traverse the terrain of Zolfa-Thura, that's got to be a first. Shame he runs out of batteries every five minutes.

Tom Baker does a marvellous job at distinguishing Meglos from the Doctor - from the way he delivers dialogue to his facial expressions and body language, you can tell that he's trying his best to make sure that the audience are able to know who's who, and it absolutely pays off. Meglos is mostly menacing, and the makeup is excellent, but unfortunately we don't get to know enough of him - Who is Meglos, who is the person he kidnapped and what exactly does he want aside from power, and how is he indestructible? The performance is superb, but the writing is a little lacklustre on his part. I'm sure expanded media develops his character further, but for this episode, it's not really enough. The mercenaries are alright, basic low-life scum, nothing more to their characters, but I like the running gag of Brotadac trying to get the Doctor's coat - it's the most pointless thing ever, which makes it so hilarious.

The green screen effects are a little annoying on Zolfa-Thura, but the planet itself looks great - the desolation and emptiness of the environment around it, aside from those huge pentagon buildings, creates a creepy and ominous atmosphere - and the Tigellan society is developed well, with quite a bit of world-building to showcase their culture, and even if the jungle looks a bit cheap, the fauna and wildlife attacking the inhabitants helps to suggest the hostile atmosphere in which the Tigellans surround themselves in.

Jacqueline Hill's back - God, it's been an awful long time since Barbara and Ian were in the TARDIS, wasn't it? It was a nice sight to see her thriving in this very different iteration of the show, but I kept forgetting that it was Jackie, because her performance is so stellar as Lexa that you buy into her current performance and don't care about what else she's done - Thanks be to Ti! The society is weaved into the story well, with the clash between the scientists and religious believers mixing together to create an interesting dynamic. But I still don't get who that guy was that got turned into Meglos. He was just some random guy and didn't really need to be there.

All I could think about when it comes to the music of this story is how a lot of it was reused in Curse of Fatal Death. Is that naughty of me? No, just kidding - I really enjoyed the score. Like the Leisure Hive, it created an atmosphere, one of tension, sometimes mystery and sometimes action - there are some superb moments throughout musically, and I'm impressed by the step-up, it's almost like a transition from Classic Who's standard plodding of keys to the orchestra of New Who. But something that I found rather odd was that the end credits for Part 4 was back to the key of E Minor, which has been the case for all of the titles except Howell's, which was in F# Minor and McCulloch's, which was in A minor. I found that very odd that they switched back to that and I wonder why.

The writing isn't always the best in this story, but it's definitely boosted by the superb performances from everyone, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh, and I liked the setup with Gallifrey calling the Doctor and Romana back, leading into Full Circle. For the audience at the time, that definitely would've created some intrigue on the playground.