Next is Terror of the Vervoids and it’s the Doctor’s turn to present his evidence, this time he chooses an adventure from his future with a new companion Mel. They receive a distress signal from a cruiser called the Hyperion III, not long after arrival they have themselves a murder to investigate and a wider plot that has unleashed a horror hidden away in the cargo bay, the Vervoids, whose design is some of the most jaw dropping trolling the show has done since Tom Baker blowing on a phallic appendage in Creature from the Pit!

As I mentioned when I talked about the book, I’ve always forgotten how this episode plays out and lost track very quickly of what’s going on, and it comes down to the fact that the pacing of the story is atrocious, every two minutes or less we jump from one location to another with different characters doing different things. There a moments where in the time it takes to glance at your phone, they’ve already jumped to another scene, meaning you’ve likely missed something that would later prove to be a key moment. It does admittedly settle down in its second half as we begin to focus more on the Vervoids themselves. Honestly the whole premise of being a murder mystery is broken by having it be an event in the future viewed by the Doctor in the courtroom. There’s no indication that his memories are wiped in the aftermath, so he will carry on with his life until he reaches this adventure, it won’t be a mystery anymore!

It sounds like I’m tearing this story a new one but believe me, this is the best written work from Pip & Jane Baker. It’s crazy to think in the three short years of them writing for the show they have quite the legacy in Doctor Who history; they created the Rani who still to this day is on fan’s prediction lists for returning villains to the show, they created Mel who’s been more involved with the show in recent years, they wrote not only Six’s final TV episode but also stepped in to finish the story Robert Holmes had died partway through writing, and they wrote the first Seventh Doctor episode. Quite an impressive resume, were it not for the fact that their stories were utter rubbish!! Though I do give points for the concept behind the character of Mel, one of the show's most unique companions as we never see how she joins the TARDIS or how she met the Doctor from her perspective.