We return to The Early Adventures for The Crash of the UK-201. On this occasion we get a Doctor-lite story as Vicki has been thrown back into her own past as she’s materialised in her younger self on the UK-201, the day it crashed on the planet where she eventually met the Doctor. Naturally she sees this as an opportunity to save her father but she will realise that there’s a cost to changing history and that she can never live a perfect life.

This is up there as one of the worst experiences a companion has ever gone through, to be given a second chance at saving a loved one’s life only to go through all the complications of altering history and then realtering them until you lose those you care about forever and have no choice but to go back to your old life. It’s quite a harrowing experience to which Maureen O’Brien rises to the occasion in giving easily her best work as Vicki. Honestly this was the story that made me appreciate Vicki as a character, for a long time I’d always viewed her as a rushed replacement for the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan who had only left in the prior story, but The Crash of the UK-201 was a tremendous showcase for Vicki and really changed my opinion of her.

It seems odd saying this but Jonathan Morris is one of the few Doctor Who writers who really experiments with the effects of time travel, it’s often his gimmick when he’s at the writing helm and it works more often than not as is the case of this story. He would certainly be a great addition to the show if he ever made the jump to televised writing for Doctor Who.