The first appearance of Gallifrey since the Tenth Anniversary, and I'm very disappointed by this story.

The Doctor on his own was a very great concept - to show his vulnerability - and they tried that with a whole episode in the Matrix, when it should've been interweaved throughout the story. Also, the fact that he's on Gallifrey gave him some familiarity. If we take Series 4's Midnight as an example, he's on his own with complete strangers and that's what makes it so scary. But as he's in the presence of people he knows, there's not that much at stake as he knows how to convince them. I don't actually understand why the Doctor fired the gun - it was kinda stupid of him. I also didn't like that he wore barely anything in the story - I was expecting Time Lord uniforms as in the cover - where are these uniforms, aside from five minutes in part 1?

The Master's back after 3 years, and it's... eh. So the Delgado Master got crispified at some point - but why didn't they focus on that? How did he get like that? The mask was also a really bad idea, cos I couldn't understand a word he was saying - thankfully they change it later on and we get Geoffrey Beevers. He was really underused, and looking so creepy, they really should've played into that horror factor more - that scene in Part 4 where the Master turns to the guard when he's about to die is one of my favourite moments of the story. Near the end of the story, I could really see elements of Roger Delgado in Peter Pratt's performance, so props to him for managing to pull that off.
I don't really understand why Chancellor Goth was working for the Master - once he killed the President, he was in the running, so he didn't need the Master. There was also the guard that tried to kill the Doctor for no reason.

Gallifrey was... alright. It looked a bit cheap, but that's Classic Who for you. They did well with what they had, and I do really like the panopticon set, as well as the colour scheme. The scenes in the Matrix were dull, and even worse that they were just in some basic quarry. But this does get marks for its heavy expansion on Gallifreyan lore - it's impressive how many of these ideas are still relevant today.

The Time Lords weren't that impressive. They were all-powerful in the War Games, the Doctor feared them, then in this story it was just like a big Parliament. Very dull characters, but it's nice that they introduced Borusa and the relationship between him and the Doctor is a very nice one, and I wish that there were more scenes of that. Also, what was with that ending. "Look, the Master." Like, big criminal there, not even going to do anything? Okay.

Definitely the lesser of two Crispy Masters. Weird narration at the start, boring characters in the middle and a slightly stronger ending. A low point from Robert Holmes.