A beautiful little bottle episode that I don't think could have been made at any other point in the show's history.

Firstly, I want to praise the episodes titles, The Edge of Destruction going into The Brink of Disaster feels very Revival Season 9 to me, and in the best way possible.

This story is just so strange and I kind of love that, there's a real sense of tension and building dread. These characters the audience would've been coming to get to know and love over the last 2+ months are now trapped together, and the worst is being brought out in them. I've seen others comparing it to Midnight or Class' Detained, and I absolutely agree that this feels very much like a precursor to those, but I love that here, unlike Midnight, The Doctor is almost the antagonist of a lot of the story here.

When I say that it's a story you couldn't tell at any other point in the show's history, The Doctor is the main thing I'm talking about, he's brash and rude, and even effectively threatens to kill Ian and Barbara at one point. This story wouldn't work with any other doctor, you just wouldn't believe that he'd do that, but here, where the character's not fully formed yet, where he's still a mystery, you really don't know what he's willing to do.

It's also a great story to help showcase the wide variety of stories that can be told with the show. Often-times the new series will start with a trio of episodes, one in the past, one the present, one the future, and here, The Edge of Destruction finishes out that trilogy that the first two eras of the show tend to do. An Unearthly Child shows the past, The Daleks shows the future, and The Edge of Destruction is more of a 'sidestep'.

The character acting here is also great here, I especially love the way The Doctor uses a light to explain what happened to Susan, or the moment where he admits to Ian that they only have five minutes, and they both sort of share a moment.

The only reason this isn't higher is that, where other stories are somewhat let down by the stylings of the time, I feel this story is really let down by it. I think different camera angles, or more use of darkness could have really improved this story, but of course that wasn't the done thing at the time.

So the last thing I want to mention then, it Barbara. The way she stands up for herself against The Doctor, how she's not taking any ■■■■ from him, even when Ian is so ready to forgive and forget, she's not, she needs to hear that apology, and she can't move on in their relationship without it, it's a great point of characterisation which I just adore, and absolutely moves Barbara up my companion ranking