This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Cobwebs

Well the 'Older Nyssa' arc has fully kicked off. I like that we're continuing with the Richter's syndrome plotline and I enjoyed the way that was incorporated into this story. Because we have a rather large TARDIS crew, I'm going to give my thoughts on them one by one for all these stories starting with;

• The Doctor, he's no different to how he usually is, Peter Davison puts in a solid performance but nothing remarkable.
• Nyssa, her character feels different, I'm beginning to see signs of her experience but otherwise Sarah Sutton's performance barely differs from her younger version of Nyssa and she doesn't get much of a role in this story anyway.
• Tegan, she gets probably the best role in the story, but still nothing impressive though it doesn't help that it's a very mediocre story. That Mara cliffhanger at the end was great although it is rough that this is so soon after Snakedance.
• Turlough, the best parts about his character (the ambiguous morality and deceitfulness) aren't really present here leaving him quite generic. Mark Strickson's performance is notably duller because of this

Character's aside, this story had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, due to the large cast, I don't feel like enough time was spent on all the elements of this adventure leaving it feeling a bit muddled. It does really evoke the feeling of 80s Who though, so if that's something you really care about I suppose this might be interesting. The perspective on purity and cleanliness is decently interesting, similarly there's some elements of radicalisation and extremism that I liked. I wouldn't call this story a waste of two hours, but there were much better things I could have done in that time.

Next Story: The Cradle of the Snake