Personally I enjoyed this one. Episode one was great, good pacing and mix of elements setting up the story. I can definitely see how this influenced future stories like Voyage of the Damned and Planet of the Dead. Some great humor as well.

The other two parts were just okay. However, I enjoyed the final scenes, felt very modern with the song playing while wrapping things up.

Other than the great, (but campy,) 80s music, Doctor Who is definitely on it's way growing up.

Though Season 24 doesn't have the best reputation, this and Paradise Towers aren't that bad by any stretch of the imagination.  Sure, Delta and the Bannermen is a little silly, but it is silly in the best way imaginable.  Full of colourful and memorable characters, while just going for every wacky idea in the book.  A werewolf showing up in such circumstances practically feels expected, rather than the abrupt turn it ought to be.  I had a lot of fun with these episodes and enjoyed a lot of the guest characters like the eponymous Delta, while the 1959 setting worked well for me.  It's a lot like Paradise Towers, where both serials are jam packed with ideas and fun characters, and while the energy is quite chaotic, it is also very infectious and hard not to enjoy.

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

Previous Story: Flip-Flop

What an absolutely joyful story. It's silly and absurd in all the ways I enjoy. It's hardly some masterpiece of writing, it's got extremely ridiculous performances and yet I'd go back to it over most stories any day. Having a story set in Wales properly is really fun and brings us some excellent side characters. Ray, for example, was great.

It wasn't all good side characters, Delta was really flat and uninteresting. So was Billy too for that matter. Their whole relationship felt like it came out of nowhere if I'm being honest. It's the only part of this story that makes me think it could've done with an extra part. I did really like the Bannermen though, silly as they were. Gavrok in particular is a really over-the-top villain but nonetheless an enjoyable one.

It's really interesting watching what's essentially a love letter to the 50s... from the 80s. Fascinating to see how the perception of an era has changed (or rather, not changed) in all this time. It's also an excuse for a lot of actual 50s music which was really odd as I'm so used to Classic Who being devoid of any pop culture. Speaking of music, the score was brilliant for the most part. A bit distracting in some places but again I'm used to really bland incidental music that having a genuine soundtrack like this is good enough on it's own.

Absolutely love this story.

Next Story: The Fires of Vulcan

A nice romp, extremely camp and enjoyable. The plot is a bit thin, and both the Chimerons and the Bannermen are pretty flat, but most of the other side characters are great (except Billy, who felt like a cardboard cutout for most of the run). Ray was especially delightful, though I'm glad we ended up with Ace as a companion instead. I'm not sure why the Americans were there, but I'm glad they were. Overall, it's not one I'd go to rewatch, but it makes for fun background noise.

I may be biased, since I love the goofier Doctor Who stories, but this is one of my favorite stories of all times. The pacing is relatively quick, even if it does gloss over some details. But as a whole, it handles the 50's setting very nicely, and Burton's a nice supporting character. It does wrap up rather quickly, and leaves myself wondering what happened to warrant the attempted genocide? The character of Ray would've been an interesting companion. It would be a nice What-If or a solid unbound, so I'm looking forward to getting more things with her. I'd prefer a bit more depth into the Bannermen war, but as it is, there's plenty of opportunities towards the return of the Bannermen. I understand that this isn't everyone's favorite story, but I'm very glad I picked this up when the Collection Blu-Ray came out here in Australia. This story feels very 7th Doctor, as it has all the silliness of his early years, but the dark undertow of later stories like the Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light.

Conclusion: One of my favourite stories ever, goofy as hell, but manages to juggle that with the underlying darkness that this story has. It's musical, but not too musical, and that helps to make it one of the few Classic Who stories I can watch whenever.