The Deadly Assassin!

A brilliant first two parts, and... a third and fourth part. It may be that the Gallifrey series has spoilt me for gallifreyan intrigue and politics, but while the first two parts set that all up really nicely (the assassination of a president, the exposition about life on Gallifrey, seeing the bureaucracy in action, the loopholes in law), when the Doctor enters the matrix near the end of part 2, it starts to somewhat fall apart.

It's not that the matrix sections are particularly bad or anything, it's just that they feel very much like standard fare for the show, and the story up until that point had managed to feel somewhat out there, even despite its 'grounding' of the Time Lords. It'd felt somewhat more unique, the bureaucratic aspect being something not often seen in the show, and here The Doctor isn't the clear smartest man in the room like he often is, we're even introduced to his old mentor.

When we get into The Matrix though, it's The Doctor running around a quarry. The show can say that The Master's controlling the environment as much as they want, but it doesn't really affect all that much, and it still ultimately comes down to, well, The Doctor fighting an enemy in a quarry, about the most standard story you can have in classic who.

It does somewhat come back after he leaves, especially with The Master's plans with faking his death to get what he wants and that, but even then, it feels like a Master story. Master stories are always good, and I of course appreciate that there hadn't been one in such a long time, but for a story that started setting itself apart from the standard action of the show, it's a little disappointing that it ends up being standard Who story.

Don't get me wrong, a good standard Who story, but still a standard Who story.

After 13 and a half seasons of randomly pottering around time and space, with the occasional dash of continuity, The Doctor finds himself back home and revealing unprecedented amounts about his his race and home planet.

This story has the rare accolade of being both set on Gallifrey and actually being good. It helps that a large chunk of the story is set in a frightening nightmare hallucination, so you never get a chance to get bored of the setting - which is home to assassination, lies and political games.

I like that The Time Lords are set up as generally being total bastards. It makes total sense of why The Doctor left his home planet. It was wonderful to see The Master back after all this time - and in a new incarnation. It only increases the grand sense of history this story has. It’s a very special 4 parter that fees like a reward for sticking with the show up to this point and a celebration of its 13 year history.

Deadly Assassin is far from perfect, and has a number of strange quirks to it, but by and large it is a very unique story from the Classic series that kind of has an irreplaceable, vital part of the franchise and its history. Sure, we had gotten scant glimpses of the Time Lords and Gallifrey up until now, but this is a whole new level, building so much into the world in these four short parts and bringing in a lot of new ideas and concepts to the franchise and the Doctor's people.

That being said, it is a bit of a double-edged sword. While Deadly Assassin does a number of things right, like getting into multiple chapters and the fun use of colour in their costumes to denote each character's faction and position in Time Lord Society, it isn't perfect either. The danger of stories like this is that they simplify the Time Lords a bit. I find it weird they don't have a word or concept of framing somebody for a crime to the point they have to borrow it from the English language according to the dialogue, even when they prove as a people more than capable of such an action. As always in stories like these and the Gallifrey series, the Time Lords become a little too basic and easily susceptible to manipulation when we subject them to stories like this, and I prefer the air of power and authority they are more generally given from a distance.

These are more insignificant concerns though, as Deadly Assassin is creative and entertaining, which matters most to me when evaluating something from Doctor Who. It is still held back by issues with its pacing, but it is an exciting story, a nice take on a politically themed thriller that is definitely worth checking out. It is weird to me that the Doctor is so unfamiliar with Time Lord politics here, and I think that was more done for the sake of exposition and the fact there isn't really a companion in this story. That's part of what makes it so unique and special though, the Doctor being involved in this story on his own without the usual support structure he leans on adds to the tension very nicely here. Still, there are a lot of good characters surrounding him in these four episodes and I really like the ending between the Doctor and Borusa alluding to their history. A great entry in Doctor Who history, to be sure.

The Gallifrey murder mystery plot is fun. The Doctor wandering about the dreamlike matrix is fun. The Doctor wandering about the dreamlike matrix slap-bang in the middle of the Gallifrey murder mystery plot brings the whole thing to a screeching halt for part 3 and the story never quite recovers itself

Really good episode, the Doctor has to solve a murder on Gallifrey. We see more of Gallifrey in this episode than any so far and its great. We get a sense of the Doctor's role in the society that we did not have before.

The Master is back, this time as a weird skull face guy. The duel between he (or his henchman I guess) and the Doctor is really cool as well.

It is not often that I am incensed to make a review of any kind on a story here. Not because I don't like stories I am watching, far from it, but it is rare that one of them reaches out and grabs me with such verve.

I has been quite excited for this story for a long time, I found what little I knew about it to intrigue me to high heavens. A companionless story in the classic era, a new incarnation of the Master, a Gallifreyan political thriller, it seemed too good to be true. Not only was it good enough to be true, it blew me away.

Starting with a text crawl and a flash forward, the story immediately set the mood as something different, something that felt foreign to Who prior to this. Plus the final reveal that it was Goth attacking him in the Matrix was wonderful, not necessarily surprisingly, but well built up to.

I had always been a fan of Robert Holmes stories, but this one is my favorite of his, and really for the time being this story is my favorite of Classic Who. It is so well paced, I don't think anything should be cut, and it feels like a perfect candidate of a story to show to a fan of the revival.

• It's a beloved story I know, but I found it a little dull
• I think the best scenes occur when the Doctor is in the Matrix, they are dark and very thrilling
• This story like many others fails to get me interested in the world of Gallifrey
• It was at least refreshing to have a companionless story
• I don't think it helps that I'm not a huge master fan, so that might have a bearing on my overall engagement

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.

No companion, just the Doctor on Gallifrey. The president of the time lords has been assassinated and the Doctor has been framed. It turns out the Master is back, dying and decayed, and with the corrupted Chancellor, who actually killed the president, all so the Master could save himself from death and destroy Gallifrey. This is one of Tom Bakers best stories, if not the best, imo. The Master having run out of regenerations was a good way of explaining in universe why he's decayed and doesn't look like he used to. Great story.

It’s just not my thing unfortunately

I was *really* into this for the first two episodes, but oh my god the third episode just DESTROYED the pace. One of the worst standalone episodes since The Daleks ep 6. It's otherwise a great serial, but I can't ignore that episode.

B.

The master could do with some moisturiser or something he's looking a little crispy to me

Great story. Is responsible for creating so much of the Gallifreyan lore we know about. Very surreal at times and Peter Pratt's Master was an interesting way of bringing the character back.

Oh man, that's not just a story, but a masterful story!

The Doctor being brought to Gallifrey, the political assassination, the Decayed Master, the battle inside the Matrix... All 10/10! That's good storytelling.