Here’s a series opener that manages to look cheap and expensive at the same time. It’s a studio-bound story recorded on unforgiving video, and the first glimpse we see of this story’s monster is a couple of floppy rubbery claws. I feel now as I did then, that it’s one of the least child-friendly stories Doctor Who ever presented – very talky, with some extremely OTT performances. And yet, the sets are beautifully dressed and lit and the Cossack-style costumes are lush. I love it, of course.

Once you get used to the fact that this is garnished with generous doses of humour (blimey, even I sound like Iain Cuthbertson's fruity Garron) it's irresistible to get caught up in the story. Garron’s double-act with the appealing Unstoffe is contrasted well with Paul Seed's wonderfully theatrical Graff Vynda-K and his loyal Sholack. Added to this is the newly formed double-act of the uncharacteristically chauvinistic Fourth Doctor and the haughty new Romanavoratrelundar. I’m not sure this gang would quite make up for the lack of action and location filming for the younger viewers, but they’re pretty entertaining. The actors having a ball, and it’s infectious.

I love that, within this flamboyant tapestry, there are other subtler characters. The Seeker is terrifying in her way, and Binro is lovely and injects the tale with a lot of heart.

I watched this on a whim, and ended up revisiting the whole four episodes. I think you have to be in the mood for it, but if you are, it's great fun. I even warmed to the bloody-jawed Shrivenzale!

By 1987, Doctor Who had been ridiculed by BBC Big Boy Michael Grade, seen a slump in ratings, put on hiatus for 18 months and rescheduled during the week (as opposed to Saturday) opposite the then most popular show on TV. Despite this, an increasingly isolated JNT strove to make the show the best way he could, and new Script Editor Andrew Cartmel represented a vital shot of new blood it needed. No more over-reliance on past monsters and past glories, Cartmel brought with him a new gang of instinctive writers and a whole new direction for the show - and after initial concerns, the producer was content to let him go his own way.

We had new music composers, a new computer-generated title sequence and a bizarre new Doctor. Sylvester McCoy's first story was a chaotic runaround commissioned before the script editor's arrival. His second, Paradise Towers, saw the Cartmel Masterplan reach fruition.

Firstly - what a cast! Richard Briers, Clive Merrison, Judy Cornwell, Elizabeth Spriggs and Brenda Bruce join a slew of new faces Howard Cooke, Catherine Cusack (Mark Strickson's wife at the time) and my personal favourite, the exotic Annabel Yuresha. That they all decided, or were directed, to give heightened performances elevated this darkly curious drama into a kind of comic strip territory that not all viewers took to. Me? I loved it then and love it now. Doctor Who is a fantasy, and if occasionally the characters become caricatures of that, then that's fine with me. The biggest 'culprit' is Briers, a real name at the time, who refused to tone down his 'possessed' acting. It's too much, of course, but could have been made decidedly spooky if he was given some cadaverous make-up, or perhaps his voice had been synthetically treated to give it a disembodied quality instead of relying entirely on Brier's admittedly broad performance.

The script is, I think, very clever. Paradise Towers could have been terrifying, with the Rezzies screeching old hags, and the caretakers genuinely psychotic, ungovernable thugs - but that's not what Doctor Who was about in 1987. And so, the darker elements of the story were given 'family-friendly' production values, and the comedy of the characters was brought to the fore. Richard Snell, the original composer had his music jettisoned for being too gloomy, with new regular Keff McCulloch brought in at the eleventh hour. The result is a pleasing mix of surreality and gruesome body horror - although naturally, we don't see anything remotely bloody.

Little touches, like Sylvester's improvised raising of his hat to a stationary piece of architecture book-ending the action, and the scrawling of 'Pex Lives' on the wall behind the dematerialising TARDIS at the end reminds us of the charming attention to detail that Doctor Who still boasted, even at a time when viewers and fans appeared to take against it.

My only problem involves the character of Pex, played so straight by Howard Cooke. A coward by nature eager to prove his worthiness, he's encouraged by all to ultimately confront the enigmatic villain Kroagnon. He does so, and is killed as a result. The message seems to be that the only way 'cowardly cutlet' can prove he's not a coward is by sacrificing himself. Even lovely Mel looks on proudly as Pex returns to the climactic action and subsequently, his death. They all mourn him at the end, but they all encouraged him in the first place! A bit of tweaking of the script to alter those final moments would have helped, I think.

Other than that, I love Paradise Towers. After 24 years, Doctor Who was building itself up once again, but in a manner that hadn't been seen before. The Cartmel Masterplan would return in Series 25 with stories that had even the most ardent complainers admitting that perhaps ... just perhaps ... this new version of their favourite show was actually still pretty good.

My score is 4 out of 5.

I had a good time with this slow-moving story. If I’m honest, I think we got the better story with The Three Doctors, with its bigger cast and a greater sense of jeopardy. Although, as jeopardy goes, the first three Doctor’s waiting in Death’s Waiting Room maintains the stakes are pretty high. Deathworld is a chattier piece, and surprisingly well-suited for audio. Having said that, I have no idea how much work John Dorney put in.

“That Death chap brought us here for a reason!”

The Doctors are all beautifully played, and their scenes together are a real high point. “Fancy Pants got himself a thesaurus for Christmas,” is a particular favourite. The First Doctor suffers a few trademark minor line stumbles, and the Third is deliciously outraged at every attack on his ego. There are even a few variations on the double entendres enjoyed by Frazer Hines and Patrick Troughton. Some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments here.

With a story that has only a few moments of real tension, I do think the direction could be stronger. Some moments could have done with a bit more ‘oomph’. As it is, they are too reliant on the actors to carry the sense of jeopardy, and this comes across as a little pantomime-like. Perhaps that was the intention, but Tim Steemson’s score is very much pushed backwards in the mix and doesn’t have much chance to make an impact or build up the drama.

A thin story filled with good intentions is how I would sum this up.

This is ‘the one where Tosh is talked down to by a group of officials on the verge of something major happening.’

To know the characters enough to really care about their decline, this could have been a double-disc story; the actual plot though, is perfectly suited to this singular, hour-long format. That way, it isn’t long before bad things – or the possibility of them – start happening.

I love Tosh. She’s a boffin, of course, and has a problem getting too close to people. Here, she’s in her element. Lots of trying to reason with a vast computer system. Gradually those around her realise she’s their best hope.

As Naoki says in the extras, this is a ‘Torchwood escape room … Torchwood panic room,’ which I think sums this up. It isn’t the greatest story ever released, but it’s a good one and makes the listener wonder what they might do in such circumstances. The peaks of tension are well realised. And like many of these singular releases, provides a new way of telling a story. I’m not sure any other Big Finish range is so successfully experimental.

It’s funny but I never really ‘got into’ Torchwood on the television (I watched an episode called From Out of the Rain, which I loved, but still wasn’t hooked). The audios, however, are a different story. Big Finish has done them proud, expanding the Torchwood universe and developing interesting new characters. There’s always a place for the originals, of course, and Tosh – mainly due to Naoko Mori – is always worth revisiting.

My score is 7 out of 10.