The Eighth Doctor story is a cool little "you're trapped in here with me/I'm trapped in here with you" type story, with a really enjoyable robot character and Dame Kathryn Drysdale to boot. The Tenth Doctor story is a bland space opera that might have made half of a good TV episode.

It's literally just The Power of the Daleks (Remix), with an interpolation of The Ark in Space. Tom's fantastic though.

This did not need to be as long as it is. Cut ten minutes and make the coda part of the story proper and we'd have been in business. Instead, the exposition is painfully slow.

What an absolute, unadulterated delight!

It has an evil Ood, a lesbian couple fighting for their love (but not against homophobia!), a nicely foreshadowed B-plot, absolutely sparkling dialogue, and of course over-the-top pseudo-Western accents and settings. It's the campest Western I've ever met, and I love that journey for me.

This is a really, really interesting look at the Master being a good guy, if only temporarily. It's worth it for that, and for one line that absolutely stunned me, but my god does it drag on.

This has a really interesting structure, both in that it constantly shifts between the Doctor's and the Brig's (and later Sarah's) perspectives and in its combination of multiple genres and elements: post-medieval and Regency historical, Gothic, hard sci-fi, Christian/European mythology, probably more I'm forgetting already. I didn't enjoy it as much as its predecessor, The Paradise of Death, as its dialogue isn't as snappy and it's denser (hard sci-fi is always hard for me to follow, though). But Christian mythology specifically is something I've always felt is underused in Doctor Who – probably to avoid offense – so it's very cool to see it get some use here. The Brig's uncle is a good comic relief character, and Jeremy is still a solid quasi-companion. On the other hand, by this time Jon wasn't always audibly recognizable as the Doctor, and Sarah is a bit weak and imo even out of character in this.

If I'd been a Whovian as a kid, I would have been obsessed with this story. The Rani's back! And she dresses up as Mel! And she helps the Doctor choose his new outfit! And the Tetraps are the most adorable monsters since the Daleks! (Sorry, The Meep.) And Wanda Ventham's back in yet another fabulous role!

But then... there are three more episodes. The story simply can't sustain that long a script. They should have cut this to 3 episodes and given Delta a fourth. The Rani also isn't as entertaining when she's not fighting with the Master for dominance nor pulling the wool over the Doctor's eyes, and she ends up being a waste of a great actor on a pretty pedestrian villain.

I get that this was an educational piece, but it's handled so badly. The plot, such as it is, is useless, and Sarah comes off as a whiny, screaming idiot. The enemy is even more inexplicable and unbelievable than the Pescatons. This would have been better if it had abandoned the Doctor vs. monster format of the show and just been the Doctor taking Sarah on a tour through time.

If I'm being generous, I can say that this was probably hampered by its format and the practicalities of fitting a story onto two sides of a record. I can imagine that the novel is better.

Right, I've been generous enough. This is a supremely unsatisfying story that moves in leaps and bounds, a bit like getting the first and last five minutes of every episode in a serial and nothing in between. I can't take the Pescatons seriously, and the Doctor and Sarah both seem unusually hapless. Worse still, it has some truly ear-splitting sound effects. The only good thing I can say about it is it has a few funny lines of dialogue.

At literally no point in this story did I understand what was going on.

I really enjoy a lot about this episode. Most of the ideas – the Doctor's future self having been a mythological figure in the past; the characters of Arthurian legend in modern-day England; Ace being able to lift Excalibur; the two Brigadiers – are solid. The setting is really nice too, and Shou Yuing is a great quasi-companion.

The effects, it must be said, are terrible, making "Time and the Rani" look good by comparison. Ironically, shoddier practical effects probably would have been more convincing than these then-state-of-the-art CGI effects. But my main frustration with the story is that it just doesn't make sense. Why is Morgaine trying to ... actually, what even is Morgaine trying to do? And why does she have the Destroyer around if she doesn't trust him?

So again, I arrive at three stars not in the sense of "mediocre", but in the sense of "parts of it are a solid four stars and parts of it are just scraping two".

I can't believe I finally got the Scooby-Who of my dreams, and it's specifically Doctor Who and the Backstage Rage, and it's in Victorian London, and it's even in a music hall – in short, everything I could ask for... and they went and made it racist. The Doctor and Leela specifically, even. Bob Holmes you have a lot to answer for.

It's hard to rate this one because even aside from the racism (which took it down a star), the last two episodes are a real letdown after the first four. I wish they'd been condensed into one episode, because I think I would have liked that a lot better. I'm not really into true science fiction as opposed to fantasy and comedy and historicals, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I also don't think it looks as good as everyone else seems to, especially coming off The Robots of Death, whose aesthetic I love.

Also Litefoot is fine, but nothing special, and Jago is annoying. Loved seeing Basil Brush's cousin as the Giant Rat of Sumatra tho!

This was the first VNA I've read (actually, the first Classic Who novel I've read). There are parts of it that I like; a lot of the dialogue is great. But I felt that the Doctor and especially Ace were too mean. I don't know if that was how the characterization evolved over the previous VNAs, but it was jarring and unpleasant. The first half, in London, worked better for me than the second, in India and on Ry'leh. There is maybe a little too much going on with the plot, but the pacing is snappy.

A nonsensical plot - RTD at his worst with his penchant for pomp and unreasonably high stakes - saved by lots of fun and some great acting, particularly but by no means only from Jinkx.

Perhaps the first serial I've seen that would have benefited from one more episode rather than one less. I enjoy the first two episodes, but the ending comes so suddenly it's really unsatisfying. More time would have helped to: 1) flesh out the Chimerons' history and just what is up with that green baby; 2) lend more emotional impact to the tourists' and Murray's deaths; 3) develop Delta and Billy's relationship; and 4) give Ray's crush on Billy some more heft.

As it is, the whole thing is bright and invigorating. Some of the best costumes of the entire series, particularly for Mel and Delta. The comedic and musical performances, and the use of period music for the score, are also (pardon the pun) ace. And of course, Ray is a great character with a great actor. While I wouldn't wish her as a replacement for Ace, nor a co-companion (too similar), some missing adventures with the Doctor, Mel, and Ray as a Tardis team would be great...

It's interesting that this episode is regarded as being so reviled when it has a rather middling score here. Perhaps it's just polarizing.

I quite enjoyed it, and I think the worst you can say about it is it doesn't live up to its potential thanks to the budget. If this story had appeared in NuWho, with plenty of extras to fill out the Rezzies, sets that looked like they'd faded from glory rather than being unfinished, and Cleaners that didn't look like milk jugs with Sharpie (no, the Dalek method of creating an iconic monster did not work this time), it would absolutely slap. Actually, having said that, if we'd gotten a remake of this with Nine and Rose, society would be cured.

I guess there is one other problem, which is that for the third story in a row, the plot makes less sense the more you think about it. For instance, it must have been a long time since the war for the people's language to have evolved the way it has, but unlike the Sevateem or the villagers in State of Decay, these characters seem to be the same ones who were originally sheltered in the Towers (unless the Kangs can reproduce asexually!).

But there's a lot to enjoy here. The interesting angle on a post-apocalyptic setting, the Rezzies' delightful acting, "The quest is the quest"-esque mantras like "Build high for happiness," and Mel once again proving herself as entirely capable on her own, when she's not screaming. The Kangs' hand jive ought to be a staple of fandom! And it's a good adventure with a worthy setup; it really is just the details that let the story down.

An intriguing concept, with all the different factions at odds, but badly paced, with an overlong exposition leading to a rushed, underwhelming climax. The characterization is generally flat to boot, though at least Sarah gets to hold her own apart from the Doctor. And what ever happened to the probe-roots?

This has a good script, about ideological cultism and doomerism, and to my eyes, white supremacy and genocide. I don't read it as having an anti-environmental message at all (even before the Doctor's little speech at the end), but rather a warning about how easy it is for people across political and ideological lines to fall into fascism. And despite Lis Sladen's sense that Sarah was too passive in it, I think it shows her as a really strong character, largely by keeping her separate from the Doctor. We also see some of her journalism background at work.

It is, however, too damn long. Four episodes, omitting some of Sarah's and the Doctor's repeated captures and escapes, would have been much more suitable.

A good idea executed badly.

Essentially the entire first episode is just exposition, which is fine for a 4+ parter, but not so much in a 2-parter! I think it's as a result of that that the mystery aspect of the story suffers so much. It's not even that the pace is wrong so much as it just... glides over or entirely skips plot beats that are important to a mystery or thriller. But thank god, we get several whole minutes of the Doctor playing cricket! /s

I also wish the atmosphere had been darker, literally as well as figuratively. This would have benefited from a more Gothicky treatment, rather than one taking place entirely in sunlight. Even the secret passages were well-lit! I do appreciate a show that's light enough for me to see what's going on, and loathe the current trend of making everything dark, but this is a bit much.

The culprit's identity, while not obvious until it's revealed, prompted me to inwardly groan, "Of course it is." It's taken directly from a Sherlock Holmes story. Lazy setup and/or not enough development of that aspect of the backstory in episode 1. And while Sarah Sutton is fine as Ann, her acting is weirdly flat as Nyssa. The other three aren't on top of their acting games either.

There's just too much going on here. Trying to cram the Doctor and Donna's reunion, the Star Beast story, Rose's introduction, and undoing Donna's amnesia all into one story made it so that none of those elements was developed enough.

The dialogue runs the gamut from fantastic to terrible. Funnily enough, I think both of those extremes were in lines referencing gender and transness: "My preferred pronoun is the definite article" and the "male-presenting Time Lord" bit, respectively.

Most importantly, BBC Worldwide are imbeciles for not having Meep plushies in every store for Christmas. How did they miss that opportunity? They'd have flown off the shelves! (Yes, this is about me wanting a Meep plushie.)

The editing on this was, frankly, awful. I'd never seen the original version and I couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of the story. The fast-edit, overlapping dialogue style is what does it in, I think.