“They are monsters, they don’t deserve to live!”

Sadly, it’s possibly one of the worst, if not the worst of the Pertwee era. A story with some great ideas, and some really great direction and visuals but it’s just so boring and drab. Six repetitive episodes that don’t particularly say it do much, with rather boring characters other than the Marshall, who is a fun, albeit scenery chewing villain.

The visuals are decent however. Some great direction, and really great use of lighting, especially in the caves and some fun use of the space ship. The costumes for the mutants themselves is decent too, even if they feel underutilised overall.

It’s sadly just boring, far too long, with a lack of material to really manage to capture any level of intrigue over six episodes.

An enjoyably meta tale about stories and development of characters. It's unique and fun, but perhaps the pacing is a little off at times, veering from super quick and snappy to sudden stopping dead in its tracks. It still works pretty damn well though, with a compelling central character.

A really strong ending to the first set. A great concept, well explored, with great character moments, and villains that work so well, even on audio. This feels like a Moffat era episode dropped onto the boxset, perfectly fitting with Smith's Doctor. Just brilliant.

Another olid story, and probably better pacing than the first. I like Valerie a lot, a great companion, and the story here is fun, albeit a little predictable.

A pretty fun opening for Valerie and the 11th Doctor. A strong companion introduction and Dudman is great as 11. It's perhaps a little too quickly paced, not giving much room to breath, but still, the runtime flows past quickly.

"Come on universe, I thought we had a deal."

Fun enough little prologue as the 11th Doctor tracks Clara. Not listened to a Dudman version of this Doctor before but he does nail Smith pretty well. Cute and fun!

 “Lady luck will show you the way, win the game, or here you stay.” 

Rewatched this with the new animated reconstruction. The low rating is for the story overall, as I actually quite liked the animation style and how it fitted with the story.

Much like the previous story in this season, it’s got good ideas and concepts, but the overall execution and story is rather boring. The Toymaker is a brilliant idea for a character, and Michael Gough an excellent choice, but he’s not even in the story much. Him and Hartnell get a few moments, but it seems such a waste when the Doctor is off screen for so long.

We’re left with an awkward story with different segments and different games for the companions to play again different sets of characters. It’s really hit and miss, some of the side characters, like the clowns, are extremely irritating and while one or two of the games are entertaining, it’s mostly fairly repetitive and leaves you with a sense that it could have been more.

Not a favourite, it’s a shame as the ideas are all good.

“You must travel with understanding, as well as hope.”

A great concept for a story, with the four parter being split equally over two different time periods on the same shop, seeing how the Doctor and his presence can affect people. It’s just a shame that the execution and writing is very dull.

The villains aren’t very interesting, and neither are any of the human characters. The Monoids design is unique and fun, but doesn’t make them very threatening in the slightest. The human characters are irritating at best, boring and lifeless at worst.

Even our three leads feel rather distant here. Hartnell is on autopilot, Purves doesn’t get to do anything, and our new addition Jackie Lane isn’t really explored particularly well, other than having her look fairly stupid and annoying in her scenes.

Theres some decent set designs, but it doesn’t help a boringly written and frightfully dull story.

“Kings are recognised only by the power they wield.”

Seems I might be alone in this, but it’s really not for me this one. A dark, gritty and rather depressing set of episodes set in 1500s France. It’s bleak and really delves into the political standings of the era, and while I feel I have learned something of the time period, I found the story itself to be incredible boring.

Perhaps not helped by the entire story being missing, with only the reconstruction to view. It’s a lot of dialogue, a lot of slow paced scenes, and a whole host of characters that I found rather hard to keep up with it all.

Peter Purves does a good job, being the main focus of the story around the other cast side characters. While Hartnell’s role as the Abbot is a fun idea, but doesn’t really actually mean much to the story, and without being able to see the performance, it’s hard to gauge really what was different here. Though, the ending with Hartnell’s little speech is brilliant, and warm.

I can see why people enjoy this, but just didn’t really work for me. Too slow, and really not what I look for in compelling Doctor Who episodes.

"I'm afraid, my friends, the Daleks have won."

Taken me a few days to get through this twelve part epic, most of which sadly no longer exists. It certainly feels like the largest scale story up to this point. It can get a little bit like The Chase, with a couple of the middle episodes totally meandering and meaningless to the rest of the plot. But overall it's a big epic, with a lot of great moments.

William Hartnell and Peter Purves are both great throughout, especially Hartnell. Some of the later episodes giving this Doctor some of his best moments, standing up against the Daleks. Were also treated to new companions who come and go. A highlight being Nicholas Courtney for the first few episodes, it's pretty obvious why they bring back his charisma in later years as a main stay. Both Adrienne Hill and Jean Marsh are nice additions but sadly we don't spend long enough with them. Their time with the Doctor too fleeting.

The Daleks themselves are well utilised, feeling more threatening and less comedic than their last appearance. Theres a real sense of danger and threat to them, whenever they are on screen. Mavic Chen is also a great villain. He's menacing and formidable, and a brilliant performance from Kevin Stoney, it's a shame that more of this performance isn't captured on the existing episodes.

A fun, if a little long and meandering, epic. I wish more of the story was available to watch properly, but as it stands it's entertaining and grand in scale. It could have easily worked as Hartnell's swangsong.