The concept of this story is great, and I love all of the episodes. So, you're probably wondering why I haven't given this a full five stars:

The episodes are great, yes, but only individually. They aren't great together.

Some plot points get lost. The cliffhanger of episode one is Tegana getting poison for the water supply, which he will use to poison Marco and co as they trek through the Gobi Desert... Except he doesn't. He loses the poison in a sandstorm and ends up slashing the gourds instead, which makes the cliffhanger feel unecessary.

Additionally, every episode is a repetition of the same format, which, when watched together (I know, that's a modern problem) results in an experience which is, overall, rather boring. There's only so many 'TARDIS team try to get back to the TARDIS and are prevented. Tegana plots against everyone' loops you can take in one go.

There is a 30-minute version on The Beginning DVD. I don't own this, so I can't say how good it is, however I don't think this story could really lose that much of its runtime. An episode or two, sure. Five episodes? I don't think so.

Well, that was a mess.

The episode (and the story) is over-stuffed. It introduces so many plot threads that go nowhere, and it wraps up Omega by... Going nowhere.

The wrong Rani was eaten. Mrs Flood is now a dead end, based on what The Giggle's novelisation said about bigeneration. You know, it's so fun when a classic character is brought back and then written out. Thankfully, she's a Time Lord, so we can have earlier Rani's return.

Omega, on the other hand... Introduced just for a cliffhanger that only works if you know who Omega is. And then they wrote a completely different character, with a completely different backstory. Omega isn't a god trapped in hell who wants to eat Time Lords. Omega is a scientist trapped in an antimatter universe. This wasn't for new fans, and it wasn't for old fans. Who was it for?

Then there's the ending. What a mess. Belinda's story wraps up with her being replaced by an alternative Belinda who was a mother all along. The character we spent time getting to know no longer exists. The regeneration feels tacked on, and I know that's because it was tacked on, but compare this to Twice Upon a Time, which was a tacked on extension to a regeneration. TUAT's regeneration feels drawn out, and you can tell when Twelve was meant to die in The Doctor Falls, but it still feels thematically tied in. TRW just feels like a left turn out of nowhere.

And then there's Billie Piper as... Well, we don't know. Ugh. Nostalgia bait. I'm not looking forward to series 16, when and if it happens.

At least Jodie's cameo appearance wasn't too bad, aside from continuing RTD's obsession with Time Lords having human binary genders (and based on The Star Beast, fitting into stereotypes about them, though I will be fair that this is not mentioned in TRW). Can we go back to Moffat's 'we're billions of years beyond your petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes' please? As someone outside the binary, it does not feel good.

Terry Nation manages to do what many thought impossible - write a story that both feels rushed and like it's being dragged out at the same time.

He's managed to craft this by attempting to use the serial-within-a-series style of Classic Who to tell different stories across one single serial, something that... Well, it's not a bad idea. In fact, two future serials by different writers would contain different stories and be quite successful, these being The Key to Time, which of course was based on this story, and The Trial of a Time Lord. Well, up to episode 14, but that's a story for another review.

Nation would also repurpose the idea for The Chase and The Dalek's Master Plan, both of which I will also review, and both of which suffer from a similar issue to this story.

Too many locations.

Unlike The Key to Time, which has 26 parts, broken down into five four- and one six-part sub-serials, or Trial of a Time Lord, 4 parts in three four- and one two-part sub-serials, Marinus has six parts to tell five stories. Now, there's not actually much story going on in each location.

Arbitan's lair and the first key take up one episode, and the story here boils down to 'Arrive, explore, oh no! Acid lake, get trapped, gain Arbitan's trust, refuse to find remaining keys, return to TARDIS, oh no! Forcefield, return to Arbitan, leave to find keys, oh no! Arbitan's dead'. Five of these are completely useless, especially given as they can alter the destination along the path the bracelets are set for, and Arbitan must have released the TARDIS immediately. The fifth one, 'Arbitan's dead', is pointless because a later plot point is 'Oh no! Arbitan's dead'. Now, some would say that obviously it needed to be repeated five weeks after it happened because audiences might not remember. I would argue that it didn't need to happen here.

Why am I diving into this episode? Because aside from the final two, it's the best paced, in part because this key isn't one that needs to be found. There are one too many keys in this story, and the Cling Film Ice Caves (hey, that's a compliment, it's amazing that they managed to build ice caves on a low budget, and visually they work great! Audibly, however...) have a key that's superfluous to the story.

There should be four keys, one with Arbitan, one in the city with his daughter and her boyfriend, who haven't gone on because they were mind controlled by some brains in jars. One in the jungle (or the ice caves, I prefer the ice caves) with a decoy key, and then one that Altos's friend was going to steal and where Ian is framed for murder. Then the middle two stories would have the time to be properly fleshed out with ideas from whichever is dropped (screaming jungle, please) used to give more substance to the plots in each remaining location.

Now, that tackles the rushed-ness. Onto the dragging.

What the characters have to do in each setting does not fill 25 minutes, and the remaining time is padded out. It's not the most obvious padding in Doctor Who history (hello, Four and Romana walking around Paris, hello, two minutes of beach before The Leisure hive starts, hello, The Mind Robber Part 1), but it's there. Unfortunately, this means that some scenes drag on just a little too long, resulting in really weird pacing.

Ultimately, it's a good idea, with poor execution.

Doctor Who does a bottle episode for the first of (as of 2025) 8 times in the franchise's history. And it's pretty good!

OK, it's not perfect. I don't know what they were thinking with Susan and the scissors, and there's a bit where William Russell seems to be over-acting. But the story itself is fascinating and tightly written. No capture-release cycle here!

It also provides some character development for The Doctor, and his conversation with Barbara near the end of the episode is quite touching. I also find his first line interesting. In the first episode, he says that he and Susan will one day return home. Here, he admits that he can't, but only whilst half-unconscious and not to Susan, but to Ian and Barbara. It's my belief that he's protecting her from the truth, something we know he does as later in the story, he tells her and Barbara that they have ten minutes to live, but admits to Ian that it's five. He thinks he knows there's no way to survive, but wants them to die before they know it's happening.

I can also see, looking at this and the other rare Classic two-parters, why RTD chose a 45-minute format, with occasional two-part story, for the revival. The pacing of this story, which must be close to that runtime with the first closing, second opening, and recap cut off, is much tighter compared to most Classic stories, but never feels rushed.

This is a good first story for the decades collection. A young boy starts having dreams about the Doctor's adventures with his companions after an incident with the TARDIS. We basically see someone 'watch' the first two Doctor's on a 'television' inside his mind, and save the day because of it. Gerry gaining knowledge of science and history through his experiences with the Doctor is a nice reminder of the show's roots as an edutainment show, supposed to teach kids about science and history.

For an episode penned by children (to an extent at least), this is perfectly good. 'You went a bit ood- I mean you went a bit odd' is just a repetition of similar odd/ood jokes that have been made before, but that doesn't make it not funny.

Woo! Steven Moffat proving once again that he's a fantastic Doctor Who writer! I absolutely loved that this is a bottle episode in the open air. The tension grows and grows via events around the Doctor, causing him to decrease the amount of time left on the landmine. TV Who acknowledging that Time Lords are higher-dimensional beings is also a treat, and it's nice to see the Anglican Marines again.

Seriously, I love this episode... Aside from the flaws. Yes, this is another review on something I like in which I'll spend most of it talking about what prevented me from giving it a higher rating.

Firstly, the casting department screwed up. Splice is played and written as if she is a younger character than the child we see on screen, which is quite jarring. Someone half her age would have done perfectly.

There's also the commentary on religion and belief. Now, I have my beliefs, and I understand that not everyone has those same beliefs, or any. What I don't like is positions which are against religion. Atheism is fine, anti-theism is not. But I would have found it easier to understand, especially as the episode is in the context of a war, if Moffat and the Doctor's opinion on religion if the episode had stuck to it. If you're gonna do a 'religion bad' episode, don't end it with 'Well, religion is bad, but you need it'. Who is this episode for? Most of the world's religions do not say that other people need to follow the religion, and of those that do, most who follow those religions don't recognise this part of them, at least in my experience. And I know nobody who both believes that religion is bad and that people should still be religious.

How not to start off a series - a guide.

Doctor Who has plenty of episodes with a tone similar to Space Babies. The Slitheen two-parter, Aliens of London/World War Three, springs to mind. As does Love and Monsters. One of those is a masterpiece that I would recommend gladly, the other lands about as badly as this one does.

Firstly, I don't think they should be babies. Babies, including physically infants with the brains of six-year-olds, would not be able to survive and do what they do in this episode, I'm sorry. Space Kids would also solve the awful CGI mouth issues by having actual six-year-old child actors as both the bodies and voices of the characters. You could spend that Disney money on a Beatles' song for the next, possibly meant to be later in the series, episode. Secondly, what's with the repeated title drops? Especially the times when the Doctor says 'Babies - Space Babies'. Even writing that out, I had to roll my eyes.

I mentioned AoL/WW3 earlier, and I feel like this is actually RTD going 'Oh, a child-aimed episode worked out well in 2005. So did taking the companion to the far future to show her space the first time' and mashing together AoL/WW3 and The End of the World in a big way... Mess.

Saving the Bogeyman is also something that just doesn't make sense. It's made of bogeys and animated by a computer. It's not alive. It's snot being piloted by a machine. And why does it turn into a werewolf at the end? Actually, why are there so many jokes about bodily fluids? This is as juvenile as Torchwood series 1, just about different, kid-friendly fluids. To quote Sixie, 'yuck!'

Also, why do the babies suddenly care for the Bogeyman, they were scared of it earlier.

No wonder the viewing figures went down, all that new audience RTD wanted to bring in, hence restarting the series numbering, probably saw this juvenile drivel, went 'Oh. I guess Doctor Who isn't for me' and turned off.

AoL/WW3 worked because the fart jokes were in moderation, and the story has both a light-hearted, child aimed surface and dark undercurrent (which becomes more apparent in part 2). Additionally, time is wasted setting up a mystery that isn't a mystery, with the Doctor's memory of the night of Ruby's birth changing. From a post-Empire of Death perspective, this ruins one of the few interesting scenes from my first watch of the episode. Don't worry, there's no mystery here, she was just pointing at something that doesn't exist because she was naming her daughter.

There was good political commentary in one of the other intriguing scenes, when Ruby and Jocelyn talk about societies that force babies to be born but don't want to look after them once they exist. No matter your personal opinions on abortion, other people need to be free to make their own choices. But that's about it. I mean, there was a funny joke about the butterfly effect, and some of the Doctor's info dump about Time Lords and TARDISes and everything was good (though I don't think it should have all been in one scene)... But yeah. I don't particularly want to go sifting through s**t for less nuggets of gold than I can count on the fingers of one hand. Especially when one turns out to be more s**t.

Oh, no.

After the excellent first part, The Legend of Ruby Sunday, this was extremely disappointing. Firstly, I feel that if the whole universe was going to be wiped out, this should have been the cliffhanger. Not only did having this in the opening of the second half mean that there was no real impact (seeing the extent of it, it was obviously going to be reversed, so having it as the cliffhanger would add a 'how is the Doctor going to resolve this?' pull to watch part 2), but it would actually provide new viewers, or more casual fans, with context as to who Sutekh is. I was enticed by Sutekh, being a massive Doctor Who fan. I saw many fans who haven't seen Classic Who, which, may I remind you is the majority of the fan base, react confused because... Who? What? Even casual fans (who are, in my experience, more likely to also be Classic fans), were confused, because not everyone remembers every villain from every story. Especially if they've seen them once or twice.

Secondly, the episode feels like a first draft. Sutekh's been there all the time, creating Susan Twists? Oh, please, this didn't work with Clara, and it's not going to start now. Not to mention, there was a glaringly obvious point at which Sutekh could get attached to the TARDIS - At the edge of the universe when Fourteen sprinkled the salt. Rubies birth mum was pointing at a sign? The sign wasn't there. Nor was the post. And finally, why the heck does the god of death need to know who a woman is? Russell, do another draft, please.

I can't understand the perspective of someone who was adopted or fostered, but it felt kinda strange having Ruby, who, whilst finding knowing who her mum was important, had previously been shown to consider Carla her 'real' mum (see the end of Space Babies), suddenly seem to consider her birth mum her real mum. Also, why is a teenage mum in the early 2000s wearing a medieval cloak? I know RTD said that it's because it brings mystery or something to that effect, but mysteries need to be satisfyingly resolved, even if they are bait-and-switches, on rewatch you should be able to go 'Oh, I see where that was going now!'

Something else that kinda rubbed me up the wrong way was the line about the Osirans culturally appropriating Egyptian culture. There's no denying that the creation of the Osirans was... Not great, given that it falls into the trope of white westerners going 'Oh, these foreign gods are really aliens', but we already know that they weren't basing their culture on Egypt, Egyptians worshipped them as gods. That ship has sailed, and Russell, you didn't need to choose to bring them back, if you felt that strongly about it. It worked with the Toymaker because the character plays games, playing around as negative aspects drawn from humanity, like racism, makes sense. It didn't work here.

Unfortunately, I'm kind of expecting that sort of thing throughout RTD2. This is the third time this has happened, actually, what with RTD stating that he doesn't think Davros should be shown post-accident any more, to the great annoyance of a lot of disabled people, myself included. What's the next villain going to be? Weng-Chiang, but the Doctor shakes his head and says, 'That's racist'? You want to fight racism in Doctor Who? How about you diversify the writer's room?

There were some good bits. Mel on the Vespa, the memory TARDIS... I would say the continued set up for a mystery in the next series with Mrs Flood, but Russell has since said that she just does that, and it won't be answered, so that's just a waste of time. Her scenes are only minutes at most, but that time could be spent on fleshing out the important characters. Compare the characterisation and development between this and Eccleston's series. We don't know these characters half as much as we did Rose, Jackie, and Mickey. And 13/2 is less than 9.

Very disappointing.

I actually quite like An Unearthly Child, the episode, that is. Although I, as someone who started watching in 2005 with Rose, already knew who the Doctor is, and that he lives in a police box that can travel in time and space, but the perspective characters, Ian and Barbara, do not. All they know is that Susan is not a typical human 15-year-old girl. Should they, as teachers, have followed a student home? No. Definitely not. However, as the audience surrogate figures, Ian and Barbara doing so to solve the mystery of the episode (who and what is Susan?) makes sense, and if they hadn't, we wouldn't be here now, would we?

It's episodes 2-4 that bring down my rating for this episode. I think it's nice that the Doctor isn't the character he grows into being, that humanity rubs off on him during his travels, but the story doesn't have enough going for three episodes. A lot of the caveman conversations feel like you're going round in circles, with cavemen repeating what are functionally the same lines, mostly about how either Za cannot make fire or Za will make fire. This isn't surprising when notes for the story state that they originally had less to say, at least in English. Perhaps it would have worked better if they hadn't been speaking in English, as we wouldn't have known that the conversations were so circular.

Another issue I have is with Barbara and Susan. I don't think there's an issue with having a companion who screams a lot, but it becomes a bit of an issue when two of the companions spend a lot of the time screaming or crying. Some of the things that set them off I can understand, Susan panicking when her grandfather is attacked by a caveman, but others seem like Coburn just thought that one of the women needed to scream and then start crying. I guess I can give him some leniency for that, given the time. This is probably also why Barbara collapses into the chair, and Ian to the floor.

Talons could have been a 5-star story, if it wasn't for its fatal flaw.

Ignoring said flaw, Talons is a story about the Doctor and Leela arriving in Victorian London, and ending up caught in the investigations of the murders of several women and a man, with strong supporting casts. It turns out that the enemies of the story have been working for a man from the future, a Time Agent called Greel (I wonder if Time Agents will ever appear again... Maybe one will get a spin off show dedicated to him). There's strong dialogue, a captivating plot, and a hilariously bad rat. An all-time Doctor Who classic, with some wonderful location footage.

I've actually been to the location of the fight between The Doctor/Leela and the four men. It's no longer run-down and is now the entrance to the Clink Museum. Yes, The Doctor and Leela are fighting in front of an abandoned medieval prison.

One scene I find heart-warming is the one with Litefoot and Leela, where he ends up copying her style of eating, munching on a leg of lamb, after she accepts a knife but turns down a fork.

There's also racism.

Except for Magnus Greel, all the serial's enemies are Chinese. And all Chinese characters are enemies. The direct subordinate to Greel is Chang, who is possibly the worst example of yellowface I have ever seen, as you can practically see where John Bennet's face ends and the prosthetics begin. This is even more apparent when side-on, as his face juts out from... Well, his face.

I have no issue with Victorian characters being racist, given the era, but it's rather odd when the Doctor seems to be going along with the racism. This includes, according to other criticisms I have seen, the Doctor speaking nonsense to the Chinese man after saying he speaks Chinese. Google Translate also seems to back this up, by giving up the translation halfway through, and up to then translating it as 'How are you? Nickname iMac or anabatic o mono RA put C' If that's accurate, then no wonder the man gives him a confused, distrustful look.

It would be easy to dismiss this as criticising a 70s story by the standards of today, so I think it's worth noting that the serial was criticised for its racism even when it aired, or didn't air. Canadian broadcaster TVO refused to air the serial in its entirety, after receiving a complaint from the Chinese-Canadian National Council for Equality. This isn't a case of the serial ageing badly due to unfortunate choices.

If you can compartmentalise the racism and the rest of the episode, it is brilliant. If you can't, I really don't think this is an episode you'll enjoy.

I do actually enjoy The Devil's Chord as a fun Doctor Who adventure against an enjoyable one-off villain. If that was all there was to this episode, I would have rated it higher. Unfortunately, it is not.

Firstly, I am a Beatles fan, and the child of a Beatles fan. I remember getting a notification on my phone announcing that one of the new series' episodes was going to be about The Beatles, and excitedly sending it to my dad. I remember watching Russell T Davies talk about how there was a Beatles episode with a battle involving a piano. I remember all the marketing around the episode as 'The Beatles episode'. This is not a Beatles episode. The Beatles do appear in it, as background or minor characters. John and Paul do save the day, but even they are only in four scenes; the recording, the cafeteria, the piano battle (outside the room where the main action is going on), and the musical scene at the end. George and Ringo only appear in three of those, and get even fewer lines. As in, one each, compared to Paul's 10 and John's 5.

Secondly, this episode feels out of place. This is something I started feeling after Ruby says that she's from six months after we last saw the Doctor. This is a feeling which has also been compounded by Boom having Ruby visit her first planet (after over 6 months, and one adventure), and Rogue later having Ruby tell the Doctor 'It snowed when I was born, and we met space babies', with no mention of later adventures. Plus, having The One Who Waits almost be here on the second episode is less appropriate than on the episode before the final. I know that RTD has said that the episode order was not messed with, which, in my opinion, makes this worse.

Thirdly, we once again have other characters put importance on the identity of Ruby's birth mum. I don't like this. If Ruby's mum is supposed to believably be nobody, then Maestro (and Sutekh, as he gets a mention here) should not be finding her so important. Maestro's comments are part of the problem of Russell T Davies making us think Ruby's mum is a significant plot point, not the viewer emphasising with Ruby to make her significant.

Fourthly, as a musician, specifically as a violinist and someone who can read sheet music... AAAAH! There is no way that John and Paul would be able to read those floating notes. Firstly, because none of the Beatles could ever read sheet music, but secondly because there wasn't a floating stave, or a floating clef. Secondly, the chord that banishes Maestro is a C chord, supposedly in reference to the ending from A Day in a Life (an E chord, played by John, Paul, Ringo and George Martin). C chords are played earlier in the episode, too. Why is Maestro still here? They should have been banished already.

Maybe, after time has passed, and we're further from the 'Doctor Who is going to have a Beatles episode' marketing, I will change my rating of this episode and rank it slightly higher. The issue with this story and Rogue feeling like they're in each other's places and Ruby's birth mum being written as so important to the gods of the Whoniverse (side note: I do not like the whole Whoniverse title card things, but am not basing any reviews or ratings on their existence, as they are separate from the episode). And then there's the musical stuff, which is bound to be repeated (anyone else remember Five's perfect fifth?). But right now I'm still a kinda salty Beatles fan.

I love getting to see the TARDIS team relaxing on a holiday. A holiday which very quickly (from our perspective) goes wrong.

Ian and Barbara's domesticity is fun to watch, especially the joke about the fridge.

The Doctor's lyre-playing is a highlight of the episode. Truly cannot believe that William Hartnell was such a skilled musician

I actually think this is one of Hartnell's better stories, with the Doctor getting involved in the action. You can tell by this point that he's starting to transition into a more action-hero character, whereas in An Unearthly Child, Ian takes on this role, whilst the Doctor is portrayed as being a less active character.

Historical accuracy is fair for the time it was written, and the pacing holds up well today.

For a comic relief sketch, it was... Not that funny. Honestly, the only joke I found funny in the whole sketch was David checking his watch before running out.

Still... Could be worse. Got some enjoyment out of it.