The Time Meddler is just a really strong story. The side characters (well, one of them, Edith), are well done, the sets are really good, and the main cast is stellar. It's also a fascinating story in terms of establishing Doctor Who lore - we learn for the first time that the Doctor is, in fact, alien, and from the same place as the Monk, and we even learn that the Doctor's fancy TARDIS isn't all that.

Speaking of the Monk - absolute highlight of the story. He plays off the Doctor really well, offering an opposing but nevertheless similar character. What a guy

Coldheart is an enjoyable enough adventure story with some fun squashy body horror and a really good dynamic between the Doctor, Fitz, and Compassion. Trevor Baxendale is one of the few authors who can write Fitz in a way that doesn't drive me up the wall, and Compassion finally gets some actual plot time and character developments

I just wish there had been more then two (2) female characters, one of who is a slave who never talks and dies horribly.

Kind of insane to be stuck back in the 1940s, meet the guy who's name you stole after he died, and then proceed to make out with him on his last day alive

Combat is like someone read Fight Club and went Wait... I can do that with my characters! It wasn't necessarily badly done, but I couldn't help making comparisons to Fight Club the whole way through, and Combat just isn't as good. Also, I really don't care about the Weevils

The Chase is just a lot of fun

I think Vicki really gets a chance to shine here, so does William Hartnell as his evil robot self. I'll miss Barbara and Ian, but their departure was really well done

Sometime you die in the arms of the monster you created, knowing you'll never be rid of each other no matter if you try, driven mad by it. Sometimes said monster is currently in the form of a sentient tanning bed.

Sorry you people can't appreciate camp

There is half a good story here, split into one and a half thirds.

1/3 - Jack Harkness and John Ellis' plot was really good. The scene with John and his aged son was incredible, and the scene with the two of them in the car was very strong.

0.5/3 - Gwen and Emma's story was pretty good, but didn't quite seem to fit together as well as Jack and John. It had its moments, both positive and negative

0/3 - Owen and Diane. I don't care about Owen Harper.

Starts out strongly, and there remains some good parts, but ultimately this serial ends up meandering a little. I like the idea of it though, more than perhaps the execution

Like, it's fine, I guess, but really Random Shoes is a nothing of an episode. I get the point made but I truly didn't give one about the character making the point

I LOVE DOOMED YURI

They Keep Killing Suzie doesn't take itself too seriously and that works in its favour I think. Very few things can pull off an episode whose central conceit is "woman drugged some guy so that when she died (killed herself) eventually the team would be forced to bring her back to life" but Torchwood managed it, more or less. I had fun at least

I'm not particular a pure historicals fan, so that does colour my judgement somewhat. Still, though, The Crusades was pretty good! The Doctor has become less of a moral paragon briefly, Vicki gets some time to not just be Susan The Second, and I did enjoy how floridily everyone spoke

There is, of course, the racism - a white man in brownface plays Saladin and many of the side Muslim characters are stereotypes. Still, though, it's notable that the story puts Saladin in a much more positive light than the Christian Richard

Just as fun as the original episode we are SO back

The core conceit of this plot is the predatort lesbian trope, and that's not helped by the transphobic joke that comes from out of nowhere.

Unfortunately I do like gay characters with problems. Lesbian situationship so bad one of you has to get forcefully teleported into a star

Scooby Doo taught me that the real monsters were people....

No but seriously, Countrycide is good. The gang get dropped in a slasher for an episode and it goes just as well as you'd think. It was tense and horrific and so an excellent watch a few days out from Halloween

Bit slow at times, and let down by the atrocious CGI, but all in all a solid fairy story that felt more Doctor Who than Torchwood. I liked the exploration we got of Jack's character a bit more

The Web Planet is a serial that doesn't bother with little things like "plot" or "identifiable side characters". It could stand as a psychedelic film alongside the likes of Head (1968) were it not for the fact that the Doctor and his gang keep showing up

One thing The Romans does really well is character work. The main cast are fantastic, and even the side characters get their moments. It's also just really good fun to watch

I really like Vicki :]

Really putting the "series" in "serial" with this one. The Dalek Invasion of Earth was less a story and more a sequence of plot point set in a common location. The characters went to a place, did a thing, then moved on again. Not a bad way of doing things, but not necessarily a compelling one.

It was a very post-WWII work of fiction, a lot like Day of the Triffids if you've ever read that

What gets me is that this had all the trappings of a good episode - the relationships between Ianto and Jack and Ianto and Lisa were highlights. Unfortunately, the rest of the episode. The Cyberwoman costume is, of course, horrific, the dehumanisation done to Torchwood's first black character is bad, and whatever the hell that scene in the cupboard(?) with Owen and Gwen was also bad. But there could have been something good there

I actually enjoyed this! Doctor Who and Spinoffs can usually do one thing well, and that's a ghost story. Owen even approaches something that might be character development

Sex gas episode. What more is there to say?

A solid introduction to be fair! I like Gwen, and the series begins as it means to go on, apparently, with Jack able to taste oestrogen in the rain and commenting on how at least he can't get pregnant again. Wild ride for sure

I love oversized props I love silly back projections

Liked the ideas in this one more than the execution. Shout out to what I can only describe as an EightTARDIS sex scene

I think I'm just not a fan of pure historicals, but also Susan didn't get much (or, anything) to do in this one, the plot was a lot of travelling between locations, and all the side characters looked the same. At least the Doctor got a fancy outfit

I liked that Susan got her chance to shine! I also liked the finale, where Ian is glad the spaceship knows where it's going, and the Doctor, immediately on the defensive, goes for a Tumblr-style "okay, you know what? Fuck this. Fuck you. I'm abandoning you at the next planet we come to" approach

The pacing is solid and I like that Barbara gets her chance to be the focus of a serial, but the plot is steeped in 60s white-saviourism. It's written by someone who I think did want to represent the Aztecs well and had a lot of respect for (or at least interest in) the culture, but it's overshadowed by the message being "these people will always be bloodthirsty savages and you can't change that"

It's like they put the Crystal Maze into Doctor Who. Go to a new themed zone, find the key, escape, and then repeat ad infinitum. Enjoyable enough, although I don't think the death scenes were supposed to be as funny as I found them

I love post-modern literature

There are two major things dragging Marco Polo down and that's the racism and the fact that it really didn't need to be seven parts long. The events of this serial happen over a fairly long time period, making each episode almost its own separate little story on the same theme, but unfortunately that theme is ""Let's get to the TARDIS and get out of here!", "Oh no! Marco Polo isn't letting us get to the TARDIS!"" repeated multiple times

The Edge of Destruction is like the Platonic ideal of a one-off Doctor Who story. It's spooky, well paced, and tense. I enjoy how we get to see the characters in such an unfamiliar environment (because even an alien planet can be rationalised, but something in your mind onboard a time travelling spaceship is much harder to brush off). We also get to see the writers understand what will be the appeal of the TARDIS, it's not just a spaceship, she's a plot point and arguably character in her own right

Strong start in parts 1 and 2 but my god this did not need to be 7 episodes long

THE HOUSE IS ALIVE AND IT IS ANGRY

The first episode of this serial is a wonderful start to what will eventually be the Everything that Doctor Who will become. It's a wonderful introduction to the Doctor, a crotchety old man living a police box bigger on the inside who's not above a bit of kidnapping, and of course Susan, the most autistic 15 year old you ever did see.

The rest of it begins another part of Doctor Who history, namely, "yknow... Doctor Who isn't as good now as it was before".

Caveman politicking. Not my thing

The Ultimate Foe feels like they took the Toymaker plot line that never was (after they nearly cancelled Doctor Who) and gave it to the Valeyard. The Evil Court Room GuyTM all of a sudden becomes this joker figure with circus music and echoing laughter. It's an odd move that doesn't really work.

Also, somehow they managed to fridge Peri and shove her in a random marriage, in that order. Almost impressive, if it didn't wind me up so much

Mindwarp had the potential to be so much better were it not for the whole. Well. Everything about the production of s23

The Doctor not knowing if the Matrix had been edited or if he simply forgot his cruelty was a good idea! Peri's death was a good idea! The Doctor having to face consequences of his actions was a good idea!

Ah well. At least Brian Blessed seemed to be having fun

The "story" part - ie not the trial - of the Mysterious Planet is Doctor Who at its most average. There's chase scenes down corridors, big robots, and side characters in silly outfits. Whilst I wouldn't go as far as to say they've figure out how to write Peri, someone has realised that audiences prefer it when their two main characters seem to like each other, which is a very nice change from s22.

The trial section is more fun, with the Valeyard, Inquisitor, and Doctor all playing off each other. It's not, like, groundbreaking television, but it is such a welcome change to have a Sixth Doctor serial (or part of one) that could reasonably be called "enjoyable"

Revelation of the Daleks isn't bad per se, but it doesn't really achieve anything it sets out to do.

Once again I found myself enjoying the side characters more than the Doctor and Peri (whoever decided to write the opening and make nk fewer than two comment on her weight I hope all your manuscripts get eaten by maggots). The two bounty hunters were fun, and Kara and her secretary were a delightful double act

The thing is this is not a good Dalek story. It's hard to do a good Dalek story, because they're a mostly one-note enemy that got famous amd popular and thus overused, but it's possible! The writer here didn't manage it. They remain a one-note enemy whose appearance could have been replaced with any suitably evil alien

All in all, a breath of fresh air after Timelash. Unfortunately, that's like moving to Mars because Pluto was too chilly

Oh but it's fun

Richard E Grant's Doctor was a delightful blend of mysteriously gothic and also deeply silly. Alison I also loved dearly, and I think she played well off the Doctor. The Master was fun, the Shalka even looked pretty cool despite the animation* and the awful sound effects

*I will accept it has a certain nostalgic charm but that does come about from it being A Little Bit Shite

Bad 👍

I'm glad Patrick Troughton seemed to have fun doing this because I wasn't having fun watching it

There's a lot wrong with this serial starting primarily with the eugenics. Chessene is "fixed" - unlike others of her species she isn't violent, nor does she eat meat - which is initally presented as a good thing. Isn't it just great that we can take this awful beasts and make them functioning members of society (and also make them conventionally attractive too), the Two Doctors seems to say. This position is reversed by the end, finishing on a note of isn't it awful how some species are uniformly Bad and Evil and any attempt to change that is misguided at best, which isn't an improvement even a little bit

I also didn't like how they treated Peri (but then again, when do I ever. JNT be normal challenge failed miserable) nor Jamie (don't? make someone with an English accent insult the way he speaks?)

All in all, boring, long, and bad

God forbid women do anything

Okay I cannot in honesty say this is a good story but I did enjoy it, particularly the first part. The Rani makes an excellent addition to the Doctor+Master dynamic and she might even come back one of these days

An odd one, for sure. The start is quite fun, because the Doctor doesn't actually show up for ages, and the world created is pretty interesting. Then you start thinking about it a bit more and find yourself thinking "...sometimes this serial veers very close to saying Democracy Bad"

EVERYBODY SAY THANK YOU KATE ORMAN AND JONATHAN BLUM

Attack of the Cybermen is a perfectly fine Cyberman story that doesn't necessarily do anything showstopping-ly, but doesn’t fail egregiously either. The costumes could have done with more (or... any) budget, but the half-converted human was a fun touch. The side characters were a bit forgettable but I liked the Doctor making mistakes and suffering the consequences of his actions. Peri even gets a normal costume in part 2, which is a sign that the bar is on the floor

The Twin Dilemma has it all and I do not mean that in a positive way. A plot I really didn't care for. Side characters who I entirely forgot about. A dynamic between Peri and the Doctor that was genuinely uncomfortable to watch (not helped by knowing about JNT's creation of Peri, nor about Nicola Bryant's time on set). A really, really weird ending line which felt like the writers turning to the viewers and flipping them off.

All in all! Pretty bad!

Whilst I will admit to being biased - Dragonfire was my first Classic Who story - this is a really good end to the series. The writers have finally figured out the Seventh Doctor's character, we get the introduction of Ace, who I love dearly, and even if Mel's departure comes from out of the blue her + the Doctor's goodbye scene is very well done. (Kane's head melting was also a lot of fun)

A deeply silly serial of a deeply silly show

Paradise Towers has an average of 3.44 stars out of 5 because some people have no appreciation for camp. Yes, the central antagonist is a bit weak, yes the evil monsters aren't all that threatening, yes absolutely everybody is hamming it up with their acting, that's part of the joy of Paradise Towers. I enjoy the world created and the people in it, the Seventh Doctor as a character is finding his feet after a rocky start in Time and the Rani, but more than anything?, this is just an immensely fun serial

Apparently when writing on this script began, the writers had no script editor, no idea who would be playing the Doctor at the time, and no idea how he would be characterised, and it shows. A nothing of a script, let down by how I had to stop every so often to point out #notMYseventhdoctor

One quite good goodbye speech at the end, this serial is a bit of a flop. The story doesn't quite mesh together, the tensions never seem as high as the plot wants them to be, and it's definitely not helped by the yellowface and ableism.

A shame this, of all his stories, was Pertwee's last serial

A win for feminism, miners' rights, and the space European Union, but ultimately not enough Alpha Centauri

Death to the Daleks gets its 2.5 stars generously rounded up to 3, because the idea of a living city as seen in the final part was fun! I liked the eerie antibodies, I liked it screaming in pain, the puzzles were far too easy to warrant the drama given to them but I guess you can't have it all.

The rest of the serial was. not good. It wasn't even bad it was worse than that: it was boring. The human crew only really got interesting near the end, the way the indigenous species of the planet was treated was bad, and the Daleks could have been any other villain and it would have worked the same. I've previously said that everyone thinks they can write a Dalek story and few people actually can, and this was an example of that

The Daleks having a little TARDIS they use as target practise was an inspired choice though, fair play

Lot of reviews criticising the appearances of the dinosaurs in this serial. Frankly, I think everyone needs to let go of ideas like "good special effects" and "scientific accuracy" and have some fun.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs has an excellent plot, a good point it's making, a great supporting cast, and strong performances from the main characters. It's a shame how the cliffhangers frequently depend upon the ugliest looking dinosaur models you've ever seen in your life, but I was nevertheless deeply endeared to said beasts. Let the dinosaurs into your heart and you'll have a blast with this one

An awful lot of odd plot points (who the hell points at a sign like that), weird lines (why are we stressing this person is her """real""" mother over Carla, biological family isn't everything), and emotional beats that didn't quite hit (why is Kate a poet now, and also clearly she wasn't going to stay dead as soon as the sand started taking out everyone), which nevertheless didn't stop me from having a pretty fun time. The parts with the Memory TARDIS and also   Mrs Flood at the end were for sure the best

I just wish we'd had more time. I think things would have worked out better if we had more than only 8 episodes

The Green Death is one of those episodes everyone is right about when they say how good it is. BOSS was fun, the maggots actually looked really good, the ending was heartbreaking, the neon green slime was silly. What more do you need from Doctor Who

I know why they brought Sutekh back, it's because RTD is apparently a huge Pyaramids of Mars fan and always wanted to do a sequel to it. Outside of that though, the main question The Legend of Ruby Sunday left me with was Why on Earth did they bring Sutekh back?? It seems such a specific choice to bring back This One Guy instead of another death god or even a new one.

I thought the episode was a good first half of a finale, there was pretty good build-up, but for me the big twist reveal got let down by the utter bafflement of What the f**k is he doing here

Everybody say thank you Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Little bit dull, if I have to be honest. The Doctor had a pretty decent speech in part 6, and I enjoyed the scene with the very-clearly-miniature model Daleks but ultimately not enough plot to fill 6 parts

Possibly the problem is on me for expecting 90s sci-fi to be normal about either women or disabled people.

There were some good moments, but enough bad ones for my 3-star "pretty good with a weak plot resolution" rating to get knocked down to a 2-star "Jesus Christ, man".

Rogue did nothing much new for a Doctor Who story (compare it to something this series like The Devil's Chord or 73 Yards), but that doesn't mean it didn't do it well. I had an absolute blast watching it, Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson were brilliant as ever, and the character Rogue was wonderful. All around great fun

I think RTD has finally learnt what racism is

Dot and Bubble left a few unanswered questions: what happened to Homeworld? What's the deal with the slugs? What's the deal with the Dot?, but I'm almost prepared to argue that was the point. Lindy Pepper-Bean is an almost Sally Sparrow like character, she's under attack from creatures she can't begin to understand, and she has to learn to trust the Doctor and Ruby through the screen as they help her survive and figure out what's going on.

Except, it doesn't go like that. Lindy doesn't trust the Doctor, because he's Black. She lets another character die because she believes she deserves to live more than him. She and the rest of her young, rich, white-supremacist society go to  try colonise the planet they're on in a move that will almost certainly lead to death.

It's almost a deconstruction of how we expect this kind of Doctor Who episode to go, and fascinating because of it. I just really wish there were any Black people on the writing team

"This story was carried by the main characters" is an odd thing to say, given how stories work, but there is a reason I enjoyed Frontier in Space and it wasn't the plot (anti-war storyline started strong and weakened with each episode), the side characters (forgettable), or the aliens (very racialised in design, most obvious with the Ogrons, who are a few small steps removed from blackface, but also with the Orientalism in the Draconians)

It's a shame this was Delgado's last story. Obviously, they couldn't have known he was going to die, and fair play the interactions between the Master, the Doctor, and Jo really make this serial, but it's a but of a flop to end in

Carnival of Monsters has fun set pieces, delightful costumes, and a pretty solid plot. It's not life-changingly good but not everything has to be.

I liked it :]

73 Yards is, I think, going to be one of the episodes regarded up there with Caves of Androzani, Blink, and Heaven Sent. What an episode

Now I like it when horror (because I feel confident in saying 73 Yards was horror) doesn't explain everything; you can have a coherent plot without needing to explain every last mystery, right? And 73 Yards didn't! It's a ghost story and a fairytale both, about making mistakes and the fear of abandonment and someone on tbe production team who thought they could get away with call a 19-year-old in glasses and a wig 40

Fair play to the BBC: they decided to celebrate 10 years of Doctor Who with a story bringing all three actors who'd played the Doctor together for the first time, and they knocked it straight out the park

The plot is compelling, Omega makes for a great antagonist, and the interactions between the Second and Third Doctors are wonderful to behold. All around banger serial

Boom is a very Moffat episode, for better or for worse.

Sometimes, it must be said, for the worse - there were a few times you could have swapped Ruby out for Clara or Amy and would've gotten the same outcome. There was also a few too many concepts and metaphors packed into one episode,  it'd've been nice to get rid of some to let the others breathe

But GOD did it give me brain bees. The concept was fascinating, the execution was mostly very good, and Ncuti Gatwa was incredible. It was tense it was emotional it was a damn good episode

The Time Monster suffers from a sudden tonal shift a little over halfway through, side characters that seem like parodies of themselves, and a meandering plot

But by god it's fun

I liked everyone having to say TOMTIT with a straight face. I enjoyed side character scientists Feminist and her assistant Gay Man. "Male and female are just shapes" non-binary Kronos was an inspired choice. And, let us not forget the two best lines in all of Doctor Who appear in this serial: The Master's "I'm sorry about your coccyx too, Miss Grant." and Jo's "I'm fine! Dead, of course, but I'm fine."

The Mutants has it all: a surpringly well-done anti-colonial and anti-racist story for 70s Doctor Who, good pacing for a 6-parter, and perhaps most importantly the Third Doctor in shirtsleeves

CAMP

Oh but The Devil's Chord was fun. Jinkx Monsoon absolutely killed it as the Maestro, what a character! I really loved the storytelling theme we seem to be picking up this series, with the fourth-wall breaks, the Maestro playing the show theme on piano, and the Doctor being able to hear the soundtrack. The musical number, much like in Church on Ruby Road, sucked, but by god was it fun

I only wish we maybe toned down the soundtrack a bit. It could have been fun, when Maestro had stolen the music, to not have any backing music either! But this is Murray Gold we're talking about, and whilst I fully agree the guy knows how to make good music, he doesn't know when to stop making it

Space Babies has got all the marks of a classic Doctor Who episode (classic as in notable, not classic as in Classic Who), and by that I mean a political metaphor so obvious you could close your eyes and still see it, the old "that's not a proper conversation that's just exposition", a deeply silly plot resolution, and of course, some incredible character work for both the Doctor and Ruby.

The plot was. fine? Pretty solid, nothing all that special imo, but where this episode shone was Ncuti Gatwa really being able to show what kind of a Doctor he's going to play, and how he acted alongside Millie Gibson as Ruby. God I love them

Sometimes in Classic Who you find the longer serials (or to be fair, any serials) don't have enough plot to fill their time. I'm so glad The Sea Devils is not one of those

I liked the plot and the acting, the Sea Devil costumes are charming, and the location filming was enthralling (shout out to the sea <3). The Doctor had a sword fight with the Master, stole his sandwich, and then stole Jo's sandwich too. What more do you want from Doctor Who

To ask "is The Curse of Peladon good?" is the wrong question, although yes, it was. The more important question is "did I enjoy The Curse of Peladon?", to which the answer is Yes, immensely.

I cannot overstate how thoroughly enamoured I am with the Delegate from Alpha Centauri

The extent to which the Fifth Doctor benefits from recency bias is bonkers in all honesty.

Let me go back a bit: The Caves of Androzani is almost exactly as good as everyone says it is. The plot is good, the characters are good, I actually do like that one guy's asides made direct to the camera, it's good television

And as a side-effect, when I think of Five's run, I remember this one stronger than the others, which yknow, fair play. It's good

It is very easy to write a mediocre Dalek story and very, Very hard to write a good one.

Rob Shearman has gone and written one hell of a Dalek story. It pokes fun at anniversary episodes. It takes on the meta quality that Daleks have - the idea that as recurring villains they can't ever win. It has a good enough plot I can even forgive Big Finish for making me listen to Dalek sounds for about 2 hours