This is a good episode with a nice balance of silly and intense moments. I'm pretty sure it's the first appearance of a clear precursor to the mind probe. I appreciate that among the (human) bad guys, morality is less clear than it seems at first—as is blame. Jo's innocent belief that anyone who treats her well must be in the right is sweet and believable. The Doctor's implied-torture scene is excellent. The timing of cut-aways is used to great effect. Yates and Benton are fantastic. There are great silly moments, like Ogrons chasing a fourwheeler, interspersed with more serious and intense ones. All around, a solid and enjoyable episode with good pacing.

One of my all-time favorite episodes! First off, it's hilarious that it managed to accidentally be one of the best anti-capitalist episodes in a show full of purposeful anti-capitalist episodes. It's meant to be anti-tax, but the way taxes are treated is more just using a different word for fees and the cost of living. The biggest problem is exploitation by the company that runs the planet, has a monopoly on goods and jobs, and pumps the air full of drugs to keep the populace nervous and easily exploited. At one point they actually explicitly go on strike.

Leela gets a chance to be a leader in her own right, which I always appreciate, and there are some excellent moments with her and K-9. It's also funny to see that the company is aware of the Time Lords but remains unconcerned about them because they aren't monetarily exploitable.

This is such a good episode for the Doctor being autistic! And for building the fam’s relationship! It’s generally sweet and wholesome and I really enjoyed it.

My only real issue is that there’s no wrap up about Robertson, either making a Thing about his escape or giving him some justice for what he did. They just kind of stop the spiders and move on.

The thing is that this is not a middling story. I just can’t decide if I love it or hate it.

The plot itself is all over the place and hard to follow. I don’t care much for Alice in Wonderland themes, or some of the implications of the story, or its treatment of Leela. Charley is cool but I have a few issues with her. And it relies heavily on recognizing voices, which is not my strong suit.

But oh my Rassilon, the lore. There is SO much here about Gallifrey’s history, and Rassilon, and that bit is great. It also has some fantastic Doctor moments and did give us Romana writing fanfiction.

So basically, this three stars is me giving it both 1 and 5 stars simultaneously.

There are some fantastic moments in this serial. The checkers scene where both the Doctor and Jo shush the Master, the moment when the Master panics because he thinks he killed the Doctor for real, Jo getting to be brave and clever in her own right, the overacted fight scenes are fun, and both Benton and Yates are great.

However. The plot has FAR too many aspects so that they all sort of get lost: the dangerous effects of the machine, the hostage situation in the prison, the peace conference being hijacked by a hypnotized Chin Lee (who also doesn't get enough on-screen time post hypnosis), the stolen missile used to threaten a third world war, and Barnham wandering around all innocent because he no longer has his evil impulses. It's just too much, making it almost easy to miss that some of it doesn't make sense: the machine takes out "evil impulses" but then the mind grown from that causes people to see their worst fear and then, somehow, literally die from that fear (not the fear itself but whatever is the cause of the fear, ie actually drowning). At first it seems the evil impulses have just imbued the machine with sentience, but then it turns out that somehow a nearly-impossible-to-kill living creature has grown from them. The Master's entire plan is "start a war that decimates the Earth," which on its own would be amusing and I wouldn't mark down, but with everything together it's one more thing that isn't fleshed out.

The story doesn't even have TIME to get into the problematic and eugenicist issues with choosing to (or even having the ability to) remove evil/criminal impulses from a person, beyond a couple throwaway lines at the beginning.

Two built-in AUs in the same three-part story! I love this one even more! It loses half a star for the Doctor being more of a bastard than necessary in testing Bill and then laughing about her terror and hopelessness. But everything else is great! Bill's imaginary friend of a mum saves the world! It's very sweet!

I love this episode! I love the end of the world being not only something other than war, but an accident through a series of small happenings. I love the Generals attempting a peaceful solution to save the world. I love the scene of Bill doing anything to save the Doctor. I love the creepiness of the monks. The solution of love doesn't make a lot of sense, when (1) Bill loves the Doctor, not the monks, and (2) the fear and strategy were also surely bound up with love for their family and world. But that doesn't matter too much when the story is good. My only real issue with it is un-disabling the Doctor before his regeneration.

I love this episode! I am a big fan of shows building in their own AUs, and the thought of people realizing their entire existence is a lie is so delightfully creepy. The Catholic Church isn't my favorite setting for it, but the acting and eeriness make up for it. I also appreciate the Doctor's disability actually disabling him.

I don’t know why so many people don’t like this one; it’s sweet. Tragic but light. I enjoy the focus on characters that aren’t the Doctor or companions. On the way ordinary people’s lives are disrupted. And yeah the monster wasn’t that interesting, but in this case the point of the story was the relationships more than the monster.

Also, the look into Jackie being lonely was nice. I like the thought of her calling Rose about it and Rose insisting they immediately track this guy down.

This episode has a very classic feel, and honestly I think more of Thirteen's era should have been like this. She does best when in filler-type episodes, just running around having adventures with the fam. Though technically the stakes include the entire world, they feel small and localized, which I prefer. I like that the Sea Devils (unfortunately named, but that was established long before this) more or less maintain their classic appearance. The pirates (TWO different eras of Chinese pirates!) are great fun. The entire thing maintains the random yet earnest feel that made classic who so charming, only with impressive special effects.

And, of course, the relationship conversation was expertly handled. The Doctor in an ordinary romance would never have worked, and this was a great way to discuss that.