Hmmmmm. You are all wrong. This is a brilliant story. Actually - the problem is, you are not all wrong. This is a story with many flaws in it. But I also think that this is a lot better than people give it credit for (you can't seriously tell me that this is worse than The Kings Demon's or The Horns of Nimon or The Happiness Patrol?). Nyki (as always) provides the answer as to why this story is so badly received. No one wants to see their heroes as cowardly bullies. Yet for much of the story that is what Baker would have us believe the Doctor has regenerated in to. He light years away from the pleasant, gentle portrayal of the Doctor that Davison had provided. But by Episode Four he is back to his imperious best. When portraying anger and for the sheer radiation of power, you couldn't go far wrong with Colin Baker!
Yet the story isn't a bad one. A rogue time lord trying to save his people by assisting a giant gastropod! What more do you people want!!?
!! Then look at the cast list - yes we might have baulked at the sight of Sinclair ZX Spectrum effects when Womulus and Weemus play equations but what a guest cast. Maurice Denham? Kevin McNally? Edwin Richfield? That bloke off Genesis of the Daleks? That woman who says "May my bones rot" - It was a brilliant supporting cast!
As Peri-Peri has put in another post, this story comes hot on the heels of one of (if not the
actual) greatest Doctor Who adventures of either the classic or new genre. Any episode would suffer by comparison to the Caves of Androzani. Additionally, much of the perception is coloured by that fact that this was placed not, as is traditional, at the beginning of a run of stories, but right at the end of the season. So we had a long time to contemplate the awfulness of the Doctor in this episode without seeing any of his brilliance that we would witness in Attack of the Cybermen or Vengeance on Varos.
In the case of this story, love is blind. I am not ignorant to the weaknesses of the stories, I just don't care about them. This is a story of change, of the shock that companions and the audience alike must feel when their beloved hero regenerates. It was poorly funded (the budget clearly having been spent in Androzani), the script was lumpy for lots of the show and the decision to have the Doctor as a cowardly bully for so long throughout the story (and at the end of the season) was badly misjudged. So yes, they got some things wrong (i.e. most of the science) but they also had some moments of brilliance (the escape from the self destructing base, the banter between Lang, the Doctor and Peri, the concept of mathematical twins, the fact that for all of the summer of 1984 I could phone up my best friend and go "Eddddgewoooorth" a la Mestor!).
I gave it 5 - and not to be different but just because I am so very fond of this deeply unloved and misunderstood story.
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