The 800 Day Project - Day 488 to 495 - The Key Part 2

The Stones of Blood through to The Androids of Tara

Two stories of the search for the Key To Time down, four to go. And after the disappointments of "The Pirate Planet", it looks like we are on an upswing in quality.

Mostly.


The Stones of Blood

For me this story appeared to be a return to the dark gothic feel typical of the Hinchcliffe years, not seen in the show since "Image Of The Fendahl". Stone circles that move and feed on blood. A secret cult in a sleepy English village. A bird-faced witch from the dawn of time. It's all so familiar yet so very welcome and uncharacteristic of most of the Williams years.

The opening episodes have tons of atmosphere and the director makes good use of the classic tropes of the genre. The druidic cult scenes with de Vries and his acolytes have a certain creepiness, and the ravens on the stones and the TARDIS are a nice touch. The climactic scene where Vivien Fay turns out to be the woman in all the paintings is a genuinely great cliffhanger.

The two main female supporting actors are uniformly excellent. The standout is obviously Beatrix Lehman as the engagingly eccentric Professor Amelia Rumford. I love how she readily befriends the Doctor and Romana, taking time lords, robot dogs and alien criminals from pre-history completely in her stride. Susan Engel has a unnerving and somewhat creepy air as the apparently helpful Vivien and then the sinister Cailleach. However once she slaps on the silver war paint, she becomes slightly more uneven - bordering on turning into a cackling pantomime villain. She gets away with it though, portraying an interesting and different foe for the Doctor.

The Ogri are fantastic original monsters, and definitely one of the scarier alien races we've seen, despite being quite basic in concept and execution. The sound design works perfectly - that eerie ominous heartbeat is very unsettling. It works better that the Ogri don't talk and that we don't see what the they do to humans every time they capture them - all we hear are the screams. Having said that, the scene where the two campers are consumed for their blood is just terrifying.

Then suddenly, after several episodes of small-screen Hammer Horror, we have a glaring shift in tone into a brightly lit spaceship for some courtroom drama. Don't get me wrong, I quite like the bio-mechanical Megara and their silly pedantic voices, buzzing around like two hi-tech bumble bees. Tom Baker in a barristers wig making a valiant effort  to burst the bubble of the pompous Justice Machines is definitely worth a chuckle. He also seems to have curbed the worst excesses of his usual attempts to deviate from the script. It's the Doctor using his wits and being clever - and who doesn't like to watch that?

So if I enjoyed it so much, why do I have a minor problem with the last two episodes? Well it's because all of the effective atmosphere, gloom and mystery are lost as soon as the action switches to the ship in hyperspace. If they had only lit it differently - made the ship darker and scarier  - it would have worked so much better. Imagine the Doctor and Romana creeping around a barely visible, apparently derelict, hulk, finding husks of dead creatures in locked rooms and the still disguised robed figure of Cessair of Diplos waiting for them in the shadows. You can still have the Megara and the battle of wills, just frame it differently. I guess that the big contrast is meant to be part of the twist. We begin the adventure with a "Holmes-ian" story about modern-day druids practicing blood rituals and praying to their ancient god, but end with a "Williams-ian" tale of alien war criminals and legal wordplay. The show, as ever, is continuing to change. Drawing on the themes of its past as much as forging a new path into the future. It's different, but still immensely enjoyable.

I still wouldn't want to meet an Ogri on a dark night though...


The Androids Of Tara

This is as different as it's possible to get from the SF / horror hybrid that was the previous story. It's a future tech fairytale of castles and dungeons, imprisoned princesses, dastardly deeds carried out by a boo-hiss villain and a swashbuckling hero riding in to save the day, with the fate on the entire planet in the balance. Not to mention multiple android doubles and mistaken identifies.The obvious influence is, of course, The Prisoner of Zenda, by way of the films of Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, but despite it's pilfered literary roots, it's a story that wins you over with it's sheer charm. Who cares about the search for the Key To Time when an adventure is this much fun? 

The writer obviously thought so too, given the speedy way in which that element of the arc plot is wrapped up. We don't even need a monster to create a threat, but it seems to be the rule that Doctor Who has to have one anyway, so the Taran Wood Beast pops in and out with alarming rapidity. Just as well really as it's about as threatening as a puppy.

As far as the characters go, Peter Jeffrey is wonderful as the scheming Count Grendel. He reminds me of those cads and bounders played by the likes of the late great Terry Thomas.You know, the ones who are insufferably polite and genteel while planning to murder you to achieve their nefarious goals. He almost makes the story worth viewing just by himself and easily steals many of the scenes that he is in, with his wit and that magnificent nose. He's immense fun. It's almost a relief to see him get away at the end with one final acidic put down, and it's a shame that he only seems to have reappeared once since, in an anthology short story where he teams up with the Kandyman !

Elsewhere Lois Baxter gives a nice measured performance as Lamia, the robotics expert in love with the Count (unrequited of course, Grendel can only love one person - himself). She is a tragic figure really, knowing that what she is doing is wrong yet continuing anyway because at least it gets her noticed. Neville Jason manages to imbue Prince Reynart with all the expected qualities of the standard "tediously heroic" figure, although despite his well-intentioned hatred of the evil Count, he seems to be more of a figurehead, as everyone appears to come up with the ideas and fight his battles for him. Of course the key to the show is Mary Tamm, playing no less than four separate roles. It's just about possible to keep track of which one is which, and she makes Romana and Princess Strella distinct enough from each other to make it believable.

It seems to be the case that if Tom Baker likes the script, he'll stick to it or make some real effort with his comic "business". That's clearly what occurred here, because the force of Baker's personality shines through when the Doctor is mocking Grendel and the Taran's pretentiousness. He flings the one-liners around with abandon. It probably helps that in Count Grendel he got a villain that is as good at verbal swordplay as with a blade.  It's one of Baker's best performances of the season.

Finally, it is of course worth mentioning the  marvellous location work at Leeds Castle which add hugely to the atmosphere and the fabulously outrageous costume designs.  As you can probably tell, I love this story. It's difficult to find much wrong with it at all. If the Williams era of the show was meant to be about toning down the violence and upping the humour quotient, then "The Androids Of Tara" is where they got that balance exactly right.

Things can only get better from hereon in. Right?........Right?

The 800 Day Project - Day 480 to 487 - The Key Part 1

The Ribos Operation through to The Pirate Planet

Ah, Season 16. Producer Graham Williams is in the middle of his tenure and it's a more self-assured man with a vision, steering the show in the direction of big ideas, increased humour and references freely cribbed from the pages of literature. Tom Baker is equally confident in his fifth year as the Doctor. Perhaps too confident. There is an notable flippancy in his performance which is starting to grate with me a just a tiny bit.

This is where we are offered a 26 episode epic the likes of which had never been tried before on Doctor Who. Sure, in the early days of William Hartnell we had one story flowing into another on a week-by-week basis, and during the Pertwee era there was the Frontier In Space / Planet Of The Daleks duology (plus the undercurrent of the Doctors attempts to get to Metebelis 3 and the fallout from that) - but this is meant to be something more complex, more ambitious.

The thing is, it's not really. It turns out that the Key to Time MacGuffin is only incidental to most of the plots (except the last story) and there is a lot more fun to be had with the other things the writers have to say.

Unfortunately my plan to cover the whole of Season 16 in one gigantic post has gone awry due to forces beyond my control. Add to that, despite my stated aim to only write short comments on each story, I keep finding things I want to say! So this time round we have...

The Ribos Operation

There's a lot to like about this tale of confidence tricksters trying to sell a planet to a greedy tyrant. It's Robert Holmes doing what he does best - creating a believable world not too distant from our own, a homage to a famous film  (in this case 'The Sting') and likeable double acts delivering sparkling dialogue. Throw in some excellent performances, terrific sets and costume designs and appropriate music from the ever-present Dudley Simpson and you have all the ingredients for a winner. It might be a large scale backstory (the quest for the key, selling planets, a deposed warlord) but it's the small moments with the cast of characters that really make this story shine.

In fact we get three sets of double acts this time round - all in a kind of master / protégé relationship. Firstly there's the Doctor and his new companion Romana, the elegant Time Lady who is the Doctor's intellectual equal. The wonderful Mary Tamm plays her at the start as a slightly aloof and arrogant "ice maiden" who thinks she knows best, and there is some lovely sparring with Baker at the beginning of the story. However she soon comes to realise that all her academic experience is useless out in the wilds of the universe. I know that for many Lalla Ward is the definitive Romana (especially given her subsequent Big Finish work in the role), but Mary is just so stunningly beautiful and delivers her lines in that perfect cut-glass accent. She looks like a Greek goddess in those first scenes in the TARDIS. I'll admit I was smitten from the start (forgive me, I was eleven years old).

Our second duo is of course shysters Garron and Unstoffe. The seasoned thief teaching the tricks of the trade to his young (and possibly cleverer) apprentice. Jago and Litefoot might be the gold standard for Holmesian partnerships, but these two run a very close second. Iain Cuthbertson steals every scene he is in, with his accent veering from a posh drawl to a cockney barrow boy, depending on who he is talking to / trying to scam. It reminds me of those days when people like my grandparents had a "telephone voice". Unstoffe may start out seeming just a lackey to his bombastic partner, but it soon becomes apparent that he is the moral heart of the pairing.

The camaraderie and playful bantering of the two conmen  is counterpointed by the dastardly duo of the Graf Vynda K and Sholakh. The Graff is a noble but dangerously unbalanced man - tipped over the edge into paranoia by the supposed betrayal of his former subjects when they deposed him from the throne. Paul Seed plays him just the right side of parody, with the hint of madness in his eyes convincing you that this is a man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Sholakh gets less characterisation but it's clear that Vynda-K totally depends on his lieutenant as the only man he can trust. Just look at his reaction to Sholakh's sudden death.

As great as these three sets of characters are, they are overshadowed by a lowly outcast who theorises about the universe beyond the confines of his own world. Binro The Heretic makes no real contribution to the plot. The Doctor and Romana don't even meet him. Yet the beautifully played low-key scene between Binro and Unstoffe is at the heart of "The Ribos Operation" and is one of the defining moment of the show's Classic era. Binro is not a hero - he is a dreamer who dares to think differently to his contemporaries who are hide bound by their religious beliefs and superstitions -  and they reject and shun him for it, in the same way enlightened thinkers on Earth were persecuted during the middle ages. It's just magical. What is interesting though is that as much as Holmes wants the audience to sympathise with Binro (because we know he *is* right) the Seekers prophecies of doom also come true. Magic and science seem to exist together on this world.

Elsewhere the sets and costumes are exceptional and really add to the script's 'medieval Russian'  vs. 'crawling into the future' feel. Everything has a weight to it that transcends its studio-bound origins. The Schrivenzale is acceptable for its few minor appearances, and reliable old Prentis Hancock always gives good value in his limited role as Captain of the Shrieve. It's a great start to the season and the search for the Key to Time. This story has always been one of my favourites, and re-watching it has only confirmed its place in my affections.


The Pirate Planet

Now I'm going to say something controversial here.

Deep breath.

Here goes.

I'm not the greatest fan of this story. I'm not even convinced it's actually very good.

Before you all tear down the walls of the internet to rip me apart for Doctor Who heresy, hear me out. I wouldn't dream of arguing with anyone who said it was their favourite story and I do think that Adams is playing with some genuinely clever SF ideas here. A hollow, space-jumping planet that eats other worlds for lunch, crushing them to the size of grapefruit. An ancient queen, kept alive in the moment before death in a stasis field. Even the Mentiads as an expanding gestalt with extra-sensory powers are an interesting concept (although being telepathic apparently means you have to look like you've had no sleep for twenty years and wander around all day in your yellow pyjamas).  The central mystery also has some sinister undertones and plenty of  twists along the way. The apparent bad guys are not what they seem. It all sounds so promising, and I wanted to like it, I really did.

But my problem is that as good as the concepts are, I just can't get past the dire performances and the pedestrian direction. The Pirate Captain may be meant to be a dangerous clever villain with a cunning plan to double cross his mistress, but it doesn't work - he just gets on my nerves. Not only is he nothing more than an assortment of obvious pirate tropes transferred to an SF setting, there's no nuance at all to the performance - it's just shouting, more shouting and some extra loud shouting for good measure. Oh and look, even more shouting. Gatherer Hade from "The Sun Makers" doesn't seem quite so bad now and Stephen Thorne's Eldrad seems positively meek by comparison. Any subtly about how the cyborg realises the control he is under and plots to seize power for himself is lost under Bruce Purchase’s blustering buffoonery. If you want to see how to get this kind of character right, just look at the Vogon Captain in the "Hitchhikers" TV show. Another Adams script. A similar charcter. Just a much better performance.

The rest of the incidental characters are no better. The native people of Zanak are beyond dull. (there's a crowd scene with the lamest "hooray" on record). The guards are laughable (I know that's partly the point, but do they have to be so badly acted?). Most of the Mentiads just stand around looking miserable and complaining about their lot. Even evil nursey herself is patchy. As a lurking presence in the background, she's fine. You don't really notice her because the Pirate Captain is just so damn loud and the reveal of her true nature does come as a genuine surprise. Unfortunately when Rosalind Lloyd is called upon to be the manipulative bitch in charge, it just doesn't convince, with some painful delivery.

Tom doesn't escape the ham either. Yes it is Douglas "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" Adams we are talking about, so there is some of his trademark witty dialogue, but Baker is in full "silly" mode here (I've always preferred the more serious Fourth Doctor from his early years). The balance between drama and comedy is just "off", with the Doctor one minute passionately expressing his horror at the destruction the Pirate Captain has wrought across the galaxy (a justifiably lauded scene) and then almost immediately veering straight back to mucking about. Oh and I'm done with the constant "Not now, K-9" put-downs to the metal mutt just to try and ring some false tension from the scene.

Don't get me wrong, there *are* things I like about the production. Mr. Fibuli, the Pirate Captain's neurotic right-hand-man - only one-step ahead of getting himself "parroted" to death through a combination of guile and sheer luck - is lovely.  He's like a space based Smithers from "The Simpsons" (even though the Captain is not a patch on the villainy of Mr Burns). The location filming in the countryside and the power station does give some needed scale, although it still doesn't feel as if they are part of the same world. But it's slim pickings really. The ending is a sea of technobabble (and I like made up science most of the time), some very dodgy special effects and a bloody big explosion because - yet again - we're back to "if in doubt blow everything up" territory. What about all those people presumably forced to work for the Pirate Captain?

Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I watched this story. Perhaps I'd had as much sleep as the Mentiads across those four days and it's clouded my judgement. One day I'll give it another go and see if it improves. Right now I've no desire to ever watch it again, and there's very little Who I can say that about. Such a shame.

View From The Fifth Row 4 - Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire

It's time for another delve into the obscure corners of my DVD collection. This time it's a television musical drama from 1985...

It seems that almost any subject can be turned into a musical. In the last few decades we have had man eating plants (Little Shop of Horrors), teenage delinquency (Cry Baby), French bohemia (Moulin Rouge!), drugs (Reefer Madness), superheroes (Doctor Horrible's Sing-along Blog), hockey (Score) and even horror (The Devil's Carnival).

But I doubt anyone could have predicted there would be a musical about...snooker?

But before we get there, a little bit of a history lesson, as it's probably difficult for anyone under the age of 40 to imagine a time when snooker was vying with football for the number one sport on British television.

Snooker had started as an offshoot of billiards played by British Army officers in 19th century India (indeed the name is a slang term for inexperienced military personnel). Growing in popularity, the first world championship was played in 1927 but it was still considered a minor sport and it's popularity waxed and waned over the intervening decades. Then, following the advent of colour television transmissions in the late 1960s, the controller of BBC2 (David Attenborough no less) came up with the idea of the "Pot Black" knockout tournament to showcase the snazzy new technology.

The show was a resounding ratings success and continued for many years. As a child in the 1970s I clearly remember my dad being an avid fan and watching the show regularly. Despite having an aversion to almost every sport, this was something I watched with him. For half an hour each week it was one of the only times where his interests and mine overlapped. Of course like most households we didn't get a colour television until around 1973 (rented from 'Granada' I think - those were the days). The BBC commentators (including the famous voice of Ted Lowe) tried to compensate for this but didn't always succeed, leading to one memorable comment of "...Steve is going for the pink ball - and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green..."

The first televised world championship was in 1978 and interest in the game began to rise even more. Top players (and their nicknames) became well known to everyone including Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White, Steve 'Interesting' Davis and Ray 'Dracula' Reardon - we'll come back to them later. Snooker had become mainstream and it's popularity reached it's zenith in the 15-hour final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, which at it's "black ball" climax was watched by 18.5 million people.This is the environment in which the fledgling and risk-taking Channel 4 earmarked funds to make a musical - and "Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire" was born...

The script was written by Trevor Preston, perhaps best remembered by SF genre fans for creating the early 1970s series "Ace of Wands", although he also did sterling work on the classic cop series "The Sweeny". Director Alan Clarke was usually known for his hard-hitting socially aware TV dramas and films such as "Scum", "Made In Britain" and "Rita, Sue & Bob Too", plus an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Baal" starring David Bowie, so he was a highly unusual choice for this project. Clarke roped in his star from "Scum", Phil Daniels, for the lead character, plus well known character actors Alun Armstrong and Don Henderson to fill out the other main roles.

The music and songs were written by world renowned composer George Fenton - at this stage Oscar nominated for the score of Dicky Attenborough's "Gandhi" -  although he would go on to write for many other films and directors including "Cry Freedom", "The Fisher King" and "Memphis Belle" plus work for the younger Attenborough's series of wildlife documentaries. Finally, Armstrong and Daniels were both given training to make the snooker matches look more realistic. All the game play and trick shots in the film are carried out by the actors, not stunt doubles.

All in all it was an eclectic bunch of creators and actors who would produce a most strange, unusual and entertaining musical.

The plot is relatively simple. Up and coming snooker rookie, Billy The Kid (Phil Daniels) is being tipped as the next big thing. His manager T.O. (Bruce Payne) is a gambling addict and heavily in debt to a violent nutcase loan shark known as The Wednesday Man (Don Henderson). By the way, "T.O." stands for 'The One', and I don't recall we ever find out his real name! The Wednesday Man proposes that he will wipe T.O.s debts clean if he sets up a match between Billy and seven-times world snooker champion Maxwell Randall (Alun Armstrong) - commonly referred to as The Green Baize Vampire due to his widows peak hair and pale complexion (Randall even plays up to it by wearing plastic fangs). T.O. hypes up the 17-frame match as a grudge contest by using a journalist to provoke both players into making angry comments about each other. However the game has much higher stakes than first thought, as The Wednesday Man has worded the contract so that the loser will have to agree to never play professional snooker ever again. The stage is set for a showdown...

The parallels with the then current stars of snooker are obvious. Billy The Kid is clearly based on South London rising star Jimmy White and Maxwell Randall could only be six times world champion Ray Reardon. Indeed Preston admits he got the initial idea from the duo's 1982 clash in the Professional Players Tournament final.

Ray Reardon, NOT the Green Baize Vampire

The cast are generally very good as you would expect from actors of the calibre of Alun Armstrong, etc. Yes the characters are painted with very broad strokes and a certain amount of stylised theatrical "performance" - and there is an abundance of cockney accents (this *is* Phil Daniels we are talking about after all) but but it never descends into pantomime and it's definitely not camp. The chemistry between The Kid and T.O. is particularly good fun with some dark humour and a satirical edge. There was only a very small budget -  the whole film is studio bound -  so sets are kept to simple yet effective claustrophobic rooms and corridors. Good use is also made of moody lighting, especially in the snooker match scenes where the audience / chorus are on a balcony looking down on the two players. In fact, it's stark simplicity means that I can picture it being performed in a theatre with very little needing to be changed.

But this is meant to be a musical I hear you cry - what about the songs? Well they are a varied yet catchy bunch though to be honest I think you probably will either love them or hate them. Don't expect melodic classics reminiscent of "Rocky Horror" - often the characters are simply "saying the words in tune", if that makes any kind of sense. Certain people have made comparisons to elements of The Who's rock opera "Tommy" and I can see where they are coming from. My personal favourites are "I'm The One" sung by Bruce Payne as T.O., and the songs around the gripping final battle including "Quack Quack" and "It's the Fame Game". Some of the actors fare better than others with singing but generally they get away with it by sheer bravado.

Some "Kid" and T.O" banter plus "I'm The One"

I think Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire was only ever shown on TV twice (hence why very few people have even heard of it), but it was eventually released onto DVD in 2006. Overall, it's not the greatest musical ever made but it's far from the worst and it's worth a look just for the sheer curiosity value if nothing else. Is it Alan Clarke's version of a Brecht / Kurt Weill musical (a snooker Threepenny Opera)? I have no idea - that kind of homage would have gone completely over my head in 1985 and I'm not much better qualified to judge even now. I'm definitely not saying that any of the songs are up there with "Mack The Knife" but that doesn't really matter. All I know is that it's another one one of those obscure one-off things that seems to have got lodged in my brain and refuses to leave. A real guilty pleasure..

The 800 Day Project - Day 474 to 479 - The Return

So, after 12 weeks away with the 'Man From Atlantis' I finally returned to watching Doctor Who on a regular basis on 4th February 1978. Just in time for the six part 'extravaganza' that was:

The Invasion Of Time

I have quite vivid memories of parts of this: the surprise return of a popular monster in the Sontarans (and more than one of them too!) -  the departure of Leela - that room with all the lead cogs and wheels. What I had forgotten were some of the poorer bits in between.

It all begins in a stunningly audacious way, as we are initially offered no explanation as to why the Doctor has turned to the dark side and become a power-crazed nutter. He shrieks at Borusa, belittles Leela and is callous to everyone else. Baker completely sells the whole idea of a ruthless Doctor who is (apparently) betraying the Time Lords to a foreign power. I was nearly eleven when this first went out, but imagine being six or seven and seeing your hero behave in this way? Plus that laugh when he introduces the Vardans as the new masters of the Timelords - far scarier than any alien monstrosity!

It's a shame then that the assembled Timelords react to this news with hardly a flicker of emotion. It's been established that they are decadent and nothing has changed in their society for hundreds of years, so you would expect an upheaval of this magnitude to illicit some kind of response. Maybe because there appear to be very few Timelords under the age of ninety, they are just too doddery and forgetful to even notice...."What's that Savar? Invasion you say? Speak up, man. What's making all that racket?..."

Of course there are exceptions. John Arnatt is perfect as Borusa - wise and reproving, yet with a manipulative streak as he subtly pulls strings behind the scenes. And then we have Milton Johns as Kelner. Weasely, smarmy, sycophantic, obsequious and oily. An outright cowardly crawler. Johns has always been one of my favourite Who actors and in this story he practically steals every scene that he is in. He's a joy to watch.

As for the Vardans? Well, I don't mind them as mysterious figures hidden in their cool looking pods / chairs (at least that's what I thought those odd shapes were). I don't even mind them as shimmering tin foil floating in the air (it's certainly preferably to the alternative effects on the DVD which have dated even more than the original) or as green-suited pen pushers from rent-an-extra. No it's their voices which grate with me. They are just so...dull. It's as if the actors portraying them were told "just say the words as if you were a quantity surveyor with zero personality reading a shopping list". Even I could have done better - and trust me you do *not* want to see or hear my acting. Yes, I get that they are *meant* to be inefficient and easy to defeat - the perfect cover for the Sontarans - but we are supposed to believe that these aliens were powerful enough to convince the Doctor that they were a credible threat. It's just hard to take them seriously when they make the Ogrons sound intelligent. Would it really have stretched the limited budget that much to put an effect on their voices to make them sound slightly more menacing? Glaswegian doesn't count.

There is a similar accent problem with the Sontarans when they turn up in that fabulous cliffhanger at the end of part four. I guess if lots of planets have a North then Sontar must have an East End. Stor sounds like he belongs on the set of the Walford soap selling fruit and veg. Maybe this clone batch are the Sontaran version of the Krays - all bully boy frontery and repressed sexuality. Accents aside, they do come across as quite menacing, trampling through the corridors blasting at anything that moves, even if there are only three of them.

Gallifrey itself has shrunk and devolved since the days of "The Deadly Assassin". Corridors seem to have been designed so you are unable to walk down them properly without tripping over huge buttresses in the way. None of the rooms have identifying plaques or numbers so it seems to be pot luck that you find where you want to go. With their obvious love of ostentatiousness in costume design and the vastness of the Panopticon, would the President's office really be behind some obscure little door? Instead of the the blinking computer lights of the Matrix conveying technology so advanced it's indistinguishable from magic, the scenes in the lower levels come across as the heating system of an old school - not superior shielding technology protecting an entire planet.

With the chase through the TARDIS during episode six, I find it hard to be overly critical when you know the insurmountable financial problems the production was up against. The rooms of the TARDIS can be anything and everything, so why wouldn't part of it look like an abandoned hospital (with added art gallery)? 
It's an unpredictable mundane ordinariness that makes the ship even more bizarre than usual. I also quite like the idea that they have to keep running through the same empty swimming pool to get anywhere - the kind of recursive occlusion we won't get again until "Castrovalva". The sour note is that the Doctor so casually uses a gun - and not only that but one of the most powerful weapons in the universe - to wipe the Sontarans from existence. The De-Mat gun is a nice idea but it seems to go against the Doctor's code of non-violent solutions. Just as well he conveniently forgets all about it.

Leela's decision to stay behind on Gallifrey to marry the hapless Andred is ridiculous. He has all the charisma of a wet lettuce and there has been no evidence on screen to indicate that the two of them have any kind of chemistry beyond a couple of meaningful looks. He'll probably dump her within a month for some Gallifreyan filly who will prop up his self important ego. Of course nowadays RTD or Moffat would probably pair Leela off with Rodan, which would at least have made some narrative sense given the character development and trials the two went through. No such luck in the unenlightened world of 1970s TV though, so we are left with a ignoble end to one of my favourite companions. At least we get rid of K-9 Mark I and his box of spanners innards

All in all, I did enjoy "The Invasion Of Time" as an entertaining adventure. Yes some of the execution leaves a lot to be desired viewed through modern eyes, but I think that's typical of the Williams era where concepts and ambition outstrip ability. The script has some bold and interesting ideas, not least trying to subvert the idea of the Doctor as the reliable good guy. It's far from the worst story in this season.