Felt strangely compelled to watch some Six, after listening to Sirens of Time and deciding he can't be all that rubbish. So:

Hooray!

· Eleanor Bron. In a turban. That woman can make the line ‘And then I shall control the food supply of the galaxy!’ sound surprisingly unstupid.
· William Gaunt. In a ponytail. And leather trousers. OK, he looks ridiculous, but he has an exciting heroic death and a big gay sidekick.
· Snow.
· Davros in a fishtank!
· Perspex Dalek!
· Soylent Green is PEOPLE!


Boo!


· Eric Saward has written a story which is inexplicably reliant on double acts. And then ‘humorously’ pointed it out. Ow.
· Alexei Sayle and his ray-gun of Rawk. And him and Peri trying to out-awful one another in a scary accent face-off.
· The woman with the wet lips and the freakish baby-face was infinitely scarier than the Daleks.
· Peri’s coat makes her look like a Boobah. I actually thought she must be pregnant for three-quarters of this.
· The Doctor going to shake Davros’s hand?
· I did not really understand what the hell was going on even at all.


I think this really suffers from the Father’s Day empty-TARDIS syndrome of ‘this is a fantastic image, let’s use it even though it makes no sense!’ The Perspex Dalek, the Doctor’s tombstone, Davros being just a head: look nice, go nowhere.

Colin’s quite good. I really don’t hate Six as much as I think I do. But it’s another one of those where there’s so much time spent on the ‘amusing’ side characters that the Doctor gets bog all to do (apart from stand around wishing he’d worn something else). The entire thing would’ve happened in almost exactly the same way if he hadn’t been there at all.

Conclusion: I like Doctor Who better when he gets to run about solving puzzles and being silly and heroic and fabulous. But all episodes should take place in snow, because it makes the TARDIS look even more marvo than usual.




Peri:


Boohbahs:


Six's cloak = circus tent, no?