The Third Doctor Adventures press on with a rather odd story that tries to blend classic pulpy sci-fi with World War II drama and ends up weakening both tried-and-true Who staples. That’s not to say “Operation: Vengeance” isn’t without merit, it has some great scenes with the Brigadier and The Doctor, but at six parts there is more dull than interesting… Let’s take a look!
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Here we have the second of the Barry Letts penned BBC Audio Dramas staring Jon Pertwee (playing The Doctor for the last time, sadly…), Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney. Once again Richard Pearce’s Jeremy Fitzoliver appears to ruin most scenes he’s in but now he’s joined by a whole host of over-the-top cheesy accents! Headphone users beware… Let’s take a look…
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Time to look at two full cast audio dramas starring Jon Pertwee, Elizabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney written by Barry Letts! Exciting right?! … Well, it should be, but sadly the stories also suffer from an awful comic book caricature companion known as Jeremy Fitzoliver. *shudder*. That being said out of the two stories Paradise of Death is the better one, so let’s take a look!
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We take yet another trip to Peladon as our look at Third Doctor TV stories ends for now. The Monster of Peladon sees Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrive at the Citadel for more political satire / on-the-nose analogies, Ice Warriors and everyone’s favourite talking green penis Alpha Centauri. What’s that? You’re bored of the Alpha Centauri / penis gag?! Well, too bad, it’s impossible to resist, especially at six visual episodes…
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Normally I don’t do two very similar stories together like I’m going to here with the two Peladon stories, but when choosing the Third Doctor TV serials for this mini-marathon the Peladon stories were the ones I’d watched the least in their respective seasons, so… why not? “The Curse of Peladon” is a rare off-Earth story for the Third Doctor and Jo and also a rather unsubtle look at Britain entering the European Union, which was all the talk at the time (… That ended well…) but all that being said, is it still entertaining?! Let’s have a look…
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Always a pleasure to return to the Third Doctor era with this mini-marathon, and especially always a pleasure for it to be an Earth-based UNIT-laden Master-roaming six parter! The Mind of Evil was one of, if not THE last Third Doctor story I saw but it was a good one to go out on, the setting in a prison is a unique one and there’s still plenty of guns, explosions and an alien creature to keep you entertained, even if the alien creature is a teleporting box… Let’s take a look!
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One of my all-time favourite seasons of the show has found its way to Blu-Ray so it’s time to checkout a story from the set, and once again I’ve gone with the story its been the longest since I’ve seen it and with a season of four stories all of which I’ve watched loads that was hard to figure out. Still, I’m pretty sure Ambassadors of Death is it, and it’s my least favourite of the season. Still, a least favourite in a favourite season is still good, right…?
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I will always look forward to more Season 7 content, it remains one of my all-time favourite seasons full stop, so I was really looking forward to “and the Brain Drain”, which I guess is a callback to “and the Silurians” though that title was always an annoying one-off rather than something that should be copied (but let’s not get into the “Doctor Who/ The Doctor” debate!) Sadly Brain Drain took an interesting concept for a one hour story, maybe a four parter at best, and then had to stretch it out for seven parts, causing it to fall to pieces. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the Season 7 seven part stories can drag but they at least often have alien threats to give some fun cliffhangers! Ah well, let’s take a closer look.
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It’s time for another story from probably my most anticipated Doctor Who range of them all at the moment: the Third Doctor adventures. “The Quintessence” is the next in the line of older Jo Grant (or Jo Jones) adventures that got off to a bad start last year but I’m happy to say that this second set is among the very best this year. While it starts slowly (and oddly familiar) it turns into not just a great story but a great story with the Cybermen, the original Mondas ones no less. Let’s take a look!
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In terms of “Lost Stories” that are left to adapt Deathworld was a big one as it was the original planned 10th Anniversary story featuring all three Doctors at that point in the show, but William Hartnell’s failing health meant it was scrapped early on and The Three Doctors was created instead. It always sounded really odd based on what we knew and getting to hear it adapted hasn’t changed my mind there, I have no idea how this would’ve worked at the time, but whatever. How does it work now, as an audio drama with four of the six regulars being recasts? Let’s find out!
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Hogan Reviews 