User Reviews

The Master's presence on Sarn is known, The Doctor has to stop him achieving his goal.

I quite liked the previous cliffhanger, Peri finding The Master was a nice moment, this final part looks great, more terrific location work.

I've been critical of this story so far, justifiably I would argue, but this forth episode sees a big improvement, I did enjoy this one very much.

There is some real interest here, I love how The Master is in trouble, and trying to look for a way to prolong his life (although I thought his powers from Taken were immense.) Turlough also gets a good send off, we learn, finally, some of his background. Peri is better here too.

Hard to fault, 7/10.

Review of all 4 parts:

This story is really good. It is not one of the top classics but it is thoroughly entertaining and very good quality.

The arrival of Peri as a companion is done very well really. Peri is not a favourite companion of mine at all as they seem to insist on making her scream a lot, be helpless and often annoying. Right from the start those tendencies are apparent but somehow in this story she comes across better. I feel her first 2 stories are higher quality productions with better writing (especially the tremendous Caves of Androzani) and she has better chemistry with the 5th Doctor than with 6th Doctor because they insist on making her bicker and get bullied by 6 whereas she gets on nicely with 5. I must mention she looks very attractive in this too haha. But more to the point I think she performs better and is written better. She is quite amusing.

The storylines with Turlough and Kamelion are very interesting and come to a conclusion here in a decent way. Davison himself is on usual excellent form and Ainley is entertaining as the Master.

Support cast members also add quality in a few cases, Peter Wyngarde especially who is a really classy, charismatic presence.

The story overall is solid and has some fun as well as some peril. We also get great locations in Lanzarote which add a sheen to the production.

It slows down a little in Part 3 but it really is of strong quality throughout.

My ratings: Parts 1, 2 & 4 - 9/10, Part 3 - 8.5/10. Overall - 8.88/10.