In the opening moments of Doctor Who‘s 24th season a soldier turns over the unconscious Colin Baker and discovers he’s regenerated into Sylvester McCoy, the seventh and final Doctor of the classic era. “Baker” was really McCoy in a wig — Baker declined to make a cameo appearance which he later said he regretted — but either way, we’re off and running in TIME AND THE RANI.
Kate O’Mara’s Rani is back with her usual disdain of scientific ethics (“When you walk, do you worry about stepping on a bug?”) but her current mysterious project requires the Doctor to tackle some of the tech. Fortunately he’s going through the addled post-regeneration stage so by disguising herself as Mel, the Rani gets him working on her scheme. Mel, meanwhile, has her own challenges (and proves herself both smart and capable in combat). Regrettably this was the Rani’s last appearance on screen — I’d sooner see her that the Master’s umpteenth new face. “Regeneration has finally enabled me to regain my sense of haute couture.”
PARADISE TOWERS is at its heart a familiar set-up: an Earth colony has collapsed and broken into assorted odd subcultures waiting for a hero to set things to rights. In this case, though, the colony is a ginormous apartment building divided between brutal security, wild teen-girl gangs, elderly murderers and the sinister architect behind it all. A fun one, though I kept confusing it with next season’s The Happiness Patrol and wondering why the plot was so different. “If you don’t tell me who’s been feeding you behind my back, I won’t send you the great architect to eat!”
DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN has the Doctor and Mel join a time tour to 1959 Disneyland but wind up instead at a British holiday camp in the same era. And wouldn’t you know, the alien princess Delta is holing up in camp (and attracting the interest of a local biker) and the alien Bannermen who conquered her planet are dropping in too …
I didn’t like this one the first time I saw it and it hasn’t improved. The Bannermen are boring and generic, their leader the same and Delta’s romance feels quite unconvincing. The show catches the tinny tone of those old holiday camps well (my family vacationed at one) and the 1950s nostalgia made it a big hit with most of the crew. Sara Griffiths is great in a supporting role as Ray, a tomboyish mechanic who helps out. Original plans were for her to replace Bonnie Langford’s Mel as companion but that didn’t work out as Langford decided to stick around through the end of. The show does boast some unusual casting with Stubby Kaye as an American spy and British comic Ken Dodd in a supporting role. “The language of treason and war can never be forgotten.”
Much as I like Ray, no question we were better off with Sophie Aldred’s Ace as the last companion. In DRAGONFIRE she shows up on the alien world the Doctor and Mel are visiting, having torn open a wormhole with her experimental super-explosive Nitro 9 (nine times the punch of nitroglycerin!). Throw in the ruthless mercenary Kane (very well played by Edward Peel) and the return of Glitz from S23, and we have the ingredients for a great show; while the first episode was very talky, the characters and the interactions are so much fun, I didn’t mind. 
Ace is just awesome, a young woman out looking for adventure and with no qualms about using Nitro 9 (“They didn’t understand that blowing up the art building was a creative act.”). McCoy’s first season also shows him a great Doctor, much in the mode of Patrick Troughton’s scruffy cosmic vagabond, much more likeable than Colin Baker. Mel gets a good send-off, traveling the universe with Glitz (platonically thank goodness). “Why is everyone around here so concerned with metaphysics?”
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