Best to Worst - Key to Time

Ribos

Great characters and setting, clever writing and performances.

Tara

Great retell of Prisoner of Zenda, lots of elements that make Who the show it is - almost a textbook Who story.

Pirate

Possibly Douglas Adams' best work outside of Series 1 of H2G2. Yeah, I went there.

Stones

Fab guest characters and ideas, let down by a last episode that throws too much into the mix very, very slowly. But it's a great 70s SF tale: spaceships, stone circles, mythology... everything great about the time period in one story.

Kroll

Terrific setting and story idea but only has ambitions rather than content to carry it through all four episodes. Bloody love Kroll, though: the shots of it rising above the horizon looked fantastic on our telly when I was 9.

Armageddon

Would have worked better as a four-parter - far too many corridors and gambits making it drag on.

The Androids of Tara

With the possible exception of the Taran Wood Beast (come on, BF, where are you? let's have him back!!), this doesn't put a foot wrong. What a terrific villain Grendel is.

The Pirate Planet

Balmy and brilliant. Got lost a little in the middle, but loved the Captain /Nurse/Mr Fibuli.

Ribos Operation

I still maintain that, apart from the Shrivenzale, there's nothing here to interest children. At least there wasn't to me when I was young. I like it a lot more now.

Stones of Blood

Romana was beginning to thaw here, and the first half of the story is first rate. The second half is hugely disappointing.

Power of Kroll

For a story set in a swamp full of green people and featuring a terrific monster, this is very dull.

Armageddon Factor

I quite like this, but it is too long, they've clearly run out of money, and Romana 1 doesn't get a memorable final story.

Stones of Blood - gothic horror, creepy scenes with the campers, a loveable batty professor, and an alien criminal in the first story to feature a predominantly female cast since Galaxy Four.

The Ribos Operation - clever double-act con-artists, a nasty villain, and Binro gets a moving scene with a minor character, all overshadowed by Mary Tamm's glorious entrance to the program

The Pirate Planet - highly ambitious and original story from Douglas Adams, with many woes of being a guard.

Androids of Tara - Interesting (but odd) repurposing of the Prisoner of Zenda

Armageddon Factor - Episodes 1 and 6 weren't too bad, but the middle was a muddle and seemed to go on forever

Power of Kroll - big idea with poor technical execution and people painted green

I enjoyed the 'Key to Time' season very much back in the 70s and I still do.
It's fun but not OTT silly, it's full of variety and the overall arc is a great idea. And Tom Baker and Mary Tamm are magnificent! (And you too K-9! )

1: Segment 4: ‘The Androids of Tara’: Seeing double in more ways than one, in this glossy ‘homage’ to ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’. Classic costume drama with a splendid script by David Fisher, brilliantly acted and superbly made. And the Doctor’s most epic sword-fight! And K-9 in a boat! A royal treat and the crown of the season. 5*

2=: Segment 1: ‘The Ribos Operation’: A clever, comic, vividly staged, wonderfully wordy and theatrical crime caper by Robert Holmes, full of super-sized guest performances on a pre-Renaissance planet. Low on action, high on plot and characters, brilliant. 5*

2=: Segment 2: ‘The Pirate Planet’: ‘Doctor Who’ goes all ‘Treasure Island’ in space with a fantastical, technological tale of planetary piracy by Douglas Adams that sails almost but not quite over the edge. Ingenious, witty, packed with ideas and great dialogue, “By the beard of the Sky-Demon” it’s fun! 5*

4: Segment 4: ‘The Stones of Blood’: Not-so-standing stones, blood sacrifice, fake Druids and alien power combine in this late entry in the ‘Who Gothic’ canon, set partly on modern-day Earth and partly - a bit to one side of it. Great ideas and mostly very well done, the ‘Gothic’ half is definitely five-star but the 'courtroom drama' I found far less impressive, overall 4*

5: Segment 5: ‘The Power of Kroll’: The Doctor and Romana uncover a ‘Heart of Darkness’ tale of oppressed indigenous people on a marshy moon, with the biggest monster ever. Good location filming and Kroll looks surprisingly OK - and it’s green (in more ways...), worthy and moral – but it’s a bit of a damp squid – I mean squib - very unusually, from Robert Holmes. 3*

6: Segment 6: ‘The Armageddon Factor’: I'm sure I’m not the only viewer to spot the unintended parallels in a story where the Doctor is forced to stretch Time out endlessly using a manufactured Sixth Segment that visibly crumbles… Uneasily divided between drama and pantomime, it’s stretched out in Time two episodes longer than it should have been, but still with a good twist or two. And I liked Drax! But only 2*

My ranking -

The Pirate Planet - just a pure slice of Douglas Adams' madcap, hilarious, yet deeply science-fiction style. There's not many stories that can jump from a hilariously over-the-top space pirate captain yelling 'Moons of madness!' to the terrifying realization of what's been going on with the various planets that the Captain has been destroying and how the huskified Queen Xanxia has been manipulating everything from behind the scenes. Also, the Captain's response to Mr. Fibuli's death is profoundly touching and beautifully done.

The Ribos Operation - It's been a long time since I've seen this one, but I remember it being great fun and a brilliant Robert Holmes script! Garron and Unstoffe are a great Holmesian double act, and the whole con artist subplot is lovely.

The Stones of Blood - Urgh, this one used to scare me quite a bit! There's something about the Ogri's implacability and relentlessness (plus that throbbing beat that accompanies them wherever they go) that's just terrifying, plus the first half set in the English countryside is a wonderful callback to the Robert Holmes/Philip Hinchcliffe era of Who. The second half loses most of that Gothic horror aspect, but it more than makes up for it with witty courtroom banter and some sciency ideas behind hyperspace.

The Power of Kroll - Another great story! Yes it can be rather silly at times, but it's also rather fun and Kroll's attack on the oil rig (with tentacles coming up the pipe) was rather scary for me when I first saw it as a young folk.

The Androids of Tara- Much fun, though I always felt that it drug a bit in the middle. The plots with the android duplicates is fantastic, and the concept of sciencified Renaissance weaponry is just *beautiful.*

The Armageddon Factor- A bit of a mixed bag, it has a lot of fantastic concepts (two planets locked in a decades-long war, a mysterious entity manipulating said war, etc.) but that is stretched out too much over its six episodes. I still have a soft spot for it, but it's definitely the weakest story this season.


All in all, I adore the Key To Time season! There's not a story there that I could say is bad, they all have some kind of new, vibrant idea even if they're not always executed well (which is also why I love the Graham Williams era as a whole, though that's a discussion for another day... )