Doctor Who - The Trial of a Time Lord 1: The Mysterious Planet (1986)

So, here it is. The first episode in 'The Trial of a Time Lord' saga!
The opening sequence is brilliant and the new theme is very dark, a nice touch. Then we see (in my opinion) the best Doctor Who model shot ever! As the TARDIS is sucked into a Time Lord space station, the daunting music fills our ears. The Doctor might not survive this Trial after all.
In this episode we are treated to incredibly hammy and over the top performances, plot holes so obvious that they are pointed out at the end and some of the best cliffhangers of Doctor Who.
Colin Baker returns as The Doctor, and his performance is great. He has clearly softened since last series and he and Peri's relationship is back on track after many arguments in Season 22 (most of which had ended by 'Revelation of the Daleks') and they are now friends again. For now, at least.
Michael Jayston is a great Valleyard but doesn't do much. It's more of an ongoing rant sort of part and the Inquisitor is played well by the actress (don't know her name) except suffers a rather minute character.
Then, we have Nicola Bryant as Peri - actually wearing a coat for once! Seriously, only Colin wore a coat (with the exception of the snow in 'Revelation'). She doesn't add anything to the story and her character is merely there to be a companion rather than of any relevance to the plot, and moans A LOT.
There's a warrior Queen (hammy acting at its best) who tries to hook Peri up with a load of husbands. Yep, stand aside Henry VIII, this Queen probably has 7 husbands! She has a load of I'm-a-warrior warriors who do absolutely nothing except have an interesting plot twist.
There's a load of very odd people beneath the surface (quite literally) who are hammy, cheesy and probably are stuck between two slices of bread.
There's also Jathro's incredibly...odd twin servants. Lets move on....
Then there is Glitz and his mate (except he's not Glitz's mate) who are trying to steal secrets from a giant robot (of which there are two, strangely). Glitz is incredibly annoying, unfunny and as charming as a snake. His pal, however, is pretty good even though the actor looks bored out of his mind.
There's a giant robot, Jathro, who is just a typical Doctor Who villain with very little creativity - and a little bit like BOSS now I think about it. The suit looks cool, but does nothing except kill two hammy people. Sadly no cheesy people. And no bread.
The sets and locations look great (pity about the servant robot) and very convincing and the Douglas Adams humour works, even though it isn't laugh-out-loud humour.
The cliffhanger at the end of the story is good though.
Although there is one question: where is Peri?
Overall, despite the hammy acting and cheesy warrior queens, this is an average adventure with some weird twins and a giant robot.

6/10

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