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This was a story I knew little about until I read the novelisation in the 1980s. At a time when I was not keen on Terrance Dick's rather scanty novelisations of the TV adventures, Inferno grabbed my attention. A few years later I had the chance to acquire a fan copy of the story, taken from an Australian broadcast. At the time, season 24 had just been broadcast and I was left with the feeling that Doctor Who was gasping its last. Could anything rid me of the foul taste left by such diabolical stuff as Time and the Rani,Paradise Towers and Delta and the Bannermen? Although Dragonfire was an improvement on those three stories it was not an especially great story. Perhaps I had grown tired of Doctor Who and nothing I watched would be as entertaining as it had been when I was younger?

In spite of such reservations, I obtained a copy of Inferno which proved a number of things: Doctor Who had the potential to be great; I had not outgrown the show; parallel universe stories could be good; and I could see why some people ranked the Jon Pertwee quite highly.

It goes without saying that this is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories - and one of the best Jon Pertwee adventures. Unlike some other stories, it packs a lot of pace for its seven episode run. Best of all, it ranks as an example of a parallel universe story well done. Usually, other shows tend to camp the whole thing up (I won't name any names but its not just one American TV show - quite a few are equally guilty) - so its nice to see a series that treats the subject in this manner. Its also nice that Doctor Who took a long time to venture into a parallel universe and then resisted returning to parallel worlds for many years (and I enjoyed that story too!)

Its quite a dark story too, then again I suppose the beauty of a parallel universe is that you can kill off all the regular characters! This is a story which I eagerly invited friends to watch - if only to show them that season 24 was not what the show was about!