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In the mid 1980s Doctor Who had reached a crisis point. The quality of the stories and the production values had decreased. I have always felt that John Nathan-Turner should have left with Peter Davison. Much as I had enjoyed season 21, it lacked the sense of wonder that had always made the series stand head and shoulders above the competition. Season 22 saw a decline in the quality of stories and while season 23 had regained the sense of wonder the stories were quite poor. Season 24 was so unspeakably bad that even the otherwise weak Dragonfire shone like a beacon. If it hadn't been for that latter story I might have stopped watching Doctor Who after a lifetime's viewing. Instead, Dragonfire convinced me to give the series one more chance. Everything now hinged on the opening story of season 25.

The news that the opening story would be a Dalek story did not have me jumping up and down in excitement - things could still go wrong. There were plenty of non-exceptional Dalek stories. Thankfully, as I sat down to watch Remembrance of the Daleks I was greeted with edge-of-the-seat excitement, an excellent story and a darker atmosphere than I had come to expect. It was the story that restored my confidence in the series.

Not only is this a highly enjoyable adventure, its a good story, well told and well acted. It marked a significant change from what had gone before and formed the first part of what has been referred to as the Cartmel Masterplan. Script editor Andrew Cartmel and lead actor, Sylvester McCoy, both felt that the programme needed to get back its mystery, to put the WHO back into Doctor Who. There are those who who hated this particular era of the show and there are those who went as far as to suggest that the Doctor had become almost omnipotent, decrying his stance in the story as distinctly un-Doctorish. Whatever your opinion of this story, it raised the bar for Dalek stories - something that had not happened since Genesis of the Daleks 13 years previously. Personally I like and would rank it as one of the series' best stories. I must finish by saying that the story also has the distinction of finally showing the ignorance of those who trot out the very old joke about Daleks and stairs.