73.33%

The second Doctor and the sixth Doctor unite to battle the Sontarans in an adventure written by veteran Doctor Who author Robert Holmes - wow, that must be worth seeing. Except that it proved to be a massive disappointment. The first episode is quite good - especially as it begins with the second Doctor and Jamie arriving on station J7. There is an attack and the second Doctor is captured. Jamie witnesses the Doctor being tortured, even killed and then the action jumps to the sixth Doctor enjoying a break, fishing. The pace falters for a time until the sixth Doctor and Peri travel to station J7. As the story picks up at this point all seems well...and then the viewer is led through the space station infrastructure. From that moment on the story starts a slow decline. There are some good moments, especially from Patrick Troughton. However, apart from the presence of Patrick Troughton there is little to commend this story. It must stand as Robert Holme's weakest contribution to the series.

To add insult to injury, an announcement was made that the series would be put on ice for 18 months during the broadcast of this story. Anyone tuning in this fondly remembered series would have seen the final episode of this story. Episode 3 was quite poor and did little favour for the series. Of course, the worst was yet to come.

I do find the first episode quite watchable but that is it as far as I am concerned. There are some wonderful moments in the other two episodes, but generally it is quite forgettable and only served to fuel the argument at the time that the series needed a rest. To be honest, I agreed at the time...but I also thought that the series needed a new producer and script editor. Something that did not happen and, in my opinion, resulted in the series returning poorer than ever before.

Basically - one to avoid.