Underworld

Even Time Lords screw up. In their history, the Time Lords attempted to raise the people of the planet Minyos to a higher state, and the Minyans welcomed them as gods. And then the Minyans rebelled, kicked the Time Lords out and blew their planet to bits with weapons they developed. The Time Lords settled on Gallifrey and swore to never interfere again, and the survivors of the Minyan race went off in search of their lost colony ship, the P7E and the race bank cylinders it carried. The Doctor, Leela and K9 encounter a Minyan ship on its fabled Quest, and together they discover the P7E at the heart of a newly-formed planet. The systems of the ship have gone mad over the milennia and created a personality with god-like delusions; the Oracle, as it is called, rules over the guards who in turn terrorize and oppress the Trogs, their slave class.

Uh. Okay, the good thoughts first. Time Lord history lesson good. Oh yes. Some more insight into the Doctor's people is always interesting, finally justifying the non-intervention policy that saw the Doctor exiled to Earth in The War Games.

AWFUL effects. Was there no budget for this thing? All the caves of the planet are CSO effects. All the extras hired as Trogs are awful. The supporting cast are bad too. Even the regulars aren't given enough to really make them stand out. Mind you, Louise Jameson does carry a guy, even if he is a skinny one with dirty feet. Good thing it is all done as a CSO though; K9 would never make it through real tunnels.

Every now and again a brilliant series can go wrong. This is one of those times. Rack it up with previous clunkers like The Gunfighters and Day of the Daleks. Still, the comforting thing here is it's been a long time since the show produced anything this terrible. I think that if there was some way to swing a deal with the cosmic powers that be and we could trade four existing episodes in for four of the missing ones from the 60's, Underworld would be the first ones up on the block.

I've got to show this one to Jay. I'll update this listing when I have.

NEXT EPISODE : THE INVASION OF TIME