Doctor Who fans after taking about a month of reviewing anything that's to do with Doctor Who i'm both incredibly proud and as well as being incredibly excited to say i'm back. For next several weeks i'll be reviewing every single episode from Doctor Who Season 19 which as many of you die hard Doctor Who fans will know was the first season to star Peter Davison in the role of The Doctor and so then join me as I review the episode that introduces us to the Fifth Doctor Who with the serial in question being called simply just "Castrovalva" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is a newly regenerated Fifth Doctor and his companions Adric , Nyssa and Tegan are lured into a trap by an old enemy of The Doctors. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode wasn't this episodes strongest suit since it felt like the plotline of two separate storylines that were just thrown together at the last minute in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is of course the debuting Peter Davison as The Doctor , Matthew Waterhouse as Adric , Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka. Also starring in this episode is Neil Toynay as ??? ?????? / The Portreeve , Dallas Cavell as The Head Of Security , Frank Wylie as Ruther , Michael Sheard as Mergrave , Derek Waring as Shardovan and Souska John as Child. Just to give you an idea of exactly how small this episodes cast list is i've credited every single actor and actress that's appearing in / starring in this episode and well they all knock it out of the park acting wise in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
As I usually would do I won't be forming an opinion on the Fifth Doctor just yet since this is the start of this particular version of this character. However I will admit that tho that acting wise Peter Davison really did knock it out of the park on his very first attempt and the same thing goes for all of the cast since every single cast member really did do a really good job in this very episode in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Now then this is the episode that introduces us to the Zero Room which also brings with it alot of very freaking dated CGI effects. I know that they couldn't help with the CGI because of both the budget and the technology that they had back in the early to mid nineteen eighties but it's so clear as day that Peter Davison wasn't there on set filming his scenes lying down and plus you can literally see the outline where they basically just filmed him on a blue screen and just super imposed him onto the scene with the girls which just freaking dates the effect really freaking badly in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Now then this episode does a fairly smart thing for a post regeneration episode by having a familiar villain return for this opening episode. Since this just helps to ease viewers into this new Doctor even more so when you take into account that all three of this Doctors companions are still basically new characters and so having a character that the audience is alot more familiar with is a very good thing indeed in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
One of the things that I hated about this episode is that the character of Adric just straight up disappears from the episode. Which is sadly going to be a very common theme in this seasons storylines since there are three companions and the show writers were really struggling to give each companion a more meaningful role in each episode which sadly meant that one of the companions had to get sidelined but it is still a huge issue with this storyline in particular since the whole plot of the episode revolves around Adric and having him just straight up disappear from the episode is just a sign of freaking bad and lazy writing in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
This episode really does feel like it's two separate stories thrown together at the absolutely last minuet since episodes one and two tell one story and episodes three and four tell a different story. As such I really do feel that this episode would have been alot more better of if it was two separate stories since you could still have alot of the plot elements from episode three be it's onw storyline including what happens to Adric but as it is this whole just feels like a complete and total mess from the ground up in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
So now then this episode is four episodes long with each episode lasting around twenty five minuets apiece which means that we have a rough grand total running of roughly one hour and thirty six minuets in total running time length. Which isn't a bad running time at all and really helping things is the fact that this episode just flew by which for me at least is always going to be a very good thing indeed in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Now then there is a bit of mystery element that's going on within this very episode which means that I have to actually talk about the actual mystery element that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode and well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual mystery element that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was fairly well handled. I say that because even tho the big reveal is indeed genuinely shocking and it is a moment that did genuinely catch me of guard it's also something that wasn't built up all of that very well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this was a very entertaining episode just purely for the fact that I got to spend alot of time in the TARDIS which never happened in literally any serial in Season 12 but at the same time this episode still has alot of faults alot of which just come down to the most storytelling levels in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that means that this very episode erns itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page , Amazon . Co .Uk and Google Images. With my personally preferred website that I personally preferred to use to get the images that I personally used in this very review being the wonderful Google Images since all of the images that are currently up and and featured / presented to us on Google Images are all fairly high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in definition.
