There are so many important episodes ranging from episodes that change how certain characters act to things that are added to the lore of the show. This show is choc filled to the brim with episodes that might not seem to important at the time of broadcast but over time become important episodes of the show with the episode that i'm about to review for you all today being one such example as this is an episode that adds something to the lore of the show something which the Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who has all but wiped out of canon and so then join me as I review the episode that not only introduces some important lore to the show but also introduces an interesting take on The Master with the episode in question being called simply just "The Deadly Assassin" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is when The Doctor is framed for the assassin of the time lord presendent he has just forty eight hours to clear his name or else he himself will end up dead and buried. 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 was in all honesty really good which is of no surprise as this episode was written by the great Robert Holmes who wrote many a Doctor Who story with this episodes plot doing a good job of keeping you invested in finding out who the real culprit is and in making sure that you can't take your eyes of the screen incase you miss something important to the plot with the episode with this episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is Tom Baker as The Doctor , Angus MacKay as Borusa and Bernard Horsfall as Chancellor Goth. Also starring in this episode is Erik Chitty as Co-Ordinator Engin , George Pravda as Castellan Spandrell , Derek Seaton as Commander Hilred , Hugh Walters as Runcible , Llewellyn Rees as The President , Peter Mayock as Solis , Helen Blatch as The Voice Of The Matrix and Peter Pratt as The Master.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting 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 acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With all of the episodes cast turning in some really good if not borderline great performances with Tom Baker himself being on top form as The Doctor with him really having a blast in this episode with alot of the episodes cast also being on top form as well which does make it very hard to say who the best performer is in this episode as all of the episodes cast are just on top form and while some are clearly having more fun in the episode then others that doesn't mean that they turn in bad performances because they don't with the acting in this episode really being helped by the fact that the script for this episode is just so good that all the episodes cast have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally.
This episode marks the first appearance of what could be considered the second incarnation of The Master. With this version of the character beg at the end of his of life and unlike The Doctor who just grew old this one is decaying with him being nothing more then a shell of his former self in every sense of the world with this new design being really creepy looking which is something that is oddly fitting for a villain as a villain should look scary and even with Doctor Who being a kids TV show they still managed to make him look like the stuff of nightmares and while the design for the character is creepy looking what doesn't work is the fact that the characters mask does make it hard to hear what the character is saying alot of the time which does mean that alot of his lines of dialog do get missed quite alot of the time and again with the mask it does make it hard to tell if he's talking or not because you can't really see his mouth moving.
There are two things that make this episode an important episode of the show the first and most important of which is the fact that it's the episodes that introduces a limit on how many times that a time lord can regenerate. This is something that whilst it's done in a throw away line in episode four it's also something that goes on to become an important aspect of the show as it now means that every single time that The Doctor does infact die he or she is getting one step close to there death and it's something that the show at least in the classic and even to some lesser degree the modern era of the show was very good with sticking with and while yes there's the whole The Brain Of Morbius thing with previous Doctors being shown on screen that episode was aired as part of season 13 before this rule was set up and yet ever since this rule the show was very good with sticking to it as that's how important that this rule was to the show with the rule really being pretty much retconned out of the shows lore thanks to the The Timeless Children episode of the show.
The other thing that makes this episode an important is that it's the first episode in the shows history to not feature a companion. As The Doctor is by himself for the entirety of the episode and while those are usually a very mixed bad with alot of them not really exploring the potential of what The Doctor might be like and might act like when he's not got a companion here they also fall into that exact same trap and because of that we don't really get to see The Doctor act how we've been told and some cases have seen how he acts when he's not been with a companion for very long and while this could by chalked up to the fact that he's only just left Sarah Jane it still would have been interesting to see him act like a monster when he's say confronting The Master like he has the chance to genuinely kill The Master of for good but that's when his humanity kicks in and he stops himself from doing just that and yet the episode doesn't give us a chance to see anything that awsome as the episode doesn't give us the chance to see what The Doctor is like when he's been on his own for a while.
In a rather refreshing move the episode really doesn't linger to much on trying to work out who is partly behind the killing of the time lord president. As they just straight up say that it's The Master around the halfway point of the story with the story then shifting focus on to who he was working with which is something that does work in one regard as it does lead to a genuinely good action sequence but then once you find out why this person did what they did it also doesn't really make sense either as we find out that the person that actually pulled the trigger was Chancellor Goth with his reason behind it being that he wanted to become the president of Gallifrey which doesn't make sense as the previous president was retiring in the first place and was about to name his successor who was highly rumored to be Chancellor Goth which means that it was pointless for him to be the one that pull the trigger as he'd only end up getting something that he was highly rumored to be getting in the first place with it being better if episode had say Commander Hilred or even Borusa be the ones to pull the trigger as both would have the means and they could be given the motive to actually want to the current president dead.
Now then while I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember whatever this episode grand total running time even was I do know for a fact that this episode has / had an exact grand total running tie of roughly one hour and thirty minuets. Which is oddly short a running time for this episode to have as you very easily could have gotten two more episodes out of this story alone as having be a four part episode while it does force the plot to get alot of the focus it also means that the plot has to get rushed with the episode having more then plot to cover at the very least six episodes and if the episode did have those extra two episodes it wold allow for there to be some development with the time lords as it would allow us to see why The Doctor really doesn't like working with them instead of just brushing over it until the very end of the story but I will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is an action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action 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 action that's actually featured / resented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With the fourth ad final episode of this story having a surprisingly entertaing and thrilling third act action scene between The Doctor and The Master that looks so much better then what it really had any right to be and is just as epic then what it really had any right to be as well as Doctor Who at least in the classic era of the show wasn't really known for it's action and yet here we get not one but two really good action and thrilling actions scenes both in the same episode and both of which were really good and were really thrilling and entertaining to watch in the final cut of the episode in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this episode was for lack of better word amazing as it has everything that you'd expect there to be in a good episode of Doctor Who and then some with the episode adding something good to the lore of the show whilst The Timeless Children retconned that in order to add in something that nobody really likes in the first place in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then 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 really does means that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 9 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 to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the really great and really legendary Google Images simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this episode and are really of course on Google Images are all really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.