Doctor Who: Paper Cuts

Paper Cuts very much suffers from “middle episode syndrome”, being considerably weaker than the first and third parts of its nominal trilogy. And I say “nominal” because it has very little to do with either of them, and was evidently written as a standalone that was shoe-horned into the gap.

The story itself is a sort-of-sequel to the Third Doctor TV story Frontier in Space, one of the better stories of its era. The Draconians have not been used much in spin-off material, perhaps because nobody can think of much more to do with them than “samurai in space”, which is basically what we have here. In some respects, then, the exploration of their culture in this story reveals them not to be really all that alien (just not European).

There are some nice ideas in the story, with the murderous origami sculptures being particularly neat, even if most of the guest characters are a bit stereotyped. But it's the placement of it in the series that's really problematic. The short term effects of the spectacular cliffhanger at the end of the previous story, Patient Zero, are dealt with even before the theme music starts up, and the huge longer term implications are then all but ignored until the closing moments. Most notably, the companion's portrayal in this story makes pretty much no sense given what's just gone before.

Placed anywhere else in the run, it would probably have been a lot better, but it is where it is.