Doctor Who: The Quest of the Engineer

Written by the scriptwriter of the TV story Full Circle it's perhaps no surprise that this feels quite a lot like some of the later serials of the Tom Baker era. It's set in E-Space and, for once, this isn't simply in order to have this particular pairing of companions together, since it does form a key motivation for one of the characters. Funnily enough, though, the basic idea behind this story seems borrowed from that of a slightly earlier serial, The Pirate Planet, a similarity that gets only a passing reference.

It's not as good as that story, although arguably better than Full Circle, and does manage to ring a few changes on the setup, as well as the details of the main villain. Indeed, there are some pretty cool visuals in here, although sadly audio might not be the best format for presenting them. Neat setting aside, though, the story itself is fairly run-of-the-mill, but it is helped by having the villain be more rounded than is usual - megalomaniac, perhaps, but not a ranting loon, just ruthless in the pursuit of his objectives. One of the other characters, an astronomer with some shades of Binro in The Ribos Operation is also well-drawn, acting as a temporary additional companion and being at least as effective as Adric. (Indeed, Adric doesn't do a lot in this... he tries, but he's not very successful compared with the Doctor and Romana).

Coming where it does in relation to the rest of the TV series, it's emulation of that season means that there isn't much humour in this and the prolonged separation between the Doctor and Romana means a lack of entertaining banter, too. But that's the way the series was at this point, and this is better than many of the televised examples from the time; a decent story with some good characters and some great ideas presented on a massive scale that would have been difficult on pre-CGI television.