Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Adventures, Volume 6

Two more stories featuring the Third Doctor and Jo Grant, unconnected with each other and likely not in internal chronological order, should that sort of thing worry you.

Poison of the Daleks – While this is a UNIT story, in that it features the Brigadier and Benton alongside the Doctor and Jo, it is mainly set offworld, on a human colony overrun by the Daleks. This is hinted at from the opening moments and makes for a story that's obviously very different from any televised one featuring these particular characters (The Three Doctors arguably coming closest). It also means that the first 30 minutes, where everyone is still on Earth feels tacked on, with the guest characters we meet there not proving very important and falling into standard tropes of the era.

Once we get to the main story... things don't especially improve. It's a decent enough Dalek story but there's little that's special or different about it. The Daleks have conquered a planet, they have a scheme to conquer some more, they must be stopped; that's pretty much it. The most notable thing, which fans of the maniacal pepperpots will likely appreciate, is the extent to which the story brings in elements from Dalek stories from the First Doctor's era that haven't been seen on TV since. Robomen turn up in the first few minutes, and turn out to have a significant role in how the story plays out, but they are by no means the only such element.

There's also some fun with an alien scientist (played by Abigail McKern) whose prickliness and genius both match the Doctor's own, giving us some good scenes where they are playing off each other. But, beyond these bright points, it's all fairly routine and it doesn't help that the science doesn't make much sense or that the Daleks' motives don't extent beyond conquering for the sake of it. Yes, it largely works, but it doesn't stand out in any way or ring any significant changes on the formula. 3 stars.

Operation Hellfire – To begin with, this story seems very reminiscent of The Dæmons, especially as it opens with the villains summoning a demonic spirit. But it ends up going in quite a different direction, and certainly can't be described as the sort of folk horror that story emulated. Instead, the Doctor is sent on a mission for the Time Lords that involves him travelling back to 1943 to recover a vaguely described ancient artefact.

The artefact isn't entirely a McGuffin, since it does seem to be doing a few things along the way that affect events, but it's not the focus of the story. Instead, we get a mix of espionage and Nazi occultism in the style of some of Dennis Wheatley's novels – indeed, one of the main characters in the story is based on Wheatley and his service during the War. Ian McNeice also appears as Winston Churchill but, despite his prominent position on the cover, it's very much a cameo with only a few brief scenes, all but one of which take place away from the other characters.

Third Doctor stories set in the past are comparatively rare and, in some respects, this has more in common with some of the stories of the black-and-white era than Three's own, albeit with the addition of more action (there's rather a lot of Venusian aikido, for instance). Jo gets a key role in the story, although some of what she's doing is implausibly effective given her usual scatter-brained approach. The result is a decent story that goes somewhere the Third Doctor usually doesn't, but managed to keep some of the tropes of the era intact nonetheless, even if some might be disappointed that they're not getting a reprise of The Dæmons. 4 stars.