R5 - The Death of Doctor Who

At last, a sense of purpose graces this otherwise forgettable and pointless escapade with the controversially titled The Death of Doctor Who (one wonders if WOTAN got its metaphorical hands on this episode before Season Three's The War Machines). The TARDIS crew land on Mechanus (home of the Mechanoids, which is convenient, as the Mechanoids only arrived on the planet some 50 years previously), and find that the surface is inhabited by giant mushrooms which don't do a great deal to our humanoid friends other than smother them like a giant Muppet.

The Daleks follow shortly afterward, thus allowing Vicki the opportunity to escape the Dalek ship and warn her friends of the Daleks' duplicate Doctor. She really needn't worry, as most of the time, The Doctor's double doesn't look a thing like him. The clinching shot is when The Doctor calls Vicki "Susan", but both Vicki and Barbara need only look at "The Doctor" to see that actor Edmund Warwick is a spitting image for William Hartnell in long shot only. The same goes for Richard Hurndall, by the way.

A cool little fight occurs between the two Doctors, with both chaps using their canes as swords. It's the kind of fight one would imagine that two competing Yodas would have before the Star Wars prequels came along. The episode ends with the Daleks, after dispensing with some of the indigenous fungus creatures, penning The Doctor and co. in a cave.

But hark! A Mechanoid makes its first appearance, saying something almost completely incomprehensible, but apparently beckoning the humanoids to "follow" (well, Ian seems to understand it well enough). There were a couple of ropey bits in this episode, but it's leagues ahead of the four installments that preceded it. Should be a good conclusion.