4P2 - The Deadly Assassin 2

Let it be said of David Maloney that he is both a great director and a great cheat. Just like the hidden platform that Sarah falls on early in Episode Three of Genesis of the Daleks (thus negating the severity of her apparent freefall during the cliffhanger of Episode Two), Maloney inserts a quick closeup of someone pointing a staser at the President into the reprise of the Episode One cliffhanger. Alas, it wasn't The Doctor shooting the President, he was trying to shoot the man who was shooting the President. If only I had known this about 25 years ago...

The duo of Spandrell and Engin play two roles in this story - de facto companions to The Doctor, and a typical "Holmesian double act", both playing Watson to The Doctor's Sherlock Holmes as the latter pokes around in an attempt to find out who's framing him for murdering the President. George Pravda is his usual stilted, Czech-accented self as Spandrell, but Erik Chitty is so dotty and a perfect foil to Tom Baker's Doctor. Tom Baker's Doctor seemed to get along with older people so well, from Amelia Ducat to Engin to, as we'll see soon, Professor Rumford.

Towards the end of this episode, The Doctor gets a crazy notion that he can find out who beamed the mental projection of the Presidental assassination into his head by going into the Matrix and finding the perpetrator. Little does he know what a fantastical ride he's about to embark on, and neither does the viewer. Get ready from some mind blowing television...