Doctor Who: The Destroyer of Delights

The second part of the “Key 2 Time” trilogy stands in direct contrast to the stories book-ending it in that it's primarily a comedy. The primary antagonist of the first episode takes a break as well, replaced by the Black Guardian... with the twist that both Guardians are losing their powers, and reduced to little more than bickering old men.

The story is a pastiche on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, with the Doctor visiting Sudan during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate on his quest for the fifth segment. It's a period of history, and, indeed, a whole culture, not much explored in Doctor Who, although what we see here owes more to myth and fantasy than it does to reality. Much is also made of Arabic expressions (such as the one in the title), with characters frequently misinterpreting them for comic effect - clearly the idiom subroutine of the TARDIS's translation circuits is on the blink.

On the whole, it is a fun story, if not especially deep. Both Amy (Ciara Janson) and the Black Guardian (David Troughton) are particularly good, with the latter getting some great lines. It's a good change of pace, serving nicely to break up the arc of which it is a part, although one has to say it succeeds more for its tone than for any particular quality of the plot.