Doctor Who: The God of Phantoms

This six-part (3½ hour) story sees the Doctor and Leela arriving on an isolated colony world that has devolved back to roughly 18th-century technology. Once there, they face a whole slew of problems - ghosts of the recently departed keep showing up, an invading army from another part of the colony threatens to destroy the featured town, an inventor has access to anachronistic technology, a third group of colonists hides out in the woods living a neolithic lifestyle, the Doctor keeps fainting and experiencing dreams about anvils... and, well that's not even the whole of it.

This complexity allows the story to keep going for its entire length without some of the padding that affects the longer TV stories of the era and also permits a larger cast than usual - by my count, there are eleven significant guest characters. But, on the other hand, the length is also something of a weakness, throwing too many things into the mix when a tighter story might have been more effective. For instance, an offworld colony that doesn't just consist of a single town is a plus, and there's a real feel that the world has complexity and depth to it, but the invading army is a cypher, an important threat but one that distracts from the main plot and is never fully explained.

The villain, once it becomes clear who he is, also isn't terribly interesting. Fortunately, many of the supporting characters are much better, even if the gender balance isn't great (which, I suppose, could at least be taken as accurate for the era of the TV show it's trying to emulate). There isn't much fun or humour in it either, leaving us with a sober and serious version of the Fourth Doctor more in line with his final season than with the Hinchcliffe era. Leela is good and gets to do a range of things, leading the action at several points.

This wasn't, for me, as epic as it was doubtless intended to be. It has a large scope, to be sure, and there are plenty of ideas in it but it goes on a bit too long and overstays its welcome. I'm torn between three and four stars, but I'll round up to save myself the hassle of deciding between them.