Doctor Who: 10 Great Fourth Doctor Stories

5. The Deadly Assassin (Story 088, 1976)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awxHDUfzOg0 So what do you get when you cross Doctor Who with The Manchurian Candidate? You get this, and you get something really great! This is another one of those ones that€™s filled to the brim with Time Lord lore (in a season replete with it), including the establishment of the 13 life limit for Time Lords. It also includes brief mention of what might be the Doctor€™s name, more Time Lords than you can shake a stick at, extensive scenes on Gallifrey and the return of the Master; known, at least by me and some others, as the €œBeef jerky in a cloak€ version of the character. We also get to see some truly nightmarish scenes showing the inside of the Matrix. No, not the cinematic one, but the one the Time Lords have. It is, as near as I can recall, the first use of virtual reality as a concept and it works here to a disturbing degree. The story is also unique among classic Who stories in that it€™s the only one where the Doctor doesn€™t have a companion. He arrives alone, having left Sarah Jane behind in the previous story, and leaves alone. This was something really surprising for old Who, and even now it€™s something we seldom see (even when we do, the BBC tries to pretend it isn€™t the case, but Kylie Minogue was in no way a companion). It€™s a pity that they never tried it again in the old series, because this story proves it can be done well.