Doctor Who: Every Tom Baker/Hinchcliffe Era Story Ranked From Worst To Best

13. The Masque Of Mandragora

Like writer Louis Mark€™s aforementioned Planet of Evil, this is a story that looks much better than it actually is, being filmed in Portmeiron. He really was too lucky. He was always bought in to write season openers (he did so for season two, nine, thirteen and here, fourteen). His last is probably his best, in the sense that only the second half is bad. The first two episodes are brilliant and full of memorable scenes, like the one which takes place within the Mandragora Helix and the one in which Tom Baker enunciates €œThe Mandragora Helix€. It also says something about the word of mouth nature of the first episode that it had 8.3 million viewers but leapt up to 9.8 million for the second. The only problem is that it was all downhill from there. The equally excellent-looking costumes were passed down multiple film versions of Romeo and Juliet originating from 1954. The plodding Shakespearean pace is not lost on more renaissance parts of the story and it feels incredibly far removed from the rest of it. Louis Marks was apparently brought in because of his knowledge of the Renaissance and he goes out of his way to show it off. But at least it's polarised in terms of quality and not middling and boring throughout. At least Marks learnt from Planet of Evil in that regard.