Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis (1988)

This 25th Anniversary show is strangled by invented continuity - it's a sequel to a story we never saw and takes a sidestep to make the Doctor seem a bit more mysterious than he has become, but is mostly about three factions running around Windsor with chunks of the plot. Lady Peinforte (Fiona Walker) and her archer-crook sidekick (Gerard Murphy) get the best of it, in that their out-of-time reactions don't entirely detract from her status as a major baddie, but some feeble Nazis led by Anton Diffring and even duller troop of Cybermen just get killed off too easily and scheme melodramatically while some sort of record is set for hopping back and forth in time in the TARDIS as the Doctor and Ace jump between 1985 and 1638 for no very pressing reason.

Presumably the Cybermen got elected for the silver anniversary on the ground of their colour, but they seem written into a plot that has more to do with a living statue which could destroy the world but decides not to. As a joke, the Doctor runs into the Queen. As in most 80s Who, the electronic score is especially dire - giving the thing a cheap feel that brings down even this shot-on-location (on video!) affair.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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