Kinda

1982: Kinda first broadcast. Slated by fans as incomprehensible and containing big fake snake. 12-year-old Shallow finds it 'boring'.

1995 approx: Kinda discovered by fans to be best story ever, despite containing big fake snake. Shallow doesn't notice, having retired from fandom in 1988.

2006: Restored to fandom once more, Shallow reads Kinda novelisation and decides to buy video. Now read on...

I realise now why I didn't like Kinda first time round. It's complicated. There's a surface layer satirising pith-helmeted colonialism and 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it' militarism. Then underneath there's the struggle to prevent history from grinding into motion again on Deva Loka. What price the Doctor's time travelling experience on a planet which prefers history not to happen?

Top concepts which are backed up by quality execution. Where would this be without Simon Rouse? Shouty mad characters like Hindle can go wrong in DW in so many ways, but he hardly stumbles once, even with the regression to childhood bits climaxing in the 'You can't mend people!' line. I liked the relationship between Todd, Sanders and Hindle; Sanders abdicates responsibility, allowing Hindle and his insecurities to step into the gap, while Todd looks on, unable to stop him. (Is this an id/ego/superego metaphor?)

I'd forgotten Nerys Hughes was playing Todd. She's pretty good. I was particularly convinced by the scene where she has to try and fool Hindle into opening the Box of Jhana while simultaneously being very frightened indeed of him. Plus, if she hasn't got the best pins ever to appear in Doctor Who, I'll eat my Davo TARDIS toffee tin.

Adric and Tegan don't require such a kindly viewer as they do in other stories. At times I didn't even notice they were acting. The Tegan v Tegan dream dialogue isn't as bad as I thought I remembered it, too.

Mary Morris was a bonus, as I'd forgotten she was in it. I got a distinct and welcome Ursula Le Guin vibe from the Karuna/Panna scenes, as if The Word For World Is Forest had been crossed with The Tombs of Atuan.

It seems to me with this story that the Doctor doesn't have all that much to do until he devises the circle of mirrors plan in episode 4. The action goes on around him, and he's sidelined as an 'idiot'.

Incidentally the Target novelisation of this is surprisingly good. Terrance isn't just a shooting script sausage machine. He conveys Hindle's childish petulance very well indeed.

Suspension of disbelief rating: LOW. That snake may be fake, but it's only in a few shots. I don't like seeing studio floor between the dry leaves on the ground, either, but I suppose it could be smooth rock.

Pet theory: Nyssa dreamt the whole thing.

Overall rating: 5 / 5. And it takes a top story to get that from me outside seasons 13-14.