Finished Planet of Fire.
And again I find the same problem as with Mawdryn Undead, where a large part of the story is just people going back and forth between locations instead of doing anything with them.
Then we also have Chameleon switching back and forth, back and forth and it was really tiring. And Perri is insufferable in the first two episodes, yelling her head off constantly. Also jarring is that we see her come to in the tardis (and yes writers, seeing Nicola Bryant in a bikini did manage to distract me from her dialogue for a while, you sly bastards) and next scene she's calling on the Doctor like she helped thwart three Dalek invasions and lodged gold into at least two dozen Cybermen. It's like Grimwade didn't want to write about her coming to realise what kind of a mess she's in and so just skipped the whole acclimatization part.
Which seems even odder considering, as noted above, the amout of padding in this story. Which is a shame considering the first episode began setting up this planet in a rather promising way, but not much ever really comes of that. Or from having the Master be four inches tall.
Oh and I also have to mention Chameleon. This is the first time I've encountered him, though I know something of the behind-the-scenes stuff about this thing, but….why did the producers assume that having him emit horrid, bloodcurdling, soul piercing shrieks multiple times, for no godamn reason, is going to win them any favours from their audience ?
I do realise that the recquirements Grimwade was handed (have two companions leave [in one case permanently], have a new one show up, also involve the Master somehow and be able to shoot it all at Lanzarotte cause godamn it we paid for the staff to go to there and by god we're gonna take advantage of it !) was a pretty tall order, though I still think expanding on the culture of this planet and a possible fire-religion-centric society would be a better way to fill up the story's runtime.
! Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
City of Death
The Pilot
The Three Doctors
Robots of Death
The Daleks
The Brain of Morbius
The Edge of Destruction
100 000 BC
The Face of Evil
Spearhead from Space
Day of the Daleks
The Curse of Peladon
The Mutants
The Daemons
The Silurians
The Keys of Marinus
Inferno
Colony in Space
The Green Death
The Ambassadors of Death
Revenge of the Cybermen
Revelation of the Daleks
The Hand of Fear
The Masque of Mandragora
Battlefield
The Sensorites
The Android Invasion
Attack of the Cybermen
Terror of the Zygons
The Sea Devils
Ghost Light
The Aztecs
Marco Polo
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Dragonfire
The Curse of Fenric
The Sontaran Experiment
The Mark of the Rani
Planet of Evil
The Time Warrior
The Time Monster
The Claws of Axos
The Mind of Evil
Terror of the Autons
Meglos
Vengeance on Varos
Mawdryn Undead
Carnival of Monsters
Planet of Fire
Timelash
The Twin Dilemma
The Creature from the Pit
Happiness Patrol
Time and the Rani
Silver Nemesis
Delta and the Bannermen
Paradise Towers
Nightmare of Eden
Image of the Fendahl