Doctor Who: The Armageddon Factor

The Key to Time was a well-written and interesting story arc in which the White Guardian sends the Doctor and a young Time Lord, Romana, in a quest for the six segments of the Key to Time, so the White Guardian can restore balance to the universe. The complete story is also Season 16 of Doctor Who. Later, in Season 18, the entire season is linked by the recurring theme of entropy, and in Season 23, The Trial of a Time Lord spans the entire season. It's interesting, because every year, the new version of the show features a story arc that stretches the entire season, and this is generally seen as the precursor to those story arcs. Like many of the 70s-ear stories, the special effects were pretty dodgy, the acting was sometimes a bit too much (or little), but the stories themselves were good, and there were usually some really interesting things that were done, too. This is a perfect example of all of that. The Armageddon Factor is the longest and most complex of all the stories in the Key to Time series. Parts of the story will seem familiar to sf fans. There's a pair of planets at war, one of which is preparing to deliver a massive strike that may destroy the other, while the other is actually deserted, except for a giant computer that's running the war. The Doctor is shrunk. A fake segment of the Key to Time is used to create time loops and freeze things. The Doctor runs afoul of the Black Guardian, etc. Things are so bad at the end that the Doctor has to attach a randomiser to the TARDIS controls, so he doesn't even know where he will go next! It's dark, messy, earnest, and pretty darn good. I think it's a great conclusion to a great story arc from The Classic Series!

Glad to see iTunes still slowly adding more of the Classic series. But I still wish they'd put out some more Peter Davidson. One storyline doesn't really do him justice. One other suggestion I'd like to make to iTunes. Instead of jumbling all the Classic series together, how about dividing them out by season or at least by Doctor. It's really a bit of a jumbled mess the way it is right now.