N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

No-one in his or her right mind would mistake David Collings for Peter Davison — even as battered and bloodied as Mawdryn is here when Nyssa and Tegan first meet him.

Added to that, at times the music in Mawdryn Undead goes a bit Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, which can be a tad jarring. (Well, it was the 80’s!)

“If these readings are correct, it’s 1983 on Earth.”

The Doctor, Mawdryn Undead: Part One

And this is also the story that completely screws up UNIT dating (and I don’t mean the kind of episode that saw the Doctor whisking Jo Grant off to Peladon when she was all dolled up for a night on the tiles with Mike Yates). If the Brigadier had retired in 1976, how was Sarah Jane Smith meant to have been ‘really from 1980’? (I distinctly recall telling my son to remember that remark when we watched Pyramids of Mars, thinking ahead to this very moment in the marathon!).

“One has to move with the times.”

The Doctor, Mawdryn Undead: Part Four

Leaving aside Mawdryn Undead‘s flaws and what all this means for Doctor Who‘s continuity, it’s actually a neat conceit having a story running parallel in two time zones and dovetailing at the climax. It’s nice of course too to see Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier again — had it really been the best part of eight years since his previous appearance! True, it might’ve made slightly more sense if it were, as originally planned, William Russell’s Ian Chesterton teaching at Brendon, but controversial dating aside, it still works pretty well with it being the Brig.

Throw in the return of the stentorious Black Guardian, excellent support from the aforementioned David Collings as Mawdryn and a new companion who looks to be a right devious swine and there’s a lot to like here. It gets a bit bogged down with all the running about on the ship in the third and fourth episodes, but in the main, with Mawdryn Undead the good outweighs the bad.