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

“Oh, my fingers, my arms, my legs! Ah! My everything! Argh!” There, I thought I’d get the worst of it over with immediately.

For the most part, the balance of a serious story and silliness works well in Nightmare of Eden. Admittedly, I could never quite shake the impression that Don Brennan and his guard chum were about to claim that they were a couple of intelligent, caring guys who we’d probably like if we met them socially or that one of them wrote novels in crayon. And yes, the Mandrels look a bit too cuddly to be scary, but maybe that’s the point. After all, it’s what happens to them when they die and the effects of greed and addiction that that product has on humans which is the real horror here. (My son did comment that all the Mandrels really wanted was a hug.)

“Work for? I don’t work for anybody. I’m just having fun. “

The Doctor, Nightmare of Eden: Part Two

Indeed, Nightmare of Eden offers oddly mature subject matter for Doctor Who. Drug trafficking and the effects of drug addiction are not your usual Saturday tea-time children’s television fare. But I’ve been saying as much from at least as far back as Marco Polo, so I don’t know why I should be surprised now.

So yes, clash of styles it may be but I’ve always liked Nightmare of Eden. The setup is interesting – with the plotlines of the two ships materialising around each other and the problems with the Continuous Event Transmuter (CET) machine dovetailing nicely at the end. Lewis Fiander’s Peter Sellers impersonation is pretty good and there are some fairly groovy special effects. The CET machine might just be a large-scale Miniscope but Doctor Who has followed the maxim that good ideas don’t have to be original time and time again. The show having run this long, it was inevitable it would be inspired by itself eventually.

And yes, even after the awful ‘Oh my arms’ nonsense, Tom Baker manages to turn it around with his response to Tryst’s defence of his actions. Has ‘Go away’ ever been said with such contempt as it is here?

All in all then, I’d mark Nightmare of Eden down as a qualified success.