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

I’ve always been a fan of Gulliver’s Travels, so the idea of miniature travellers interacting with oversized creatures and props was always going to appeal to me on some level.

Throw in the fact that the parallel plot of murder and über-deadly insecticide feels a bit like an early Avengers episode and I should’ve been hooked from the start, but, despite its great sets, huge photographic backdrops and giant cat, I’ve never really warmed to this story.

When I first saw Planet of Giants some twenty-plus years ago, I didn’t know that it had been written and recorded as a four-parter – with the original episodes 3 and 4 being edited down into the single episode 3 we have now. But now I do know it, that episode – Crisis – does feel a little rushed and disjointed.

Indeed, watching the DVD extras, it’s fascinating to view how Ian Levine’s recreation of the original episodes 3 and 4 – Crisis and The Urge to Live – using newly recorded audio, existing clips, animation and a bit of imaginative gaffer tape – gives us a glimpse into what might have been had the ending of the serial been left as intended. For me at least, it seems as though it might have been a more consistently paced story.

Admittedly it would have been much slower, which I know was one of the reasons for the edit in the first place, but, as I’ve said previously, the sometimes sedentary pace of early Doctor Who has never bothered me.

Would the retention of the now-missing two half-episodes’ worth of material have transformed Planet of Giants into a classic four-part season opener? Well, probably not, but I for one wouldn’t have minded seeing a bit more of Hilda and Bert. And the giant cat.