"We sing in praise of total war..."

"We sing in praise of total war..."

For Episode 17 of 'Round The Archives' I had decided to cover the Davison two-parters.

Before we rewatched them I firmly expected 'Black Orchid' to be the one I enjoyed the most. It's a historical and a murder mystery (of sorts) which are two of my favourite things.

I didn't think that I would enjoy 'The King's Demons' as much, as when we did our rewatch of 'Doctor Who' from the start I remember finding it rather trying, as yet again up pops The Master.

And I knew that I would enjoy 'The Awakening' as I had strong memories of it from either the original transmission or the 1984 repeat.

So watching them again I was surprised to find that I enjoyed 'Black Orchid' less and 'The King's Demons' more.

The former is a good solid story, but ultimately is a little inconsequential. Whereas 'The King's Demons' is fun and features the most amazingly over the top performance from Gerald Flood, who is in full fruity mode.

And then 'The Awakening' is an enjoyable story with some lovely location filming that is relatively close to where we live. And in fact Warren was around for some of the filming.

And we found out a great story about the Shapwick monster, which was either a crab, lobster or tortoise. Whatever it was, it was left behind in 1706 and the villagers did not know what it was and sent for the Wise Man of the village, who was extremely old and infirm and had to be bought in either a wheelbarrow or handcart, who pronouced it to be a monster.

It's little stories like that which make doing 'Round The Archives' even more fun.

(By Lisa Parker)