Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 521: The Armageddon Factor, Episode One

Dear diary,

When I started out on the Key to Time season about three weeks ago, I explained that I’d sat and watched all the six stories before in quite quick succession. I think that my attention must have wained rather a lot as the season progressed, because with each passing story I’ve found that I can remember less and less about it. Today’s story - coming as the big finale to the entire season - is the one I can recall the least about. To put it bluntly, I can’t remember anything that happens. All I know is the identity to the segment of the Key here… and that’s sort of it.

I’m glad, though, because it means that I get to watch all the various Key to Time threads draw together as though it were a brand new story. It certainly feels like they’ve upped the stakes for the finale, too, with the Doctor and Romana arriving in the middle of a nuclear war, and with missing planets, near missile hits, kidnap, espionage, a lost TARDIS, and even two Romana’s (well, sort of…). Coming after a story which didn’t really grab me, it feels as though this one is pulling out all the stops to get me interested once again.

It helps that the story all looks rather pretty, too. There’s some lovely big sets, and a feels to all of this that simply smacks of it being the middle of a war. Many of the sets are really rather unappealing visually (lots of grey corridors), but that all works in the story’s favour, because it really fits the feel of the world we’re supposed to be in. I’m looking forward to having all of this unravel before me over the next few days, and getting to watch both versions of Romana around on screen together, almost like a transition period. Truth be told, I’d completely forgotten that Lalla Ward was in this one, until about three seconds before she made her first appearance on screen!

So far, Ward is off to a decent start, and I’m quite liking her. Mary Tamm is also giving her all even at this late stage in the game, and I have a feeling that as the story progresses, I’m going to be left wishing more and more that they could have done a proper regeneration scene between the two. I think I’m right in saying that Tamm officially decided that, yes, she was off during the recording of this serial, and that the decision to cast Lalla Ward came from a joking suggestion made by Tamm at the time of her departure! Emma vaguely joined me for this episode, too (she was in and out of the room getting on with something, but was sort of paying attention), and she quickly decided that she enjoyed the relationship between the Doctor and the current Romana. This left me thinking that actually, I’m really going to miss the way that Tamm and Baker bounce off each other - I’m hoping that the next few episodes will be a great showcase for Romana before her departure…