User reviews

The TARDIS lands in Cornwall, during the seventeenth Century, Dodo had left, but The Doctor has two new travelling companions. The TARDIS crew encounter Joseph Longfoot, who imparts a cryptic message,

'Dead Man's secret key, Smallbeer, Ringwood, Gurney.'

The first episode of the forth series, it marks the beginning of the end for The first Doctor, it's a good, if unremarkable opening episode,

When you hear the audio, you can close your eyes, and just imagine how good this looked, the tele-snaps are great, and show some lovely costumes, and nice settings.

Best of all here, are Ben and Polly, the pair get a cracking start here. The story is interesting, but compared to other historicals, such as The Massacre and The Myth Makers, it's a little uninspiring perhaps.

The Smugglers doesn't often seem to come up in conversation, and it seems so far off being animated.

It's not a favourite, but it's a decent start. 6/10.

Review of all 4 parts:

This 4 part adventure on the coast of 17th Century Cornwall takes Doctor Who into a Jamaica Inn type world with a tale of smuggling and hidden treasure.

It could easily be a reasonable quality 1960s BBC production of that kind of period drama but with the interesting addition of the Doctor and his new companions. These new companions (Ben and Polly) perform well providing exactly what is required from companions creating added drama, action scenes and nice dialogue between them and the Doctor. William Hartnell, in his penultimate story before being retired off and replaced with Patrick Troughton, is still on good form.

All the acting, the direction and the general values on show from Brian Hayles' story and its presentation are of a fair standard but are not great and unlike many historical adventures the TARDIS crew's presence is not interacting with events in an intriguing way they are just caught up in events without any great importance. Basically it is just a fairly entertaining romp with some colourful characters. A solid effort but an unexceptional adventure in which the time travel element is too unimportant.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 6.5/10, Episode 2 - 6/10, Episode 3 - 6.5/10, Episode 4 - 6/10

Overall: 6.25/10