I’ve recently been re-reading Licence Denied, Paul Cornell’s 1997 anthology of Doctor Who fanzine articles. The first entry in the book was Jan Vincent-Rudzki’s 1976 demolition of The Deadly Assassin.  Reproduced in full below, it’s an absolutely fascinating read.

Few Who stories go very much against what has been done before, but recently this has changed. First, there was “Genesis of The Daleks,” then “Revenge,” “Morbius,” and now “Deadly Assassin,” or rather “Deadly Continuity.” But first let us look at the programme as someone who hardly ever watches. The costumes and sets are quite effective, but a little too Flash Gordon. It has a good cast and was well acted. The story was fair but did not hold together too well.

Now let’s look at the story as Doctor Who viewers. The following is not only my view, but that of many people (including people who aren’t avid fans). First, congratulations to Dudley Simpson for using Organ Music for the Time Lords, but thumbs down for not using his excellent Master theme. Then there’s the more than usually daft title. Have you ever heard of an assassin that isn’t deadly?

On to the ‘story’. Before we even started we heard the same boring cliche: ‘the Time Lords face their most dangerous crisis’. I suppose Omega was a minor nuisance! The next blunder was the guards. Why were there any? The Time Lords were supposed to be very powerful, so much so that anyone strong enough to invade would swat the guards with ease, and Time Lord technology should be able to deal with minor intrusions.

Then came the TARDIS. Before, it was MK 1 and the Master’s and Monk’s were very different marks of type 40 TT capsule, but why only one missing? As for such and advanced race being unable to find someone in 52 (sometimes 53) storey building. Ridiculous! I’ve always thought Time Lords names were secret and unpronounceable, so why do we suddenly know their names?

‘C.I.A’ was certainly not appreciated, nor Time Lords with bad hips. There is a time and place for humour and this wasn’t it. Particularly Runcible whose demise I was certainly not sad about. This story really showed up the infatuation for Earth people in Doctor Who. It could have been set on Earth and no one would have known the difference. Doesn’t R. Holmes realise that Time Lords are aliens and do not need to conform to human motivations whatsoever? This fact was well brought out in ‘War Games’, but ignored here.

Elgin said that premonition does not exist. Yet the Doctor had them in ‘Time Monster’, ‘Frontier In Space’, ‘Evil of The Daleks’ and ‘War Machines’. I was surprised by the Doctor saying that Time Lord machinery was ‘prehistoric’. Mr Holmes seems to have forgotten that the whole Time Lord way of life is to ‘observe and gather knowledge’.

So apart from the fact that they are supposed to be one of the most advanced civilisations (brought out so well in ‘War Games’ and ‘Genesis’) they could have easily copied more advanced races. For instance in ‘The Three Doctors’ the Time Lords were amazed that there was a force more powerful than themselves. They were pretty powerful pre- ‘Deadly Assassin’.

In ‘Deadly Assassin’ the Time Lords seem to have forgotten the Doctor yet we’ve always been led to believe it’s very rare for a Time Lord to leave Gallifrey. So he should be remembered, particularly as in ‘Three Doctors’ he saved Gallifrey (and the universe of course!) from destruction, and Borusa said they needed heroes.

The trial of the Doctor was another R. Holmes farce. The ‘War Games’ trial was so excellent, but of course this had to be in Earth norms, and was pathetic. Then later the Doctor and co. go to look at the public register system to see that really happened at the ceremony. Now we were, I believe, dealing with Time Lords, so why couldn’t they and look at a time scanner and see the truth?

Also, why need the brain machine to predict the future? Another fact forgotten is that Time Lords are immortal. In ‘War Games’ the Doctor said they could ‘live forever barring accidents’. This had never been changed until ‘ Morbius’ where we learnt that the Time Lords used the Elixir if they had trouble regenerating. So why didn’t the Master use the Elixir? We also saw in ‘Morbius’ eleven incarnations of the Doctor (‘though in ‘Three Doctors’ Hartnell was rightly the first) so now we’re left with one more Doctor, according to ‘Deadly Assassin’.

Then there wasn’t Part 3 which must be the biggest waste of time ever in ‘Doctor Who’. A ten-minute trip into the matrix would have sufficed, but 25!

One minute Elgin was saying there’s no way to tap the machine, the next he was taking the Doctor down the other ‘old part of the city’ which looked just like all the other parts. When Goth was discovered we heard the daft reason for him helping the Master, for an exchange of knowledge. Again ignorance of the Time Lord way of life is shown by R. Holmes. Goth should have been quite able to go to the extensive library and sit at a Time Scanner for a few decades or so, and find out everything himself. He could even have followed the Master’s travels on the scanners!

Borusa recognised the Doctor, but since the Doctor and the Master were at school together wouldn’t Borusa remember the Master? Also what’s this rubbish about the Doctor being expelled? We know he has a Time Lord degree in ‘Cosmic Science’ (and that was revealed in R. Holmes story!)

I was stunned to discover that the Doctor doesn’t know his own people’s history! The Time Lords would have their own history completely documented. After all, they can look back at time, so what’s all this nonsense about myths? And surely somebody would have wondered what that lump and two holes in the Panopticon floor were.

Of course, part 4 saw the return of the same old story. It couldn’t just be Gallifrey in danger, it had to be a hundred other planets in danger.

You’d have thought that not much else could be wrong with the story, but there was more to come. Time Lord power sources are well known to be novae etc., as Omega produced, not some silly black box with tubes. I would also like to know how the Doctor managed to climb up a 100′ shaft with smooth side and with plastic rocks falling on him.

Also, even if the Master was protected by the sash when everything was to be swallowed up, what point would there be to floating around in space – not much! Things get even more ridiculous when the Master falls down the deep hole (his yell lasted a long time) and he’s back very soon, regenerating (due to absorbing energy). If all he needed was energy why didn’t he use his TARDIS, like anybody else, to regenerate?

For some of these blunders you could argue that the story was set far into the future eat a time when the Time Lord race is degenerating. but it can’t be as the Doctor was recognised. No, the new rule for Doctor Who seems to be the reason, which is ‘anything pre-Holmes needn’t exist’, which can’t be good for a script editor.

What must have happened was that at the end of ‘Hand of Fear’ the Doctor was knocked out when the TARDIS took off, and had a crazy mixed-up nightmare about Gallifrey. As a Doctor Who story, ‘Deadly Assassin’ is just not worth considering. I’ve spoken to many people, many of whom were not members, and they all said how this story shattered their illusions of the Time Lords, and lowered them to ordinary people.

Once, Time Lords were all-powerful, awe-inspiring beings, capable of imprisoning planets forever in force fields, defenders of truth and good (when called in). Now, they are petty, squabbling, feeble-minded, doddering old fools.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MAGIC OF DOCTOR WHO?