Random TV Episode Review - Shada (Doctor Who Classic Series, Tom Baker era)

Its been a while since I last looked at a classic Doctor Who story and after what feels like a long time, we look at another one. For those of you who don't know, there was a time where the BBC needed to make some space and because of this, many episodes of the classic era of Doctor Who went missing. At the time of doing this post, 97 episodes from the show's first six years are still missing and while we may never be able to see those episodes again, there are some that get remade by using old footage (both audio and visual) with animated segments and newly recorded audio filling up what would've been the whole or parts of that missing episode. What's also important to note is that unlike the revival series where the majority of the episodes are stand alone with a continuous narrative, the stories from the classic era were split into several parts which when combined together, can form not an episode but rather a film so to speak. The latest story to get remade in this way is a Tom Baker story that was originally going to be the finale of season 17. Now before many of you comment to say that this wasn't shown in the first six years of the show, you are right. The reason why this one has missing parts was because of a strike occuring at the BBC at the time and thus it never finished with its filming. So last year, the BBC released the story in its completed form with animation and newly recorded dialogue to fill up the gaps and this being an official reconstruction, it is considered canon. So enough talk, let's review it:

As it is with the Doctor Who universe, there are a few prisons which hold all sorts of criminals in the universe and the one that this story covers, ironically enough is on the planet Shada. In a quest to find knowledge to create a "Universal Mind" and take control of the universe, a Dronoidian called Skagra (played by Christopher Neame) intends to travel to Shada to extract knowledge from the criminals being held there. But with the Time Lords keeping its location a secret, he then goes to Earth to find a time lord residing in Cambridge UK (my home turf) who then requests help from The Doctor (reprised by Baker) and its then a battle to determine who takes control of the Universal Mind.

While not the greatest of Tom Baker's stories, it is your typical Doctor Who adventure with the Doctor taking on an enemy who just wants control of something (like most villains tend to want more than anything else) and using his companions as and when they are needed. For its 2017 reconstruction, the sudden switch between animation and live action can be distracting at times with the animation being pretty similar to that of Archer which isn't a bad thing per say. But if I can find anything positive about this story, at least it manages to be as good as it can be as well as establishing a connection to the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" at the end. 7/10