'More of a tennis player than a cricketer'

Why do those bullets need to have sci-fi flashes on them to show the android Doctor and Peri being shot? It’s one of Caves’ few concessions to its sci-fi format, and oddly feels extremely out of place. Despite that, this is for once no cop-out to the previous episode’s cliff-hanger; with the ‘revelation’ that the time-travellers are not dead being somewhat underplayed. Almost like Holmes is winking at the audience, knowing they don’t expect them to be dead…

Caves introduces one of the series’ finest villains. And it’s to the late Christopher Gable’s credit that his character’s occasionally pantomime villainy is never allowed to descend into complete farce. His confrontations with the Doctor also allow Davison to up the ante in the acting stakes, instilling his usually mannered performance with some real steel. Love the ‘prattling jackanapes’ stuff, and the Doctor grabbing Salateen as he mocks his and Peri’s predicament is also very effective.

All the hallmarks of Robert Holmes’ writing are present and correct - the thinly-veiled satire, the usurping of officialdom and, of course, the double acts. Of the latter, Caves boasts some great ones - Morgus and Timmin, Stotz and Krelper, Chellack and Salateen, to name but a few. And the fact we are no longer watching a children’s show is evident in the rich, layered dialogue these characters spout. Holmes always aimed his work at the ‘intelligent fourteen year-old’, and here we are granted some real gems; be it a debate on the supply-and-demand nature of business enterprise, or the sharply aimed political satire of Morgus’ Thatcherite opportunism. Graeme Harper’s direction, once again, greatly impresses; a mixture of unusual, hand-held camera angles with neat dissolves from one scene to another (or, in one particularly bold example, one scene within another). Caves was Harper’s first directing gig; and it was to the show’s detriment that his evident hunger and verve would only grace its proceedings once more.

There’s a real sense of desperate panic building as the episode progresses - the Doctor is ‘shot’ for the second cliff-hanger in a row, while the impetus for the time-travellers to find a cure for their affliction helps focus the story’s underlying theme: survival. Never before had the stakes been so high, yet so plain, to the Doctor and co. And it’s this focus on raw, tangible motivation that arguably gives Caves its resonance. Oh, and there’s that rubbish monster again at the end just to remind us that we are in fact watching Doctor Who…