THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL!

What else can the mythical race of Eternals do to stave off boredom than have the greatest intergalactic boat race you could possibly hope to witness, its crews racing for the grand prize of Enlightenment, and a time and spacial area filled with danger, intrigue, ambition and sabotage.

A gorgeous piece of cover art (by Andrew Skilleter) that adorned Barbara Clegg's adaptation of her classy and memorable Season Twenty story Enlightenment, a true gem of the Davison era, and featuring some great filmed model work for its time.

KILLER SCARECROW!

The decades-old Melkur statue of the Traken Union grove is certainly a mystery for Consul Tremas (Anthony Ainley) and the Doctor, but also an amusement for Tom Baker during filming of his penultimate gem of a story, the all-factors gorgeous studio-based story, The Keeper of Traken.

BACK TO THE UNKNOWN!

Though only a few short years had passed, it must nonetheless have felt like a millennia for WHO fans since the TARDIS had made a trip beyond Earth and into the depths of the galaxy. Colony in Space, showcased in this fine 1971 art from Frank Bellamy for the Radio Times, would prove an enjoyable action romp with a moral message from Malcolm Hulke, featuring good use of The Master, some intriguing aliens, and pacy direction from Michael Briant.

MOON INVADERS!

On the surface of the moon, the army of Cybermen now revealed begin their attack on the humans' Gravitron base, preparing their deadly laser weapon, in this great image shot at Ealing Studios for the final episode of The Moonbase. Note the model Cyberman ship to the right, used for effects filming shots.

BAD ROBOT!

Image: MIRRORPIX archive.

In the universe of Doctor Who you couldn't even walk down a London street during those swinging sixties days without some kind of strange invasion going on! As demonstrated here by the clunky War Machines from the enjoyable four-parter conceived by Ian Stuart Black/Kit Pedler for the near end of the First Doctor's era.

An Earth-based show designed to capture a changing modern audience, The War Machines was a kind of underlying potential template of sorts for the show's ultimate future by 1970.

McCOY AND THE BANNERMAN!

The time for summer fun is over for The Doctor when he's spirit-marched by the galaxy-feared Bannerman mercenaries in a specially posed publicity shot for Sylvester McCoy's debut season love it or hate it, all-location filmed adventure, Delta and the Bannerman. Though I loved the opening episode- full of imagination and humour, the rest of the story leaved a lot to be desired and felt too whimsily lightweight for my own personal tastes.

GETTING (TIME) LASHED!

It had the lowest budget of Colin Baker's overall impressive opening season, and was a story that barely filled its own second fifty-minute episode, alongside variable quality acting. Nonetheless, there's a lot of good things to enjoy about Timelash, especially in its first part, and most notably with its villains, comprising the late, great Paul Darrow's Richard III camping-up as Tekker; the strange and unique humanoid alien robot servants, and Robert Ashby's memorable half-human/half-alien reptile- the Borad, whose appearance would, in the Doctor Who universe, inspire the work of TARDIS stowaway H.G. Wells.

Lovely composition design by Aquatics64.