“It’s a kid’s show” goes the old argument, and the fanbase erupts. Stories to entertain, stories to educate, stories to inspire, stories to terrify? We question the application of any such broadstroke qualifiers. So can it be said that a particularly labyrinthine, rather cerebral, and possibly even abstract story about multiverses and diverging realities — complete with axe-wielding robot guards, space slavers, and time-sensitive lion-like species — be criticized for being ‘too deep for youth consumption’?

It may just be easier to dunk on for bad use of Adric, and a rather abrupt and lackluster exit for Romana, arguably one of the greatest companions of the ‘classic’ era.

An immensely detailed storyline is condensed into four episodes that confuse us as much as entertain…and in a few of our opinions, more so. The “E-Space Trilogy” ends with a whirling myriad of metaphysical and theoretical concepts, and were it not for some interesting effects, a really effective score, and a pair of hilarious crew member flunkies, we may not have been able to make it through a rewatch without having a transcript and a ready finger on the rewind button to decipher exactly what just happened.

We do learn that the story origins — and the novelization by the scriptwriter Gallagher himself — offer a crucial piece of information that we agree would have been immensely helpful to have, you know, in the televised script.

NEWS:

• John Barrowman visit’s Ianto’s shrine in Cardiff
• Early RTD script to become a produced Doctor Who audio drama this year