YMMV / Doctor Who S18 E2 "Meglos"

• Broken Base: While it's generally considered a pretty weak, forgettable story, it does actually have some defenders among fans who preferred the Denser and Wackier approach of the previous few seasons and hated the more serious direction that Season 18 went in. A common observation is that this is the only Season 18 story in which Tom Baker actually seems to be having any fun in.
• Faux Symbolism: Dodecahedron is a reference to the Platonic solid that formed the basis for quintessence or ether (the perfect element from which Aristotle suggested the stars were made from). Nothing else in the plot has anything to do with this, though.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A leader of a primitive tribe named Lexa who is shot to death by an unexpected assailant? Hmm...
• Padding: The final episode was underrunning heavily and the budget was tight due to the previous serial going vastly overbudget. The cliffhanger recap is very long (lasting nearly three minutes of a twenty-minute episode), and the rest is heavily drawn out. The end credits were even slowed down in order to extend the runtime a crucial few seconds (meaning, for the music snobs, the end credits are in E minor like the original theme instead of the F# minor the Howell arrangement usually is in). The "Groundhog Day" Loop also meant that the same footage could be used over and over in one episode.
• Questionable Casting: Fan and academic Ray Dexter questioned the logic of bringing back Jacqueline Hill, only for her to play a different character and argued that bringing back an older, more mature Barbara against the Fourth Doctor would be a much better idea. Director Terrence Dudley had no idea she had been in Who before when he cast her, which mitigates this somewhat.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously:
  • Even though the story is usually considered a boring fluff piece, Tom Baker actually does some of the best acting of his whole tenure in it, and in a season often criticised for Baker's lack of enthusiasm to boot. This is probably because he has something interesting to do - he has to play the Doctor, the Doctor's Criminal Doppelgänger Evil Twin, and each one pretending to be the other - so Baker had more room to show off range and subtlety than he usually got. In the review book About Time, Tat Wood observes that Baker "is having fun finding ways of suggesting he's a mad cactus".
  • Jacqueline Hill, who played the companion Barbara Wright back in the First Doctor days, returns here playing a completely unrelated character and imbues her with infinitely more dignity and interiority than the script gave her.

---