YMMV / Doctor Who S24 E3 "Delta and the Bannermen"

• Complete Monster: Gavrok leads the Bannermen in a genocidal war against the Chimerons, wiping out the whole race except their queen Delta, who flees with the egg containing her daughter. Determined to wipe out this last Chimeron and the only surviving witness to his crime, Gavrok first goes to the tollport where she was last seen, gets all the information the tollmaster has out of him, tells him he's free to go then shoots him In the Back. He puts up a bounty for information on Delta's whereabouts, and when a Bounty Hunter contacts him to say she's on Earth, he gets a fix on the man's beacon and then blows it up, killing him. He blows up a bus full of innocent tourists, killing dozens, in case Delta is on board. When the Doctor approaches him under a white flag, Gavrok casually blows it away. On leading his final assault, he tells his men to kill everyone else but leave the princess, who has now developed to the appearance of a young teenager, for him, seemingly just for the satisfaction.
• Evil Is Cool: Even the episode's detractors admit that Gavrok is genuinely memorable villain, thanks in large part to Don Henderson imbuing him with a palpable sense of menace and repulsiveness.
• Questionable Casting: Stubby Kaye as a CIA agent? For real?
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Andrew Cartmel was furious at the 'green men with cotton wool on their faces', remembering how a journalist sitting next to him during a press screening scoffed at the sight.
  • Some of the "bees" in the scene where the Bannermen get stung appear to be almost the size of bats.
• Strangled by the Red String: Billy and Delta share all of one friggin' look, and suddenly he's breaking up with Ray in the (second-) most humiliatingly public way possible.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As with the previous story, many argue that the story's biggest problem is that it's written as a grim and gritty war story, but this is hampered by the fact that the production team were pushing the show in a Lighter and Softer, more kid-friendly direction. Unlike the previous story, however, most seem to feel that this story's problem is that it didn't quite lean far enough into the wackier elements, making for a story that's overall pretty goofy and fun, but has some very jarring tonal shifts into something much darker.
• Uncertain Audience: As with Paradise Towers, the plot has all the dark and violent elements of the Eric Saward era, but the execution is comical and childlike as in the Graham Williams era. It is not surprising that the serial is divisive among fans.

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