"Here's to the Future. Love is the answer"

In both the Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Appreciation Society polls of the 1987 series of Doctor Who, each story was deemed an improvement on the previous one. Dragonfire won both, with Delta and the Bannermen second, Paradise Towers third and Time and the Rani fourth. At the time, that was taken as an indication of the “bedding-in” of new script editor Andrew Cartmel’s approach, although no one quite seemed to appreciate just how unreasonable the circumstances in which he and his boss, producer John Nathan-Turner had to put together the series were.

Nearly forty years later, little had changed. By DWM #592 Paradise Towers had sneaked above Delta and the Bannermen, but that was all. That seems right to me, but it always did. I like Delta and the Bannermen, but not as much as the stories either side of it. Yet I have a friend who considers this to be literally the single worst Doctor Who story ever made, and another who’d put it in their top ten of the twentieth century show. (Finding a third way between those positions, my wife considers it the most successful serial, overall, of the season, and the season itself to be an improvement on the previous two, but not as good as the next one.)