Upstairs

The TARDIS arrives in a dark and dusty attic at 10 Downing Street, but within minutes of leaving the ship the Doctor, Steven and Vicki realize there is something wrong: there doesn't seem to be a way out. What's more alarming is the presence of a strange alien fungus working its way through the rooms of the attic, displacing the rooms across time as it goes. Separated from the TARDIS, the crew must confront the alien menace and its servants if they are going to survive.

Upstairs is told mainly from Vicki's point of view this time, with Peter Purves joining in as Steven to complete the dialogue pieces. Given that Vicki remembers this story from quite some time after she left the TARDIS we are not shown her future so it's a safe spot to enjoy this one as it gives nothing away. Steven does not contribute any narrative at all.

Haunted house stories are a mainstay of horror and tension; and those places where nobody goes within their own house are often scarier when we see things living alongside us just separated by a layer of wood and plaster. The only thing scarier than a basement loaded with old junk and shadows is an attic, full of all its creaky floors and piles of boxed up memories people have forgotten. In 1989 the series did its first take on a haunted house story with great success, and Upstairs manages to pull off the same feat evoking a claustrophobic atmosphere inside what one would assume to be a safe place. The tantalizing glimpse the Doctor gets of London out a window early on serves to mock the time travellers' situation, with familiar surroundings just out of reach and the creeping unknown only inches away.

Mat Coward is a new author to the series, and he is obviously no stranger to the regular characters giving them lines we would find perfectly in character. Fresh blood is always a good thing, even if it is on a smaller scale story, and it is also good to have Maureen O'Brien take her turn at playing the Doctor's lines for a change. There are always a lot of regrets that the originals are not around anymore to play their roles, but as no-one lives forever it's an unrealistic wish to have fulfilled, but by having Hartnell's lines performed by those who knew and worked with him it's almost like he is being channeled back into the series.

NEXT EPISODE: ETHERIA