Although the first Jon Pertwee season was also the first to be made and broadcast in colour, it couldn't really be said to capitalise on that to any great extent, partly because the tonal range of colours was still quite limited to start with. There's little in Season Seven that would suffer if seen only in monochrome, except possibly the burnt orange look of some of the exterior shots in Inferno. For the most part, its content and visual presentation differs little from the dour and no-nonsense style of the sixties stories. This story, the opener of the eighth season, is arguably the first one to consciously strive for a bright and gaudy effect.

This can be seen most obviously in the carnival colours of the circus scenes and the brash yellows, reds and greens of the sequences showing the Autons as plastic daffodil salesmen travelling about on their coach. The nature of the storyline and the various elements it contains also have a more unreal fantasy-orientated flavour. Killer dolls, policemen whose faces peel off, villains hiding out in circuses, monsters masquerading as jolly mannequins in a promotional event...it all has a bold and unabashedly subversive quality, at times reminiscent of the kind of surreal perils found in programmes like The Avengers or Batman. Like those series, this takes place in a world where even the most seemingly everyday of objects can be twisted into something both macabre and silly, hence the daffodils that suffocate, huge plastic armchairs that swallow up the person sitting in them, or telephone wires that can seemingly come to life and wrap themselves around the user. It's all clearly designed to scare (or at least temporarily unsettle) children by putting a bizarre comic-horror twist on the ordinary and unremarkable.

The depiction of the regulars is also reformatted to fit the new style. UNIT is standardised into mostly comprising (on screen) the Brigadier, Yates and Benton (obviously there are other personnel but we only occasionally see them, and these three are the main focus point for them from here on), and the three of them are seen to have a fairly comfortable working relationship, with only as much formality as absolutely necessary. Liz's replacement, Jo Grant, is conceptually very retrograde in comparison to what was being intended with the former character. Unlike Liz, she has no real scientific background to speak of, no comparable status or sophistication, and less means to assert herself as an equal to either the Doctor or Brigadier. Whereas Liz was a full grown adult, capable and willing to stand her ground, Jo is a reversion to the infantilised type last seen in Victoria. She cannot help making a fool of herself at times, and is patronised from the start (the Doctor can't bring himself to upset her by telling her she isn't wanted, due to her her wide-eyed enthusiasm - in other words, he and the others view her as not much more than a child). She needs looking after, in a way in which Zoë and Liz didn't. A female child figure in an organisation otherwise full of capable grown men. It's all rather traditional compared to where the series might have been going just beforehand.

What really makes Jo come alive is Katy Manning's performance, and she does manage to attack the role with plenty of charm and enthusiasm, throwing herself fully into the spirit of things, and allowing the character's sense of fun and wry self-deprecating humour to come to the fore. In addition, the script does allow her to be resourceful and quick-witted on occasion. She may make a clumsy mistake and ruin her attempt to spy on the Master and Farrel, but is still able to rescue the Doctor from Rossini's caravan at the circus, for example. This doesn't alter her status as a blatant child-identification figure, but at least she isn't forced to be totally passive.

Jon Pertwee seems to be rather grumpy in this one for some reason, his Doctor not getting off to the best of starts with Jo, although this is probably intended as a contrast to the close fondness that quickly develops between them. Indeed, the impression soon forms that he cares rather more for her than he does for the Brigadier or the others, with whom he shows himself happy to argue bad-temperedly (only agreeing to apologise when Jo intercedes with him). Nevertheless, as mentioned, this fondness seems more like the protectiveness of an adult to a child than anything else, as though she is bringing out the more avuncular side of the Doctor's nature. There's also an interesting bit where the Doctor boils away the inside of the Master's explosive despite the Brigadier's eagerness to have it analysed, declaring it to be too dangerous for humans, one of the occasional reminders we get that the Doctor's and Brigadier's agendas don't always coincide totally. The edginess of the Doctor/UNIT relationship has been smoothed down by this stage, but then that was always likely the longer the latter element was kept on as a regular basis, and it doesn't necessarily follow from that there's no longer any scope for disagreement or conflict between them.

There is also still scope for conflict between Pertwee's Doctor and various support characters. His coolly supercilious attitude to Rossini is understandable enough in the circumstances (having been captured and tied up by the latter), but his undisguised contempt for the civil servant Brownrose is more notable. The character may be a little pompous and officious but the sneering and bullying he seems to come in for from the Doctor comes over as disproportionate. It feels as though the series is consciously setting out its "We are against petty tunnel-visioned bureaucrats" stall by deliberately caricaturing them, but the vaguely aristocratic background to the Doctor's dismissal ("Who's in charge of you pen-pushers these days...Tubby Rowlands...you know, I was saying the other night...wrong sort of chap is creeping into your department lately...") threatens to smack more of complacent snobbery than anything else. This scene is also mirrored to some extent by the sequence where a lone time Lord disguised in stereotypical civil servant fashion (suit, bowler hat, brolly and so on) arrives to warn the Doctor about the Master. He too seems to represent the face of bureaucratic officialdom, and it annoys the Doctor just as much on that occasion. Hence he can give the Doctor warnings but refuses to offer any practical help. The intention is clearly to show that the Doctor always kicks and shouts against rule bound conventionality wherever it comes from.

The story does have various problems. The narrative structure is very loose and undisciplined, with a definite concentration on producing one action set piece after another. Most of them comprise various traps set by the Master for the Doctor, making the story almost like a game brought to a life. Indeed, it's explicitly confirmed to be a game between the two Time Lords, the Master making a point of testing his old rival out in various ways, to force him to prove himself as a worthy opponent (and, in the process, thoughtfully ensuring that most of them are strange and sinister enough to hopefully grip an audience's imaginations). This may even partly account for the somewhat unsatisfactory, with the Master seemingly giving in too easily, as if he's decided that the whole phase of the game this story represents is now over. Whether the booby trap in the satellite station room (which is helped by some nicely ominous music, even if it does beg the question of why the Doctor doesn't just jump in through the window to avoid the tripwire) or the waiting Auton in the factory safe, his traps are the main element that keep the story moving and provide some enjoyable moments, but also serve to hide the fact that there often isn't a great deal else to the proceedings.

The circus characters are little more than standard stereotypes for instance. John Baskomb does give Rossini an uncouth vigour, and has a reasonably bombastic interrogation scene with Pertwee. On the other hand, Farrel and his father have an interesting power relationship, which the Master exploits. The former is clearly weak and lacking confidence, and is easily manipulated by more commanding figures, having been brought up in the shadow of a dominating father who, even at this time, is still threatening to come out of retirement and continue running the family business (it's quite obvious that he thinks his son is incompetent anyway). It also makes a change that we do see some of the effects on family members of one of the Master's killings.

The Master makes a reasonably good debut, displaying an unmistakably authoritative personality from the start. Roger Delagado's portrayal combines charm and menace, as well as a propensity for sudden outbursts of vicious rage, making for easily one of the smoothest and most enjoyable renditions of the character. I also think that last bit where he is apparently killed a good bit of ingenious writing (how many people watching in 1971 thought that the Master would just be a one-off villain and genuinely had been killed here, I wonder?), even if the quality of the mask Michael Wisher wears isn't up to much.

Although it is possible to enjoy this one, I think the edge is taken off it somewhat by rather crude production - eg the frankly primitive Chromakey (OK, we can cut them some slack as it was early days for the technique, but the effect is still mostly rather poor, with some pretty blatant backdrops in the satellite tower or car scenes), and the killer doll stuff is rendered extremely ineptly for the most part. The would-be Nestene manifestation is never anything more than a crackling white video effect. I also find those scenes where characters' heads zoom into the front of a CSO background and shout something very tacky and comic-strippish. As straightforward adventure it is generally enjoyable, but the realisation is often rather tacky and patchy, which spoils it somewhat.

Heady stuff that can thrill on a basic level, but nevertheless flawed in several respects