There's a strong case for saying that much of the imagery used in Dr Who has nineteenth century roots. Several of the Doctors' costume designs seem to have been influenced by the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and the series has been fond of using the period for some of its better remembered stories. There have been concepts borrowed from writers like H.G.Wells and Jules Verne, and even the overall ethos of the programme arguably owes something to the spirit of freethinking liberalism of the time, to say nothing of the wild and extravagant eccentricity that fuels some of Charles Dickens' works. But this story has an unusually strong nineteenth century tone.

It's partly the naive nature of the storyline, which is almost a distillation of earnest melodramatic hokum. A fairly simplistic planetary runaround about a monster carrying out a kidnap to help spread its own kind around space (making it into another variant of the "monster tries to take over the universe" sort of plot). The business with the eggs does show a certain imagination, as does the concept of planets being moved about into different orbits, even if the science doesn't actually hold up (and if the eggs are that thick, it might be difficult for the baby Gastropods to hatch out of them in the first place). The story is also told very slowly, with a large number of TARDIS scenes in which to play out the dynamics of the new Doctor-companion relationship (much the most interesting part of the story's first half).

The depiction of the Doctor is also significant. Infused with a spirit of florid Dandyism that owes as much to the Regency as the Victorian period (the Doctor even mentions Beau Brummell, to make the connection with the former explicit), the character spends much of the story acting up to the most theatrical and egotistic possible interpretation of a hero. The nature of heroes in fiction can vary a great deal, but at its most reactionary, such characters can become little more than all-conquering supermen (or women, but they're usually men) who exhibit barely disguised contempt for the relatively feeble and helpless people they are deigning to look after. The Doctor, in this story, frequently comes over as a man trying to live up to this most crudest definition of a hero, even jeering at Peri "This is work for heroes, not faint-hearted girls...hah!" at one point, and displaying a self-aggrandising pride at this status. Or there is his marching up to Azmael's room, shouting "Villain! Murderer!" and attempting instant strangulation. It's a worldview that embodies the straightforward absolutes of Victorian melodrama played to the hilt, and the frequent use of a deliberately archaic vocabulary for the Doctor pushes the similarity further. On the surface it's as if a character from the kind of play or film where evil villains twiddle their moustaches and tie young women to railway lines has been let loose in a space opera.

There's more to it than that, though. For one thing, the Doctor has various acute mood swings (a result of his recent regeneration) throughout the story, which take him to various extremes, such as a paronid would-be murderer, a would-be penitent hermit living in isolation for years, or a frightened man trying to hid behind Peri and gabbling excuses to the first two Jocondans they meet. Or there's the anguished self-pity when he's arguing with Peri and Hugo. What's significant about all of these is the fact that they are all so extreme, as acted. It leaves the impression that the Doctor is instinctively putting on an act in each case - exaggerating some element of his genuine personality and overlaying it as a front to conceal his real self (even his attempt to throttle Peri could be the bubbling up of a repressed subconscious resentment of her for having indirectly caused him to regenerate). Which raises the interesting possibility that the Sixth Doctor is more of an enigma than he is sometimes recognised as.

What is his real personality? If the traits he adopts are so exaggerated and obviously "acted", what is he hiding? My own suggestion would be that it's on odd occasions of extreme stress that we see a glimpse of the real person beneath the mannerisms. So when he learns that Peri has been captured at the end of the third episode, all the gruff irritation at the "stupid girl" is forgotten and he sounds genuinely anguished. When Mestor is in the process of attacking and killing Azmael his distress and sadness also come through. Which makes it possible that it's only at his most distressed we're seeing this Doctor as he really is - a frightened man lacking in self-confidence who feels a need to massively over-compensate. A man who feels obliged to play the hero, but isn't absolutely certain he's up to it, and is hence unable to do so without smothering any doubts under the swaggering gung-ho persona he puts on. Arguably, the helpless fear he expresses on first meeting the Jocondans is a symptom of the strain that such an act is exerting on him, leading him to release all the feelings he's been trying to ignore and breifly taking him right the other way. Even the clothes he wears could be a seen as a front, as if he's got a rough idea he ought to be dressing in a way that's "eccentric" or colourful, and so uses the multi-coloured costume as a way of expressing what he wants people to think he is (as opposed to his actual personality). Sneering at other people (Like Hugo, or the Chamberlain) is a means of easing the tension and temporarily making himself feel better.

Obviously the after effects of the regeneration are also important to this, but it's notable that even after this story, the character still often tends to keep up this bluff front, if not quite to the same extreme as here, and it's only gradually, throughout the era, that he seems to relax more and more. My own view is that it's probably mainly in The Trial of a Time Lord, especially when he's pared with Mel, that we get to see him putting on an act the least. As it is, in this story, he tends to come across as arch even when trying to be friendly (such as his last few remarks to Peri).

Peri herself doesn't really benefit much from the story. Mostly forced to be reactive to the Doctor's maladjusted behaviour, she often has little option but to play the victim of some sort, although she does get the chance to have some authority at the end (telling the twins that, no, they can't stay, and to get into the TARDIS). She does work quite well with Kevin McNally's Hugo Lang, who ultimatley turns out to be one of the more likeable support characters from this era, and would indeed, have made a decent companion (better than some of the ones they did have). It's a shame he couldn't have been kept on, if only because his presence makes the Doctor/Peri arguing a little less one-sided and provides more of a challenge to the Doctor's blustering.

Maurice Denham also lends a certain integrity to Azmael, allowing the character some weary dignity. It's also notable that Azmael seems to be the only person who is able to establish any kind of rapport with the (badly acted) twins. As scripted, these last two come over as cases of people who might have great mathematical gifts but are incapable of establishing any kind of empathy with other people (their mother is a "fool", and they show no sign of particularly caring about their father either). But Azmael has a teacherly air, and this professor/student relationship seems to be the only way of interacting with others that suits them. Edwin Richfield also does his best, despite the silly mask, and does manage an effectively malevolent harshness, especially in an above-average (at least for this story) scene where the vegetable thief suffers death by embolism ("N-No..shoot me..shoot me!")

There are some extremely cheap-looking sets (especially the Police HQ, the spaceship, and the stopping off station on Titan 3), although Mestor's throne room is better than most, and more interestingly designed. On the whole, the Joconda scenes seem to come off better than the rest, from this point of view.

Overall, I think this story is possibly the most earnest and least self-aware ever shown, and certainly the one that shows the Doctor struggling most in terms of his own self-knowledge.