Silver Nemesis, this weeks cap addition, must've seemed like a good idea at the time.  Take Doctor Who on a Special Day, throw in the Cybermen as the Big Bad, and high minded hilarity ensues.  

Problem with the Cybermen though is that they don't really work well as henchmen.  They need to be the main driver in the story and not be alongside or subserviant to another Big Bad.  It didn't work in The Next Doctor alongside Miss Hartigan and it sure as heck doesn't work in Silver Nemesis when 80's Neo-Nazis and Elizabethan characters and Cartmelian Doctor Darkening are thrown into the mix.  

Maybe, maybe, is the story had been allowed to breathe into a fourth episode (a now common Tour complaint for McCoy 3-parters) it could've worked.  As it is it's a jumble, one which hopefully rambles along fast enough to keep the unwary at bay.  Tonally it tries to be more Remembrance of the Daleks than either of the odder-balls on either side, but it's also indicative of the overall shift from the daffiness of Season 24 and the consistency of Season 26.

The caps added today are pure addition for the Tour.  Who knows what next weeks will be?

For fans "of a certain age" who were weened on Tom Baker on PBS oh so many years ago, The Hand of Fear is a seminal story.  It was the first story that taught fans that ultimately Doctor Who is a show as much about change as anything else.  Sarah Jane leaving?  Not so sure about that.  

These movements of characters both into and out of the program are inflection points upon which endless discussions turn.  Amy and Rory leaving?  Doctor Who will never be same again!  

Now you get it.  And we'll be okay.  I hope.  Remember Eldrad must dance!  And so must you.

As with previous weeks cap additions, those for The Hand of Fear aren't so new new as much improved on breadth and quality.  

I wonder what next weeks cap addition will be?

Long term fans know there have been many dark periods in Doctor Who history. 1986 leaps to mind, as does almost any year between 1990 and 2003, and for all the well-told reasons.  Truth be told, even for those of us on the port side of the Atlantic, 1987 was not much better.  True the show had weathered being down-Graded, almost literally, but it was still limping along with Sylvester McCoy.  But what the heck was it?  

Even here in flyover country, it appeared as though the Great Doctor Who Expansion of the Eighties was slowing as all the oxygen was being inhaled  Consumption of the past in all it's grainy glory was rapidly catching up to the present, and the glories (as well as a critical eye for quality) we're properly wary of the shambles left in the wake of Michael Grade's intervention with the show.  Gone was Colin Baker's problematic portrayal, but the tonal shift to McCoy was jarring, and appeared from afar to be very much a work in progress.

Season 24 was a mess, but there was a light at the end of that seasons tunnel.  Dragonfire is not a very good story.  At three episodes the pacing, like it was for most of these stories at this time, was off and could have used a fourth episode to allow for more context and characterization. Bue even with all that,Dragonfire was the class of the season, and portended (a promise which could never realistically be fulfilled), a return to the gothic story-telling which was always a strength of Doctor Who.

This weeks cap addition to the Tour is Dragonfire.  Who knows what next weeks addition will bring?