Pier Pressure brings the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe to Brighton in the 1930s where they encounter an alien presence and enlist the help of legendary entertainer Max Miller, played by the always excellent Roy Hudd, who I last heard as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream and who is in real life the president of the Max Miller society. As usual with Robert Ross, the story doen't make much sense but Hudd and the regulars carry it. (One of the other guest actors is appalling, but fortunately gets killed off half way through.)

I am afraid I rather lost patience with Night Thoughts; there is so much that is crap about it. The central plot issue, Edie's death, simply made no sense at all: why kill her so ceremonially on the operating table, rather than slip her a poison pill? The Seventh Doctor's behaviour is utterly inconsistent. The bit with Ace and the bear traps is just stupid. The cast do well but the material is nigh unworkable.

Steve Lyons' work is always interesting, and Time Works is no exception: the Eighth Doctor and friends end up in a society obsessed with timekeeping, enforced by mysterious clockwork robots (a foreshadowing of The Girl in the Fireplace, unintentionally no doubt). The story combines the standard overthrow of alien oppressors (though not the king, this time) with some plot-convenient timeslips, so is not particularly special, but the dialogue is cracking, the world-building unusually convincing, and the cast, especially McGann, on top form. The best of these three.