Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Retired) arrives in the newly-formed American state of Malebolgia, where the locals have requested his advice following his participation in the secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom. But the Brigadier is a little suspicious of events in Malebolgia, and he’s not alone – he has actually been assigned to look into rumors of misuse of a mind scanning/recording/reprogramming device at a local mental hospital. Those rumors turn out to be true when the Brigadier encounters a long-haired man in unusual clothes who claims to have arrived out of nowhere only the night before, and also claims to know the Brigadier. But Lethbridge-Stewart takes the man back to the mental hospital, and doesn’t get to hear the man’s claims that he’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey – and another patient at the mental hospital is making precisely the same claims. But whoever the Doctor may be, he’s in no position to stop a confluence of demonic influences from overrunning the 51st state – leaving Lethbridge-Stewart and an equally amnesiac Charley to do battle with darkness by themselves.

written by Alan W. Lear with Gary Russell
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by William Allen

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Robert Jezek (Brigham Elisha Dashwood), Morgan Deare (Senator Waldo Pickering), Helen Goldwyn (Becky Lee), Maureen Oakeley (Doctor Dale Pargeter), Nicholas Briggs (Gideon Crane)

Timeline: after Stones Of Venice and before Invaders From Mars

Review: An interesting finale to a quartet of eighth Doctor adventures, Minuet In Hell is a little uneven in places. Unless it’s really warranted – say, like a regeneration story – I’m not really in favor of stories where the Doctor has lost his marbles and becomes a rambling wreck for 75% of the story. The Brigadier makes the absence of the more familiar lead tolerable, but too many things are sprung on us in part four – suddenly, the Brigadier’s instructions have been coming from someone in Britain who seems to have been possessed by demons, the Doctor regains his personality and memories, and various characters’ arcs wrap up rather neatly. A little too tidy, really. And a bit disappointing – the Doctor and the Brigadier ultimately spend very little time in each other’s company fighting the good fight, and that is, after all, what we were all hoping for. (more…)