Peter Davison's final adventure, "The Caves of Androzani," pulls out all stops to give this Doctor an unforgettable farewell. Deep within the titular caves, the disfigured, masked antihero Sharez Jek (Christopher Gable) and his regiment of androids are locked in conflict with an army unit and a group of smugglers for control of the life-extending Spectrox. When the Doctor and Peri (Nicola Bryant) enter this labyrinth, they immediately become victims of deadly Spectrox poisoning. The story's numerous subplots involve espionage, betrayal, and revenge, as well as big-business corruption, political assassination, and silly-looking reptilian monsters. And the first episode has one of the best cliffhangers ever: our heroes are executed by a firing squad armed with submachine guns.

Style over substance

Androzani has a reputation with Doctor Who "fandom" and critics as being a near-perfect story . In reality, this is a good story, not great, but probably the most overrated of the 80s (unless anyone rates that McCoy story, The Crappiness Patrol, at all, which would make that one most overrated just for being rated!). Stories such as Terminus and Time Flight, which fans consider turkeys, were better than Caves of Androzani.

So what do we have here. One of the few stories where the Doctor finds no allies among the guest characters. Everyone is out to kill him. It's ironic that he can evade a firing squad and machine gun fire from the gun-peddlers but eventually succumbs to an incurable disease. A story where all the important guest cast is killed off, with the exception of one minor character. Ressurection Of The Daleks is criticized for its undue violence. It boggles the mind that Androzani gets a pardon in this respect. It contains the same violence. To top it off, even the Doctor "dies" in this one.

Bottom line: Caves of Androzani is a good story that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout, but so does Earthshock. Earthshock is not considered a classic, and neither should this one. That said, it's still a far better story than anything McCoy could put out.

Based on the numbers coming in on whether or not my review was helpful, I see that The Crappiness Patrol-McCoy apologists have finally made their way to this review.

Davison's last adventure is also his best. Great send-off

The Caves of Androzani brings the Peter Davison era to a close. I wished that Davison could have stayed with the show another season or two, as it was just in his third season as Doctor Number Five (the classic series' 21st season overall) in which he finally seemed to have settled into the role and become more comfortable. "Caves" was written by veteran DW writer/former script editor Robert Holmes (Terror of the Autons/The Ark in Space/The Talons of Weng-Chiang, etc.) who turns out a Doctor Who adventure which is not only the best of Peter Davison's tenure as the Doctor, but also one of the show's greatest stories ever. The late Christopher Gable turns in a great performance as the tragic antihero Sharaz Jek. And John Normington is also great as the true central villain Morgus. "Caves" is well-directed by Graeme Harper, who manages to get a lot performance-wise from his cast, including Davison, Gable, and Normington, as well as Nicola Bryant (Peri) and Maurice Roeves (Stotz). And at the end we get to see, although briefly, Anthony Ainley as the Master, along with all of the companions from the Davison era during the regeneration scene. The Caves of Androzani is Peter Davison's last and best Doctor Who outing, and possibly the best DW story of the 80's, and also possibly the last great story of the classic DW series.

Just What the Doctor Ordered (okay, sorry, bad pun)

This was the first Doctor Who thing I ever saw, and it was kind of strange to see Peter Davison doing sci-fi. But I thought he did a really nice job. Nicola Bryant does a very nice job too, as the Doctor's companion, Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown. She was very appealing and is quite good at screaming (but repeatedly lets her accent slip).
In this story, the Doctor and Peri land on the planet of Androzani Minor, and, while investigating a cave, they wind up inadvertantly handling a substance called Spectrox, which is, in its raw form, the deadliest substance in the universe. Eventually the Doctor and Peri wind up in the clutches of a crazed scientist named Sharaz Jek, plus they realise they're dying of Spectrox poisoning. I won't give away any more than that.

In conclusion, this DVD is very enjoyable, even if you don't go for sci-fi and just like watching Peter Davison. The audio commentary is really interesting, too, especially where Peter Davison comments (during the last episode) about regenerating into Colin Baker.