Early in this brill story, Sabalom Glitz chimes, “This is the real McCoy this is.” A painfully meta line it may be, but it also pours milkshake more squarely onto the head than anyone could have known at the time.

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For Dragonfire is where the wicked Seventh Doctor (sorry, Professor) era truly begins.

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We can’t quite put our finger on what has changed. Something imperceptible has occurred that drags this terminal TV show out of its death throes to enjoy a last hurrah. Its sad passing is inevitable, but the final eight stories of Classic Who are the difference between going out choking on your own vomit and a Spitfire pilot taking out a trio of Luftwaffe before heroically crash-landing.

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The show goes from naff panto to serious drama for its final two seasons, producing some of the best stories ever. And the foundations for this about-turn are laid here.

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Yet the lead actor remains the same. The production team is unchanged. The budget is still wafer thin. What could possibly be the secret?

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Step forward, the one and only Dorothy Gale McShane. The name’s a bit long to go on a puffer jacket. Any chance of coming up with something more catchy?

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Ace is by no means fully formed here. Her trash talk gets quite annoying (such criticisms are relative, eh?)

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​but she explodes onto the series like a can of Nitro 9 strapped to a plywood door, in the process jolting the show out of its 80s stupor. She’s up for an adventure. Tips drinks over rude customers. And blows sh** up.

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Ace’s backstory is also fascinating. Somewhat unfairly, she gets more characterisation – and more lines, in fact – in these three episodes than Mel was given in her 20 episodes in total.

 

She becomes every schoolkid’s heroine when we learn she obliterated the art room and there’s a nice touch where she trips up over her own age, she’s so used to lying about it. In actual fact she’s 16 - about the same age Susan was. Guess which of them we’d rather spend time with.

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She’s also strong-willed enough to withstand the baddie’s mind control and to teach us that “bird bath” is an insult. We tried it on a colleague recently and they just looked baffled.

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As a whole, Dragonfire – strangely, not the name of a new type of Lynx – is a decidedly mixed (bilge)bag.

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It starts with a great cold opening (geddit?) in which a guy who looks like a more tanned version of Jacob Rees-Mogg ices someone to death and then we’re in a cheap Eastern European airport enduring the first of several appearances of a little girl who seems to have an armadillo on her head.

 

The girl serves no purpose in the plot beyond consuming too many milkshakes and having a mum who’s a bit of a bitch. Let’s hope she’s not purely there as a nod to Aliens to go alongside the beeping locator they’ve also ripped off.

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We then have Glitz returning for some reason, who’s only marginally less irritating than Little Miss Armadillo and has developed a nice sideline in human trafficking. The loveable scamp.

 

The wit of the script knows no bounds when our Time Lord chortles away at his copy of The Doctor’s Dilemma – a George Bernard Shaw play about the morality of medicine (thanks Google) – before the fab foursome decide to go on a proper adventure, in search of a dragon called McGuffin. There’s even a treasure map.

 

It sounds like we’re in for a mash-up of Indiana Jones and Frozen, which we’re totally on board with.

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Naturally, it doesn’t live up to the premise but the sets are bearable and it’s worth basking in the realisation that this is the final time we’ll be subjected to an overly-lit production.

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Moving onto the obvious. We’ve watched the infamous cliffhanger scene five times now and are still baffled as to what the flip the blithering idiot is doing. Leaving aside Sylv’s surprisingly impressive upper body strength (the sneaky beefcake), the scene is utterly nonsensical, the weirdness exacerbated by the complete lack of a score over it.

 

The resolution in Part Two where a walkway miraculously appears makes even less sense.

 

This is sadly symptomatic of this season, which tosses away some decent ideas in a blind panic to get something – anything – filmed before the BBC cans the whole thing. They could have at least have come up with the Professor slipping over the icy edge and clinging on with his umbrella. It would have been more plausible and more dramatic.

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Speaking of plausibility, McCoy is massively overacting throughout but at least he’s enjoying himself, which is lovely to see after his two immediate predecessors were having as much fun as Phil Mitchell. Both the Professor and Ace will hit their stride in the next story, but in Dragonfire we’re treated to a sneak preview of Serious Sylv when his new companion is threatened by Kane towards the end.

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Kane, by the way, is a strong villain who carries genuine threat. His Raiders-esque death is well realised but it’s a major cop-out to see a villain being talked into committing suicide.

 

He’s been waiting 3,000 years yet doesn’t even hang around to verify what the Professor’s told him? Here at Sophisticated Idiots, we’re not renowned for our patience but we’d defo want a second opinion before choosing the face-melting option.

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Talking about characters whose voice can shred the skin from your body, Dragonfire (or, as McCoy would say, Drrrragonfirrrrre) represents the end of Mel.

 

She gets a fair bit of flak, and we’re not especially lenient on her either, but fate dealt the character a tough hand by denying her an introduction story.

 

She was suddenly just kind of there. Screamed a lot. And then left. In her defence, her sole role was to distract viewers from the acrimonious change of lead actor that was playing out on-screen, through the medium of being shrill. She never got a chance to be developed.

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Mel may not have been given the courtesy of an on-screen intro but she does get a strong farewell. The Professor being miffed about her decision and then getting maudlin over his past companions is a nice touch. Way too many companions are cursorily discarded, so at least Mel is spared this ignominy. Even if we could argue she deserves it.

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Anyway, the temperature’s rising and we need to hop into our personal freezer so we’d better get a move on. Quick honourable mentions go to:

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• The giant ant costume is not too terrible, which is a triumph for an 80s season finale.

• The guard enjoying the stimulating philosophical discussion with the Professor is a real highlight, surely the most subversive henchman scene until Austin Powers?

• Next time you blow something up, try shouting your name as an exclamation. If your name’s Ace or Bloody Hell, you might just get away with it. It’s not recommended for anyone called Nigel.

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Dragonfire is a flawed but highly entertaining blast in which we say goodbye to Mel (maintains poker face), goodbye to Season 24 and goodbye to the difficult first season for a new Doctor.

 

With the show having skirted perilously (Peri-lously?) close to extinction and now that we’ve bedded in the Real McCoy and found him a decent companion, perhaps it’s an idea to go back to the very beginning and see what we might Remembrance about how to make an ace TV sci-fi show.

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