YMMV / Doctor Who S20 E1 "Arc of Infinity"

• Captain Obvious Reveal: As soon as Hedin appears on-screen for the first time it's incredibly obvious that he's the traitor who's conspiring with Omega, as the traitor's voice is clearly just Michael Gough's normal speaking voice at a very slightly higher pitch. Despite this, it isn't until near the end of the third episode that the story confirms his identity, just in time for him to get killed.
• Continuity Lock-Out: At no point do they explain who Omega is for people who haven't seen "The Three Doctors", which aired in 1972-73, yet his return is played as a big reveal. It might have made a little more sense at the time if you'd caught the repeat of "The Three Doctors" (as part of the "Five Faces of Doctor Who" season of repeats) a year earlier, but it's still a bad example of television writing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Colin Baker's appearance as Commander Maxil is this for a number of reasons:
  • The Episode One cliffhanger is Maxil shooting the Doctor, who lies motionless on the floor. Alas, he is just stunned, so doesn't promptly regenerate into an identical doppelganger of Maxil. Baker himself quipped about this in later years, joking that he only got the role of the Doctor by shooting the incumbent.
  • 32 years later, in "The Girl Who Died", it was revealed that, while regenerating, the Doctor took on the face of a man he had once saved, in order to remind himself to always save people. One can only guess what message the Doctor was subconsciously trying to send himself by regenerating into the face of Commander Maxil…^note although if you apply some logical thinking into it, his subconscious picked one of the most violent Time Lords out there in recent history in order to adapt towards a harsher view of the universe as a whole. Especially since Fifth's whole regeneration ordeal was filled with backstabbing evildoers, environmental damage and a lot of people dying, Fifth included.
  • Colin Baker was hesitant to accept the role, as he believed it would preclude him from ever being offered the chance to play the Doctor.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: One of the chief complaints about the story is that it's essentially an inferior copy of "The Deadly Assassin", with both stories featuring the Doctor being forcibly returned to Gallifrey, an old enemy of the Third Doctor trying to get hold of a new body, a member of the high council being secretly in league with the Big Bad, and the Doctor and one of the villains encountering each other in the Matrix.
• Les Yay: Nyssa's priorities pull a 180 from worrying about the Doctor to wanting to hear every detail about Tegan the moment they hear from her. She's very quick to pull Tegan firmly back onto the team when she turns up again, and nearly throws a fit when the Doctor is about to venture into the Matrix to find Omega's location from Tegan, on the grounds that she might be killed. The next time she sees the Doctor, she won't even look at him until he tells her Tegan is all right.
• Narm: The Ergon, which looks like a plucked rubber chicken. It actually looks sillier than Omega's gel guards from "The Three Doctors" ten years earlier.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: The mystery who on the council is The Mole is rather easy to solve when one of them is played by an actor known for playing villainous and sinister roles.
• Questionable Casting: Peter Davison has expressed this opinion about the casting of Leonard Sachs, who was best known as the host of the variety show The Good Old Days, as Borusa.
• Retroactive Recognition: Councillor Hedin is Michael Gough, a.k.a. Alfred Pennyworth from Batman (1989).
• Unexpected Character: Omega turning out to be The Man Behind the Man is unexpected not only from a character standpoint, but from the show's perspective as he hadn't appeared or been mentioned for ten years.

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