Source (although it was rather hard to find even this). Vengeance on Varos was, in my opinion, the only truly great Sixth Doctor serial (although The Two Doctors and Terror of the Vervoids were pretty good). Rest in peace, Philip Martin.
News from his daughter, who was supposedly the reason he wanted to write for Who: it was her favourite series as a child, and she kept saying "If you write for television, daddy, why aren't you writing Doctor Who?" So he did. Gangsters is astonishing. Starts as a violent racist portrait of violent racism in Birmingham, becomes the most surreal thing ever run on mainstream tv.
Dang. One of the better writers of the era and certainly kept the 6th Doctor's era from being total barrel scrapings (he, Robert Holmes despite his protestations of the character, and Pip & Jane Baker all contributed strong stories with positive interpretations of the Doctor. So did Eric Saward when he wasn't busy script editing everything else and a couple stories were in very bad shape... Not Martin's, though...) "Vengeance on Varos" was definitely something the kids would not understand, but it's aged rather well. Some people love to say the Doctor pushed the guards into a very nasty fate. Once they actually sit through the story instead of parroting expletives in the misguided belief that they're being hip, they'll see what actually happened and the Doctor didn't push anybody into the acid pool... oops... Nabil Shaban took a great character in a great script and passionately played Sil to perfection. It's a shame Sil has not returned yet. (Apart from a direct-to-home video release that tries way too hard to feel like a Classic WHO production and as a result doesn't. Wouldn't have minded if Moffat or Chibnall brought Sil back (or even having Nabil as another character), but Sil might be too good for the 2005-present run of Doctor Who. ) "Mindwarp" was always a bit of a mess but the music, direction, basic themes, and tightness of it make it a mesmerizing and haunting viewing. As usual, Nabil steals the show. There's enough plot content despite the Matrix confusion and all -- noting that the original season 23's "The Ultimate Evil" also has the Doctor turning evil due to a mind manipulation ray, that story might have been a possible influence. Peri's death is about as terrifying as anything could get. Definitely an underrated story, to be honest. It's easily worth a watch. "Mission to Magnus", the original season 23 story to have Sil return, feels like he retconned and added in bits that were likely not there in 1985. It's not the weakest story of the season and what's known about it, but it's arguably a bit underwhelming -- but only because so much is stuffed into it and enough to have warranted 3 parts instead of the normal 2 so as a result all of its plot points get squished of potential. The Doctor's bully from academy days was interesting... and having the Ice Warriors back (and invading to terraform a planet that's - thankfully - other than Earth-yet-again) was a really nice touch. But it all did feel cramped as a story and, again, I doubt Lord Kiv was mentioned in the original scripts at all.
Snakedance doesn't have characters walking off the set or grumbling that their dialogue was all exposition.