DOCTOR WHO: SEASON-BY-SEASON - SEASON TWENTY

TWENTY YEARS!! 

We've made it  to another anniversary season! Sadly, this would be the last one we would get for a while where the show would actually be on the air (I know they tried to make the 25th year special, too - but it was just too soon to be celebrating again!). Thirty and Forty both felt very "empty" when they went by with no New Who on our screens to celebrate it with. Don't even try to say Dimensions in Time commemorated the Thirtieth Anniversary! That thing is like the Doctor in Distress song. It's better to  pretend it never happened!   

Season Twenty, in many ways, reminds me of Series Seven. The people making the show at the time recognized that producing a season during an anniversary year should be a bit nostalgic. Yes, there would be  a specific Anniversary Special, but the episodes preceding it should also be celebratory in nature, too. 

Season Twenty probably pursued this idea more diligently than Series Seven. It became a sort of mandate for the production team active during 1983 to make something from the show's past a vital part of every episode. Most of the time it was something that went really far back. Like the return of Omega, the Master and the Brigadier. Each of these characters made their first appearance, at least, a decade ago. But I do like that the show balanced things out with more recent guests too. We initially met the Guardians just a few years previously. And, of course, the Mara only came along last season.  

Oddly enough, bringing back the evil psychic serpent was one of the most successful ventures of the year. 

THE SNAKE IS BACK

A quick return  of the Mara less than a season later was something I was more-than-happy to see. Not only was he a great monster, but the writer who had created him was absolutely brilliant. If we were going to get another mind-blowingly incredible script like Kinda, then bring that damn Mara back!    

And we did, of course. Snakedance was also quite awesome. I am still madly in love with that shot of Dojjen sitting out in the desert. It's great how they return to it over and over until, at last, the Doctor joins him in the snakedance. It seems to convey that he knew all along what his purpose was in defeating the Mara and was just waiting for the rest of the plot to catch up with him. His last scene with him rising up and offering one final smile before he walks off is absolutely gorgeous. The sequence was as great as the "You created us, man of evil. But we are free!" moment in last season's Castrovalva. This is one of the things I love about the Davison era. While I may have been a fairly young impressionable lad when I first watched this period, it does have some really poignant scenes that would have still had a strong impact on me at any age.  The production team at the time just excelled at doing this sort of stuff.  Their use of Dojjen in Snakedance is one of the better examples of this. 

Snakedance also creates some excellent world-building through some very clever devices. Oftentimes, we learn about Manussan culture by simply watching it in action. The Punch and Judy puppet show alludes to the idea that this world has been heavily-influenced by humanity. But having a snake puppet emerge at the end of the performance to devour Punch displays how the Sous-Maran Empire distorted the tradition. The great parade and commemorative ritual in Part Four also reveals much about the people of Manussa. Yes, there's still some expository dialogue from various characters to help explain certain aspects of the civilisation. But just letting us observe these various customs is a very rich and creative way to illustrate things. It shows rather than tells. 

It was great to take a deeper dive into how the Mara came about. It was also excellent to see, once more, how diabolically clever this wretched creature is. While so many other Doctor Who villains and/or monsters try to create armies or build superweapons to conquer us, the Mara uses our own psychological disadvantages against us. He preys upon our greed and insecurity. He enslaves us by driving us mad. Again, such a unique and interesting being totally merited this return appearance. Which is another great trait of the JNT era. He knew when to bring back a character. Whether it be a fun villain like Sil or the Rani. Or someone a bit more amoral like Lytton or Glitz. It was always great when these special characters return.

Oddly enough, however, Snakedance sits with me in much the same way as Castrovalva does in regards to Logopolis. To all intents and purposes, it is as great a story as Kinda. And yet, I regard the first Mara tale to be a Classic. But I don't ascribe the same title to its sequel. I still absolutely love it. But I wouldn't can't give it that most lofty of titles. 

Still, it's an absolutely gorgeous story. 

THE BRIG IS BACK

I suppose if I were a "true" Doctor Who fan I'd be more excited about Nicholas Courtney being written back into the show than I would be a giant paper-mache snake! But, truth be told, there were some slight problems with this character's return. The Brigadier suddenly becoming a math teacher does seem a little odd and slightly unlikely. This happens, of course, because the script was originally supposed to be about Ian Chesterton coming back. But, for whatever reason, William Russel was not available. The re-write and Courtney's performance does a fairly competent job of glossing this over. But it's still a tad difficult to swallow that a retired military officer could suddenly get tenure at what looks to be a fairly posh boys' school. 

There is also the added problem that bringing the Brigadier back in to Mawdryn Undead also created what I like to call: "The Great UNIT Dating Nightmare"!  A topic I am still too scared to tackle in my FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES series!     

Other than that, though, Nicholas Courtney is wickedly amazing as he reprises his most famous of roles. It's particularly impressive that he must play the Brigadier from two different points in his life. There are certain subtleties that he puts into the portrayal that really do make it feel like we are witnessing Young Brigadier and Old Brigadier moving through their separate timelines. Showing us all that, even years later, Courtney was perfect for the part. 

Of course, Two Brigadiers from different time zones brings us to a very important point: Mawdryn Undead represents the show's first true attempt at doing something "timey whimey". There had been "stabs" at this sort of thing in stories like Day of the Daleks and The Space Museum. But this is the first story that really goes for it. That puts time travel and its various causes and effects at the forefront of the plot. It does so brilliantly. The Brigadiers finally having contact at the precise moment that they do (the Doctor even emphasises how they got it right down to the very nanosecond) is, perhaps, a tad difficult to swallow - but it's still a great non-linear tale. I particularly love how the writer even sweats the small stuff. Like the way Young Brigadier takes the TARDIS homing beacon so that Old Brigadier can give it to the Doctor later. 

While the flashback sequence in this story isn't quite as exciting as the one they used last season in Earthshock, Mawdryin Undead is still a great little adventure that brings back a beloved character. It was great to get an update on him. But, of course, he's not the only figure from the past that makes a return in this tale. 

THE GUARDIANS ARE BACK

Apparently, the return of the Brigadier wasn't enough for Mawdryn Undead, We needed more.So they rolled out that big 'ole nasty Black Guardian too. This is a villain I'd love to see more of, really. His antithesis too, of course. I get why they only brought them around so much during the 70s and 80s. We were a much more Christian-based culture back then and the Guardians of Time did, sort of, represent God and the Devil. I'm amazed they didn't cause more offense than they did. There is also another curious potential objection to them. I went out with a woman of color for most of the 90s. Date me for nearly a decade and, clearly, you're going to watch some Doctor Who! When she saw some stories featuring the Guardians, she couldn't help but remark: "Why does the evil one have to be Black and the good one White?!" Admittedly, she has a bit of a point. 

But, regardless of the religious or racial implications, I do still really love the Guardians.  I particularly love the 80s version of them. For some weird reason, I find the weird bird headdresses delightful. Their costumes, in general, look very cool. As opposed to the let's just have them look whatever way we feel like motif that they used in Key to Time. I enjoyed having them be more consistent in their appearance. 

I'm also glad that they brought back Valentine Dyall and Cyril Luckham to reprise their roles. Both do a great job. I particularly love Dyall's deep sinister voice and how unafraid he is to just look genuinely evil.  It's funny how, even though he does an excellent job of voicing Deep Thought in some versions of Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, I'm still thinking: "It's the Black Guardian!" every time I hear him! 

The Black Guardian's presence throughout Mawdryn Undead and Terminus is really well-handled. He pops up just often enough to remind us of the important sub-plot running through the whole trilogy. That Turlough is meant to be killing the Doctor and isn't getting the job done. He's especially chilling when he confronts the young Trion man in a dream. It's wickedly cool when he shows Turlough he is still sleeping in bed. I love it as Dream Turlough starts screaming and we see Sleeping Turlough stirring uneasily!  

As we move on to Terminus, I find it to be a bit of a curious story. I have given it a bit of a review in a previous entry where I was analysing different Trilogies in the JNT era (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/05/review-overview-trilogies-of-doctor-who.html). I really like the tale. When we get a darker and grittier adventure during the Davison era, there also tends to be a lot of violence. Stories like Earthshock, Warriors of the Deep and Resurrection of the Daleks seek to disturb us by having a very high death-count in them. Terminus gets similar results but with less action sequences. It relies more on just being very bleak and despairing. It also likes to show us the harmful effects of allowing corporate greed to flow unchecked. On top all these well-explored themes, I find it to be a nicely-constructed plot, too. 

After I wrote the Review of Terminus in that last entry, however, some corners of Fandom came forward and told me I didn't know my butt from a hole in the ground. Terminus, according to some, is the story that comes up short during Season Twenty. That it even sits somewhere in Time Flight Territory! I beg to differ, however. It is still the weakest link in the Guardian Trilogy. But that's only because the other tales are ridiculously strong. 

Which leads us quite neatly to Enlightenment. This, to me, is a Classic. An incredibly imaginative excursion with one of the coolest cliffhangers in the history of the show.. The padding with Turlough in the airlock during Part Three is a bit hard to watch but, otherwise, it's an absolutely perfect story. 

And, of course, the White Guardian finally appears. Admittedly, his headdress does look a bit sillier - but I still love it! There is an absolutely gorgeous epic quality that Dyall and Luckham create as they banter a bit in the final few minutes of Episode Four. Turlough's final decision that banishes the Black Guardian is also quite powerful. And it's impossible not to love the Doctor's line: "Enlightenment wasn't the diamond. Enlightenment was the choice." It's another one of those really stand-out moments from the Fifth Doctor era. There's so many, really!   

OMEGA IS BACK 

Thus far, I've mainly had nothing but good things to say about Season Twenty. But now the road is going to get a bit bumpy. 

I've put a  lot of thought into what it is about Arc of Infinity that doesn't work for me. I do, mostly, like the tale. But I do feel that it is just a bit below-standard. Particularly since so much else in this season does work so well. 

After some consideration, I realised it was an over-reliance on technobabble that was irritating me so much. There is just too much made-up science littering the plot. Making it just a little too abstract to really connect to it much. It feels genuinely silly watching characters exclaims things like: "A pulse-loop, yes! What a great idea!" Or realise that Omega went to Amsterdam because his do-hickey works best below sea level. I know I've been picking on the franchise too much lately, but it's this sort  of stuff that makes me dislike Star Trek so much. 

Omega, himself, is actually quite great in this story. Everyone seems to go on endlessly about Stephen Thorne's performance and doesn't seem to bring up Ian Collier much. But he really brings some great pathos to the character. We feel sorry for him, here. Which is a great direction for the character to go in. He was loud and bombastic in The Three Doctors. But now he's just tired and wants to go home.    

When Davsion takes over the role for a bit during Part Four, he's positively incredible. It genuinely feels like we are seeing someone else as he strolls around Amsterdam trying to become accustomed to his new form. Cutting away to see him still playing the Doctor shows us just how good Davison's range is. Again, this totally feels like two different people. The scene where Omega watches the organ grinder is quite moving. Another moment that gets us to feel for Omega rather than just regard him as the usual Doctor Who Megalomaniac.  

All in all, though, Arc if Infinity is passable. But it certainly starts the season off weakly. Fortunately, several excellent stories are hot on its heels. 

AND, FINALLY, THE MASTER IS BACK 

Season Twenty starts weak and finishes the same way!  

Like Arc of Infinity, The King's Demons is - by no means - horrible. It's just nothing all that great, either. It's a decent little two-parter that is mainly there to remind us that the Mater is still kickin' around (although, once more, no explanation is given for how he escaped his last fate). The gesture is hardly necessary, however, since the Master is going to pop up again in just a few minutes!   

And then there's Kamelion. It's totally weird to introduce us to a new mechanical companion who will immediately disappear for nearly an entire season! It would have been nice if the scene they had given him in The Awakening had been kept in. It is still available to watch as a bonus feature on the DVD. But I wish there was an option that enabled you to insert it into the story, properly. 

EVERYONE (INCLUDING THE KITCHEN SINK) IS BACK! 

Technically, The Five Doctors is meant to just be a stand-alone feature presentation and not a part of Season Twenty. But, rather than give it a review all its own, I'll include it here. 

The Five Doctors is, essentially, everything that Season Twenty has been building up to. All the little dips into nostalgia that we've been getting have been leading here. Giving us the Brigadier and the Guardians and Omega were all just "teases" for this Grand Adventure.  

Which means, of course, that The Five Doctors had gigantic expectations to live up to. Impressively enough, the pay-off was totally worth it. 

By no stretch of the imagination can we consider this story a "True Classic". We can't discuss it in the same breath as such amazing stories as Kinda or Robots of Death. But, in many ways, I'd still actually call it a Classic. It might not contain a brilliantly-contrived plot like most Classics do .The demand made on the writer made such a feat, pretty much, impossible. Poor 'ole Terrance Dicks had to create something  that would suit five leads and a whole plethora of returning companions and baddies. You can't frame much of a story around that. Which makes Five Doctors more of just a showcase with a bit of Time Lord Political Intrigue attached to it. 

As insubstantial as Five Doctors might be, it's still absolutely wonderful. Terrance does a great job of giving everyone some good representation. In fact, I think it worked out better that Tom Baker chose not to be involved. By my understanding, it would have been him rather than Five that would have interacted with Borusa and the High Council. Which probably would have made Davison have to choose between Above, Between and Below and poor Hurndall would have just sat in the TARDIS with Susan and Turlough worrying about the bombs those Cybermen were planting. Just having four incarnations being active was a far more equitable arrangement. 

The Five Doctors is an absolute delight. Still one of the best Anniversary Specials ever made. In fact, you can read more praise for it here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/11/review-overview-what-constitutes-good.html

DID BRINGING ALL THIS BACK ACTUALLY WORK? 

And so, with another ten years under its belt, the show moves on. But we have to ask ourselves: what was the smarter choice? Did Season Ten work better by just having a Special and then a normal set of stories after that? Or was building a whole season towards a Special the best way to do things?    

Steven Moffat seemed to feel that the latter option was the better one. When he was given the fiftieth anniversary to handle, he went for a similar structure that JNT had used for this anniversary. Series Seven wasn't quite the same nostalgia trip as Season Twenty was, but we still got Daleks, Ice Warriors, Cybermen and The Great Intelligence. More recent recurring characters also came aboard like River Song and the Paternoster Gang. There was a very specific arc running through the season that Day of the Doctor had a strong role to play in. This helped enhance the importance of the occasion too. 

And yet, many do feel that Series Seven only worked so well. In order to be successful in its execution, it needed to be absolutely amazing. And, though I did feel it was quite strong, there were times when Series Seven fell a bit short. Had it just been considered a regular season, there would have been less pressure on it to be that great. But because it made itself The Fiftieth Anniversary Season we felt more disappointed with it when it did flounder. 

Season Twenty suffers a similar fate. Maybe not as badly as Series Seven does, but it does feel a tad underwhelming here and there. This wouldn't have stood out as much if it wasn't heralding itself as being something special to commemorate the twentieth anniversary. Season Ten may have had the right idea. Get the celebrating done in one story and let the rest of the year be whatever it wants to be. 

I'm still quite happy with the general quality of Season Twenty. The production team of this period continues to deliver a lot of really great stuff. When they do misfire, it's considerably less of a mess. If a gun were put to my head and I was told I had to sit through either Hand of Fear, Horns of Nimon or Time Flight or they would pull the trigger - I'd happily watch Peter Davison climb aboard that Concorde every time!  

I would still say, however, that we've had another slight dip in quality, this year. Season Eighteen was, of course, absolutely amazing. Nineteen was slightly less good. Twenty, unfortunately, is not quite as strong as Nineteen. But we're hardly in any kind of real trouble, here. I still find everything we've been getting since JNT arrived to be above-average.  

Season Twenty might not have been all that it could be, but it was still quite excellent. Even in the re-watch, you get the sense that this came from a year when it was a great time to be a fan.     

  

DOCTOR WHO: SEASON-BY-SEASON - SEASON NINETEEN

Tom Baker has left the show. That's it. Kaput. No more. Tommy be gone. 

Clearly, his successor has big shoes to fill. I may not have been the biggest Doctor Four Fan, but lots of folks were.They will have a hard time accepting the New Guy. It doesn't help that Baker stayed in the role for so long that some of the kids watching the show didn't even know that the Doctor could change. For them, he had always been their Doctor and the shock was enormous when he left the role. 

In terms of my own personal appreciation, there was a very different obstacle the show needed to overcome. I had absolutely adored Season Eighteen. In my opinion, it's the best season the show ever made. It also happens to be the first season JNT produced. So now I've got some big expectations. Everything that follows Eighteen needs to hold itself to a certain standard. I don't, necessarily, expect it to take my breath away quite as much - but it still needs to really impress me. 

So this becomes the Great Question to pose to ourselves as we embark upon Season Nineteen. Does it maintain the same level of quality that we get from our first year with JNT?    

Let's go through story-by-story to find the answer....

ONE MORE GIFT FROM BIDMEAD

Nineteen begins with a brief reprise of the final moments of the previous season (edited slightly so that we no longer see the costume inconsistency). It's a good way to start, really. So much has changed over the last year that getting things to feel as interconnected as possible is vital. This is such a different show from what he had been witnessing. The audience needs reminding that this is still the same programme that they've been getting for the last nineteen years. There's a couple nice little touches throughout the season to help with this. The Doctor, for instance, quotes K-9 in Kinda. Or he mentions how he wishes he still had his scarf in Time Flight. A serious attempt is being made to maintain a general sense of continuity in this new era. 

The most significant effort of this nature. however, is when Five goes through a whole series of flashbacks shortly after he regenerates. Peter Davison does some incredible impressions of previous incarnations. I, pretty much, fall in love with him, right here. In order to do such great portrayals, he must have some degree of serious raw talent. On top of this, though, he keeps making fun little continuity references throughout the entire story. He talks of  Daleks and Ogrons to the Portreeve. He mistakes Nyssa and Tegan for Vicki and Jo. All these little fan nods help to re-assure us that JNT might be giving us a very different version of Doctor Who - but it's still Doctor Who. It's a bit reminiscent of the talk Four and Romana have in the Time Lady's bedroom at the beginning of Full Circle. Their summary of the Doctor's experiences with Time Lords throughout the course of the show was another nice way to establish to everyone that this wasn't some kind of hard-reboot going on. 

Castrovalva, of course,  needs to be more than just fun continuity references. It needs to tell an engaging story, too. It does this remarkably well. Christopher H. Bidmead wrote us a beautiful farewell to Tom Baker in the previous season. But, apparently, that wasn't enough. He also wanted to make sure that Peter Davison was given a great welcome. This is another 80s tale with a beautiful aesthetic to it. The city of Castrovalva is meant to emulate the famous paintings by Escher. It does so magnificently. But the Doctor stumbling around in the TARDIS looks equally great. As does the location shooting with poor Nyssa and Tegan trying to transport the weakened Time Lord. The various careful choices made by the director almost cause us to feel like he's revealing his sensitive side to us. As if the whole story is one long delicately-written poem. 

The Master is also quite excellent in this story (Castrovalva comes in second place in my Top Five Master Stories https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/11/book-of-lists-top-five-master-stories_22.html). It's such a refreshing twist to see him just trying to kill the Doctor for a whole story. No evil plans for domination, he just wants to take out his worst enemy once and for all. We would continue to see stories of this nature for this incarnation. And I love that. The Doctor just foiling the Master's latest plan to take over the world and/or Universe had gotten tiresome. It was nice to see different plots being used for this character. Anthony Ainley also does an excellent job of fooling us as the Portreeve. Easily, one of the Master's best disguises ever. And I always love what happens shortly after that Big Reveal. Shardovan proclaiming: "You created us, man of evil. But we are free!" still gives me the shivers to this day. A really gorgeous moment. 

I'm not entirely sure why I don't quite hold Castrovalva in the same regard as I do Logopolis. One story is just as good as the other. They're both incredible works of art. But, for some reason, I just don't get as excited about Davison's Debut as I do for Baker's Farewell. 

Nonetheless, Castrovalva starts off the season excellently. 

"BRO, HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN DOCTOR WHO?!!"   

One of my favorite non-fiction Doctor Who books ever written is The Discontinuity Guide. It, basically, picks through every story from the Classic Series with a fine-toothed comb and reviews them in a very fun way. As it gets to Four to Doomsday, it makes an observation about it that I always felt best sums it up: 

"It almost feels like the writer has never actually watched the show!"

It is true: The whole tale does feel very odd and even a bit out-of-place. The pacing and overall vibe feels extremely different from anything else we've ever seen on the show. We won't really get anything like this afterwards, either. In many ways, Four to Doomsday is very unique. 

It is the first story of the season where Production is attempting to "strip down" the show. They're taking a premise that Doctor Who has frequently explored and telling it in its simplest and purest form. It was an effort to get "back to basics". Which was a very smart move. Season Eighteen did have some pretty complex stuff going on in it. It was a good idea to re-assure the audience that it was still possible to tell less complicated tales. In some ways, it felt like a celebration of Who's core values. 

Four to Doomsday, of course, is a stripped down version of the standard invasion plot. Another attempt is being made by evil aliens to colonise the Earth. We get to watch it just before it's all about to happen. In fact, it's actually nipped in the bud before it can even occur. You can't really strip down an invasion story any more than that! 

Keeping the plot so simple means you have to populate it with a couple of really interesting characters. Bigon is certainly one of them. He is this idealistic tortured rebel who is both well-written and well-portrayed. Enlightenment and Persuasion are a sort of macabre double-act who look quite adorable in their green outfits. But Monarch truly steals the show, here. A great villain with a rich plummy voice. He appears quite courteous most of the time. He only bares his teeth when he truly needs to. He's great fun to watch. But the performer never goes over-the-top with the character. Always a great thing to experience after several seasons of actors taking a role like this and going way too far with the mustache-twirling. 

Peter Davison is just a tad tricky to watch in certain parts of this tale. Production did the same trick with him as they would do with Matt Smith. They filmed his stories out of order so that he can be more confident in his choices when he finally performs in his first adventure. In some ways, this technique works great. But it does wrong-foot things just a bit when you get to the story that was filmed first. The Doctor's character suddenly feels a lot "rawer" and less-developed. In the case of Davison, his hair even suddenly looks a lot shorter than it did in Castrovalva! 

Having said that, however, Davison is still doing some great things with the character. The Doctor was quite erratic for a bit after this regeneration but he's definitely settled in, now. What we start seeing in Doomsday is the Doctor we're going to be getting for the next little while. His character traits are now "real" and not the result of him trying to recover from a somewhat traumatic biological process. 

After so many years of a Doctor that constantly seemed in control of everything, it was nice to see him so uncertain of himself, again. Not since Troughton had we watched our protagonist lose arguments or even get bullied. It was refreshing to see the Doctor not always be in complete authority at all times. This is exactly what the character needed. It's also quite fun to watch a Doctor that gets so easily flustered or even become neurotic, at times. Davison's interpretation is extremely well-executed. You can see how each little fidgety gesture is done with great thought and consideration.    

The other thing I really adore about this story is that neat little space walk in Part Four. Not, necessarily, some awesome special effects going on, here. But it's still a great time! Especially the way in which the Doctor uses basic physics to save the day.

For all its strangeness, Four to Doomsday turns out to be quite solid in its construction. 

THE FIRST TRUE CLASSIC 

Again, I must go back to my weird stance on Castrovalva for a bit. I consider it to be just as good as Logopolis. I do feel that Baker's swansong was, most definitely, a Classic. It's in my Top Ten for goodness sake! And yet, for some odd reason, Davison's first adventure doesn't have that same status for me. It's still amazing, but I don't see it as being quite on that level. 

Kinda, on the other hand, is undeniably a Classic. It also made it into my Top Ten (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-6.html). I was quite young the first time I saw it (only, about, 13 years old) and I was blown away by the whole thing. I loved all the weird imagery of Tegan's nightmare and how the Mara used her to enter our dimension. The whole nature of the relationship the Kinda have with this creature of evil was also fascinating. The way the Mara keeps ripping down what they build up on a regular basis was portrayed in such a brilliant manner. Again, some great imagery as the Doctor and Todd experience that vision at the end of Part Three that conveys all this. All those ticking clocks... 

And then, of course, there's Hindle. His whole mental disintegration was magnificently disturbing. Absolutely incredible to watch every time. Probably one of my favorite performances by a guest actor in the whole history of the show. How the Mara is even using Hindle's madness to his advantage so he can "keep the wheel turning" is just another great layer to the story. 

I remember watching this for the first time and thinking: "This is what I'm looking for in Science Fiction. Spaceship battles and laser gun fights are all fine and dandy, but I'd rather get this. Something really sophisticated that works on a whole bunch of levels. This is great sci fi!" 

It's at this point that we should point out an important fact about JNT's version of Doctor Who. It's really quite intelligent. Particularly in its earliest days. Stories like Warrior's Gate and Kinda were years ahead of their time. There were some pretty smart tales before JNT, of course. This is the same show that once did an entire four episodes that were a satire on the British taxation system. But there was also a pretty high level of content in those days that relied heavily on just creating some thrill factor rather than, maybe, going for some heavier character exploration or examining a theme more deeply. With the arrival of JNT, the show almost seems to be doing its best to avoid those baser elements of sci fi. It really endeavours to give us something sophisticated. And that, quite frankly, is a beautiful thing. 

As beautiful as watching a race of innocent telepaths fight off a psychic creature of pure evil.    

STRIPPIN' DOWN SOME MORE - THE PSEUDO-HISTORICAL 

Once more, the show decides to "go back to basics" with a theme they've explored countless times. The Visitation's central premise of an alien crashing on Earth and being stranded there is not only common to Who, but to sci-fi, in general. 

On top of this, however, is another important formula that has been frequently used in the show. All of this takes place in the past. Which earns it the label of being a Pseudo-Historical. This is a term fans have come up with for any story that takes place in history but involves other advanced technology besides the TARDIS, itself. A story like The Time Warrior, for example, is an archetypal pseudo-historical that is quite similar to Visitation. It also features an alien marooned on Earth during a more primitive time. On the other hand, a story like The Crusades is not a pseudo-historical. It would, instead, be considered a pure historical (or just a historical). It has no other sci-fi elements to it except the TARDIS and its crew. It deals only with getting caught up in certain intrigues from a period in Earth's past. 

The Visitation is, essentially, working with several "stripped down" versions of popular storylines that Doctor Who has engaged in over the years. And it does them all quite well. Pseudo-Historicals had become so complicated that it's actually a bit difficult to define them. The War Games, for instance, involves human history being influenced by alien technology. But it doesn't truly take place on Earth. So does it still count? Some fans also seem to feel that a pseudo-historical has to involve aliens. Do we include Talons of Weng Chiang, then? It's about a human who comes from the future rather than a being from another planet. 

Getting back to just telling a basic story about some Terrileptils stranded in history is actually quite pleasant. The earnestness and straightforwardness of the tale is delightfully refreshing. The actual aliens interfering with primitive Earth culture are quite interesting and totally merit a return appearance on the show. We, sort of, got that in Mindwarp when they re-used the mask on a much shorter artiste. But that doesn't properly count, of course (I'm assuming the creature was a sort of cousin to the Terrileptils). And we, at least, get a namecheck in Time of the Doctor, too (or was it The Pandorica Opens? Or both? They're mentioned somewhere!). So that's nice. But I'd still like to see them properly in action for a second time - not just as an illusion thrown up near the end of Part Two of Time Flight! 

There are a few nice "twists" thrown into the plot to ensure that it doesn't just feel like a boring old re-tread. The family that's under attack was a great way to start the tale. Generally, if an actor gets hired to be in Doctor Who it's for a few episodes. So it's always great when you just get a set of characters for only a handful of minutes and then they're written out (usually by being killed). We hadn't really seen this device being used since those two unfortunate campers in Stones of Blood. It was nice to have it back. It makes the beginning of the story feel special. 

And then, of course, there's the fun little revelation in the final shot. The Pudding Lane sign goes up in flames and we realize the Doctor is responsible for yet another Great Disaster. A second great twist! 

All in all, The Visitation is a solid little four-parter that accomplishes its task of stripping down the "alien marooned in a pseudo-historical" premise magnificently. 

Season Nineteen, at this point, is still going strong. It really has the potential to be just as enjoyable as its predecessor. 

STRIPPIN' DOWN SOME MORE - THE HISTORICAL

As if to balance things out, Season Nineteen goes on to do the same thing for a True Historical that it did for the Pseudo. 

The first time I saw Black Orchid, I was not aware that it was a throwback to a style of adventure that was actually quite common in the 60s. All that I'd seen of Doctor Who, thus far, always involved aliens and spaceships and other cool things of this nature. I completely loved that Orchid was suddenly devoid of all that. That it was just about the TARDIS crew going into the past and discovering a dark secret about the Cranleigh Family. Even when I did discover that this was not an entirely new type of story for the show, Orchid still remained cool because it was the first time in over a decade that a pure historical had been made. I loved that they were willing to bring it back after such a long rest. In fact, I wish they had done more.

It was also quite enjoyable to see everyone aboard the TARDIS having some legitimate fun for a bit. The Doctor has a great game of cricket. Nyssa and Tegan have a good time at a masquerade party. Adric eats like a pig! And then some bad stuff happens. But the fact that things are pleasant  for everyone beforehand was an interesting way to pitch the story! 

Black Orchid also does this strangely amazing job of showing the genuine excitement of being a time traveller. Tegan learns about the history of a dance style in school and then goes back to a time where the actual moves she was taught are currently in fashion. It's a genuinely magical moment when she rushes out on the dance floor as the Charleston starts to play. Matthew Waterhouse's goofy look as he watches her even manages to enhance that moment!    

It was very smart to make the tale only two parts long. As fun as historicals might be, there just wasn't enough plot to sustain any more episodes than that. Not to mention that there are a lot six-parters out there that I'm not particularly fond of. I'd rather episodes be distributed in this manner. Which the Fifth Doctor Era will go on to do every season. 

Black Orchid, like Visitation, is an extremely simple adventure. But that just makes it all-the-more charming.    

THE SECOND TRUE CLASSIC 

I've said much about Earthshock in this blog, already. Like Kinda, it's in my Top Ten (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-4.html). It's also my all-time favorite Cybermen story (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/01/book-of-lists-top-five-cybermen-stories.html). I even consider Part One to be one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/01/book-of-lists-top-six-best-episodes.html). I'm not sure if there's any new forms of high praise that I can bestow upon it. I'll try, though. 

Within the context of Season Nineteen, Earthshock almost seems to speak to us. 

"Okay, fanboys and fangirls." it says, "You've been good little brainiacs for this whole season and the last. You've let us do all kinds of weird, high-concept stuff with time travelling lions and evil psychic snakes. For four episodes, we are going to pile on the action!" 

And yet, Earthshock is far from being mere spectacle. Especially when you consider that most folks consider the highest point of the story to be a debate about the usefulness of emotions. Clearly, the writer put in a few more layers than just nasty laser gun fights if he's able to get us to appreciate that scene so much. 

But the story also lets us know that, from time-to-time, we're going to be able to give our brain-box just a bit of a rest to enjoy some nice gritty violence. This type of story will pop up now and again in amongst all the smart stuff. Which is a nice counterpoint to occasionally weave into a season. 

Since this will be my last chance to discuss it, I should probably address a certain Elephant in the Room: 

Adric.

 As far as companions go, he's not exactly a fan favorite! Some like to claim that Matthew Waterhouse is a terrible actor. I would say he did a decent job. Particularly since he was still fairly young and inexperienced. Others just find the character to be thoroughly annoying. In the same way that the average Trek fan feels Wesley Crusher was genuinely detestable in STNG. 

There is an interesting theory that has been put forward about why geeks find socially-awkward highly intelligent boys so unlikable when they show up in a franchise. Apparently, we hate them because they remind us too much of how flawed we were when we were their age. That there really isn't anything inherently wrong with the character besides the fact that the portrayal hits a little too close to home. It's an interesting theory. One that I can even find myself believing in quite a bit. Particularly since I did actually think Adric was okay. Maybe not the greatest companion in the history of the show but he was more-than-passable. So I wasn't, necessarily, happy to see him die in Earthshock like some fans were. But I did adore the incredibly intense exit that he made. I even like the fact that, unlike a lot of other characters that get killed off in sci-fi, he has actually stayed dead. The Doctor will forever regret not being able to save Adric. And I love that this story has that sort of impact. 

I should also quickly mention that I don't think he needed to be written out because the TARDIS was getting too crowded. I actually felt that the three companion dynamic was working quite well. I even loved how much they argued! You can get a more detailed version of this opinion here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/04/analytical-threes-company-what-makes_13.html  (Good God, Rob! You are posting a buttload of links in this one!).     

SO CLOSE....

Thus far, Season Nineteen is going great. Several stories are Classics and the rest are really quite good. It's genuinely looking like we might be getting another Season Eighteen. 

But then, unfortunately, we come to Time Flight. 

We were so close in so  many ways to another season as good as Eighteen. Not only had we made it through nearly the entire year before the turd dropped on us, but Time Flight, itself, comes perilously close to actually being a fairly decent story. When I did my Countdown of Favorite Guilty Pleasures, this story came in First Place (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/05/book-of-lists-guilty-pleasure-1.html).  As I explained when I was discussing Horns of Nimon a few entries back, I may enjoy a story that I consider a guilty pleasure, but I also recognize that it's still quite bad. Time Flight, however, ranks as high as it does because parts of it are still very enjoyable. It has just enough flaws, however, to make it more bad than good. But only just enough. If even one problem had been corrected before it was broadcast, I'd actually consider it tolerable.

Most of the problems with Time Flight lie with how the Master is handled. It is great to see his triumphant return at the end of Part Two. But you very quickly see some inconsistencies rear their ugly heads as the third episode begins. Why was he disguised the whole time when there were several scenes where he was completely alone? Why would he conceal his identity if there's no one around? How did he actually escape from Castrovalva? No explanation is given. 

His actual plan is very strangely contrived, too. It's great to see we're getting another alternative to: "The Master is trying to take over the World/Universe again" premise. But this plot plays out a bit oddly. He kidnaps all these people from the future to use as a labor force to penetrate the Inner Sanctum. But then, suddenly, he just loops a big wire around it and gets what he wants anyway. Why not just do the Induction Loop to begin with?!    

My other major complaint would be that this is the one time where Ainley seems to go a little too over-the-top during certain points of his performance. The Master does feel just a tad too Panto  in certain places. 

Admittedly, it's a bit weird to get the two best Master stories in a row and then, only a short while later, the worst one comes along. But still, as I said, Time Flight comes so close to being decent. Unfortunately, however, it ruins Season Nineteen's winning streak. Because of Time Flight, Ninteeen doesn't quite "tie" Eighteen. But it comes pretty damn close. It is still a very awesome season. 

So, to answer the Big Question: As far ac I'm concerned, JNT is maintaining that amazing standard I was so concerned about. Even if there was just the slightest dip in his second season. Nonetheless, this is some excellently-produced Doctor Who. 

ADMITTING ANOTHER BIAS

When I discussed Destiny of the Daleks in my Review of Season Seventeen, I confessed that it might be difficult for me to remain objective about this tale. It was the first Doctor Who story I watched in its entirety. Clearly, nostalgia can cloud my judgement a bit as I pick it apart.    

Something quite similar happens with me as I analyse Season Nineteen. I first discovered the show while Season Sixteen was playing on a local TV station. For that season and the next, I only tuned in now and again. Oftentimes, only catching parts of a story. My viewing habits became more consistent during Season Eighteen. I did manage to watch several stories in their entirety. But, admittedly, there were a few times where I ducked out for a bit and missed quite a few episodes. 

As Season Nineteen started, I said to myself: "Okay. This is it. I'm sitting down and watching this show consistently for a whole season!".  I'm not sure how I'd found out (the internet was virtually non-existent at the time) but I knew that Time Flight was the last story of the season. While I was a bit disappointed with how things finished off, I had still fallen madly in love with this show. The PBS channel would start showing Season Twenty in a matter of days and I couldn't wait!     

From Season Nineteen onwards, I was catching every episode that came out. I had officially become a fan. It's for this reason that I actually consider Peter Davison to be my Doctor. Sure, I'd watched a bit of Tommy Boy here and there. He was, technically, the incarnation I initially discovered. But Five was the first Doctor that I genuinely followed.  And he won me over because his first season was such a delight. 

Regardless my own personal affection, Nineteen gives us two adventures that are in my Top Ten, one dud and then a bunch of excellent stories. Castrovalva is even a twisted version of a "Fake Classic". This actually puts it on par with Season Fourteen (by my standards, at least - I know many of you probably consider anything from Hinchcliffe to be leagues ahead of  JNT's output). I did consider Fourteen to be a pretty amazing season so I think it's safe to say that I feel the same about this one. 

More importantly, though, it caused a curious 13-year-old Canadian boy to fall madly in love with a strange British curiosity for the rest of his life. That, more than anything, makes it a pretty amazing season.    

  

DOCTOR WHO: SEASON-BY-SEASON - SEASON EIGHTEEN

Several years ago, Doctor Who Magazine created a very special edition of their publication. When the show produced its 200th story, they did an issue called The Mighty 200. A huge survey was taken where the fans ranked, in order of preference, all two hundred existing stories of Doctor Who. Once the survey was tabulated, the magazine published the results. 

One of the more interesting observations made by the people who put the data together was that Caves Androzani was considered the fan favorite. Whereas Twin Dilemma came in at the very bottom. The editor in charge of the whole project pointed out how the survey really highlights just how unusual of a show Doctor Who is. The most popular story is immediately followed by the least-liked. I have to admit, that is pretty damned weird! At the very least, it shows just how quirky we Who Fans are.     

In my own personal tastes, I do not consider Caves to be the best Who story ever. Nor do I think Twin Dilemma is the worst. If you have followed this blog even somewhat-avidly, you'd know those titles would go, respectively, to The Deadly Assassin (or, quite possibly, Power of the Doctor - I'm still thinking it over!) and The Creature from the Pit. 

There is, however, a similar phenomenon that occurs with me if I start ranking the seasons of Doctor Who in my order of preference. 

In my oh-so-humble opinion, the absolute worst season of Doctor Who is followed by its very best.  

WHY I LOVE SEASON EIGHTEEN

Rather than try to be some articulate Fancy Pants, I'm just going to enumerate some things that make Season Eighteen so wonderful: 

1. Christopher H. Damn Bidmead 

When it comes to all the different beautiful things in this season, he is Numero Uno. Who would have thought Doctor Who would ever work as "hard sci-fi"? Christopher H. Bidmead did! And he made it work damn well. 

Much of what makes it so successful in this format is the fact that Bidmead still remembers to maintain a certain level of fantasy to the proceedings. The Tharils, for instance, ride the Time Winds. Just what the Hell is a Time Wind, though?! No one knows for sure, of course. But it makes them sound both scientific and magical at the same time. He is always blending these sort of images together seamlessly.. Remembering that, up until this season, Doctor Who has been much more like science fantasy than science fiction. You can't totally throw the baby out with the bathwater. 

At the same time, though, it is great fun to see Doctor Who being so slick and technical. I know I crap on Star Trek way more than I ought to in this blog (I can't help it, though, it's just so bad!), but this is the season that seems the most like Trek. But it's like Bidmead distilled everything good that exists in the rival franchise and brought it into Who. But, at the same time, left out all the stuff that could have dragged the show down into the clunky, poorly-executed drivel that Star Trek, so often, is! 

Basically, Bidmead's vision for Doctor Who was brilliant! 

2. Getting Tom Baker Under Control

"They've totally stifled Tom Baker!" - is one of the most common complaints I hear about this season. In many ways, I can't really argue with that opinion. But I would add that Baker needed some serious stifling. 

If you read my last review, you'll have seen that I thought Season Seventeen was a pretty big disaster. The largest contributor to its failure, for me, was the fact that Tom Baker's humor did not appear to be getting restrained in any way throughout most of the stories. He, literally, made the show feel like it had become a parody of itself. 

If Baker wanted to leave Doctor Who with some degree of dignity, he needed to be reigned in. Particularly as we moved toward the actual regeneration. The man did play the role for seven seasons and he deserved the very solemn send-off that he got in Logopolis. But he would not have been able to achieve that if he'd been allowed to keep goofing off so much like he had been throughout Season Seventeen. It would have felt too out-of-place to suddenly turn that serious only in his last few episodes. The whole vibe of the season works so much better with a Fourth Doctor who seems to have mellowed. Almost as if he knows what's coming and is accepting his fate calmly. 

It should also be pointed out that, as usual, fan reaction has exaggerated things. The complaints almost seem to indicate that Baker is not allowed to crack a single joke or make one silly face throughout the entire run. The fact of the matter is: he still has a bit of fun here and there. The comedy was reduced but not eliminated. To suddenly make the Fourth Doctor completely serious all the time would have also been too weird. Personally, I think a very nice balance was struck, here. The Doctor became more serious as he neared his end but still remembered to have a bit of a sense of humor about it all. 

3. It All Just Looks so Much Better

While I have already heaped some high praise on Bidmead, some Mad Respect should also go to John Nathan-Turner, too. During the Graham Williams Era, BBC News Shows were actually doing segments on just how terribly cheap Doctor Who was looking. JNT came along and, somehow, upped the budget. Or used the budget more cleverly. Whatever the case, Doctor Who starts looking way better than it did. 

By North American TV Production standards, of course, it was still looking a bit cheap. But it, at least, became a lot less embarrassing to watch with friends who were used to television that was being made in the US. There is a much slicker vibe going on from Season 18, onwards. Some of it looks a bit dated, now, of course. The aesthetics are "very 80s". But that's not, necessarily, a bad thing. Just look at the way Ace actually thanks Kate for the comment on her jacket during Power of the Doctor!  

4. Awesome Directors 

In a few years' time, Graham Harper will direct stories like The Caves of Androzani and Revelation of the Daleks. Fans will go on endlessly about the beauty of his work. And he will deserve every ounce of praise that he receives. He's one of the most brilliant directors to ever grace the show. 

As much as I love Harper, however, I do feel there are two directors from Season Eighteen that deserve just as much attention and never get it. Lovett Bickford begins the whole season with an absolutely amazing cinematic style that truly asserts the show's new identity. After years of boring old three-camera shooting, we get all sorts of peculiar angles we've never seen before in studio filming. I particularly love it when Stimson starts rummaging through Klout's closet and gets murdered. A scene we've seen done several dozen times on the show (supporting cast character discovers something horrible but is killed before they can tell anyone else about it) becomes visually delightful. All thanks to Bickford's brilliant directorial touch

Paul Joyce from Warrior's Gate is the other awesome director that never gets the accolades he deserves. In fact, his directing style was so far ahead of its time that he actually butted heads with BBC Executives and was even fired for a short period of time because he refused to engage in the techniques they were insisting he employ. Many of his shots are genuinely breath-taking. While other directors seemed to struggle within the limits that video in the 80s imposed upon them, Joyce embraces the whole technology and gets it to produce some legitimately iconic imagery. 

While these two truly stand out, all the directors in the season really step up to the plate and do their best to give us something that feels a lot more "art-house" than we've been getting in the past. Look at some of the moody shots Grimwade creates in Logopolis as the Master slaughters the Logopolitans with his tissue compressor. I love the way the camera focuses in on a set piece as we hear the blast of energy from the Time Lord's weapon. Things then pull back and we see doll-sized victims in the aftermath. A great way to execute the sequence. 

The directing, along with everything else in Season Eighteen, is just so wonderfully distinctive. 

"CHANGE, MY DEAR. AND IT SEEMS NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON!" 

If you read my Review of Season Fifteen (and, if you didn't but want to, here's the link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2023/03/doctor-who-season-by-season-review-of_18.html), I take a moment to discuss how a new Producer and/or Showrunner inserts themselves into a long-running program. I note that Graham Williams did it very subtly. He still had certain stories made at the beginning that kept a similar tone to what his predecessor had been doing. Slowly but surely, as his seasons progressed, he re-made the show into the image he wanted it to be in.

JNT takes the exact opposite tact. He lets us know very succinctly that this is a new era of Doctor Who. Had it not been for the re-assuring presence of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, we might almost wonder if this was a totally new show! 

Change hits us hard in the face right from the very first second.  A new title sequence and theme song greet us as Leisure Hive begins. For quite some time, we had been getting that "birth canal" effect (as a friend of mine once described it!). It was time for a change. 

The electronic music used in the opening definitely lets us know we're in the 80s, now! But it also represents another major change. That heavy synth carried on throughout the rest of the episode does, too. The days of more organic-sounding incidental music are over. Which I was quite fine with. I know a lot of fans adored the work of Dudley Simpson. I quite liked it too. But I am equally happy with the composers we get in this era. They did some brilliant work. The best "March of the Cybermen" song, for instance, comes from this period (although the Chibnall-era one is also a lot of fun!). 

Even that opening shot in Leisure Hive signposts that we are getting a very different version of Doctor Who. I can't think of any other time before this when the show has done such a slow, stylish pan across location scenery. It should have actually driven my ADHD up a wall! But Bickford actually keeps it quite visually interesting. And I do like how it eventually leads us to a snoring Fourth Doctor napping on the beach. The moment almost seems to say: "Things may look very different - but, don't worry, it's still Doctor Who!"

Aside from a plot structure that feels very odd for a Doctor Who Story, most of the changes we see in Leisure Hive are cosmetic. More significant alterations only occur later in the season. 

"CHANGES AREN'T PERMANENT - BUT CHANGE IS!" - N. Peart and P. Dubois

As the season progresses, the show goes in new directions in much more drastic ways. 

First off, we get a new traveller aboard the TARDIS mid-way through the season. The first male one in quite some time. He has some of the traits of a Graham Williams-era companion. Like Romana, he hails from an advanced culture and is, therefore, useful at helping the Doctor with technical issues. But he's also quite young and naive. Like many of the 60s companions were. 

Similar companions were soon to come. Nyssa is, in many ways, just Romana at an earlier age. Like Adric, being so young creates a very different dynamic between her and the Doctor. Whereas Romana and the Doctor felt like equals, it's much more of a mentor/pupil relationship with the Trakenite and the Time Lord (just as it is with Adric). 

Still, it's quite nice that moments like the one we get near the end of Keeper of Traken keep happening. I love that Adric and Nyssa can rig a device that paralyses the Source. This, in turn, triggers a sequence of events that, pretty much, saves the Doctor's life and halts the destruction of an entire civilization (for one story, at least!). Companions may not be so old and wise, anymore - but they're still very useful!  

Tegan only arrives in the very last story, of course. She's the first "Contemporary Earth Companion" that we've seen in quite a while. But, even in Logopolis, she's coming across very differently from the modern-day female companions we got in the 70s. Making her very obstinate and headstrong causes her to seem less like the damsels-in-distress Jo Grant and Sarah Jane often were. So, even though Tegan can't build complex machinery or stab her opponents with Janis Thorns, she still feels like she has something to contribute to each story she's in. She won't just need rescuing all the time or only be there to ask: "What is it, Doctor?!" 

Naturally enough, as new companions roll in - old ones depart. Romana and K9 get left behind in E-Space. Their departure represents the final shedding of All Things Graham Williams. The show is definitely venturing into new territories. All that's left is for Tom Baker, himself, to bow out. Which will happen quite soon. 

These are the much deeper changes that JNT is implementing. The core formula of Doctor Who is moving in a significantly different direction as Season Eighteen progresses. While he hits us quite hard with superficial modifications right away, he is wise enough to take a bit of time with the more significant new courses that the show is going in.  

THE ACTUAL STORIES 

Okay, we've been discussing various elements and traits to this season that I have loved. Let's get into the stories, proper. Are they actually good? Or is it just the more superficial elements of the season that have impressed me so much? 

I can say with full conviction that the stories this season are all excellent. 

Some better than most, of course. And it does take a bit of adjustment to really be able to appreciate them. Oftentimes, they are written very differently from what we've been getting for the last seventeen years. That, in itself, is a bit of a smack in the face. The absence of darker-than-dark villains and rebels that are ready to revolt can leave the viewer feeling a bit lost (fortunately, we still get a bit of that in State of Decay). But I am ecstatic over this particular change. Doctor Who works best when it is re-inventing itself. Trying new things rather than just resting on its laurels. This is why, of course, I don't have the greatest things to say about most of the Pertwee Era. Alot of it is very formulaic. Whereas I would rather the show blunder a bit by trying something new and different like, say, a found footage episode. Rather than just keep cranking out the same old stuff over and over like a sausage factory. 

Leisure Hive is definitely different. The plot, in general, revolves around a form of technology. Not something we've really seen before in the show. Tachyonics is a bit of a MacGuffin, of course. It seems capable of doing a whole lot of different things. It can create fun projections, clone living matter or even be used for time travel. But I wouldn't call this one of those "does whatever the story needs it to" contrivances that we, sometimes, see.  From what I understand of tachyonics, it does potentially have a variety of applications. So it's a handy science to use in a story of this nature. Pretty sure if the Doctor had needed a giant purple unicorn that can shoot lasers from its eyes, he could have programmed the tachyon generator to make one for him!    

It's a very solidly-written plot, too. With several well-developed threads running through it and some good world-building. It also definitely lays downs the fact that we'll be getting a lot of hard sci-fi, this season. So it was good to start things off this way .

I always enjoy a story with some good re-watch value to it. It is nice to do some extra viewings to figure out which times we're seeing Bad Foamasi doing nasty things and Nice Foamasi doing decent things. Something you can't really work out if you only see the story once. 

I'm also very impressed with how Production wanted to intentionally create a cliffhanger that doesn't just get resolved seconds after then next episode starts. It's quite fun watching the Doctor walk around looking like Monty Python's "It's Man" for a bit. 

But there's one sequence that I really enjoy in Part Four that no one ever seems to bring up much. I love it when Romana is being marched off by what she believes to be Pangol clones but are really the Doctor underneath. As the clones start destabilising all around her, the scene is clearly being played for laughs. Particularly as the last Doctor (who was actually the first) checks himself to make sure he's solid. 

I watch that every time and think: "This is how Doctor Who should go for the laughs. The whole thing is very clever. What a breath of fresh air! After several years of Tom Baker just cracking bad jokes and making silly faces, the program needed to do this. They needed to re-assure us that they've moved past the low-brow stuff and will be delivering much wittier comedy from hereon in." 

To me, this is a very important scene. It signposts that the Great Tom Baker Comedy Show has come to an end. Doctor Who will still be funny, but in a much more sophisticated manner.

Next, of course, is Meglos. This is probably our weakest link in the season. Its characters are a bit on the two-dimensional side and some of the expository dialogue feels a little too forced. But, by no means, would I call this a bad story. Just not quite as good as the other stuff in Eighteen. In the end, I still find it all quite entertaining. Meglos goes down as my all-time favorite one-time-only villain (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/04/book-of-lists-top-5-one-time-only_28.html). It's also another really solidly-written script. Admittedly, Meglos has a bit more fun with itself than the rest of the stories of this year. Production even lets Tom Baker goof off a bit more. But it still never goes too far.  

When Baker portrays Meglos, however, we really see some restraint at work. In just about any franchise I've seen, when actors get a chance to play an evil version of their usual character, they tend to really ham it up. Tom gives a sinister air to the darker version of himself, but he keeps it pretty low-key. Meglos, after all, is trying not to make the Tigellans suspicious. So it's only logical that he shouldn't get too wild with it. But even when he's letting the facade down and doesn't care anymore about fooling anyone, he still pitches things at the right level .Who fans have always been lucky. When we get villains like the Abbot of Amboise or Eleven possessed by the Cyberiad, it's always well-acted. 

So, the first two stories of the season are nicely-done free-standing adventures. We, now, move into the Trilogies. Which are also quite magnificent. 

THE TRILOGIES - E-SPACE

Why, oh why, had it taken the show this long to come up with the idea of doing a trilogy? I mean, really, eighteen seasons in and this is the first time they try it? 

There had been sequels, of course. Even just last season, Destiny of the Daleks had felt like a sequel to Genesis of the Daleks. We also had stories that followed each other that were strongly interconnected. Like Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks. On the other end of the spectrum, we had ambitious efforts like The Key to Time. Where one long story gets told over the span of an entire season. But it wasn't til Season Eighteen that someone finally decided: "Hey! Let's stack three stories back-to-back and have them all deal with a central theme." 

To me, a Trilogy is like "the baby bear option". Umbrella Seasons were too long and sequels too short. This was just right. 

The E-Space Trilogy keeps it really simple. The TARDIS slips through a CVE and struggles for three tales to find its way back home. Easy, straightforward stuff. But some great story-telling takes place throughout it.

Full Circle  is every geeky teenage boy's dream come true. A script you wrote for your favorite Sci-Fi TV programme gets accepted! Being so young and inexperienced, Andrew Smith probably took a lot of coaching from the script editor. One can certainly see Bidmead's influence in this tale. It definitely has that "hard sci fi" edge to it. But it all works quite well. Full Circle is a very intelligently-written story that makes it almost hard to believe it came from the pen of a 17-year-old boy. 

I love that we finally get another moment of moral indignation from Four as he discovers the Deciders are authorising a live dissection of the young Marshman (Marshboy?). He hasn't been this upset since Pirate Planet and it's nice to see the character behaving in such a manner, again. I wish more scenes like this had been written for this incarnation. Baker performs them very well. 

Overall, Full Circle is a solid little story that accomplishes its tasks well. It introduces us to E-Space and has a decent plot to it. It also fits in quite nicely with so much of the other high-concept stuff going on throughout the season.  

State of Decay does the exact opposite. This is the story that most resembles the sort of material we were getting before Season Eighteen. A much more "traditional" Doctor Who adventure. Bidmead did attempt a re-write to make it feel much more sophisticated and cerebral but the director assigned to the story insisted on the original version from Terrance Dicks. 

Impressively enough, Decay still feels like it fits in with everything else. But it also delivers a very important message: 

"Look, Seasons Sixteen and Seventeen! Look at how good you could have been if you had kept Tom Baker under control!" 

Again, Tom does have a bit of fun throughout the story. The joke, for instance, with Romana accidentally stepping on his foot was, more than likely, something he came up with on the spot. The vampires even come perilously close to feeling campy in some places. But, for the most part, we're able to take the whole thing reasonably seriously. And that makes it very refreshing to watch. It is the sort of story we would have gotten in the seasons I just mentioned (in fact, it was originally meant to be made in one of them but got pushed back to Season Eighteen) but probably wouldn't have been half as effective because The Great Tom Baker Comedy Show would have altered it far more than Bidmead ever could have. 

Quite often, the middle installment of a trilogy is the weakest. But State of Decay stands just as strong as the other two. 

THE TRILOGIES - REGENERATION 

And so, the end draws near. Though the saga won't truly complete itself until next season, the Regeneration Trilogy begins... 

While we're still eight episodes away from the moment that has been prepared for, Keeper of Traken manages to feel quite sombre. The funeral atmosphere will increase significantly in the next story, of course. But I still feel hints of it in this adventure, too. Admittedly, I've had my issues with Baker. He's not as high up on my list of fave Doctors as he is with most fans (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/11/book-of-lists-doctors-from-worst-to.html). But I still can't help but be a bit sad that we haven't much time left with him. And I usually start feeling that way as Keeper begins. I'm not even sure why the first few minutes of the story instill this emotion in me. Maybe it's the sudden absence of Romana and K9... 

If we're being really honest, though, the real purpose of Keeper of Traken is to re-introduce the Master as a recurring character. Those last few minutes of Part Four with the two old rivals facing off are really quite spectacular. As is the takeover of poor 'ole Tremas in the final scene (as much as I feel sorry for the guy, that's what you get when you play with anagrams!). 

A story of this nature can always be a bit tricky in its execution. When it introduces a very significant change in the Lore of the show, the lead-up to that moment can be quite lacklustre. Almost as if no one really cared much about the actual plot, they just wanted to get to the Big Moment. 

It's massively cool, for instance, when we discover the Master is in league with the Daleks during Frontier in Space. The five-and-a-half episodes of captures-and-escapes that lead up to that Reveal,  however, are not so exciting!   

Fortunately, I don't feel this way about Keeper. There is a solid amount of plot and even intrigue to sustain the three-episodes-and-some-change that occurs before the climactic confrontation in the Master's Console Room. 

There is a very nice Elizabethan feel to the whole proceedings. Not just in the costume, prop and set designs but in the very story structure, itself. The characters and various twists and turns that happen within the tale feel very much like something from a Shakespearean play (or one his contemporaries who had to live in his shadow!).    

There's also a couple of really gorgeous arcs that work through the four parts. Kassia's obsession to stop her husband from becoming the next Keeper takes her down a darker and darker path until she is completely trapped in the most miserable of fates. It's a great little descent  to observe. I also like how we learn more and more that the Melkur isn't just a statue with nasty intentions. As the story evolves, we witness snippets that indicate just how elaborate of a character he is. Because this builds up so beautifully, that Big Reveal at the end of the fourth episode is all-the-grander. 

So, yes, it's great to have the Master back after a fairly long absence (something the show likes to do now and again), but it's even better that Keeper of Traken works just as well as a story even before we get to the Return of the Master. 

THE TRUE CLASSICS 

Some of you, no doubt, are remarking to yourselves: "Rob! You've been talking about the Trilogies but have been excluding certain stories!" 

I did that for a reason, of course. I wanted to put specific adventures in their own special category. Season Eighteen gives us two absolute masterpieces and I felt I should discuss them separately from the reviews of all the other tales.    

I've already spoken about how visually amazing Warrior's Gate is and how great of a job Paul Joyce does directing it. These attributes, alone, almost make it a Classic. The aesthetics of this tale are breath-taking. Like Leisure Hive, that opening shot sets such an incredible tone,  We can see that we're in for something very different. And we get exactly that. The imagery in this story is incredible. So many little details make this is so fun to watch. The coin flipping through the air as the ship crashes. The way Biroc looks as he's running out of phase across the void. How, in Part One, the Doctor re-sets the goblet he will knock over at the end of Part Three. It's all absolutely gorgeous. 

But flashy visuals can't be enough. We need a good story, too. Fortunately, Warrior's Gate doesn't just look good - it also has an incredibly cool and delightfully bizarre plot. This is not just something we've never really seen before in Doctor Who, it's, pretty much, completely different from anything we've ever seen on television! JNT may have been a controversial figure, but it's hard to debate the fact that he really gave creative freedom to the writers. He even admits that there were times during this story's creation where he wasn't entirely sure what was meant to be going on in the narrative. But he trusted the talent that was composing the script and let them go ahead with it. Which ended up giving us one of the most unique and legitimately awesome tales the show has ever produced. It's extremely high concept and, perhaps, even a bit pretentious. But that's part of what makes it so damned beautiful. 

Warriors Gate doesn't quite make it into my Top Ten, but it gets pretty close. 

Logopolis, on the other hand, does make it in (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-10.html). It's also my favorite Master Story (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/11/book-of-lists-top-five-master-stories_29.html) Essentially, there's a lot that I love about it. So, as always, I will try to avoid repeating things said in other entries. There is, however, one point that must be re-emphasised: 

The music in this story is just so damned amazing. 

Easily, one of the best soundtracks any Doctor Who story has ever had. The atmosphere it evokes makes an already great story all-the-more incredible. The church organ effect creates that funeral tone that so many fans talk about. But there's more to these melodies than just melancholia. Look at how the excitement level increases during the chase scenes across the Pharos Project grounds because of the score that's put behind it. Or how the flute effect makes everything feel so much more hopeful as Tom Baker  transitions into Peter Davison  

The music is truly magical 

Oddly enough, I never really talk much about Tom Baker's actual performance in any of my reviews. There are a few scenes in this story where I feel he does some of his best acting in the whole show. I love how much he changes his characterisation after talking to the Watcher in Part Two. While he won't reveal to Adric (and to us, either, of course!) who this mysterious figure is, there is a beautiful undertone to his portrayal from this point, onwards. He is a man who is now conscious of his own imminent demise and will do his damnedest to face it bravely. I also absolutely love it as he sits on the floor of the console room of his shrunken TARDIS and proclaims: "I will not be beaten! I will simply not be beaten!" It's a genuinely inspirational moment. 

As I have said before, I do have issues with some of the choices Tom Baker has made over his seven seasons. But in Logopolis, I love him dearly. When the Watcher merges with him and we watch Four fade away, I do shed a legitimate tear or two. 

There will probably never be a better swansong story than Logopolis. 

CONCLUSION

And thus, it ends: The best season the show has ever produced. I know many would probably give the title of "greatest season" to something earlier in this period. But that "Golden Age" always seems to be plagued by, at least, one story a season that really missed the mark. Sometimes more. 

Whereas I have so few complaints about anything we see in Eighteen. If anything bothers me, it's that K9 does get abused just a little too much! But even that makes a sort of sense. It telegraphs the automaton's oncoming departure. Life with the Doctor is just getting a little too rough for him!   

Otherwise, so much of the material in this season is made to such a high standard. JNT and Bidmead really do drag the show out from the pit is was sliding down and give us something so much better. The whole gesture almost feels a bit abrasive. Going from something like Creature from the Pit to Warrior's Gate can almost give a viewer whiplash!   

Season Eighteen is so good that it can even teach lessons to the show's future. Like many of the seasons of New Who, there is an arc moving across all the tales of Eighteen. The central image of the whole season is Entropy. Aside from a somewhat blatant reference to it in Keeper of Traken (which it manages to get away with since it is the penultimate story of the season so they want to emphasise things just a little bit harder as we get to the grand finale!), the theme is handled with great subtlety. In stories like Leisure Hive, Meglos and State of Decay, for instance,  we see civilisations in different stages of collapse. They are all dealing with various forms of entropy that have eroded their systems. Conveying the core idea of the season in such a manner is so much better than just awkwardly shoe-horning in the word "Torchwood" or "Hybrid" every few episodes. 

One of the other things that really stands out for me in Season Eighteen is how good of a departure Tom Baker actually gets. This is extra surprising when you start learning the behind-the-scenes happenings at the time. He really does seem to be on some sort of path of self-sabotage as he keeps trying to re-create the circumstances of his last two seasons. Apparently, there were some massive fights with various members of Production as they insisted Tom perform scenes the way they were written rather than add his own little "embellishments" that would, quite frequently, destroy the credulity of the story. It's almost ludicrous that so many people struggled so hard to make sure he gets a great send-off while the actor, himself, seemed dead-set on ruining it! 

Fortunately, the effort was worth it. No Doctor gets a better exit. Not just in his final story, but throughout the entire season. The central theme of entropy applies to the lead, himself. He too, is withering away as time erodes him. And, because he ties in so nicely with all the other images of entropy, the whole year feels like it was about bracing ourselves' for his departure. 

Everything in this season comes together quite beautifully. The show moves in an entirely new direction. Production quality, on every level, improves radically. And one of the most beloved versions of our hero leaves the show in a dignified and legitimately touching manner. 

Season Eighteen is, quite simply, a masterpiece. Doctor Who is at its best, here. 

DOCTOR WHO: SEASON-BY-SEASON - SEASON SEVENTEEN

Some of you who have been following these reviews may, actually, be wondering: "Geez! Rob is taking a lot of trouble to offer his opinions on each season of Doctor Who! I wonder which season is his least favorite?"  

Let me make it perfectly clear by explicitly stating it's this one. 

I know some fans like to claim Season Twenty-Four is the worst. Or Series Eleven from  New Who. While I can only defend these seasons so well, I will also say I don't think either of them are as bad as most people say. Whereas there are other fans that agree with my sentiment regarding Seventeen. And I won't argue with them in the slightest. This, to me, is Doctor Who at its all-time lowest. 

It's not just the worst season of Classic Who. It's the worst season of Doctor Who, ever. 

And yet, as I get into my review, I will probably only be able to tear things apart so well. In my opinion, even bad Doctor Who is better than most TV shows when they're at their best (particularly Star Trek. Bad Doctor Who still blows Star Trek away!). So there will still be mercy and restraint as I dive into my opinions regarding what is the worst season the show has ever given us. 

ADMITTING A BIAS

So we open this Season with Destiny of the Daleks. I should admit, right out of the gate, that I will probably be gentler on this one than I should be. Destiny made a very strong first impression on me. 

I first discovered Doctor Who back in the early 80s. It should be noted that I live in a Canadian town that sits right on the border of the US. This enabled me to pick up several PBS stations from both countries. All of them were showing Doctor Who on different days and times. It was inevitable that, at some point, I would run into the show while channel-surfing. And I did, of course. I watched an episode here and there or even snippets of episodes, sometimes (my very first experience with the show was the latter half of Part Three of Power of Kroll - the little green men really grabbed my attention!). I very quickly caught on that this was a show that worked in installments. And that, thus far, I had only seen sections of larger tales. What I had watched had piqued my interest so I decided I would commit to watching a story in its entirety. A certain TV channel was showing one episode per weekday and I had worked out when they would be starting a new adventure. So I made sure to tune in. 

That very first full story that I watched was Destiny of the Daleks. 

Clearly, nostalgia is going to cloud my judgement a bit. It's difficult to look at these four episodes and not think about the journey I was transported on when I was a young, impressionable lad taking a proper look at the show for the first time. But I will try to be as objective  as  possible as I discuss it. It should be noted, however, that Destiny must have been, at least, fairly good as it got me to keep watching the show. Long term, I would develop the most horrible addiction to this programme. And part of that is owed to the quality of this story. 

WITH THAT BIAS OUT OF THE WAY, LET'S GET ON WITH IT

After a few entries of trying to be a little different, I think I'll go back to just doing a story-by-story review for this one. I'll even tackle the tales in transmission order. This will present my points in the clearest way possible. Which I think will be a good thing in a Review of this nature. 

Even without my bias in place, I tend to be nicer to Destiny of the Daleks than most fans are. This tale seems to do a lot to upset them. Right from the opening scene, people are not happy with the way Romana regenerates. Apparently, Mary Tamm had been very open with Production that she was only doing one season. They seemed to be under the belief that she would change her mind. But she didn't. So they couldn't treat regeneration the way it had been handled when the Doctor was changed over. No big, dramatic swansong for Romana One. We were going to have to settle with something more akin to how we lost Sixie in Time and the Rani. The process was going to have to happen without the actor playing the previous incarnation being involved. 

I think the main objection, however, is how much the whole scene is played for laughs. Romana trying on bodies like one might try on outfits was just not how fans wanted to see the process being portrayed. I, of course, was pretty clueless as I watched this for the first time. But it seemed fun and interesting. And that's still the way I view the scene. 

The Doctor taunting the Dalek to climb up the shaft after him is another moment that seems to get fans frothing at the mouth. I can see why, of course. By this point, Daleks not being able to climb stairs was a cheap joke British stand-up comics had been abusing for years. Seeing it being done in the show is almost like when Chewbacca finally gets the medal in Rise of Skywalker. It's just not something we want to see openly acknowledged within the Lore of the programme. Mind you, even on my first viewing, I assumed that these strange metal monsters could hover or glide in some way when they needed to. And that the real problem was that the shaft was just a bit too awkward for a Dalek to fit through rather than it being an impossible thing for a Dalek to assail because they can only handle level ground. So, again, I'm not upset by this. 

I do feel a bit sorry for poor 'ole David Gooderson. He appears to be everyone's least favorite Davros. But I don't think it's any kind of reflection on his actual performance. He plays the role excellently, in fact. But there's no modulation given to his voice and the BBC wouldn't give the costume department the budget to make a new mask. He looks absolutely awful gliding about in Wisher's gear. A lot of people seem to let technical issues that were beyond the actor's control affect their appreciation of him. 

And then, of course, there's the biggest of all the fan objections: Some of the dialogue seems to insinuate the Daleks no longer have an organic component to them. That they are purely robots, now. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention the first time I saw this story, but I did not pick up on any of that. I assumed that silly putty Kaled Mutant the Doctor finds when sneaking about the sand dunes is what's living inside the Dalek casing. Upon hearing the complaint, I did pick up on some of that idea in the re-watches. But I'm still gonna have to say that it is super subtle and fairly open to interpretation. So much so, that it's pretty easy to just disregard it rather than be up in arms about it! 

SO IF I DON'T AGREE MUCH WITH THE OBJECTIONS, DO I THINK DESTINY IS A MASTERPIECE?!

Admittedly, I do seem to be knocking much of the more popular objections against the story down like nine-pins (if I dare say so, myself!). So does this mean that I am absolutely in love with Destiny of the Daleks and think that it's one of the greatest Classics ever made? Has my bias colored my opinion that badly?!   

There are actually a few significant problems with this tale. 

Part One seems to have regressed the show back to the Hartnell Days. Where characters just wander around and explore a bit and a whole lot of nothing would happen til we got to the cliffhanger. This was an acceptable way to plot a story back then but you can't really get away with it a decade later! It really does feel like the show is taking a step back, here. Like Terry Nation hasn't realized that TV has evolved significantly since he first started writing for the show. 

The plot, in general, is just a bit too much on the light side. There's really not much there to fill the four episodes. The Daleks want Davros. The Movellans decide they want the Doctor. Some slaves get diced in the cross-fire. This feels extra odd because this really is the first time in ages that we've seen this story flaw. This current production team does seem good at cracking the whip with the writers and getting them to hand in something with an adequately-sized premise. 

In Nation's defence, this story does have some really excellent pacing. We almost don't notice the lack of plot because it does still feel like the narrative is propelling itself along at a very engaging rate. Things really don't slow down at any point and there's nary a sag to be experienced. But, overall, the story does feel just a bit "hollow" as you get to the end of Part Four and come to terms with the fact that this is all you're really getting. 

While still having a grand old time with doctoring up the script to make things funnier (see what I did there? "Doctoring"?!), Tom Baker feels just a little bit more restrained than he was during Armageddon Factor. I will even say that a lot of his antics work more like they did in Invasion of Time. Because the plot is a bit weak, he spices things up with a bit of humor. Having said that, however, there are still quite a few times where the Notorious Line does get crossed (check out the previous entry for a very detailed description of what constitutes "the Line"), Sometimes, his jokes help the story. Other times, they harm it. Things can become quite difficult to watch in places because of this. There are any number of instances where you can see Baker's about to have some fun and you're wondering just how far he'll go with it. 

Overall, I do think the season starts off quite decently. Destiny may not be an absolute work of art - but it does a fairly solid job. If things had continued with stories at this level of quality, I certainly wouldn't be calling Seventeen the Worst Season Ever. 

CITY OF EXAGGERATION 

From this point, onward, the biases end. While I was definitely already a hardcore geek in my adolescence, I still had a surprisingly-active social life. Being home every weekday afternoon to catch a bizarre British sci fi show was just a bit too big of a demand on my schedule. I ended up turning more towards PBS stations that only showed Doctor Who once a week. They were much easier to keep up with. Most of these channels were done with Season Seventeen and had moved on to Baker's final year. So I saw no more of this period until quite some time later. 

By the time I was able to catch Season Seventeen in its entirety, Legends of City of Death had reached my ears. This was a work of brilliance by the great genius, Douglas Adams. There would be nothing in life that I would enjoy more than watching these four episodes. My wedding night would seem anti-climactic when compared to viewing this story for the first time (which could explain why I never got married!). I had, by this point, seen Pirate Planet and loved it. So I thought to myself: If City of Death is meant to be even better - it's gonna blow my mind! 

As is often the case when people hype something up to me, it rarely lives up to my expectations. 

By no means is City terrible. But it's not as great as most people had lead me to believe. Particularly the first episode. I mean, I get that they're filming in Paris and want to show off the location a bit. But some of those establishing shots are going on for an awfully long time! The Doctor and Romana walk through Paris. And walk through it some more. And walk through it some more. They finally arrive at a studio location and some shenanigans ensue for a bit. Then they set off for somewhere else. And walk through Paris. And walk through it some more. And walk through it even more. After doing this a few times, Duggan starts following them. And now it's the Doctor, Romana and Duggan walking through Paris. And walking through it yet more. And yet even more... 

Basically, there's a lot of filler in that first episode that is just Parisian scenery with the Doctor and Romana in the foreground. This, to me, does not constitute an engaging Doctor Who story. 

I was, in fact, reminded of those horrible last few minutes of Part One of Hand of Fear where we spend a bunch of time walking through a nuclear power plant. I was a bit bothered by this, of course. I was hoping to watch Doctor Who - not enjoy a promotional video for Paris tourism! 

So City of Death is actually off to a fairly bad start for me. I do love that opening scene with the Jagaroth and his spider ship. That did look quite nice. But then we can almost jump to Part Two with little or no problem. Aside from stealing some alien tech and getting in trouble for it, the only other major development that occurs in the first episode is that the Doctor and Romana are in Paris. And they establish that quite clearly! 

Parts Two to Four do a much better job of living up to City of Death's reputation. There is some absolutely brilliant stuff going on. Another great script by Adams. He definitely comes up with some great core premises to his stories. The final twist that Scaroth's ship exploding will start the human race is particularly clever (so clever, it will get re-used in the plot of one of his Dirk Gently novels)

There are also some amazing supporting characters in this tale. .Duggan is, essentially, a one-note joke. He's still very cleverly crafted. Particularly as he ends up delivering the most important punch in history. But, if the character had not been properly-cast, he could have gotten on our nerves quite quickly. Tom Chadbon, however, is great. He has us wishing Duggan had become a companion.  

And Count Scarlioni is quite brilliant. An absolutely delightful villain who was magnificently-portrayed.. But then, Julian Glover always does a great job on the show. And in various other things that I've seen him in over the years. 

WHY I LIKED PIRATE PLANET BETTER

Yes, there is definitely a lot to love about this story from the second episode, onwards. But there are still some issues. 

Tom Baker's ability to restrain his humor was quite good in Destiny of the Daleks. But it's withering more and more as the season progresses. I think of that one line everyone loves so much: "What a wonderful butler! He's so violent!" This is another one of those things I'd heard endless praise for before actually seeing it. And then, when I finally was able to witness it, all I thought was: "He's being way more camp and silly than I'd really like him to be as he's delivering that line!" Seriously, it felt like bad panto for the first half of that scene as Baker wanders about the set on his knees. Amazingly enough, he does settle down towards the end of that sequence and things go much better. But his desire to take the piss out of things will flare up several more times throughout the tale. 

In some ways, I can understand why he's behaving that way. He's performing a script by Douglas Adams. It, clearly, has a lot of jokes in it. But Douglas, himself, has spoken about how frustrating it was for him to see how actors in Who would take what he'd written and try to "jazz it up" even more when it didn't need to be. I do actually think Adams had some very specific tonal ideas for the show that agree quite a bit with my own sentiments about humor in Doctor Who. It's just that, unfortunately, a script editor can only control so much. As the material moves on to other people involved in the production, the initial vision the writer or editor had  can become viciously distorted. 

Or it could just be that I've always liked Douglas Adams a lot and am reluctant to pin any blame on him! 

Part Four also feels ever-so-slightly light on plot. Quite a bit of extra fumbling goes on before Scaroth finally gets his ass to Prehistoric Earth. Some of the more blatant filler is the arc that gets created for the Countess' character in the latter half of the story. Suddenly, the Doctor and an ancient hieroglyph manage to make her suspicious that her husband is an alien. Which creates a five minute confrontation that fills out Part Four quite nicely. She feels genuinely extraneous to the plot as Scaroth just kills her off at the end of the scene. Making us almost wonder if she served any real purpose in the story except to help fill it out at a crucial moment. 

There are a few other slightly illogical things that happen during this particular episode. The biggest one being Scaroth deciding to put his gun down just before he time travels. What an unfortunate decision on his part. If he had kept it, Duggan would have had a pretty difficult time punching him. Scaroth would have also been able to shoot his servant when he came back to Paris and saved himself from an untimely death. Good thing he didn't bring that gun, then. Or the whole story would have ended on a much more sombre note! It's almost like he made the poor choice so that conflicts could be resolved more easily!   

Nonetheless, I'm trying not to complain too much, here. There is still so much to like about City of Death. But it's not one of those tales that I love as deeply as most of Fandom seems to. Which is why I'm taking the time to point out its flaws. So that you can see why I take the stance I do. 

CREATURE FROM THE EXTREMELY UNIMAGINATIVE TITLE

Some of you who have been following these reviews may, actually, be wondering: "Geez! Rob is taking a lot of trouble to offer his opinions on each season of Doctor Who! I wonder which story is his least favorite?"  

Creature from the Pit is that story. 

There's so much to cover, here. I'll just attack some of the bigger problems. But I assure you: there is little in this adventure that doesn't make me embarrassed to be a Doctor Who fan. It really is absolutely horrible. If I had that D-Mat Gun the Doctor built in Invasion of Time and was allowed to fire it upon a single story from the show - it would be this one. There are a few others that come perilously close to being as bad. The Underwater Menace, The Android Invasion or even The Next Doctor from the New Series. But, thus far, none have beaten the absolute awfulness of this tale. 

There is, of course, a really bad choice made by the production team that is similar to one that was executed by their predecessors. So, just like last time, we'll tackle it immediately: 

Apparently, lessons were not learnt from Talons of Weng Chiang. Doctor Who had to do something really racist, again. I will admit, it's not quite as offensive as Li H'seng Chang being played by a white guy- but it's still pretty bad. This time, we get a gang of bandits who are meant to be mocking Jewish people. The stereotype of Jews being hopelessly greedy is the trait they play up the most. At one point, they're meant to be running for their lives and they still have to stop for an endless period of time to admire their plunder. Love of their new-found wealth actually seems to rivet them to the spot. The fact that they're all using Jewish accents as they do this makes it painfully obvious who they're making fun of. It's all quite horrifically awkward to watch. 

Racism aside, though, this is just one of many problems with Creature. So little of the plot seems to make any kind of real sense. Adastra, for instance, is determined to find out the purpose of the shell in the Place of Death and is going to all sorts of lengths to get people to work it out for her. But, doesn't she know, already?  She's the one who greeted Erato fifteen years previously and, somehow, managed to throw him down a pit without anyone knowing. Did she not see him arrive? Even if she didn't, it wouldn't be hard to make an educated guess: "Hmmm.... a creature arrives from the stars to trade metal for vegetables. He leaves behind this big shell after he gets here. It must be some kind of mode of travel. But I still haven't worked this out fifteen years later and regularly threaten the lives of various people to tell me what it is!" 

So many elements of the plot function like this. Nothing has been thought out all that clearly by the writer. It's just a series of disjointed story ideas that you're never meant to look at too closely. 

Not only does the plot seem to make little sense but there's not enough of it, either. So much time is spent just wandering around in caves and/or jungles with little or nothing happening. For two seasons, this problem seemed to disappear. Episodes were given enough content to fill them. We didn't need to stall things with uneventful filler. I think, as much as I love my Douglas, I have to lay this one at his feet. He was probably not the best choice for a script editor. In some ways, I still do really think it was cool that he had the job for a bit. But I don't think he was entirely ready for it. 

And then, of course, there's the comedy. Little of it is actually all that funny (and, as already discussed, some of it is quite offensive). And the way so many characters are just playing silly caricatures rather than trying to be reasonably straight makes us feel like we're just watching a parody of the show. .Doctor Who, essentially, mocks itself for four episodes. There's probably no story that does this worse than Creature (although, Horns of Nimon does come pretty damned close! We'll get to it soon enough). 

There's so much more that I could go on about. But I do want this review to conclude with a semi-reasonable word count! I'll do just a bit of nitpicking before moving on: 

Nitpick 1: How does Erato's translator possess hypnotic properties? Why would a translator have this sort of feature? Why does it only get used, now? Wouldn't it have been nicer to activate it sooner rather than crushing people for fifteen years in an attempt to communicate with them? For some reason, this particular plot hole really gets to me. It reminds me of the way Eldrad's powers in Hand of Fear tend to encompass whatever it is the plot needs at the time. 

Nitpick 2: There is a door in the throne room that, apparently, leads directly to the pit. Erato is pretty big but he does seem capable of squishing parts of himself down narrower tunnels. Why has he never managed to attack the throne room? He could, in fact, have retrieved his translator, himself. Adastra mentions a firmly-locked door. Is that meant to hold him back?  I really doubt it could. 

Nitpick 3 (Major Nitpick!): Finally, and most importantly: What the Hell were they thinking when the design team made Erato's "appendages"?! No one can watch any scene where he's waving them about and not think: "Good God! That looks wrong!" Especially when Tom Baker chooses to actually blow into one of them. I know that's one of those weird quirky things that he likes to do but it's such a horrible double-entendre, this time. Seriously, the prop department should have made them look more tendril-like or something to that effect. They should have seen, right on the drawing board. that it was a mistake. It really does look like Erato likes to wander through the tunnels probing things with his penis. I know I don't like to come down too hard on Classic Who for bad visuals. But this one is pretty difficult to forgive! 

BURNIN' MANDRELS FOR A CHEAP BUZZ 

Next, we get Nightmare of Eden. While the plot of Creature is a gigantic mess, this one actually looks pretty good on paper. Two ships stuck in each other through a warp-drive accident is also a pretty creative idea. The way the Doctor and Romana react to the problem when they first see it is quite amusing. I even like the joke about Galactic Salvage that happens a short while later. The comedy does almost seem under control for a bit. 

But then, that problem that irked Douglas Adams so much starts to arise. Actors in this season love to latch on to any comical element they create and blow it way out of proportion. The character of Tryst is the best example of this. I don't think there's a single line that he delivers that he's trying to take seriously. A consistent effort is made all the way through the four parts to just sound as absolutely silly as possible. 

He is, in fact, demonstrating a new form of trope abuse that happens exclusively in Season Seventeen. We hadn't seen it since The Underwater Menace back in the mid-60s. But, now, we're getting it twice in the same year. Suddenly, every brilliant scientist in the show has to have the fakest-sounding of foreign accents. Kerensky wasn't too grating. For the most part, we find him quite endearing (although that weird disco move he does as Scaroth turns on the time machine with him still in it is a very bizarre choice for the actor to make!). Tryst, on the other hand, is just completely annoying throughout the whole story. It's particularly irritating that he turns out to be a major villain in the piece but he's still just trying to camp it up. 

The two custom officers that show up a bit later are the other major perpetrators of this acting crime. They see that their characters are meant to be bureaucratic idiots and play it up for all its worth. They could have represented an interesting side-threat in the story. But, instead, they're just a pair of buffoons. 

After that, the casting gets really weird. We have several really wooden characters that juxtapose horribly against the camp.We might not have even noticed their stoicism so much had they not been thrown into such sharp relief against the ones who are overacting. But, instead, we get a collection of performances that all seem very off-kilter from each other. 

Finally, we have poor 'ole Captain I Once Played Irongron. The only one who seems to be trying to strike a decent balance between drama and comedy. His actual professionalism makes him almost seem out-of-place. 

Ultimately, Nightmare of Eden could have been a very nice dark, gritty tale about intergalactic drug trafficking. It's all certainly there in the script. But its execution is let down, once more, by the Great Tom Baker Comedy Show that is now rampaging, full-force, across the season. 

It's really quite sad. The story really is well-written. But, because certain actors can't take it very seriously, it's ruined rather badly. 

IT MAY BE A GUILTY PLEASURE BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S ALL THAT GOOD! 

With Shada getting cut down in its prime, Horns of Nimon concludes the season prematurely. Thank God, really. Torture is always nicer when it ends early!  

This is another story that I have discussed extensively in a previous entry. A few years back, I decided to list my Top Five Guilty Pleasures. These were stories that I know were bad but still, in my heart of hearts, I enjoyed them. 

Horns of Nimon ranked fifth on the list (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/05/book-of-lists-top-five-guilty-pleasures.html). As I mentioned right in that essay, part of the reason why it's only fifth place is because there are still some aspects to the story that really are just so bad that I can only like it so much.

The biggest problem of all would be Soldeed. Over the years, certain actors have seen getting a villain part in Doctor Who as a nice opportunity to chew some scenery. Few have gone as far as Graham Crowden did in his role as Soldeed. Perhaps the only other actor to come anywhere close would be the notorious Professor Zaroff from Underwater Menace. In the case of both of these characters, the actors aren't just hamming it up as much as possible - they actually seem terrible at acting. The performances are genuinely poor instead of just over-the-top. Thus making them incredibly painful to watch. 

As Soldeed descends into madness after Romana asks him how many Nimons he's seen, it just gets even worse. His actual death scene is a nightmare. We should, in some ways, be a bit happy. A villain has gotten his just desserts. Or, at the very least, we're just glad that Corden can no longer crap all over the story. But his character's final breaths are still just so awfully acted out that it's incredibly uncomfortable right to the bitter end. I just can't stand watching any of what he did. Even when the opportunity to sadistically enjoy his death comes along, I still can't get into it. His performance is just that bad. 

At the same time, Tom Baker seems to be taking absolutely nothing seriously, anymore. He just goofs off for the entire four episodes .Some of it is a bit on the witty side. Most of it, however, doesn't really amuse me much. With him and Crowden making a mockery of every scene, there is little or no hope for Horns of Nimon to have any real sense of drama to it. Romana getting stranded on the planet the Nimon are migrating from is about the only time we get anything all that gripping. And that's because she's as far away as possible from the two characters who are systematically destroying the story. 

The actual script for the adventure is somewhat passable. The plot does seem to flounder a bit here and there. Because it's not entirely sure where it ought to go next. it dives into some weird digressions. The screeching halt that happens in a latter episode as Sorak has an extended discussion with Soldeed about getting something for nothing from the Nimon  is a great example of this. The scene just feels so oddly-placed. It really ruins any momentum the story was building up. It's like the author knew that a scene like this should be dropped in somewhere - but wasn't sure where. So he just took a stab in the dark. And, as is often the case with wild guesses, it wasn't a good choice. 

There's still quite a bit about this script that I like. But certainly not as much as Nightmare of Eden. Which makes Horns that bit more difficult to watch. Both of these tales are let down by poor execution. But one, at least, is well-written. The other is a troubled script with all sorts of other problems piled up on top of it. 

CONCLUSION 

And so, we come to the end of what will probably be my most negative Season Review (although, there are a few seasons of New Who that might not go so well, either!). In defense of Seventeen, it is off to a decent start. Even without my bias, I do think Destiny of the Daleks is pretty good. And City of Death is a near-classic. That's eight episodes that are, at the very least, fairly solid. 

But the other twelve are either poor or even downright awful. Two-thirds of the season is, basically, a mess. That's a bit too much.The decent beginning is not enough to elevate things. Some of the re-watches I did in order to properly compose this review were not easy. I pushed through them for the sake of a good entry! 

Tom Baker, by this point, is completely out of control. Talk to me all you want about his talent and charisma, but it seems evident that he has been in the role for too long and is taking his success for granted. In many ways, he is now the show's worst enemy. The time has definitely come for him to leave. 

Having said all that, I will still try to end things on a positive note. Throughout all the madness of Season Seventeen, there is one constant that truly impresses me. Lalla Ward really does maintain a gorgeous professional detachment from all the other bad choices actors are making around her. She will have fun with the part a bit here and there. But only when it seems to truly suit the moment. And, when required to play things straight (even if it means having to take fleshy-headed Minotaurs in bad platform boots seriously) she steps beautifully up to the plate and delivers the appropriately-serious performance that's required of her. I am seriously amazed by her sense of judgement. 

If only the guest cast followed her example rather than Tom's.