DOCTOR WHO - SEASON-BY-SEASON: SEASON SIXTEEN

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT 

Season Sixteen will be a tricky one to review. 

Some time ago, I did a REVIEW OVERVIEW series on Umbrella Seasons. We've had three of them, now, of course. So I thought it might be fun to do a somewhat-scientifically-oriented analysis of them to determine which was the most solidly put-together. 

It was a mammoth undertaking. I wanted this thing to be super-detailed so that you could see exactly what my reasoning was for which Umbrella Season I considered best. This thing was spread out over eight entries and took a good month-and-a-half to complete. I went down a serious Umbrella Season Rabbit Hole. 

But I was proud of what I had accomplished. Damn proud, in fact. By the time the work was complete, you could see all of my points quite clearly. You might still not agree with them, of course. But you could, at least, see that I had put some thought into my reasoning. 

Should you wish to dare to read through the entire magnum opus (it's not lost on me that I had to do a huge series of interconnected posts in order to review Umbrella Seasons!) then the first entry is here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/03/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html. From there, just work your way through the essays that come after. If you want to do it all at once, keep your afternoon free!   

Herein lies the problem: having already done a very detailed analysis of The Key to Time Season, it's going to be tricky to do another one that doesn't just massively repeat itself. It can be achieved, of course. Over the last year or two, for instance, I've listed my Top Five Master, Cybermen and Dalek stories. Some of those tales also got reviews when I listed my Top Ten Fave Doctor Who Stories Ever way back at the end of my first year of writing this blog (Winter of '32, if I remember correctly...) I managed to come up with enough different things to say about the stories that fell into both categories that it didn't feel like you were just reading the same review twice. 

I do think reviewing Key to Time again will be a bit tougher. There are just certain "beats" in the Season that need to be discussed or you haven't really given it a proper analysis. So I do think there will be a bit more repetition than usual. However, I will do my best to find new ways to express the salient points that need to be brought up. So that if you did go to the trouble of reading that entire REVIEW OVERVIEW series (and quite a few of you did. In fact, it still gets a fairly steady stream of views, even now. I had no idea people would be so interested in reading about Umbrella Seasons!), then you won't feel like you're just reading the same review twice!    

So, with that in mind, let's get into the Proper Review. We'll begin with the biggest Elephant in the Room: 

THE TOM BAKER COMEDY SHOW - PART ONE: AN IMPORTANT GROUND RULE

This is my greatest beef with this season. 

Before I dive in too deep, let me preface this by saying I have no problem with Doctor Who being funny. In fact, I love the fact that it is sci-fi that never takes itself too seriously. This is one of the reasons why I've never been able to get into Star Trek much. It just feels so heavy and ponderous. Even overly-dramatic, in places. Particularly in the Original Series where we had to put up with Shatner's staccato delivery of his lines. It felt so dreadfully hammy, sometimes. The fact that he was talking in such a manner because he wasn't taking the time to properly memorise his dialogue makes it feel like an even greater Acting Sin. 

I still remember with fondness that crucial scene in one of the later episodes of The Daleks. The Doctor commits some effective sabotage against the titular monsters. He's so busy being impressed with his own cleverness that he sticks around for too long to admire his handiwork and gets himself captured. William Hartnell recognises the comic potential of the moment and does some fun little mugging as the Daleks glide into the shot and apprehend him. This, as far as I can see, is the first time in the show where they intentionally go for a laugh. And I love it. It sets an important precedent: Sometimes, Doctor Who should be funny. 

Of course, we later get stories like The Romans. There are gags all over the place in this one. Some of the acting is even a bit over-the-top. Particularly Nero. And yet, it all works. Not once do I feel like the story has gotten too silly. It's just a bit more light-hearted than most Doctor Who adventures. That's all.  

Which brings me neatly to a very important point: There is a very crucial line that exists in the bedrock of any sci-fi franchise. On one side of the line, you have science fiction that is being a bit funny. On the other: you have sci-fi comedy. 

I do love sci-fi comedy. Particularly the British stuff. While my passion for Doctor Who runs deeper than anything, I also have tremendous love for Red Dwarf and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, And some slightly more obscure stuff, too. So I want to make it clear: I don't object to science fiction that is really just going for the laughs. That's absolutely fine with me. 

But I do think there is a crucial rule that needs to be followed, here. A sci-fi comedy can really, pretty much, do whatever the Hell it wants to create a gag. Spend several long minutes randomly calling a whale into existence just so he can plummet to his death. That's fine. 

But artists need to remember: there are two sides to that line. If you create a show that is meant to be sitting on the side of science fiction that is trying to be a bit funny, then you can't really let it cross over to the other side. Any time you do that, you're doing damage to the franchise. It's losing just a bit too much credulity and we can no longer suspend our disbelief in the way we're meant to. 

Oddly enough, Sci Fi comedy cam flitter about on either side of that line. It can take itself seriously for a bit if it wants to. Oftentimes, when it does, it gives us a very pleasant surprise and can even move us quite deeply. There were several occasions in Red Dwarf, for instance, where they show off a very romantic side to Lister and it really creates a gorgeous moment in the episode. 

However, I don't feel that Science Fiction that Likes to be a bit Funny can do the same. It always has to stay on the one side of that line. If it crosses over by doing something just a bit too absurd - it only hurts itself.  

In my Review of Season Fifteen, I explicitly state that Tom Baker is starting to come close to crossing that line. But he never actually truly steps over it. As we get into Sixteen, however, he finally starts doing exactly that. 

It is in The Key to Time Season that Tom Baker officially starts taking the piss out of Doctor Who. 

THE TOM BAKER COMEDY SHOW - PART TWO: WHERE HE ACTUALLY STARTS CROSSING THE LINE

This is something I remember bringing up in the REVIEW OVERVIEW, but I do think it should be examined again. In the same way that I succinctly remember that moment in The Daleks where Doctor Who is being intentionally funny for its first time, I can also remember when Tom Baker officially starts crossing the Line. It's at the beginning of Part Three of The Ribos Operation. They are resolving the cliffhanger where Graff Vinda Ka is about to have them executed. Baker starts prancing about like a fool. It's almost like the fact that they're in the snow is confusing Tom and he suddenly thinks he's in a Christmas Panto. Ultimately, it goes on only for a short while so it doesn't cause too much cringe. 

Fortunately, Baker tends to behave himself for the rest of Ribos Operation. Even if the story lends itself to being something a bit more comedic, that's the only real occasion where it feels the jokes were being taken too far. 

Amazingly enough, no lines seem to get crossed during The Pirate Planet. Even though the entire story sits ridiculously close to it. Of course, the actor playing the Pirate Captain had far more opportunities to overdo it than Baker ever could. But he remains very nicely on the right side of things. It helps that Adams actually wrote some elements into the character to stop him from just being completely ridiculous. The fact that he is still quite deadly and dangerous takes the edge off the humor a bit. And the way he actually mourns the passing of Mister Fibuli adds a very nice dimension to him. 

Since I am speaking about other characters that have the potential to go too far with the humor, I should bring up that this will start happening soon with the supporting cast. One can almost lay the blame at Baker's feet for this problem, too. If you're in a show and the lead is not taking things all that seriously, it's hard not to go to that same place with them. 

Still, by the time I finished my first viewing of Pirate Planet, I'm almost wondering if that scene at the beginning of Part Three of Ribos Operation was a fluke.  That, maybe, Tom Baker realised he took things too far and has learnt his lesson. Particularly with the way he delivers his performance during that moment of severe moral indignation with the Captain. The intensely serious tone he adopts almost feels like he's offering an apology for what he did in Operation. Like he's saying: "Sorry for crossing the line a bit in the last story. Let me make up for it by bringing the heat when I need to do one of the most serious scenes in the entire history of my Era." 

But then, some more cracks start appearing in Stones of Blood. Tom makes some odd choices in the way the Doctor interacts with Amelia Rumford. She is a fun, eccentric character, of course. But it seems like Tom feels he needs to be more fun and eccentric than her. Much of his performance comes across as a tad over-the-top whenever he's interacting with her. To the point where it seemed to even annoy the actress playing Amelia a bit. Apparently, she made several attempts to reign him in during rehearsals. Which may have actually helped a bit since Tom seems to only go so far with his clowning around in what we end up seeing transmitted. Unfortunately, she's not around to restrain him when he decides to wear a silly wig during his trial by the Megara!

All in all, Stones of Blood does okay with not getting too silly. There is only a slightly pervading sense of campiness to it. It does feel like Tom is still holding back a bit. And, of course, there's the famous sequence with the two campers being attacked by the Ogri that many interpret as the true "final gasp" of the Hinchcliffe Period. It will be the last time we'll see the show borrow anything from Hammer Horror Films for quite some time. 

THE TOM BAKER COMEDY SHOW - PART THREE: WHERE THINGS TRULY DEGENERATE

I bring up that famous scene with the couple in Stone of Blood because it almost seems to serve as a signpost. From this point, onward, the Graham Williams Period seems to lose all sense of darkness. Whatever floodgates were holding back the comedy seem to have burst. 

Androids of Tara, for me, falls under the same category of story as Seeds of Doom or Talons of Weng Chiang. I cannot, for the life of me, see what other fans love so much about it. The plot is very ill-constructed and much of its own internal logic falls apart quite quickly. But, even worse, no one is holding Tom Baker back anymore. The adventure has a sort of storybook feel to it. Like it's a bit of a fairy tale. Because it's all a bit absurd, Baker sees the potential  to throw in a tonne of camp and goes for it. Other actors follow. The whole story becomes an adventure in High Comedy that I just don't feel works. That notorious Line is thoroughly crossed, here. This is, very much, a sci fi comedy rather than Doctor Who. I know many fans like to view it as just a fun little romp but I can't see that. To me, it's just bad. Particularly since quite a few of the jokes don't really land that well. 

This is the true beginning of the slippery slope. From here, Tom will be taking the piss out of just about anything he can. It will, in turn, inspire other cast members to do the same.  More times than others, we will be getting a parody of Doctor Who rather than the real show. 

Having said all that, we do get just a little bit of a respite from the overt comedy. Power of Kroll does manage to take itself fairly seriously most of the time. At the very least, much of the comedy that does exist in it is fairly unintentional. I almost wonder if Tom settled down because it was a Robert Holmes script and didn't want to mess with it too much. 

Ironically, the story could have used with just a bit more humor. Its direction feels very flat. I'm reminded a bit of The Mutants as I watch this. I'm just not feeling any real connection with the characters. The plot, itself, is quite good. But, for whatever reason, it doesn't engage me much. 

Part One of Armageddon Factor feels quite promising. It's definitely dark and gritty. The Marshal is meant to represent all that is wrong in the Military Mentality. He could have been easily turned into a complete caricature. It was certainly there in the writing. But the actor playing him resists the temptation and only puts so much satire in the portrayal. He still seems to want him to feel like a real person and not just some ridiculous buffoon that we can't take the slightest bit seriously. 

But then, as the latter episodes roll out, the comedy takes over again. The Marshal almost seems to stick out like a sore thumb as he keeps trying to keep the character relatively straight. Everyone else is, pretty much, going for whatever joke they can put in. It all descends, once more, into something that cannot be taken all that seriously. 

I remember mentioning this in the REVIEW OVERVIEW but it bears repeating: The sequence where Shapp gets into the gunfight with the Mutt and is accidentally propelled into the transmat shaft is the moment I give up on Armageddon Factor. The actor executes the scene with all the deftness of a party clown. He just wants it to look as silly as possible. This is meant to be the climax of a six story epic and we're getting cheap comedy prat-falls. It's just not working for me. Armageddon Factor finishes up as just one big ludicrous mess. 

WHY I'M FUSSING OVER THIS SO MUCH

Some of you may be thinking: "Wow! Rob is spending a lot of time in this review pointing out where he feels the comedy starts going too far!" But I'm doing that for a reason. It's my belief that letting the humor get out of control is the chief contributor to ruining the potential of the whole Key to Time season. 

By no means was I expecting this season to be something super-serious, of course. I've already said that I do enjoy a comedy element to the show. But there needs to be a balance. Particularly in a storyline that you've been building up for the entire season. Clearly, there was meant to be an epic quality to the whole extended tale. Much of that is dashed against the rocks, though. Particularly with the way the stories were arranged. Something fun and light works great towards the beginning of the season. Pirate Planet, for instance, is in a pretty decent spot. Although, it would have been just as fine as the third story of the season with Androids of Tara before it (or, maybe, Androids should have never been made and something else was put in its place!). The more dramatic tales are, then, stacked near the end so that we feel some genuine tension building. Armageddon Factor also would've needed a bit of re-writing and the actors should have been drastically reigned in. With this structure, I feel, we could have had something much better than what we got. 

Having said all that, I don't think Key to Time is awful, either. If you go back to my REVIEW OVERVIEW, you'll see that in my Final Verdict that I gave it a 7 out of 10. Which, in the end, isn't a terrible rating. It's simply average. And that's just it: When you are building a season-long epic, you want it to be incredible. Not average. An audience doesn't want to stay around with one story for that long and just get something that's okay. Only something that completely amazes them will make them feel like such a long tale was worth their while. 

As we get into the second half of the season, however, the quality of the content dips considerably. Part of this is due to the fact that Power of Kroll isn't all that particularly engaging. But a lot of it is due to the comedy just going too far in too many places. Particularly in the Season Finale, where the whole thing starts feeling like a giant farce. 

SOME ACTUAL GOOD STUFF

Okay, so if I'm saying this season was 70% good, I should probably bring up some of its positive aspects and not just complain about the overused comedy element! 

Probably the thing I appreciate the most about Season Sixteen is the introduction of Romana. After a season-and-a-half with a female companion that could handle all the action in a story it was great to get the polar opposite. We now had a woman who could take care of some of the plot elements that required intellectual skills. It's great to see the "full spectrum of usefulness" being covered by characters who were usually just getting in trouble or asking the Doctor what was going on. Truly, this was a glorious time to be a companion with a uterus in Doctor Who!    

I'm also quite fond of the dynamics between the two Time Lords. While I do complain about a lot of the comedy in this season, the banter these two indulge in does really work. Mary Tamm and Tom Baker have amazing chemistry. Thanks to how gifted both of them are, we can see that they start off badly but will, eventually, get along. Romana still frequently doubts the Doctor's competency, but she does trust him to come through when he's needed most. We really haven't quite seen this sort of relationship between the Doctor and his assistant before. There's a definite sense of equality between them. The Doctor has a bit more street smarts than Romana.- but, otherwise, she can do quite fine without him. As the character evolves, we will see her competently handle large plot threads in the story without a hint of worry. It's undeniable that Four and either incarnation of Romana is one of the best TARDIS teams in the history of the show.

I also quite liked the concept of the Black and White Guardians. Formidable god-like beings who seemed to be even more powerful than Time Lords. They were certainly interesting enough to bring back in the 80s. In fact, I wish we'd see them again in New Who. They've been given a name-check, at least. I thought, maybe, they'd been wiped out in the Time Wars but it seems they're still out there. Hopefully, we'll see them again, someday. Although, it will be sad not to see Valentine Dyall in the role of the Black Guardian. He had such a great voice!     

Oddly enough, I found K9-Mark 1's characterisation to be a bit all-over-the-place. I'm not sure how it's possible to feel that about what is, principally, a remote-control prop - but I did! Clearly, it had something to do with the voice-work. John Leeson wasn't actually doing anything bad. I always thought he was great. I definitely preferred him over David Brierly. I think it had much more to do with the actual dialogue he was given during Season Fifteen. K9 got introduced out of nowhere and the writers were forced to, hastily, adjust to him. There probably just wasn't enough time to re-write the dialogue in a way that would make the character feel more consistent. 

In Season Sixteen, however, K9's vibe definitely has the right tone. Most of the time, he seems like a standard overly-logical automaton who is slightly confused by the irrational behaviour of organic beings. But, every once in a while, we get a hint of emotion out of him. Which endears him to us in just the right way. It is even just a bit traumatic when we see him brutally damaged by the Ogri in Stones of Blood. Which reveals just how attached we've gotten to him in so short a time. 

It was also great to see Douglas Adams writing for the show. By the time I saw Pirate Planet for the first time, I was already a huge fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was completely delighted to see he was the author of the story as the opening credits rolled. Pirate Planet was, without a doubt, the best story of the season. I just might even consider it a True Classic. 

You know what? Screw it! It is. 

Pirate Planet is a Classic. I would even consider it better than City of Death. 

ULTIMATE CONCLUSION (SEE THE PARENTHETICAL BY THIS TERM IN THE PREVIOUS ENTRY TO BETTER UNDERSTAND ITS AWKWARD WORDING) 

So, there we go. In my final analysis I determine that Season Sixteen is, basically, "okay". Which, really, it shouldn't have been. Something with a concept this big needed to be totally awesome. Again, if we refer to the REVIEW OVERVIEW, we see that the other two Umbrella Seasons scored a 9 out of 10 and a 10 out of 10. That's where a season of this nature needs to be. And, if you can't get it there, you need to just do a series of independent stories. You can't drag us along for that long and only deliver something adequate. 

I do feel that much of the problems stem from just how out-of-control Tom Baker is starting to get. It seems almost pointless to criticise him, of course. At this point in the show, audiences are madly in love with him. To the point where they're almost forgetting that there were Doctors before him. There is tremendous amounts of charm oozing off the man during this stage of his career. His confidence is boundless. 

Which is the biggest objection I have with what he's doing in the role. It seems as though you can't really tell Tom Baker what to do, anymore. He's convinced he's right. The tremendous ratings he's getting seem to be re-enforcing the fact. 

But an actor that won't be coached is a curse no director should have to face. In fact, an entire production team will suffer when dealing with him. In that sense, I feel quite sorry for Graham Williams. He took over a show with a lead who is going to do whatever the Hell he wants. And it's during The Key to Time that we watch that attitude really start to kick in. At the start of things, Baker still seems a bit tenuous about just how far he can go. But, as we reach the season's conclusion, his ego seems to have taken over. In all honesty, I really think he's genuinely starting to hurt the show. Talk all you want about ratings or charm, Tom Baker is no longer a man who seems to have the show's best interests, at heart. He's strictly out for Tom Baker. 

Which will continue to affect my appreciation of the Graham Williams Period. I stated both here and in the REVIEW OVERVIEW that Season Sixteen earns a 7 out of 10. Just to give a clearer idea of things: Fifteen probably gets an 8 out of 10. So, for me, things are going downhill. 

And, with Williams' final season, things are going to get much worse....

If you want to read the entries in the REVIEW OVERVIEW of Umbrella Seasons that deal only with The Key to Time, here they are:   

Part One: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-umbrella-season.html

Part Two;

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html

Final Verdict and/or Ultimate Conclusion: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/05/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella_11.html

 

DOCTOR WHO: SEASON-BY-SEASON - A REVIEW OF SEASON FIFTEEN

"CHANGE? WHAT CHANGE?! THERE IS NO CHANGE!" 

With Season Fifteen, we enter the first major behind-the-scenes changeover during the Fourth Doctor Era. After a good three years, Philip Hinchcliffe decides to move on from being the Producer. Graham Williams steps in to fill his shoes. 

This is the first time we've seen a change of this nature for quite a while. For the better part of the 70s, both the Doctor and the people making the show while a specific actor is in the role have remained the same. During the 60s, of course, producers and script editors were switching out quite frequently. Sometimes right in the middle of a season. But as Pertwee took the reins, we saw a greater level of consistency. Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks, more-or-less, started in their respective positions as Producer and Script Editor at the same time as the Third Doctor arrived on the Scene. The three of them also left together about five years later. This gave us a very strong "in house" feel throughout that period. The Pertwee Era, in general feels very distinct because of this. As Tom Baker takes over, he gets a new Producer and Script Editor who stay with him for his first three seasons. Which made the tone of his content quite regular too. 

Now, of course, there is a great potential for Tom's stories to start looking and feeling very different from what we've been getting, so far. Which could be quite weird for the viewers. For the better part of the decade, specific production teams have been working behind the two faces the Doctor has worn. The Doctor isn't regenerating this time, but the people making the show are. And that's a very new thing. Or, at least, it's not something anyone has seen in quite a bit. 

It is through Graham Williams that we see a great example of the first of two directions a Producer and/or Showrunner can go in when they take over. Oftentimes, when an individual is given a high level of creative control over a television programme, they don't want to just keep giving us the same sort of show as their predecessor. They have a strong desire to "leave their mark" by making things very different from what has come before. They can, essentially, do this in one of two manners. They can initiate all the changes immediately or they can gradually bring them in. Either approach has Pros and Cons. Implementing the alterations quickly can be abrasive for the audience but it also re-invigorates things very nicely. A transformation that moves more slowly and subtly eases the viewers into the new era, but can also feel lackluster. 

Graham Williams goes for Option B. His first season is, very much, a mix of the sort of Who that he wants to do and stories that almost feel like "echoes" from the Hinchcliffe Era. As we move into his later seasons, tones will shift more and more towards his vision. But Season Fifteen is, very much, an interesting blend of following along certain lines first established by the Producer before him and then also doing his own thing when the mood feels right. 

WHERE GRAHAM YINGS AND WHERE HE YANGS

It seems fairly obvious where Williams follows Hinchcliffe's footsteps and where he does his own thing. The Earthbound stories tend to feel like they came from the previous era and the futuristic yarns, oftentimes, have the tone of something new and different. 

Horror of Fang Rock and Image of the Fendahl both maintain a very Hammer Horror Films atmosphere. Which is very in keeping with the vibe of the Hinchcliffe Days. It was especially smart that Horror begins the new season. It almost makes things feel as if the Producer of the show hasn't changed at all. 

When The Invisible Enemy rolls in next, however, things feel very different. We get a full-blown space opera. Spaceships transport the Doctor, Leela and various other characters to different exotic locations out in the cosmos. There's lots  of laser gun fights and vast, expansive corridors to run around in!   

Compare that to something like Robots of Death from the previous season: A tale also set in a "hard sci-fi" location. This adventure is restrained to just one mildly claustrophobic (and even robophobic) spot. No laser guns. No spaceships. Just people stuck on a Sandminer. Of course, not all stories of this nature during this period play out quite the same way. There's some fun laser battles in Face of Evil, for instance. But no one is flying around outside the atmosphere or jumping back and forth between space stations and intergalactic med centers like they are in Enemy. 

We could also easily point out Deadly Assassin works in a similar manner to Robots. Everything stays restrained to the Panopticon (yes, the Doctor goes into the Matrix during Part Three - but his body is still there!). Whereas when Williams brings the Doctor back to Gallifrey in Invasion of Time, we start aboard a grand spaceship, then go to the Panopticon for a bit, then we also venture out into the Wastelands. We even finish with an extensive journey within the TARDIS, itself. Change of location is a key element in the whole adventure. And, of course, there's some more laser gun fights in hallways!    

When Hinchcliffe delved into the future, he still tried to stay in one location as much possible so as to draw out all the atmosphere he could from it. Even something like Brain of Morbius from two seasons ago takes place at Solon's lab, the Temple of the Sisterhood and the rocky track of land between them. This gets the whole story to feel like the small village that Frankenstein takes place in. Which is, of course, the source material that the whole plot derives from. 

Williams, during his space operas, is being influenced by something else. A recently-released movie that had a huge effect on pop culture. The opening shot of Invasion of Time is probably the best demonstration of this film's reach on the show. The Vardan ship soaring just above the camera is almost a perfect copy of the Star Destroyer chasing the Blockade Runner as A New Hope begins. But that's not where the similarities end. Lucas' movies, in general, involve moving his characters through multiple locations. With lots of space battles and laser gun fights along the way. This is, very much, how the whole plot of The Underworld works. The set designers even bother to make the Minyan vessel appear old and worn out. Much the same way that ships in Star Wars can look. Whereas, before the franchise arrived, advanced technology would gleam and shine. But once we got Star Wars, it became all the rage to make futurist hardware look weathered. 

THE GOOD THINGS WILLIAMS CREATED AND THE BAD THINGS HE KEPT

Having established what sort of changes Williams was instituting and how they were being executed, let's start actually reviewing the quality of his content. Whenever severe alterations are made to a core formula, there will be negative and positive outcomes. At the same time, however, Williams is instituting a gradual change. Which means he will hang on to both the good and bad habits of his predecessor. 

One of the worst patterns that he breaks is done by insisting on more competent writing. Or, at the very least, a better effort from the authors of the scripts he produces. Nary a cheap time-filler is found in any of the tales this season. Horror of Fang Rock is a great example of this. It's a very simple plot with a minimalist setting. Under previous regimes, capture-and-escapes would be running abound. Instead, Terrance Dicks creates a cast of very nuanced characters where lots of drama is created by how they interact with each other. To the point where the restrictions of the location make us almost feel like we're watching a play on television. This is how you propel a plot that might not be quite thick enough to fill a run-time. Create lots of layers in your characters to fill things out rather than just stick your protagonists in a cell for a bit, then have them break out and get re-captured. 

I won't lie. This change made me very happy. I genuinely feel as though the show improves radically from this point, onward. Having said that, however, there are still problems that bear mentioning.

While I never try to judge Classic Who too hard for poor effects, the space operas do tend to bite off more than they can chew.  Bad visual after bad visual after bad visual does, sometimes, make it hard to sit through a story. Both Invisible Enemy and Underworld look quite good on paper. But there just isn't the budget to sustain what the plot wishes to accomplish. So, instead, we must endure an endless array of two-dimensional CSO caves and evil monsters that look like they should be served on a seafood platter rather than trying to conquer the Universe. It's all just a bit embarrassing. 

The other major flaw of this era is a carry-over from the Hinchcliffe Period. Stories done in his style still have that air of very-forgettable mediocrity. Horror of Fang Rock. like Masque of Mandragora, just manages to hover above this problem. It still feels very drab, in places. But, as I mentioned earlier, the engaging characters do help to lift it adequately so that I'm not nudging myself back awake every few minutes. Image of the Fendahl, on the other hand, has helped me on endless nights of insomnia. Aside from a very chilling climax to Episode Three, this is an extremely bland experience. Again, I have trouble remembering where it fits in the season cause it's just that unmemorable. 

I still struggle to pinpoint exactly what causes this effect in several Tom Baker yarns. There's just a flatness that pervades the overall vibe of certain stories. It causes them to feel very dull and lifeless (or, in the case of  tales like Fang Rock and Mandragora perilously close to dull and lifeless). I almost wonder if it's something to do with the lighting! Whatever it is, Williams carries this problem over into his era. Or he does for, a least, Season Fifteen. 

THE ODDBALL 

So far, I've split the stories of this season down the middle. They're either atmospheric Earthbound tales that, somehow, feel a little underwhelming or Star Warsish space operas that don't quite have the budget they need. But there is one story that stands out quite nicely by failing to truly fall into either of these categories. It is another work of brilliance penned by that hand of Robert Holmes. 

The Sunmakers is another Oddball Story that came out long before the term was properly invented by fans. Like Paradise Towers or Happiness Patrol ("proper" Oddball Stories from a period of the show that loved producing them on a regular basis), we see a society that is, perhaps, just a bit too preposterous to function in such a manner. But, because there's some satire at play, here, we still accept it. The Sunmakers, in fact, is dripping with sarcasm in ways that no other Oddball Story has  ever been able to! 

I love that the whole adventure was inspired by a very vicious audit that Robert Holmes received on his income tax, that year. It's always great when an artist achieves revenge on a source of pain in their lives by, somehow, making fun of it through their craft. As a local playwright, I have even gotten in trouble a few times with certain people who did me wrong by creating characters in a script that were clearly a mockery of them. It felt good to get the last laugh. The only way they could truly exact revenge would be to write a play of their own that picked on me. But they weren't writers  and, therefore, couldn't get me back. Things got even more fun for me since some of these plays have now been produced several times. I got to pick on my enemies over and over. I can only imagine how good it must have felt for Robert Holmes to know that this story has been watched countless times across numerous countries by fans of the show. 

Of course, the plot has to do more than just poke fun at the British Taxation System. It still has to tell an engaging adventure. Sunmakers more-than-accomplishes this. At no point do we feel any sag in the story. Every single line and action works to propel the narrative along. When the Doctor does get captured by the Company, it actually serves the story rather than work as filler. This is another tale where the writing really does feel amazingly tight. 

Amazingly tight and also very smart. Yes, we get a very stereotypical "rebels overthrowing the dictators" plot, here. But the Doctor ultimately achieves victory over his enemies through a clever use of economics. We've never really seen that before! The spineless, ruthlessly greedy villains that populate the story are also an interesting deviation from the usual militaristic buffoonery we get from Doctor Who baddies. Holmes definitely serves us up something very unique with this four parter. I absolutely adore it. 

To me, Sunmakers is a True Classic. An example of just how amazing of a show Doctor Who can be. Especially with the way it stays open to creating episodes that work in a very different manner from its usual output. 

While this gorgeous tale doesn't quite make it into my Top Ten, it comes pretty damned close. 

 

GONE TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A DOG

As is often the case, changes occur within a season that will have an ongoing effect on the show for quite some time. The most frequent one we see is an addition or substitution in the Main Line-Up. Either there's a new companion or the Doctor regenerates. A casting choice of this nature occurs in Season Fifteen - but it's a bit unusual. It's not so much a new actor that comes aboard the TARDIS as it a voice artiste and remote-control prop. 

This is the season where K9 starts travelling with the Doctor. 

It's quite interesting how the attitude towards the little automaton has changed over the years. He seems to be well-loved, these days. But, when he was first introduced, he could be quite divisive. Fans tended to either adore him or despise him. There seemed no middle ground on the matter. 

I'm one of the few fans I know who has actually been fairly neutral towards him. I can see both sides of the argument,. K9 does create a lot of charm and fun on the show. And he's very useful for certain functions in the plot. Particularly since the Doctor can order him to just stun an enemy. It enables him to get rid of baddies without legitimately harming them. 

In general, K9 deals well with obstacles that can really slow up a plot. Got a bunch of really complex calculations to make? K9 will do it! Need to take out a guard? Get K9 to stun him! Got to do some extensive computer work? Give it to K9 - he'll probably make friends with the computer! It's all very convenient. 

Which, for some people, was the biggest problem they had with the robot dog. He made things too easy for the Doctor. It used to be that the Doctor came up with all sorts of clever and creative solutions to his problems. But, with this latest addition to the TARDIS crew, a lot of issues were dealt with by just sicking K9 on it. JNT, of course, had a particularly strong objection with how convenient the character was. Which is why the robot was sidelined a lot when Nathan-Turner took over as Producer in Season Eighteen. By the end of that year, the metal beastie was written out of the show. 

The other big objection that some fans had was the plain and simple fact that a cute dog-shaped robot with a silly voice was just a bit on the cringey side. I can't argue with that, either!   

Admittedly, the detractors make good points. But I will also say that there were any number of instances where K9 did something fun or clever and I found myself uncontrollably cooing over it: "What a cute little robot doggy!" I would suddenly catch myself saying. He could definitely be adorable, sometimes. I love it, for instance, when he groans at the end of The Sunmakers as the Doctor intentionally ruins their chess game. There really was no better way to end the story!  

A SHIFT IN BAKER'S PERFORMANCE

I have mixed feelings about what Tom does with the character in this season. In some ways, I get it. An actor doing an ongoing television role should push things in new directions. But the interpretation he was using during Season Fourteen really was amazing. I knew he couldn't hang on to it forever, but I do wish that he would have used it longer than he did.  

The style he adopts at the beginning of the season is almost bizarre. Fans who complain about how stoic he seems in Season Eighteen should definitely not watch Horror of Fang Rock! He is dreadfully serious in this one. The first time I saw this story I was, of course, just coming off of Season Fourteen, So I'm thinking: "Okay. He's acting very serious, right now. But he'll counterpoint that in a bit with something sarcastic and witty." But the juxtaposition never seems to happen. He's just wearing that gargoyle face, more-or-less, the whole time. 

As the season progresses, he becomes quirkier. Even quite whimsical, in places. Poor 'ole Cordo, for instance, almost steps back from the ledge of that skyscraper in Part One of Sunmakers just from the sheer weight of Four's charm. In this season, the Doctor starts becoming quite the enchanting individual with his warm grin  and strong-but-gentle voice. This is definitely an interesting new side to the character that's starting to emerge. 

While I still like what he did last year better, I am enjoying quite a bit of what he's giving us in Season Fifteen, too. He's certainly acting stranger and making the character seem even more alien. But he's also still giving him very friendly and approachable moments too. It's another careful balance between two very conflicting character traits. Something Baker loves to put into his portrayal. 

Of course, if you know your Classic Series, then you know where all this is going. Our lead is on his way towards transforming Doctor Who into The Tom Baker Comedy Show. But I will emphasise that he doesn't quite get there in this season. Even as we reach Invasion of Time - where he acts absolutely silly in certain spots - I don't feel he ever completely crosses the line like he will in later seasons. His jokes, at this point, are still enhancing a script. I think of Part Two of Invasion of Time, in particular. It is pretty damned weak on plot. It almost seems like Baker recognizes this and puts in the humor to give us something more to latch onto. He has an especially good time with his imaginary conversation with Borusa as he tries to figure out how to gain access to his secret passage (I still crack up every time he translates Latin for him!). Also, the game of hopscotch that he plays in the corridors of the Panopticon is hilarious. With these sort of antics added in, the fact that virtually nothing actually happens in the episode is barely noticeable. In my opinion, these were great choices that Tom made. They help the story rather than hinder it. 

Basically, the comedy works, here. Very soon, however, it won't. But, for now, it's okay.    

SHOWING LOTS OF PROMISE... 

And that, my friends, is Season Fifteen in a nutshell (Wow! He didn't actually just do another boring old story-to-story review!). Overall, it's a fairly solid season. 

I know I probably shouldn't say this; as I'm sure it will incense some of you (since when has that ever stopped me, though?!), But, if we really break things down, this material is at about the same level as all the Hinchcliffe/Holmes stuff we've been getting. 

While the season is made up mainly of Mid-Rangers, we do get one True Classic in The Suunmakers. It should also be noted we don't actually get any Stinkers this year. Image of the Fendahl might be bland and forgettable, but I wouldn't actually call it legitimately bad. There is a contingent of fans that would argue that The Underworld is a dud but I maintain that it is still a reasonably solid script that is just let down by some poor effects. 

So, yes, things are on par with much of what we've been getting for the last three seasons. Which, to me, highlights all-the-more that the Hinchcliffe Era might just be a bit on the overrated side. 

But let's not dwell too hard on the past. Let's focus, instead, on what Graham Williams delivered to us in his first year as Producer. Like most seasons of Doctor Who, there were some missteps. But, ultimately, Good Triumphed over Evil. This was a pretty strong season 

Most importantly, it showed a lot of promise. By making his changes gradual, Williams was starting on a very solid foundation. Capitalising more on building from the strengths of his predecessor than his flaws. And the new stuff that he brought on was a bit too ambitious in places, but it was still a lot of fun. Doctor Who might not have the budget for Space Opera, but the production team still understood all the important elements that make it enjoyable. Yes, the effects were quite laughable, sometimes. But the story's heart was always in the right place. There were a lot imaginative ideas at play that Hinchcliffe and Holmes wouldn't, normally, indulge in. I, for one, really liked this. For the most part, I tend to favor the Doctor going out into the Universe and exploring it rather than farting around on Contemporary Earth or diving into History. So I'm quite happy with Williams' first run. 

However, Season Fifteen always gives me a tinge of sadness. This was meant to be a starting point for Graham Williams. From here, things were meant to get better. Unfortunately, the exact opposite happens. This ends up being his best season. 

After Season Fifteen, his era just starts to degenerate more and more...    

ONE MORE GOOFY OBSERVATION THAT I WANTED TO SHARE THAT DIDN'T REALLY FIT IN ANYWHERE IN THE PROPER REVIEW! 

If you've actually been reading these reviews regularly, you'll have noticed how I've been bitching and moaning about a trope and/or device the show has been abusing for the last few seasons. Quite frequently, when a story needs padding, the Doctor suddenly has to deal with a series of traps that have been set in a building he needs to get through. We saw it for the first time in Death to the Daleks and it actually worked quite nicely, there. It helped, of course, that the last time we saw characters struggling their way through a series of traps was way back in the mid-60s. When Jamie is put through several trap-like challenges during Evil of the Daleks so that the Daleks can actually determine the Human Factor. Before that, Ian and Barbara dealt with a series of traps in the very first season during Keys of Marinus. These gaps of time illustrate a crucial point in this supplemental dissertation: If a trope is used sparingly and only shows up every few years, it doesn't become grating. But, if I start seeing it too often, I find myself getting tired of it. 

Up until Death to the Daleks, the trap trope (love the way that rolls off the tongue!) only comes up once every few years. After Death, however, we see it again a season-and-a-half later. And then it appears a third time less than a season after that. The shorter gaps in time start to reveal the true purpose of the device. Basically, it's a cheap way to stall for time rather than properly advance the plot. 

Season Fifteen does display another trope that is starting to get abused. Again, it was spaced out quite nicely for a suitable number of years. But then it finally started becoming noticeable when it was repeated two seasons in a row. 

Way back in 1966, we got a great little story near the end of the Hartnell Era known as The War Machines. In that tale, we encountered WOTAN: A sinister super-computer with a sibilant voice that sounded thoroughly creepy. We were a bit upset with him for calling the Doctor by the wrong name. But, otherwise, we loved him. This would be the first time the show would use the "super computer gone mad" plotline. And I felt they did a great job with it. 

I do have some issues with the BOSS during The Green Death. But it has nothing to do with how soon he appears after The War Machines. Nearly a decade separates the two adventures so they had given the trope plenty of time to rest. Of course, if you want a better understanding of why I didn't like the BOSS - you can look it up in my Review of Season Ten (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/11/doctor-who-season-by-season-season-ten.html). 

Once more, when Xoanon comes along in Face of Evil, a decent amount of seasons have passed. Not as many as we got from WOTAN to the BOSS - but still enough. So everything's still cool. 

When the Oracle rears its ugly head less than a season later, however, it's beginning to feel like a dead horse is getting beaten. I'm almost starting to think that if you inhabit the Doctor Who Universe, you should never try to build a really good computer. Inevitably, it will go mad and either take over your society or, at least, try to!    

It doesn't help that, like the BOSS, I really don't enjoy how the Oracle is used in this story, either. It's well past halfway through the tale when we finally start to see him. Once again, it feels like the super-computer gone mad storyline has been tacked on as a subplot to help fill out the run-time. Just like it was in Green Death. Personally, I feel this premise seems to work better when it is at the center of the story rather than something that's just, sort of, happening on the side. 

And, of course, the formula also doesn't work well when it starts getting used too often. Which was just beginning to happen as we hit Season Fifteen. Fortunately, we don't ever really see this occur again for the rest of the Classic Series. Although, I was getting just a little nervous during Curse of Fenric when the Ultima Machine starts spitting lightning! 

"Oh no!" I thought to myself, "Judson's Glorified Adding Machine has developed a will of its own and is going to join the Nazis to help them take over the world! That's the real plot, isn't it?!" 

Fortunately, the story was really about an Ancient Evil that sucks at chess!    

    

 

. 

DOCTOR WHO - SEASON-BY-SEASON: A REVIEW OF SEASON FOURTEEN

Well, that was a nice little break we took to analyse the Master's character arcs in New Who.  Now, let's get back to Season Reviews. On to Fourteen!

THE GOLDEN AGE....: OR IS IT?! 

We're nearing the end of Hinchcliffe/Holmes era of Doctor Who. Considered by many to be one of the best periods of the programme. Fans love to go on about the rich atmosphere that so many of the stories have. Or the great chemistry of Tom Baker and Liz Sladen. Or the magnificent Hammer Horror vibe that permeated through so much of it. Or so many other qualities that were prominent during this time. 

As I pointed out in my last entry, I'm not as passionate about this section of the show as most fans are. By no means do I think it's terrible, but I do think it's over-rated. There are parts of it that do shine quite beautifully. But there are some substantial problems, too. I do find, for instance, that the writing in 70s Who is exceptionally lazy, in places. Season Thirteen shows that off quite clearly. A few of the stories really didn't have enough plot for the episodes they were allotted and relied heavily on some pretty blatant filler. I know they're adored greatly by the fans but I just find them to be too heavily-riddled with captures-and-escapes and other cheap time-killing techniques to truly merit the reputations they have. It's for reasons like this that I consider several of these stories to be what I like to call "Fake Classics". I just don't find them to be as great as people say they are. 

So the Big Question of this Review will be: What about this Season, Rob? Do I hold to the same opinions I had for Season Thirteen? Or does Fourteen manage to achieve the Glory that so many fans go on about when discussing this period? 

Let's break things down a bit, first. This way, when I reach my conclusion, you'll see where I came from. 

A GENERAL OVERVIEW:

Before diving into a review of the actual content, let's take a look at some of the things that happened over the span of the entire season: 

The Fourth Doctor's Portrayal

I do think Tom Baker puts in one of his best performances during this season. His balance  between comedy and drama is pitch perfect. He seems to always make the right choice in any given situation. The Fourth Doctor, at this point, almost seems to hover between being in a grim mood or acting ironically jovial. Baker now seems to always know which personality to wear for the context he's in . 

His Doctor during this period is very sardonic When his comedy relies more on sarcastic comments than just straight buffoonery, I do think the character works better. He comes across as quite witty, now. And I rather prefer him that way. 

I do feel as though it took Tom nearly two years to get a proper handle on the character. Up until Season Fourteen, the performance did often feel all over the place (less and less as his second season progresses). This is no reflection on Tom's ability as an actor. This can be a very difficult role to take on. Particularly since all three of his predecessors left a very strong impression on the viewers. He had to find his own distinct interpretation and that can take quite some time. But he has, very definitely, settled into the role. And he is absolutely splendid to watch in this season. 

Goodbye Liz. Hello Louise. 

Time for another super-controversial opinion. So, brace yourselves:    

I like Leela  better than Sarah Jane Smith. 

Liz Sladen was a brilliant actress. She did as much with the character as was humanly possible. But the truth of the matter is: Sarah Jane Smith was frequently poorly-written. They had her speaking up for feminism but then still often reduced her to a mere a damsel-in-distress that couldn't do much without a man to save her. Some writers treated her better than others. But, overall, the Female Companion had not moved on much from how she had been used throughout the 60s. She was still just there to scream at the monsters and get into a bit of trouble. 

Sarah Jane's departure was still very moving. She did put in a lot of time so it was bound to be a touching farewell. But it is sooo good when Leela comes along. Finally we had a female companion who can definitely take care of herself. Who, in some cases, might even be a bit more effective than the Doctor. The Doctor, after all, preferred to be a pacifist. Whereas, if someone got in Leela's way, she could get through them quite quickly with her knife, crossbow or Janis Thorn! 

In general, Leela was just a lot more fun. The writers did a much better job with her. Not just in the way she could handle all the action in the story. But they also remembered that she was looking at the Universe through the eyes of a primitive. Because of this, she was frequently given some very colorful and even poetic dialogue. 

All in all, I became much happier with the Fourth Doctor after Sarah Jane Smith left. The quality of the female companions improves dramatically once the plucky journalist was gone. To me, Leela is that first step in that more positive direction. 

Sorry Sarah Jane fans. But I'll take Leela over her any day of the week!   

Tom Was Actually Right

It's right around this time that Tom Baker starts to "push back" against the production team for the first time. He's three seasons in and is starting to feel confidant in the role. So I can see why he might do it. 

As Liz Sladen gets written out of the series, Tom brings up the point that he might not actually need a new companion. That the Doctor could just travel alone for a bit. Production thinks the idea is outlandish. The Doctor needs someone to explain things to. In so doing, of course, he is also explaining to the audience what's going on in the story. Tom, absurdist that he is, starts having fun with the idea. He suggests a compromise. Put a cabbage on his shoulder and he will turn to it regularly and tell it what's happening. 

Production doesn't go with the suggestion but they do end up giving Tom one adventure without a companion. That story turns out to be The Deadly Assassin. And, sure enough, Tom is excellent in it. The need for exposition gets accomplished through conversations with supporting characters rather than companions. And it works just as well. 

This is the first time in the history of the show that the Doctor is without a companion for the entire tale. The deviation from the usual formula is actually successful. In fact, they could have, easily, allowed Tom quite a bit of time by himself and I think the format would have worked. 

He didn't need the cabbage, though! 

STORY-BY-STORY 

Once more, I will go through the season story-by-story and offer a review of each tale. Just to be different, though, I won't do it in transmission order. Instead, I will tackle things by category. 

The True Classics: 

Always try to start on a positive note, I say. So let's look at the stories that truly make Season Fourteen a beautiful thing: 

The Deadly Assassin is an adventure that is very near and dear to me. As some of you may know, I like to do an End of Year Countdown as we move into December. The very first year that I was doing this blog, I listed my Top Ten Doctor Who stories. Deadly Assassin came in at Number One (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/01/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-1.html). Which I think surprised people. Most were probably expecting the usual Genesis of the Daleks or Caves of Androzani. But I like Assassin far more than either of these tales. 

The story, of course, is a crucial milestone for the show. It's our first "proper" look at the Doctor's home planet. Never before has an entire story been spent on Gallifrey. This, alone, makes the whole thing quite exciting. That opening scrawl with Tom Baker's voiceover narration immediately ropes me in! 

But, as I say in the actual BOOK OF LISTS Review, there has to be more to the plot than just being important to canon. And this is where I feel Assassin really succeeds. It truly is one of Robert Holmes' best scripts. The allusions to The Manchurian Candidate are fun (it got me to seek out the actual film just so I could compare the two!). On top of that, however, the whole thing is really tightly-written  It merits an almost immediate re-watch. When you know that Goth is the true villain, it's great to see just how treacherous of a bastard he is by enjoying it a second time round. There's all sorts of moves that he makes when we don't know he's the Master's ally that help to maneuver the Doctor into the place they need him to be. That same kind of fun occurs on the re-watch when viewing all the bits involving the Master before it's revealed that he's the sinister figure we've been seeing lurking in the shadows. Now that we know it's him, his various scenes before the revelation feel all-the-more sinister. We especially love it when he watches his rival flee back to his TARDIS and proclaims: "Predictable as ever, Doctor!" Such a great moment! 

Deadly Assassin does an excellent job of proving just how versatile of a show Doctor Who is. It really can go in so many unique directions and still prove quite fascinating. In this instance, we get a political thriller. And it's as compelling as any of the more "traditional" Doctor Who adventures. In fact, I'd say it works better than a lot of of other Who Tales out there. It becomes even more special because it is so different from what the programme usually offers. It really is a magnificent treat! 

Part Three does tend to polarise fandom. Some see it as just a giant screeching halt in the narrative. Others view it for what it really is: a gorgeous nightmare fair (oops! Did I just claim that my point of view is the right one?!). I do get it, though. If you don't like Part Three then, clearly, Deadly Assassin won't be your favorite story. Hard to love an adventure like this if you dislike an entire episode of it! 

But for those of you who are like me and love the whole thing, why are you putting stuff like Genesis of the Daleks or Caves of Androzani at the top of your list?! This story totally kicks their asses!   Although, I will admit: Power of the Doctor just might be my new Number One. 

I'm currently thinking it over... 

The other True Classic in this season also made it into my Top Ten (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/12/book-of-lists-top-ten-who-stories-5.html). I actually like Robots of Death for much the same reason that I like Deadly Assassin. As a murder mystery, it requires some very tight plotting. All the movements and motives of the various characters that are suspects needed to be worked out well in advance so that we get a satisfying conclusion where the true culprit is revealed and everyone is surprised. But, if you were watching carefully, the villain was showing their hand the whole time. You were just looking the wrong way (usually by some careful misdirection the writer created). 

This means, of course, that Robots merits some re-watching, too. It's great to see Taren Capel in action now that we know who he is. The exploits of Pool and D-84 are also interesting to observe as they try stealthily to move against him without the rest of the crew even knowing they are under investigation. 

Of course, the greatest twist of the story is that we are aware the whole time who the murderers actually are. We watch several of the killings happen right in front of us. So we know the robots are responsible for all the deaths. The Doctor figures this all out almost immediately and the tension in the story depends more on him being able to get other people to believe him. Only as we approach the later episodes do we realise this is still a "whodunnit" (pun completely intended). Which, again, makes for a masterfully-crafted plot. I'm pretty sure I used this analogy in my Top Ten Review, too - but I'll say it again, here: You can bounce quarters off the writing of this story. It's that tight. 

Robots of Death also features an impressive backdrop. And I don't just mean the crazy art-deco sets and costumes. But the actual world-building is done magnificently, too. We understand so much of the civilisation these characters come from by the time we reach the end of Part Four. But it's done with great amounts of verisimilitude. Barely a  note of forced exposition gets shoe-horned in. Everything feels quite natural. Yet another similarity it shares with Deadly Assassin. Just like Time Lord Society, the civilisation on this unnamed planet is presented excellently. 

And then, of course, there's the dialogue. Like Assassin, Robots is ridiculously quotable. Oddly enough, the robots tend to get all the best lines. Particularly D-84. Which leads us, of course, to everyone's favorite little scene. Say it with me kids:    

"I heard a cry!" 

"That was me."

"I heard a cry!" 

"That was me."

"I heard a cry!"

"That was me!" 

We love it every time....

Mid-Rangers 

From the Classics we move to the fairly passable. I wouldn't call these two stories terrible. But I don't, necessarily, have nothing but praise for them, either. They're decent middle-ground tales. 

Our season opener definitely falls into this category. Which is actually a bit surprising. Masque of Mandragora has all the makings of one of those horribly forgetful mediocre stories that I described in my last review when discussing Planet of Evil. It's intensely odd how a story's direction can be so visually-impressive but also seem so flat at the same time. Mandragora manages to achieve this effect in the same way that Evil did. Some parts of it look really great. A lot of the location footage is particularly gorgeous. But, somehow, we just don't feel all that engaged with what we're seeing.  

It also doesn't help that Mandragora is very blatant filler. Nothing of any major significance happens in it. A lot of the rest of the season has some big stuff going on. Sarah Jane's going to leave in the next story. In the story after that, the Doctor returns to his homeword. And still, in the story after, Leela will get introduced. Those are some pretty exciting developments. But Masque is just a simple little four-parter that needs to get the season started. It almost feels like it's been neglected because everyone is far more interested in what's to come after it. 

Mandragora, however, scores a lot of points by having a very clever central premise. Sentient energy is not a villain we've really seen on the show. Nor does it pop up much in other forms of science fiction. It's a very interesting concept that cleverly subverts the traditional Doctor Who storyline just enough to make us feel like we're getting something different. In most Who Tales, the Doctor runs into a megalomaniac who's up to no good and takes measures to defeat him. The Helix Energy, of course, does still have a very megalomiacal plan. But, because he's not flesh and blood, how he's defeated is handled very differently. In fact, I quite like the scene where the Doctor is taunting Mandragora into draining itself away. I might even say it's one of my favorite moments in the whole season. Four sounds so badass as he proclaims: "Come on Hieronymous. You can do better!" Baker makes his Doctor seem like a real tough guy during that sequence. It's a fun nuance to the character.

It's quite nice that there is also a secondary villain who is much more of a traditional Who baddie. Frederico has all kinds of tyranical  aspirations throughout the story (it's also quite fun to watch him be so cruel to his poor servants all the time!). But he's suddenly revealed as being painfully insignificant to the real menace of the story as Part Three comes to an end. With still an entire episode remaining, he gets killed off and the plot shifts its attention to its true conflict. It's a very unique way to structure things. This lifts the story above mediocrity just enough that it becomes legitimately notable. Unlike most stories of this period that are blatant filler. 

Our other Mid-Ranger is Face of Evil. Another story that sets out to do something very unique. This is one of the things we can really appreciate about Season Fourteen. Much of its content tries to be very different from the usual sort of plotlines that we get get from Doctor Who. A very commendable effort from the writers that contributed in that particular year. 

Face of Evil is particularly impressive in the way it challenges the usual formula because it doesn't really have an antagonist in it. There's no traditional mustache-twirling villain that's up to something terrible. Some characters certainly seem less likeable than others. But, ultimately, everyone is just the victim of a really bad mistake the Doctor made in his past. It's a great new way to tell a story that we haven't really seen before (The Ark is, perhaps, vaguely similar - but not much!). This all leads to a great little cliffhanger at the end of Part One. 

Parts Two and Three, however, leave a lot to be desired. Particularly with the way certain elements of the plot are suddenly not making a lot of sense. The Doctor explains that an impenetrable barrier has been created between the Tesh and the Sevateem because of a displacement in time. But then, in the very next scene, the Sevateem seem to get harmed by these weird beams of light that come out from said barrier. Not sure exactly why that happens. The temporal shift has a defense system, after all?! A clear explanation is never given. Also, Xoanan decides to let his invisible monsters into the area where the tribe lives. The Doctor claims he's created a defense against them. But then the monsters still attack without any hindrance. And then, worst of all, we get to see what the invisible creatures look like when Tomas shoots one with an energy weapon. It's a giant floating Tom Baker Head. But, if that's how they appear, then how was one leaving footprints back in Episode One?!   

The other big problem that develops during these middle episodes is the fact that I find myself feeling no real emotional connection to anyone populating the story. Well, okay, I can't entirely say that. Leela is completely likeable right from her first moment onscreen. Tomas is not bad either. But I don't really enjoy anyone else from the Sevateem or the Tesh. It's difficult to be rooting for the Doctor to fix things when I'm not really fond of anyone that his actions will save. 

The plot during these two parts also tends to just, sort of, wander aimlessly most of the time. Like it's not sure where it's meant to go. Which gives us some fairly odd cliffhangers. Tomas firing wildly at the end of Two seems largely inconsequential. And the ending of Part Three is, in some ways, full of deep symbolism as the Doctor seems crushed by the weight of his mistakes. In other ways, though, it just kinda looks a bit silly and doesn't make a lot of sense. 

Part Four does feel like it gets things back on course. Neeva's journey through the story comes to a very interesting fruition. The actor playing him does a great job. But then, he was totally awesome in The War Games too. 

Things do end nicely for Face of Evil. But that doesn't erase the fact that  half the story is a bit of a mess. The season had the potential to get two Classics from Chris Boucher's pen. But that only would have happened if this script had gotten a bit better of a polish during the editing stage. I think, particularly, of those sequences I described earlier that seem largely illogical. Just a few lines of dialogue would have easily fixed most of those problems. Holmes, himself, might have been too busy writing his own stories when, maybe, he should have been concentrating more on his job as a script editor.

Still, overall, I won't complain too hard about either of these stories. Yes, they have some problems. But, in the greater scheme of things, the Good outweighs the Bad. 

The Truly Bad

Like Season Thirteen, we've got another nasty stinker, here. I am always mystified by many of the seasons that fans consider to be so amazing when they have a story like this in them. I'm not sure how we're supposed to ignore a whole series of really bad episodes and swear wholeheartedly that this is one of the best years of Doctor Who. I can't truly call a season "great" if it it's got this sort of issue. "Nearly great", maybe. But that's the best I can give it.

Thus far in these reviews, this has been happening a lot in the show. Quite often there seems to be one adventure that mars the beauty of that particular collection of tales. Even the legendary Season Five has Enemy of the World sitting in the middle of it like a giant turd! 

In Season Fourteen, it's The Hand of Fear that drags everything down. By no means as horrible as The Android Invasion from last year. But still pretty awful. 

I'll start by saying that the final few minutes of this story are quite beautiful. There's a great little sequence written by Tom and Liz that takes us through a fun range of emotions as Sarah Jane decides, once and for all, that she's leaving the TARDIS.. Only to be told she has to go anyway because the Doctor received the Call to Gallifrey. It's all very touching and will probably always be one of the best farewell scenes any companion will ever get. 

This is the only thing in Hand of Fear that is all that good. 

For some odd reason, I like to pick on the Star Wars movie Rogue One when I write in here. Not sure why I feel the need to make comparisons between the two franchises like this but I'm going to do it again. 

As anyone will say: first impressions are important. Start things off on the wrong foot and the damage control from the negative initial experience can be insurmountable. Rogue One does this by having an imperial shuttle land on a planet a brilliant technical engineer lives on. Their intent is to, basically, abduct the tech guy and force him to get the Death Star to work properly. There's this big dramatic sequence where the tech guy sees the shuttle land and has all the time in the world to get his family to flee their home. The whole thing feels really drawn out. Like it ought to have taken seconds instead of minutes. The shuttle should have just landed, pretty much, on top of the guy's home, scooped them all up and then flown back off into space. But, instead, they land several miles away from the home and take an endless amount of time traipsing over hill and dale to apprehend him. In the end, it's a completely silly-looking opening scene. If you're trying to catch someone, why are you making your arrival obvious from a great distance away so that he has an eternity to pack up his family and screw off before you can get there? This leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth about Rogue One before they even flash the titles . I might have even been able to forgive some other mistakes it makes later on more easily if it hadn't been off to such a bad start. 

Hand of Fear doubles that impact by making its first two scenes quite crappy 

The very opening line sits badly. We see a ship in space and hear King Rokon speaking in voice-over. We're not sure if this is a message being sent to the vessel or some kind of opening narration that's similar to what we will get in Deadly Assassin. Either way, it's poorly done. If it's a radio transmission, there's some really unnatural expository dialogue in it. But if it's meant to just be voice-over narration, it doesn't explain things well enough! 

A lot of the rest of the stupidity of the opening moments on Kastria doesn't really start to become clear until later in the story. But, essentially, if the entire civilisation is falling to pieces, why are they wasting so much time and resources on executing Eldrad? It seems there are plenty of ways to kill him right on the planet. If nothing else, they could just drop him down the abyss he will eventually fall into in Part Four. Why throw him on a spaceship and blow him up when your whole society is crumbling around you? Especially since this seems to be the only ship they have. Wouldn't it have been smarter to throw those Race Banks onto the rocket and gone off to find a new world to colonise? Instead, everyone dies on Kastria while Eldrad gets shuttled off. Not a lot of logic going on, here. Makes about as much sense as letting someone you're coming to capture see you park your big old spacecraft eight miles away from his house! 

But if only the stupidity ended there. 

The next sequence is equally dumb. The Doctor and Sarah wandering through a quarry while sirens blare and a man waves at them frantically to get out but still don't realize immediately that they're in terrible danger was one of the most ludicrous things I've ever seen on the show. Apparently, Crayford not looking under his eyepatch for three years wasn't silly enough.We need to go for something even more ridiculous. 

It doesn't help that the avalanche caused by the blast looks gigantic but seems negligible. The Doctor, somehow, manages to stay on top of all the rubble as it came sliding down on him. And Sarah is caught in some kind of special gap underneath the rock so that no actual harm comes to her beyond passing out from shock cause she grabs a hand and thinks it's the Doctor's. 

This just might be the worst first impression a Doctor Who story has ever made on me! 

From this point, onward, it's just an endless pursuit to pad the episodes out. This is a four-parter but there's hardly enough plot to fill up even two So the story just drags and drags and drags... 

The plot is so threadbare: Eldrad can re-constitute himself with radiation. Sarah takes what's left of him to a nuclear plant.  Once regenerated, the Doctor takes him to Kastria but it's all been destroyed. They trip him with a scarf and save the world in so doing. End of story. There's so little there and this becomes obvious quite quickly. 

The first real sign of blatant padding hits us at the end of Part One. I still remember the first time I watched it. In order to fill up the time still remaining in the episode, we get an endless series of shots of Sarah Jane walking through various sections of a power plant. I thought to myself during my initial viewing: "This is it, isn't it? The rest of this episode is just going to be an extensive tour of a nuclear reactor." Sure enough, it was. 

t gets even worse as the Doctor and Professor Carter start pursuing her. We have to watch them go through the same arrangement of boring shots. I swear the last four minutes of Part One is just people walking around a power plant! I was quite happy once I actually got the story on VHS (and, subsequently, DVD). so I could just skip to Part Two. There's no need to watch a whole lot of nothing going on for the better part of five minutes!

This whole problem persists through the other three episodes. Because of this, scenes that are meant to be character moments are ruined. The plant manager calling his wife or Sarah and the Doctor saying they care about each other lose a lot of their effectiveness cause they feel more like just an attempt to fill up some minutes. 

And we can't forget the trick that gets used in Part Four to mark time. Once more, the Doctor has to deal with traps. They, pretty much, just re-create what we got a few seasons ago in Death to the Daleks (once more, someone who has been long-dead is meant to be observing them). It's almost like they're trying to make it as clear as possible that they know they're abusing a worn-out device! 

I've already unpacked quite a bit, here. My problems with Hand of Fear, however, are far from over.  I'll try to restrain myself and only tackle a few more major points. 

The airstrike in Part Three has multiple levels of stupidity to it. I find it hard to believe that a physicist qualified enough to hold a senior position at a power plant would think it a good idea to drop nuclear bombs on top of a nuclear reactor. Hell, even someone learning physics at a high school level would be against it! It's even more ridiculous that the military actually approves the request and jetfighters arrive faster than it would have taken to deliver a pizza to the place!       

Everyone jumping in a jeep and driving out a quarter-mile from where the bombs are going to drop becomes even dumber. Sarah and the gang can hide behind the vehicle and plug their noses all they want, they are going to get vaporised. It's like the writers are depending on the fact that people don't actually know how a nuclear explosion works. The whole thing is just painful to watch. 

My other really big objection is how loosely-defined Eldrad's powers actually seem to be. Basically, she can do whatever the story requires of her. The ring, for instance, seems to only possess you if you come in contact with it. Until the writers needed a bit of filler. Then, suddenly, if you received a stun blast from it in an earlier episode, it can also take you over. Which leads us, of course, to an "exciting" battle on a set of stairs where Professor Carter swings a styrofoam wrench at the Doctor, trips over his own feet and plunges to his death. Who cares that there's not a lot of internal logic going on, here?! We filled a few minutes!

Eldrad, herself, acquires the ability to take what would have been a huge nuclear explosion and convert it into the raw power she needs to complete her regeneration (not sure how taking a dip in the core of a reactor wasn't enough!). It seems a pretty damned big leap that an alien can just, naturally, do that. Maybe if she had some advanced technology of some sort on her to assist in the process - it could be a bit more believable. But, nope, you can just launch missiles at her and she swallows them up and uses them to feel better. All because, like the rest of the episodes, Part Three was also running short on time. So setting up the whole airstrike scenario filled the necessary gap. 

I could go on. But I think I've made my point. Hand of Fear was, pretty much, a waste of time. A preposterous tale whose only redeeming quality is that it gives a beloved companion a fond farewell. Otherwise, I find the whole thing quite unbearable. 

The Fake Classic 

"Fake Classic" is a term I've come up with all on my own. It refers to the idea that there are certain stories that are, more-or-less, universally accepted by fans as being one of the absolute best adventures the show has ever featured. When I watch these tales, however, I don't feel the same. They might even be really good - but I wouldn't say they were Doctor Who at its best. 

In my Review of Season Thirteen, I pointed out three different stories that I feel fall under this heading. Two of them were still quite strong, They just weren't Classics. There were enough problems with them that I just couldn't quite give them the label that most of fandom assigns to them. But I still liked them a lot. 

And then, there was Seeds of Doom. I really didn't have a lot of nice things to say about this particular yarn. I actually find it to be a fairly poor story. So I'm not sure why it's held in such high regard. It's a poorly-structured monstrosity that might have worked as just a simple two-parter. But, instead, the same plot just gets re-hashed so that we get six episodes. In my opinion, this is just a really bad story. How anyone considers it a Classic is beyond me. 

Talons of Weng Chiang ventures into a similar territory. I don't dislike it quite as much as I do Seeds of Doom. But I can't say I like it all that much more. It doesn't just have a few issues that prevent it from being considered a Classic, it's got a tonne! Just not as many as the six-parter that finished out Season Thirteen. 

So let's get the biggest disaster out of the way: Talons of Weng Chiang is offensive. The first time I ever saw it, I was about Twelve. Not an age where we are, generally, all that racially-sensitive. This would have also been way back in the early 80s. A far less enlightened time than today. On top of that, I grew up in a rural area where, even to this day, the people that live there are not all that much concerned with political correctness. Even with all these conditions in place, the moment I saw the first shot of a white actor with a prosthetic piece around his eyes to make him look Chinese, I thought to myself: "I'm not even Asian and this is offending me horribly!" 

There were a few times in the 60s where Doctor Who got racially-offensive. Some of the white actors in The Crusades throw on some tan-in-a-bottle to look more Arabic. If you're listening carefully in The Celestial Toymaker, you can actually hear a character using "an unpleasant N-word". Both of these instances do cross a fairly serious line, but I don't think the stories quite merit being "cancelled" in some way. If a day comes, however, where Talons of Weng Chiang gets stricken from canon because of its racism, I would really have no problem with that. Even if I found everything else in this story to be excellent (which, you will soon see, I don't!),  I could still never show these episodes to an Asian friend and not bow my head in shame for being a Doctor Who fan. It's a serious embarrassment. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to some other problems: 

The first two parts move at a snail's pace. This becomes especially poignant when we get a chase scene near the end of Episode Two that gives off a very similar vibe to a sequence we saw during another six-parter at the end of a season. Like the whole car/hovercraft/mini-copter chase that we got in Planet of Spiders, the Doctor's pursuit of the phantom through the rafters of the Palace feels more like protracted filler than anything all that exciting. Just like in Spiders, everything comes to a crashing halt as we just watch a long sequence play out. Admittedly, the chase scene does have some spectacle to it (just like the one in Spiders did)..But, for the most part, it falls a bit flat. Just by the way the whole thing's arranged, the tension of the pursuit dies out fairly quickly. And we are left, instead, with something that drags on more than it ought to. 

Before getting too harsh, I will say there's still some charm to these first two parts. All the actors recognize they're in a period piece and make their characters as colorful as possible to help create the mood of the time. Even a smaller role like the officer working the front desk at the station when the Doctor and Leela are called in for questioning is great fun to watch. But, in the end, interesting characters can only divert us from lack of plot for so long. During its first two parts, Talons is feeling pretty insubstantial. 

Parts Three and Four, on the other hand, are quite enjoyable. Three is especially good for Leela. How glorious it was to see a female companion who could really take care of herself in a perilous situation. She nearly manages to solve the main conflict of the story all on her own. I really enjoyed watching her in action during this episode.

Allowing a good chunk of Part Four to just be us watching Chang's magic show was also surprisingly engaging. It could have, easily, come across as more stalling for time.But, because there are still some interesting subplots weaving through the whole execution of the stage production, it's really quite effective. 

This middle section almost gets me hoping that this is just a six-parter that started out rough but got better. Sadly, however, all that changes in Episodes Five and Six. 

Greel forgetting the key to the Time Cabinet is another one of those utterly silly pieces of writing that we see so often in 70s Who. Another one of those "maybe they won't think about it too hard" moments. If I have finally found a contraption that I definitely need to get into soon or I'm going to die, I don't put a bumbling acolyte with an opium problem in charge of carrying the key to it. I keep it on my person at all times. Which is really what should have happened, here. Greel should have just taken the key out of his pocket at the beginning of Part Five, opened the Time Cabinet and climbed inside. Talons of Weng Chiang should have ended right there. 

But, of course, there's still two episodes left. So we needed a totally unbelievable plot complication to extend things. This string of circumstances does cause Jago and Litefoot to, at last, unite. Which is rather entertaining. For many fans, it's utterly delightful. And I won't argue with that too much. I will agree that the two of them are a fun Holmesian Double Act -  but I will also say they are not my favorite.

Even with Greel's silly mistake, we still don't have enough to fill the last two episodes. So they do things like trying to get Jago and Litefoot to "sell" the whole business with the dumb waiter as being anything more than one of the most obvious capture-and-escape time-fillers in the whole history of the show. The actors almost manage to pull it off, too. They nearly conceal the shoddy writing with their charm. They are both, without a doubt, ridiculously talented. But no one is good enough to cover up just how poor of a piece of padding that moment was! 

The crux of Part Six reminds me a lot of that bit in Time Warrior that I complain about. Where the Doctor is being fired upon for a considerable amount of time  by Irongron's men with muskets at point blank range and still no one hits him. This time, we hear an endless series of laser blasts going off from a statue that's only a few feet away from characters we don't want to see get killed. They, somehow, do a bunch of ducking and covering for the better part of an episode and get through the predicament relatively unscathed. It all becomes a bit too hard to swallow. Apparently, a Homunculus has as good an aim as a stormtrooper! 

There's also some pretty poor plot logic going on. One of the biggest being how the Homunculus just shoots down a bunch of Greel's Asian servants as they charge into the room. I get it, he's getting pretty crazy with blood lust. But surely even he can see that the servants will solve a major problem for him if he lets them live. It's also quite silly how he's not been able to hit the broad side of barn up until they enter. Then, suddenly, he can take all the servants down in seconds. Because, of course, none of them are characters that we don't want to see get killed. This is the magical plot armor that protects you during the extended shoot-out that bogs down most of Episode Six. 

Ultimately, everything just sort of fizzles out into a fairly big mess. The climax of the adventure is, basically, Tom Baker wrestling with an over-sized doll that he's holding over his head then tossing to the floor. Even the perfect timing of the muffin man shouting somewhere offscreen feels just a tad too coincidental. 

It all ends quite poorly and the whole season concludes on another sour note. For me, at least. I know most of fandom feels differently!.

Again, the desire to make things feel more epic at the end of the year by finishing off with a six-parter fails quite badly. Seeds of Doom failed worse. But Talons of Weng Chiang was only marginally better. 

ULTIMATE CONCLUSION (I GOT TIRED OF SAYING "FINAL VERDICT" ALL THE TIME AND WENT FOR A CHEAP SYNONYM!) 

And so, we return to the Great Question: Does Season Fourteen exemplify that "Golden Age of Doctor Who" that so many go on about when discussing this era? 

I think my breakdown makes it pretty obvious: There are definitely some high points to this season - but it also hits some pretty nasty lows. It's still not terrible, of course. But I don't see it as being much more glorious than any other average season of the show. 

I do love a lot of what Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes do with Doctor Who when they're at the helm. But there were some serious missteps, too. Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks did breed a certain level of laziness into the authors that contributed regularly during their period that Hinchcliffe and Holmes continued to support. I would have been more impressed with them if they had put their foot down and said something to the nature of: "Look, you can't just submit something like this to us. It's too light on plot and relies too heavily on padding. Give us a story that properly fills out its episodes." Had they done something like that, I might actually consider it the Golden Age of Doctor Who that so many claim it be.

Having said that, I also won't deny that there are eight incredible episodes in this season. Two stories that rank in my Top Ten. That counts for something, right? Even if Hand of Fear sucked and Talons of Weng Chiang is a Fake Classic. 

And that is a valid point. So I will say that Season Fourteen comes closer to exemplifying a Golden Age of Doctor Who than any other season Hinchcliffe and Holmes put together. So I will give it a bit more respect for that. 

I will also say that Fourteen feels a lot more cohesive than Thirteen. There's a much better through-plot going on in the season. We get some stories about having to leave Sarah Jane Smith behind and going to Gallifrey. And then we have a few more adventures that involve meeting and getting to know Leela. This gives us a very nice flow for the better part of the year. Bookending the season with pseudo-historicals was also a nice effect. Things do feel "tidier" here than they did previously. 

Still, I'm sure some of you will be upset with me for what I have said about this period. Hinchcliffe and Holmes were, to me, mere mortals who were capable of making mistakes. Just like any other producer and script editor. And I get why that may bother you. By stating such an opinion, I have offended the gods! 

Personally, though, I find trying to make a white guy look and act Chinese far more offensive! 

Well, that wraps things up for the Hinchliffe/Holmes era. Let's see how I feel about the second producer that has to contend with Tom Baker!   

INTERESTING ROB TYMEC TRIVIA FACT: Season Fourteen features my all-time fave TARDIS Console Room (thus far).