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 their predecessor was. 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 lacklustre. 

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!    

    

 

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