Episode #121 : Earthshock

Cyber Lieutenant : "A Time Lord. But they're forbidden to interfere."

Cyber Leader : "This one calls himself the Doctor - and does nothing else but interfere."

Episode 121:   Earthshock.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:          8th to 16th March 1982.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the 26th Century in a cave system containing numerous dinosaur fossils. The Doctor's party comes under suspicion from a military force, led by Lieutenant Scott, who are investigating the disappearance of a group of palaeontologists and geologists. They are all then attacked by androids - the true culprits - under the control of the Cybermen.

After an absence of several years the Cybermen return to the show in a rather excellent adventure. This time their plan to halt a conference where different alien empires are joining forces against them, by blowing up the planet Earth. Due to the interference of the Doctor and companions their plans are stopped but not without cost.

This is the first serial to feature the death of a major companion. In this case Adric is the unfortunate soul who fails to get out alive. Instead he is stuck on board a freighter hurtling into Earth's past, becoming the course of the dinosaur's extinction. At the time it was quite a shock ending and even today that final scene still carries some weight. There are many who dislike the character of Adric but I feel it to be very unfounded. While he was a negative or naive personality at times, he was a good foil for the Doctor who is used to companions doing what they are told.

Speaking of companions, in this story Tegan gets her game face on for a change. She becomes a little more action heroine, grabbing a cyber weapon and going a tad gung-ho on the cybermen. While it may seem a little out of character it is nice to see her getting some spotlight again.

Now, while Earthshock is certainly an excellent adventure it is not without problems in the form of plot holes. If the Cybermen can plant a bomb on Earth undetected why do they need to sneak onto the planet via a freighter? How exactly does tampering with a computer send you back in time? Lastly, the crew of the freighter don't know who the Cybermen are and yet the conference the Cybermen want to stop is to unite different empires against them. Cybermen must be known for them to be such a threat. I think the writer got caught up in his story and forgot to check himself.

Episode #120 : Black Orchid

Sir Robert: "Superb innings! Worthy of the Master."

The Doctor: [alarmed] "The Master?"

Sir Robert: "Well, the other Doctor! W.G. Grace!"

Episode 120:   Black Orchid.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:         1st to 2nd March 1982.

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in 1925 where, due to a case of mistaken identity, the Doctor ends up playing in a local cricket match. The travellers then accept an invitation to a masked fancy dress ball, but events take on a more sinister tone as a number of murders are perpetrated at the country home of their host Lord Cranleigh.

Black Orchid is just the sort of story that every time travel show needs to have. With this one we return to a purely historical story with no science fiction elements. In the past I did grumble about them but here we have one that is so well made that I can find nothing wrong with it all. Coming in at the length of a modern episode does help I think.

The black orchid of the title is a flower brought back from the Amazon. It has no role in the story itself but is the ultimate cause for the events that the time travellers have found themselves involved in.

The story is perfect for the actors as everyone gets something to do, though Adric is perhaps left out just a little. Everyone fits in well with a 1920's environment whether it be Tegan showing off her dancing skills or Nyssa having a double in the daughter of the household. Even the Doctor gets to partake in a cricket match. Speaking of the cricket match, Peter Davison is a keen cricketer and he in filming a scene where he was the bowler, actually bowled the batsman out on the first take.

Some fans find the story weak but I cannot for the life of me see why. It has a well written murder mystery, some good character dialogue and comes in at just the right length. Historical stories in Doctor Who don't get much better than this.

Episode #119 : The Visitation

"I have appeared before some of the most hostile audiences in the world. Today I met death in a cellar. But I have never been so afraid until I met the man with the scythe."

Episode 119: Visitation.
Companions: 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:       15th to 23rd February 1982.

The Doctor attempts to take Tegan back to Heathrow Airport but the TARDIS arrives in the 17th Century instead of the 20th. The time travellers discover that a space capsule has crash-landed nearby and that its alien occupants, three Terileptil prison escapees, intend to wipe out all indigenous life on Earth by releasing rats infected with an enhanced strain of the great plague. The creatures are also using a sophisticated android to strike terror into the local villagers. Aided by itinerant thespian Richard Mace, the Doctor tracks the Terileptils to their base in Pudding Lane, London. The creatures are ultimately destroyed when a fire breaks out and the Terileptil leader's weapon explodes - also setting off the Great Fire of London.

The Visitation is a welcoming and refreshing story that leaps up in both terms of story and production value over the prior 5th Doctor stories. It's quite a masterpiece to watch and is so well done that you don't notice the dodgy reptile man suits. We haven't had a proper historical story for a while and this one gives us alien's, a robot dressed as Death, the Great Fire of London, and some excellent acting all round.

There are some great moments in this story such as the interaction between Tegan and the Doctor about whether he can get her home or not, the thespian come highwayman Richard Mace in pretty much every scene, and the Terileptil leader explaining his plot to destroy humanity with an engineered "black death" plague. The 5th Doctor starts to show a grumpy stubborn side to his nature in this story which both seems to fit and feels out of place at the same time.

We lose another important companion in this story too. The Terileptil leader destroys the sonic screwdriver! It doesn't reappear until the 8th Doctor movie. The sonic was removed because then producer John Natan Turner felt that the writers were relying on it too much to get the Doctor out of scrapes. This way they had to write his escapes not just rely on a gimmick.

Of the Peter Davison storie, The Visitation is definitely one of the best and well worth a watch.

Episode #118 : Kinda

"An apple a day keeps the... Ah, never mind."

Episode 118:  Kinda.
Companions: 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:       1st to 9th February 1982.

The TARDIS visits the planet Deva Loka, where Nyssa remains behind in the ship to recover from a mild mental disorientation while the Doctor, Tegan and Adric explore. Tegan falls asleep under some wind chimes and becomes possessed by an evil force, a Mara. Also on Deva Loka is a survey team assessing the planet for colonisation, but three of their number have disappeared and the remainder - Sanders, his deputy Hindle and the scientist Todd - are encountering difficulties in their dealings with the outwardly primitive but telepathically gifted native people, the Kinda. Hindle becomes mentally unstable, but his mind is eventually cleared by a Kinda device called the Box of Jhana.

Kinda is based on Buddhist concepts, with Buddhist names and themes throughout the story. The name of the planet "Deva Loka" means "realm of the Gods". The Mara derives from a demon of the same name in Buddhist mythology which, as in Doctor Who, symbolises temptation rather then evil (at least, in the sense of "sinfulness"). In Kinda, Dukkha, Panna, Karuna, Anatta and Anicca's names and functions all derive from Buddhism as well. Dukkha is "suffering", Panna is "wisdom", Karuna means "compassion", Anatta is "not-self" and Annica means "impermanence". In Snakedance, the character of Tanha appears; Tanha is "thirst", which figuratively means "restlessness" or "craving". In addition, the story contains Biblical references (an arboreal paradise, a serpent, and apples).

Kinda is another very poor adventure for our time travellers though for many fans it has improved with time. I, however, feel the opposite. The only good thing that this story has going for it is that for a change it focuses more on the companions than the Doctor.  Adric once again seems very naive despite the adventures he has had with the Doctor. Tegan on the other hand is very much the focus of the story. Because of her the evil force known as the Mara is able to enter the physical universe at first possessing her before moving on to a local Kinda body. Nyssa however only appears at the start and the end as she spends the story asleep in the TARDIS.

What fails the story is the weak dialogue, scenes where the male colonists revert to naughty children, and the dreadful rubber snake that is the true form of the Mara. If perhaps production values had been better this might have been a better adventure. It would have worked well had it been more of a horror story than it attempted to be.

Episode #117 : Four to Doomsday

"Now listen to me, you young idiot; you're not so much gullible as you are idealistic."

Episode 117:  Four to Doomsday.
Companions: 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:        18th to 26th January 1982.

The TARDIS arrives on board a huge spaceship where the Doctor and his companions encounter the frog-like Urbankans and a population of human androids. The androids are drawn from four different ethnic groups - Greek (led by Bigon), Chinese (led by Lin Futu), Mayan (led by Villagra) and Aboriginal Australian (led by Kurkutji) - and perform regular displays of dance and other rituals termed 'recreationals'. The Urbankans' leader, Monarch, aided by his ministers Persuasion and Enlightenment, is engaged in a complex scheme to plunder from Earth the raw materials needed to enable him to travel back in time and thereby confirm his belief in his own status as the universe's divine creator.

The first proper adventure for the 5th Doctor is another that comes across as a tad weak. The story is watchable but never quite hits the mark. It is silly in places, such as floating in space in just a space helmet and using the momentum of a cricket ball to bridge space. You can't help but roll your eyes at times. The story deals with the concept of a messiah complex. The villainous Monarch believes that he created the universe and wishes to travel back in time to the Big Bang in order to meet himself. The plot itself seems to work but the scripting of it all is where the episode falls flat.

The characterisation of the characters is fine for the Doctor and Nyssa but Teagna and Adric seem very out of character. Adric jumps immediately to the point of view of Monarch even when the Doctor, a figure he should trust, tells him otherwise. All very out of character for him. As for Tegan, she seems to suffer massively from culture shock in this story even though she has seen space/time travel and encountered alien cultures. Although she hasn't been with the Doctor for long it already feels out of character.

Episode #116 : Castrovalva

"That's the trouble with regeneration. You quite never know what you're going to get."

Episode 116:   Castrovalva.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:         4th to 12th January 1982.

The newly regenerated Doctor escapes with his companions back to the TARDIS. Suffering from post-regeneration trauma, he only narrowly manages to save the ship from destruction as it plunges back to Event One, the hydrogen in-rush that preceded the creation of the universe. He then seeks sanctuary in the peaceful domain of Castrovalva, only to discover that it is an illusory, dimensionally paradoxical trap set for him by the Master with the unwilling aid of a kidnapped Adric. The Doctor eventually wins the day by enlisting the help of the Castrovalvan people who, although also part of the Master's creation, are nevertheless able to exercise free will.

The first adventure for the 5th Doctor is a bit of a let down. It continues the story from the events of the previous two adventures. Seeking a nice quiet place with which to finish regenerating, the time travellers are lured to the planet Castrovalva by the Master who yet again seeks to destroy the Doctor. The story is let down by a weak first half where the Master tries to send the TARDIS back to the Big Bang. The second half deals with the oddly amnesiac Doctor trying to both recover his wits and find a means to escape the trap set for him. The second half just doesn't fit very well with the first half and the story just feels weak.

There are some nice moments in this story however. Specifically when the Doctor wanders the TARDIS muttering things as though he was his prior selves. The scene where he finds his cricket outfit is suitable amusing and you start to get a feel for who this incarnation is going to be. Even looking back after watching these stories numerous times, those moments in the TARDIS are memorable.

The Master is once again portrayed as a weak villain who falls afoul of his schemes again. Although the Master must be defeated of course but it would be nice to have the writers present him as an intelligent inventive villain.

Despite a weak start to his run, the adventures of Peter Davison's Doctor do get a lot better however.

Episode #115 : Logopolis

"It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for."

Episode 115:   Logopolis.
Companions:  4th Doctor, Nyssa and Adric.
Air Date:        28th February to 21st March 1981.

The Doctor takes Adric and a young air hostess named Tegan Jovanka, who has come aboard the TARDIS by accident, to the planet Logopolis, home of a race of mathematicians whose help he hopes to enlist in reconfiguring the outer shell of the TARDIS. The mysterious, wraith-like Watcher brings Nyssa from Traken to join them and warns of impending danger - something that is borne out as the Master arrives and kills a number of the Logopolitans.

The final adventure for the 4th Doctor has come. Once again he faces down the Master who threatens to unleash the power of Entropy upon the universe - something he does start even destroying Nyssa's home world of Traken. Thankfully the Master is stopped though much like his earlier self that the 3rd Doctor dealt he proves a little incompetatant at being an evil mastermind.

Nyssa and a new companion, Tegan Jovanka, join the TARDIS crew. Nyssa is an excellent addition giving us a new intelligent and strong female companion. Tegan is another no nonsense companion but in this story she just seems to go with the flow. One thing I enjoy is having a decent number of companions again rather than just one.

We have a twist in the regeneration story with this adventure, in the presence of an entity called the Watcher. It appears as a white "mummified" form that never speaks, at least not on screen. At the end of the story when the Doctor has sustained injury from a high fall, the Watcher merges with the Doctor allowing him to regenerate. It is not explained way and has not been referenced anywhere since to my knowledge.

Tom Baker is one of the popular classic Doctors. Some may say he is the archetypal Doctor in fact. He has certainly taken his place in popular culture as the image of Doctor Who. I find him a great choice with the perfect personality and mannerisms to play the role. I just find that many of the stories under his belt were lacking something in the writing or on occasion the production values and it does colour his run somewhat for me.

Logopolis isn't the strongest regeneration story but it performs well enough and ushers us into the 1980's era of the show.

Episode #114 : The Keeper of Traken

"If I knew everything that was going to happen, where would the fun be?"

Episode 114: The Keeper of Traken.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Adric.
Air Date:       31st January to 21st February 1981.

The Doctor and Adric learn from the wizened Keeper of Traken that a great evil has come to his planet in the form of a Melkur - a calcified statue. The Keeper is nearing the end of his reign and seeks the Doctor's help in preventing the evil from taking control of the bioelectronic Source that is the keystone of the Traken Union's civilisation. The Melkur, via various deceptions, becomes the next Keeper. It is then, however, revealed to be the Master's TARDIS. Its owner, still blackened and emaciated, hopes to use the Source's power to regenerate himself. The Doctor manages to expel him and install a new Keeper in his place, but in a last minute ploy the Master traps one of the Traken Consuls, Tremas, and merges with his body before fleeing the planet.

Tom Baker's lengthy era on the show begins to come to an end with the excellent The Keeper of Traken. The story is a very well written plot superbly acted by the cast, both regular and guest stars. The set designs are likewise well dressed though the "outdoor" set of the garden is obviously still within a television studio. It does seem that in preperation for the 4th Doctors departure that the production staff and writers have upped their game once again.

The villain of the piece is revealed towards the end not to be the Melkur but is in fact the Master still with the (but less well realised) corpse visage from The Deadly Assassin. This time his ultimate goal is to steal the power of the Keeper and use it to steal a physical body for himself, which he does in the form of Tremas. For once it seems, the Master is successful in his evil plans. Anthony Ainley will always be the Master in my mind. He plays Tremas and then the Master in this tale and will continue to play the Master throughout the rest of the classic era.

We also get the introduction of Nyssa, daughter of Tremas, who will soon become a regular companion for the Doctor. When I was a kid I had a huge crush on Nyssa.

The Keeper of Traken is an excellently put together and entertaining to watch. It leads directly into the next and final story for Tom Baker.

Episode #113 : Warriors' Gate

"Run Doctor! Scurry off back to your blue box. You're like all the rest: lizards when there's a man's work to be done. I'm sick of your kind. Faint-hearted, do-nothing, lily-livered dead weights. This is the end for all of you. I'm finally getting something done!"

Episode 113:   Warriors' Gate.
Companions:   4th Doctor, Adric, K9 and Romana.
Air Date:         3rd to 24th January 1981.

A strange creature forces its way into the TARDIS, steering it to a white void occupied only by the ruins of an old building and a spaceship. This empty space is a gateway to the past and future. The creature responsible for taking them there is Biroc, a member of the enslaved race known as the Tharil. The gateway offers the only exit from E-Space, but the void is contracting. Are the Fourth Doctor and his friends fated to spend eternity in E-Space?

The E Space story arc comes to an end with a whimper. The previous two stories were rather good but Warriors' Gate is such a weak story with an awkward plot that it fails to deliver even a barely interesting adventure for the time travellers.

Due to the actions of the Tharil known as Biroc both the TARDIS and an Earth vessel are brought to a strange white void between dimensions. The humans use captured Tharils to navigate their vessel through hyperspace since apparently human technology can't do it. Biroc wants to rescue his people from the ship and escape into our universe, N Space. But what does any of this have to do with a ruined building bigger on the inside, strange black and white time tracks that look like they have come from some 18th century manor house and what is with the strange black robots that tried to kill the Tharils? None of that is explained.

At the end of the story Romana and K9 stay behind in the strange realm of the Tharils as Romana does not want to go back to Gallifrey after having adventures with the Doctor. Such life would be benign after seeing everything that she has seen. The Doctor gives her K9 for company and departs with Adric back into our universe. A sad fair well. Romana was an excellent companion. Both of her.

The only other thing that really bothers me with this story is how the human crew of the space ship are presented. The captain is another crazy almost mad individual and his crew seem heartless as well. The story does feature the slavery of the Tharils true, but why do humans have to be shown as this negative type so often in science fiction? I found it somewhat uncomfortable to be fair.

Warriors' Gate is a story probably best avoided. A weak ending to the E Space trilogy.

Episode #112 : State of Decay

Aukon: "There is power here such as you have never dreamed of. Can you not feel it?"

[The Doctor wets a finger and holds it up as if checking for wind]

The Doctor: "No."

Episode 112:   State of Decay.
Companions:   4th Doctor, Adric, K9 and Romana.
Air Date:          22nd November to 13th December 1980.

The Doctor, Romana, K9 and Adric - an Outler from Alzarius who has stowed away aboard the TARDIS - arrive on a planet where the native villagers live in fear of 'the Wasting' and of three Lords named Zargo, Camilla and Aukon who rule from an imposing Tower. The Lords are soon revealed to be vampire servants of the last of the Great Vampires, a race referred to in Time Lord mythology.

State of Decay brings back to the excellent horror stories that were the most memorable adventures of the 4th Doctor. This stories deals with vampires. Vampires so terrible that the ancient Time Lords under Rassilon fought a war against them to eradicate them from the universe. We learn that all but one were slain by "bow ships" and that last one vanished. We now know it arrived in E Space drawing an Earth vessel through with it.

The story is really no different than most vampire stories in science fiction where the ruling monsters keep the human population uneducated and superstitious so that they are easier to rule and intimidate through fear. What makes the story work so well is both the excellent way the story is plotted out, the camp-ish acting from the vampire rulers, and the excellent early Romanesque set designs (not rococo like the Doctor thinks it is). State of Decay is a story where everything works well and fits into place perfectly.

Adric is taken in by the Doctor and Romana despite stowing away. For his supposed intelligence he does seem a bit thick in this story though. Maybe he has never heard of vampires if there aren't any in E Space or maybe the writer tried to make him more independent that previous companions. It is the only thing that doesn't sit well with the rest of the story.

State of Decay is another excellent adventure that I recommend.

Episode #111 : Full Circle

"Why can't people be nice to one another, just for a change? I mean, I'm an alien and you don't want to drag me into a swamp, do you... You do?!"

Episode 111:     Full Circle.
Companions:    4th Doctor, K9 and Romana.
Air Date:           25th October to 15th November 1980.

The TARDIS falls through a CVE into E-Space and arrives on the planet Alzarius. There the inhabitants of a crashed Starliner and a group of young rebels called the Outlers, led by a boy named Varsh and including his brother Adric, are being terrorised by a race of Marshmen who emerge from the marshes at a time known as Mistfall.

This story starts the short E Space story arc. These are three unconnected short stories that detail the adventures of our time travelling companions in an alternate universe called E Space (Exo Space). I don't know that the story arc actually makes any difference but at least it's something different.

Full Circle introduces the new companion of Adric, an inhabitant of the planet who after helping the Doctor and Romana, stows away on board the TARDIS. Adric is a mathematical genius, he even has a star for excellence, and this gives us another companion who is almost a match for the Doctor. Many fans hate the character of Adric but I really cannot see why myself.

The story itself deals with a fifty year cycle on the planet Alzarius when the native fauna awakens and evolves. The inhabitants of the starliner find themselves under attack by the native inhabitants for reasons they don't quite understand. The story is quite good although some of the fauna (the spiders) look terrible.

Romana gets some interesting screen time when she is infected by the genetic material of the local wildlife and is almost transformed into one of them. Because of her the marshmen manage to gain access to the starliner. The story then transforms from one of investigation into something more action and survival based.