Doctor Who Audio Drama Review: Phantasmagoria

We’re back, with another Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama review! This week, we’re listening to Phantasmagoria, the second in the Main Range of audios. Let’s get started!

Spoilers ahead for anyone who has not listened to this audio drama!

It’s London, 8 March 1702, and King William has just died. We join some locals in the Diabola Club, celebrating the king’s death and the ascension of his successor with some drinking, gambling, and—as always—gossip. Something isn’t right, however; the mysterious Sir Nikolas Valentine, playing cards alone, is not what he seems…and people are going missing. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor arrives, accompanied by Vislor Turlough, arriving inside the house of Dr. Samuel Holywell, a collector of antiquities and oddities. The Doctor and Turlough quickly get separated; Turlough is involved in a carriage accident in the street, and is taken in by two friends from the club, Jeake and Flowers, who tend his injuries.

Meanwhile, a third man—Carteret, a friend of Jeake and Flowers—dies in the street, apparently from fright, leading the Doctor to investigate.

The investigation leads the Doctor and the others first to Holywell’s maid, Hannah, and then to a flamboyant highwayman named Major Billy Lovemore; and in the biggest twist of this story, the two are revealed to be one. Hannah/Lovemore is not of earth; she’s not a shapeshifter, as it seems at a glance, but rather, is simply accomplished at disguises, and possessed of a voice changer as well. She has made her way to Earth to apprehend Valentine, who is also in disguise; beneath it, he is an otherworldly criminal known as Carthok of Daodalus. Hannah’s vendetta is personal; in addition to many other deaths, he killed her parents. Stranded on Earth with a damaged ship, he has been kidnapping people to provide bio-organic repairs to his ship (a premise that will, some years later, be repeated onscreen in The Girl in the Fireplace with the Tenth Doctor, and Deep Breath with the Twelfth Doctor). If he escapes, he will destroy the city in the process. The Doctor successfully thwarts him by turning his own technology against him; and Hannah sacrifices herself to destroy him. The Doctor and Turlough then program the ship to self-destruct.

Alternate title card

This audio has some notable firsts for Big Finish. It’s the first single-doctor audio, as the Doctor Who range began with a multi-doctor story. It’s the first to feature a returning companion (or any companion at all) with Turlough. Mark Strickson’s return is particularly good; the longer I’m aware of that character, the more I like him. Turlough, once past the insanity of his early appearances, is a clever, loyal, resolute companion, filling the niche that Nyssa left behind in Terminus. Given that he is the only companion present, it must occur between the events of Resurrection of the Daleks (Tegan’s exit) and Planet of Fire (Turlough’s exit)—not a wide range, but certainly possible. The story is the first pure historical of the audios (The Sirens of Time had a historical sequence, but was mostly in the future), and I enjoyed it more than most historicals of the television series.

On the negative side: It’s nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking. All of the major plot elements have been done before; although, with this series, it’s getting hard to find things that HAVEN’T been done in some capacity. Some would go on to be done again onscreen, and better (see The Girl in the Fireplace, above). As well, it’s a slow starter; it takes until about the end of part three for the action to really pick up. Nevertheless, it’s not a bad story at all; it’s solid, and if it had been a classic serial, it would have been firmly middle-of-the-road, assuming it translated well to screen (and it should). It shares some elements with a number of serials: Ghost Light, The Visitation, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and City of Death all come to mind, as well as the two NuWho stories I mentioned above, and possibly Love and Monsters (with the idea of absorbing individuals for their life energy).

In retrospect, I think that beginning the single-doctor stories with the Fifth Doctor was a great idea. Davison is easily the most relatable of the living classic Doctors, and probably the one with the least debate about his character. It sounds weak to say it, perhaps, but beginning with someone who would not be controversial in any way was a wise move, given that the range was just getting established. Bringing back Turlough may not have been the most obvious choice—Tegan, I think, would have been more likely—but it certainly worked out well, and I’m glad they did it.

Next time: Main Range #3, Whispers of Terror! See you there.

 

All audios reviewed in this series can be purchased here from Big Finish Productions; link to this story is below.  This and many other audio dramas are also available on Spotify and Google Play.

Phantasmagoria

Audio Review: Doctor Who: The Sirens of Time

We’re back, with another audio drama review! As previously mentioned, this is one of an occasional series I’m putting together, in which I’ll review various Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas. Generally the plan is to follow the Main Range (or Monthly Range, if you prefer), with occasional forays into other ranges. Today we’re going way back to the beginning, with the very first Main Range audio—and in fact, the very first Big Finish audio for Doctor Who, period—The Sirens of Time. Let’s get started!

(As always, spoilers ahead for anyone who has not listened to this production!)

Big Finish starts off, well, big, with a multi-Doctor story in four parts. We get the last three Classic Doctors—Five, Six, and Seven. Interestingly, the Seventh Doctor was the only classic Doctor to never participate in a multi-Doctor story onscreen; but now he meets his two immediate predecessors. In part one, the Seventh Doctor is manipulated into landing on an unnamed planet in the year 3562; there he meets a girl named Elenya, and then finds himself instrumental in the liberation of Sancroff, an old man who later proves to be a war criminal. Along the way, he finds himself unable to re-enter the TARDIS, and they encounter assassins who were sent to kill Sancroff, and are taken by them. Behind the scenes, Gallifrey itself is suffering invasion, and falling.

Part two takes us to Earth during the first world war, with the Fifth Doctor. While searching out a lost signal, he lands aboard an unidentified merchant ship. The signal is a message from the Time Lords, but they are unclear; they seem to be urging the Doctor to return to the TARDIS, but he is unable to get inside, and Tegan and Turlough—trapped inside—are unable to answer him He meets a woman named Helen…and immediately the ship comes under attack from a German U-boat. The Doctor and Helen are collected as survivors by the Germans, who lock them up as potential spies. While locked up, an officer on the ship is possessed and attacks the Doctor; the Doctor assumes, correctly, that it’s the Time Lords. Meanwhile, the Germans see British ships on approach, and debate whether to attack. They are spared the decision when the Doctor seizes control and navigates back to the TARDIS’s position; he locates it, but can’t get inside, leaving him trapped at sea.

Part three sees the Sixth Doctor land on a starship called the Edifice, near the astronomical object called the Kurgon Wonder, year unknown. The Wonder is a massive time distortion in space. He meets a woman named Ellie, and correctly surmises that the ship was struck by a time disruption emanating from the Wonder, which killed the rest of the crew; together they also meet an android named Azimendah. This Doctor, too, cannot return to his TARDIS. He is manipulated by Ellie into eliminating the Wonder; afterward he discovers that it had existed as the result of the battle between the savage Knights of Velyshaa and a creature called the Temperon. Ending the disruption freed both the Knights and the Temperon.

In part four, the rather complex plot comes together. The three Doctors, now gathered and imprisoned on a conquered Gallifrey, find that it was the Knights who have conquered the planet. The woman they each encountered, under three different names, is actually the Knight Commander, Lyena; she has manipulated the Doctor in three time periods to create a timeline that is favorable to the Knights. In 1915, the Doctor’s redirection of the U-boat caused it to fail to sink the Lusitania, which prevented the USA’s timely entry into the war. While the war went similarly to original history, it allowed another change: Alexander Fleming was killed prior to developing penicillin (and by extension, other antibiotics); this later allowed form of pneumonia and meningitis to ravage humanity, thus preventing their eventual conquest of space. Therefore, in 3562, humanity did not defeat the Knights; and the rescue of Sancroff, one of the Knights’ leaders, re-inspired them to form their second empire. In between, the knights were able to control the now-freed Temperon, which produces a form of time-related power, and use it to develop time travel.

And yet, that’s not the end. It becomes clear that Lyena is not what she seems. In fact, she is a part of the Sirens of Time, a race of eternal creatures who feed on the energy produced by disruptions to the time stream. The Sirens have manipulated the Knights and the Doctor to create a terrible alternate timeline; if they are permitted time travel, the Sirens will essentially dominate and devour all of history. Like the legendary Sirens, they called to the Seventh Doctor, resulting in the course correction that led to his freeing of Sancroff; it becomes clear that anyone who answers their call a second time will become eternally enslaved to them. The Doctor, however—or Doctors, as they work together—find themselves trapped in a situations where any choice will result in failure—either they obey the Sirens and become enslaved, or they disobey and take actions that will ensure the new timeline remains unchanged. They are saved by the intervention of the Temperon; it sacrifices itself to travel back to the beginning of time and contain the Sirens throughout all of history. It can’t destroy them, but it can bind them.

It’s an interesting story, and one about which I have mixed feelings. The Sirens are a great villain, but really they can only be used once; their fate here takes them out of continuity forever, and any effort to re-use them would either have to be a work of genius or a cheap trick. The Knights of Velyshaa are interesting, but actually we don’t get a good look at them here; they are overshadowed by the Sirens and the Temperon. They do appear again in the audio Invasion of the Daleks. Other elements reappear as well; the Time Lord Vansell, who has a bit part here, reappears in multiple audios, and the Sixth Doctor’s visit to the Kurgon Wonder is referenced in the novel Instruments of Darkness. The Doctors make telepathic contact with each other in the same manner as the first, second, and third Doctors in The Three Doctors. There’s a good bit regarding the various characteristics of the different Doctors, and how they represent different facets of his personality; all of them possess his whole personality, but they emphasize different parts.

On the downside, it’s unclear for much of the story what the Temperon is: at times it appears to be a living being, and at times it appears to be an energy or a form of particle. With regard to the story, essentially, the Doctor loses at the end; the situation is saved, and Gallifrey is restored, not because the Doctor succeeded, but because the Temperon intervenes. While that’s perfectly fine on occasion, I don’t know that I would have started the series with a story of that type. It’s a convoluted plot, and that’s not unusual or a bad thing in Doctor Who; but for many people this would have been the first exposure to the audio format, and I find it would have been difficult to get used to that non-visual format while dealing with the rapidly-shifting complexities of the plot. As well, it’s a bit disappointing that no companions appear (beyond, that is, the mention of Tegan and Turlough), although I have to acknowledge that their presence would probably have complicated an already-convoluted plot.

Overall, it’s a bit disappointing as the audios seem to go. It’s certainly not bad, and is worth a listen; but it was not quite what I was hoping for. Still, it’s the first in a long line of audio dramas, and for that, we owe it some recognition.

Next time: We’ll take a look at the second installment in the Main Range, Phantasmagoria! Also in the works, I have the Destiny of the Doctor series which was produced in conjunction with AudioGO before that company’s end. See you there.

All audios reviewed in this series can be purchased here from Big Finish Productions; link to this story is below.  This and many other audio dramas are also available on Spotify and Google Play.

The Sirens of Time

Final Thoughts: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch

Heads up, folks; this is a long one.  The alternative was to split it up over a few days and a few posts, but we all have things to do, so we’ll just put it all up at once.  Here we go!

Eight months ago, give or take, I started something that was, for me, pretty ambitious. I decided to watch all of the classic series of Doctor Who. It was a lot to take on; I’m not good at following through and completing a series, even if it’s all available for streaming at once. I can’t count the shows I’ve attempted and then quit halfway. But Doctor Who is different, I told myself; it’s the show of my childhood, and besides, I had already seen the entire revived series to that point (or almost anyway; I held off on a bit of Series 8 for my girlfriend to catch up, and likewise with Series 9). So I decided to give it a try.

Where it all began.

Now here we are, eight months, twenty-six seasons and one movie later, and it’s over. I missed a collective total of about thirty minutes, I think; there was a single episode (not a serial, just one part) I couldn’t locate, plus about seven minutes missing from another. Of course many of the early episodes are only available in reconstructions, but I was able to find recons for all of those missing episodes. So, I wanted to put together a final thoughts post for the series, and see what people think. I appreciate all the comments (and karma) from the previous posts; this fandom is great, no matter what anyone outside it may say, and the discussion is what I was after most of all. I’ve learned a lot about the series just from the conversations that have resulted, and it’s convinced me to give Big Finish and the various novels a try, as well. If this gets a little long—and who am I kidding, I know myself, of course it will—I’ll split it into parts, but I’ll post them as quickly as I can. (If you’re reading this on my blog, some of what I’ve just said may not make sense; I’ve posted these reviews on Reddit.com’s /r/Gallifrey subreddit, as well, and some things are specific to that site.) With that, let’s get started!

My very first observation as I started this rewatch is that the series has changed immensely since William Hartnell was the First Doctor. I suppose I expected that, given that the show is fifty-three years old; but I wasn’t expecting it to have changed in the ways I saw. It’s gone from being a somewhat-educational children’s show to being a family show with adult overtones; but it’s more than that. The Doctor we first met was not a nice guy, nor likeable. He really wasn’t even the hero of his own show—that would be Ian Chesterton. (All respect to Barbara and Susan, but it was the 1960s—women weren’t often the heroes of anything on television. They were great, and I liked them, but they existed to support Ian, mostly.) The Doctor was there, basically, to put Ian and Barbara and Susan into a bad situation every week, and occasionally offer a solution. Nowadays that would never fly—he’s the Oncoming Storm, the Madman with a Box, Time’s Champion, even the Time Lord Victorious. He’s the star of his show, now.

It might be tempting to say that that change happened with the revival, but it was happening long before that. I’ve theorized as I watched—well, it’s not so much a cohesive theory as just an observation—that there’s a visible pattern of growth to the Doctor as the series goes on. Every incarnation adds to his character, makes him something new—he doesn’t just change, he increases. The First Doctor was hardly the Doctor at all for most of his life. He became the Doctor, I believe, in The War Machines. I’ve talked about this a few times before, and I can’t claim total credit for the idea—sorry, I’ve lost the link to the original post that inspired the idea—but my headcanon is that the Doctor didn’t consider himself to be the Doctor until he met Ian and Barbara. (The short version is that Ian mistakenly calls him Doctor, and he lets it stand so he won’t have to tell them his real name; eventually he sees noble qualities in Ian that he wants for himself, and takes the name on as a promise to himself to live up to that example. Then, later, his name leads to the use of the term for a healer—it’s a bit of a paradox, but hey, this is Doctor Who, paradoxes are what we do here.) I think the turning point onscreen is when he faces down the War Machine in the street, willing to sacrifice himself if necessary to save the others—but confident that he can meet the challenge.

And then, not long after, he regenerates. Patrick Troughton is the Doctor right from the start, there’s no doubt about it. For him, growth means learning not to let things go to his head. He’s just learned all this confidence and taken on this self-assigned responsibility; now he has to be humble. And the Second Doctor is definitely humble. He does all the things that a class clown does: He’s self-effacing, he uses humor to redirect attention, he’s always evaluating everything and everyone. He moves from passive to active: He’s not just a wanderer in time anymore; instead, he’s getting involved, making things happen. And he cares, far more than the first Doctor ever did. My first memory of the Second Doctor—before I started this rewatch—is from The Mind Robber, with the Doctor running through the Land of Fiction, frantically searching for Jamie and Zoe because he’s so utterly worried about what might happen to them. He comes across as sullen, sometimes, simply because he worries so much.

And then, he gets caught. The runaway gets dragged back home to an as-yet-unnamed Gallifrey. His companions get their memories removed—what a waste!—and get sent home, and he is forced to regenerate again. In Patrick Troughton’s place, we get John Pertwee, the Third Doctor. Further, he’s banished to Earth; the newly-named Time Lords pull out parts of his TARDIS and parts of his mind so as to keep him there. He’s immediately scooped up by UNIT, so he’s not homeless or purposeless; but his wandering days are over for now. This Doctor is the responsible one, but it chafes him to be that way. He wants to be free, but he has to learn patience. In the meantime, he’s calm, dignified (mostly), and smooth. He’s cared for his companions before, but this is where he learns to love humanity in general; when he first lands, he looks down on them. He knows he’s smarter, knows they’re not on his level. But by the time he gains his freedom back, he doesn’t look down on them anymore—in fact, his opinions are reversed; in Planet of the Spiders, he’s happy with his friends and companions, and looking down on himself for his own foolishness. It’s humility, but a different kind of humility from that of the Second Doctor: He knows he’s not infallible.

All of that seems to go right out the window when Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor comes on the scene. Several times I’ve called this his adolescent phase. He’s the rebellious teenager here. He’s no longer content to meet his responsibilities; he wants to get out and see the universe. He spends a lot of episodes trying to run from duty, whether it be to UNIT, the Time Lords, the White Guardian, or his companions. He works on his TARDIS the way some teenagers soup up their cars. He gets so rebellious that he has to have a nanny, essentially, to keep him on track, and so Romana joins him. He’s changeable and moody and high-strung and unpredictable. He’s faced with huge decisions and freely admits he isn’t ready to make them. Genesis of the Daleks shows his immaturity (where rather than make the right decision, he more or less blunders into it); it’s not until The Armageddon Factor, when he dismisses the Key to Time, that he begins to grow out of it. And then, near his death, he gets Adric, and becomes something of a mentor to him. I feel like that relationship is what leads him to subconsciously choose the pattern of his next incarnation. He dies doing what he never could have done at the beginning: being a real hero, sacrificing himself for not just those close to him, but the universe at large.

Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor takes that mentoring aspect and cranks it up to eleven. Young though he appears to be, he’s the fatherly type; he treats his companions less like friends and more like family, or like his own children. Adric’s death in Earthshock breaks him, and he becomes a little harder afterward; but instead of giving him a dark side, that hardness just makes him try that much harder to be the protector, the mentor, the leader. This is the phase of his life where he becomes, as Ohila will later say to the Eighth Doctor, the good man. He finds something of an equal in Nyssa (though it’s never a romantic relationship), but she ultimately leaves out of goodness—she chooses to stay behind on Terminus to help the survivors of Lazar’s Disease. He takes Turlough under his wing, and saves him; he tries to do the same with Kamelion, but fails. It hurts him quite a bit when Tegan leaves; he tries to make it up with Peri, and ends up dying to save her.

I want to say that Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor came as a reaction to something about the Fifth Doctor. I want to say that, but I can’t. I labored over the question of why he should be the way he was—at first at least—but I just couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. It just seems that when you’re changing personalities with every regeneration, every once in a while you get a dud. It’s almost a reset, a throwback to Tom Baker, but with the bad qualities exaggerated and the good minimized. How often do you get a Doctor that tries to kill a companion? Not often. That, at least, is how he starts out. But if this were elementary school, I’d give the Sixth Doctor the award for “Most Improvement”. The change between the beginning of his (admittedly short) era and the end is just amazing. While he never stops being arrogant, it goes from unapologetic and vicious to self-aware and, well, able to laugh at himself. While he started out thinking of himself as being supremely capable in any circumstance, he really wasn’t—think of all the times he was outwitted by his circumstances, or the times he tried and failed to fix the TARDIS. Yet, by the end, when he learns not to focus on himself as much, he really IS capable—it’s almost like a bit of humility unlocked his abilities.

And then he’s unceremoniously dumped by the BBC. Oh. Well, that’s not good.

Sylvester McCoy, as the Seventh Doctor, didn’t get the benefit of any buildup whatsoever. He had to step into the role and be the Doctor with no in-universe preparation. He met that challenge; no other Doctor has so immediately been the Doctor. From the minute he wakes up in the Rani’s lab, he commands the role, and never looks back. That’s literal as well as figurative; he’s the only Doctor never to be involved in any capacity in a multi-Doctor story, at least in the classic series. As far as the classic series is concerned—and with its end approaching—he is the pinnacle of the character: Capable, smart, mysterious, caring, wise, powerful, cunning. He meets his match in Ace, who is likewise the pinnacle of what a companion should be: Energetic, realistic, versatile, adaptable, happy, devoted, and above all else, human. With them, we get some of the best stories—and we get the difficult task of closing out the series for cancellation. Somehow, it all comes together perfectly.

It’s unfortunate that the Seventh Doctor dies as he does—in gunfire and pain—but one thing that was NOT unfortunate was Paul McGann’s selection as the Eighth Doctor. This Doctor is the hinge on which the classic series turns, paving the way for the new series; and as such, he’s a little of both. He’s a survivor, but also a lover, at least to some degree. He puts thought into what it means to BE the Doctor—and he takes a stand accordingly. He dies trying to balance those aspects of himself, fighting destiny all the way to the end—and in his ashes is born the War Doctor. We’ll talk more about him somewhere much further down the road.

I made a point as I watched of looking for similarities and connections between the classic series and the revived series. Many of those, I pointed out as I came to them. It was interesting to see how plot points reappeared, and how relationships and personalities in one series mirrored those in the other. I suppose it’s inevitable that a five-decade series would repeat itself, but it’s uncanny sometimes; clearly the writers didn’t plagiarize, but they hit the same notes just the same. It never feels repetitive, somehow; instead, it just goes to make these characters feel like real people, with real personalities that stay consistent from one appearance to another. That’s no small feat, considering that there have been dozens (if not hundreds) of writers, and that it was almost certainly unintentional.

One specific connection I looked for was the various ways in which later Doctors drew inspiration from earlier Doctors. I didn’t research the subject; I know some modern actors have spoken about how they designed their portrayal, and in at least one instance (Ten with Five from Time Crash) it’s actually canon; but I didn’t look into that. These are just my guesses and opinions based on what I saw of the characters. With that said, Nine doesn’t owe much to anyone—or rather, he’s a little bit of everyone. That makes perfect sense, considering he’s a brand-new Doctor, fresh off the Time War, and in a sense the first of his line. He had to carry the weight of the revival single-handedly, and so it made sense for him to show a little something from everyone—the harshness of Hartnell, the energy of Troughton, the severity of Pertwee, the willfulness of Tom Baker, the paternalism (sometimes) of Davison, the mercurial whims of Colin Baker, the determination of McCoy, and the responsibility of McGann. His costume didn’t even relate directly to anyone; it was something new, although we would eventually find that it relates to the War Doctor.

Ten, of course, owes much to Five; that much is official within the series. He gets his wit from Four, but his attitude toward his companions is all five—in fact, his companions themselves have a lot in common with Five’s companions. Rose is his Adric (though it eventually went to romance more than mentoring); Donna is his Nyssa; Martha is his Tegan, right down to the “I can’t do this anymore” departure; and Wilfred is his Turlough. Astrid Peth, in her one appearance, is his Kamelion—the one he tried to save, but failed; or you could make the same observation about Lady Christina de Souza, as she was both hero and villain.

Eleven owes his characterization to the Second Doctor, but also—oddly—to the Sixth. Bear with me. He shares Two’s general humor, many of his mannerisms, his flawless loyalty to his companions, and his calm self-assurance (which admittedly is the ONLY thing calm about him). At the same time, he has a proud and arrogant streak that is pure Six; sometimes he’s even as fickle as Six. He also has a scene at his tomb that parallels Six’s scene at his ostensible tomb in Revelation of the Daleks, though Eleven’s attitude about his impending death is much more mature than Six’s (and understandably so). Having a few audios with Six under my belt now, I see the way that character grew offscreen, and I can’t help thinking that Eleven is what Six might have been if he had had to face the Time War.

Then there’s Twelve. I’ve been vocal in various comments sections about my disappointment with the Twelfth Doctor thus far. I have the utmost respect for Peter Capaldi; his acting chops are second to none. What I don’t like is the direction the character has taken, mostly due to Clara Oswald. With that said, it was harder to nail down influences for him; but I feel like he mostly owes himself to the First and Third Doctors. He shares One’s disdain for his companions, or in his case, companion; I don’t mean that he hates Clara, but there is a lot of rivalry there, and also some looking down on her when he feels she’s inadequate. (It’s only fair, I guess; she does the same to him.) He also has One’s arrogance and willfulness, though it’s not as pronounced as, say, Six. He shares Three’s flair and fashion sense (sometimes anyway), love for tinkering, chafing at restrictions (Three toward the Time Lords, Twelve toward Clara), and sense of responsibility toward Clara and toward UNIT.

We fans of the show are fond of declaring a certain Doctor to be “MY Doctor”, and that’s fine; I’ve done it too. Now that I’ve seen them all, I thought I would try to rank them according to my preferences. This ranking isn’t any kind of evaluation of their qualities; it’s strictly a ranking of who I liked, most to least, though I may make a comment or two along the way. I’m including the new series Doctors as well, because it’s a short list, and I feel like it’s best judged with everyone included.

1. Tenth Doctor—David Tennant. I didn’t expect him to unseat Tom Baker, but what can I say.
2. Seventh Doctor—Sylvester McCoy. I was surprised at just how good he was. The series ended in good hands.
3. Fourth Doctor—Tom Baker. I grew up watching him, and he was always the standard for the Doctor, in my opinion. I was surprised and a little disappointed to see him slip in my personal rating.
4. Eleventh Doctor—Matt Smith. He gets a lot of controversy among fans, but I thought he was great.
5. Third Doctor—John Pertwee. Just a great performance all around.
6. Fifth Doctor—Peter Davison. I wanted to be more impressed with him, and he wasn’t bad; but he wasn’t as good as I expected at first.
7. Ninth Doctor—Christopher Eccleston. Great guy, great Doctor, but all too soon gone.
8. Second Doctor—Patrick Troughton. I liked him, but for reasons I can’t pin down, I had trouble following a lot of his episodes.
9. Eighth Doctor—Paul McGann. Just not enough material to rank him higher, though what we have is pretty good.
10. First Doctor—William Hartnell. It was a different time; the First Doctor is easy to respect, but hard to love.
11. Sixth Doctor—Colin Baker. Such a victim of bad writing and bad politics. I really feel like he would have done much better with more time.
12. War Doctor—John Hurt. Great performance, but very little screen time.
13. Twelfth Doctor—Peter Capaldi. Yes, I know, placing him last is controversial. I hope he’ll improve with a new companion. I have high hopes for him next series.

So, there you have it—if I can call anyone “my Doctor”, it’s David Tennant.

Not a perfect list, but closest I could get. From top left: Susan, Barbara, Ian, Vicki, Steven, Dodo, Polly, Ben, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe, the Brigadier, Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela, K9, Romana I, Romana II, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Peri, Mel, Ace, Grace, Rose, Jack, Mickey, Martha, Astrid, Donna, Jackson Lake, Lady Christina, Adelaide Brook, Wilfred, Amy, Rory, River, and I’m unsure, but I think that last one is supposed to be the personified TARDIS.

Finally, companions. As this list is considerably longer, rather than talk first about the various companions, I’ll just put this in ranking order, and make comments along the way. If you’ve read this far, congratulations! But this last part is likely to be the longest—the Doctor has had a lot of companions. As with my Doctor ranking, I’m including NuWho companions as well. I’ve mostly followed the Wikipedia list, but with a few exceptions for totally arbitrary reasons: I’ve left out Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton because they only appear with the Brigadier for the most part, and lumping them together with him doesn’t really change his ranking. I’ve included Chang Lee even though he was technically a companion of the Master, because he ultimately sided with the Doctor and was mostly inseparable from Grace Holloway. I’ve listed the two versions of Romana separately because the performances were very different; by the same logic, I’ve combined the two K9s into one entry. I didn’t include Jackson Lake because he (for all practical purposes) functions as a separate Doctor, complete with companion of his own; or Adelaide Brook, because she more or less traveled under duress, and clearly did not want to be with the Doctor. I also have left off incoming companion Bill, since we don’t know anything about her yet. In every case, I’ve tried to give the most complete name that I can; in some cases a surname wasn’t given onscreen, but has arisen in other materials. I’m using the versions that can be found on the TARDIS wiki. In total, using this ranking, there are 46 companions; 15 are male, 29 are female, and 2 are robotic. So, without further adieu, here’s my companion ranking.

1. Ian Chesterton—First Doctor. I have a lot of respect for Ian. He’s a good man, even before the Doctor proves himself to be one as well; and he set the pattern for many companions to come. I would love to see William Russell reprise the role in a few episodes of Class, as Ian is hinted to be on the Board of Governors for Coal Hill School.
2. Dorothy Gale “Ace” McShane—Seventh Doctor. I earlier described her as the pinnacle of what a companion should be, and I stand be that. She was fantastic in every regard.
3. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart—Second, Third Doctors, plus several cameos. Possibly the most loyal of all companions, in the sense that his loyalty existed in spite of having a clear view of just how crazy the Doctor could be. Every single appearance onscreen is great. Has a wit that cuts like a knife.
4. Jamie McCrimmon—Second Doctor. More episodes under his belt than any other companion, and I’m still angry that he had his memory wiped. He’s the only companion to ever be present for a Doctor’s entire run (with the exception of Clara, if Series Ten goes as planned).
5. Donna Noble—Tenth Doctor. Hands down, my favorite NuWho companion, and just as tragic at the end as Jamie. She was the one true equal in personality that the Tenth Doctor ever met.
6. Nyssa of Traken—Fifth Doctor. If Donna was Ten’s equal, Nyssa was Five’s. They both essentially give up their life with the Doctor for the sake of saving people, though Donna doesn’t know it. Nyssa was the loyal, stable one while Adric and Tegan—and later, Turlough and Tegan—were fighting it out.
7. K9—Fourth Doctor, and a cameo with Ten. A companion’s companion, literally, in that he ended up with Leela, Romana, and Sarah Jane in various incarnations. I loved K9 as a kid, and still do; his obliviousness and bluntness plays perfectly against Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor.
8. Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw—Third Doctor. She didn’t get enough credit, and didn’t stay long enough. She was a much better match for Three than Jo Grant ever was, though he would never have been able to be paternal toward Liz like he was to Jo.
9. Wilfred Mott—Tenth Doctor. Wins the award for “most lovable companion.” He summarizes how the rest of the universe relates to the Doctor—they want to trust him, but they can’t keep up with him, and in the end, they just want to survive and live a good life.
10. Leela—Fourth Doctor. It always bothered me that the Doctor treated her rather badly, when she didn’t deserve it. Still, their relationship wasn’t all bad, and she was loyal and strong to a fault.
11. Sarah Jane Smith—Third and Fourth Doctors, plus a cameo and two spinoffs. If I had only had her classic run to look at, I would have ranked her lower; she’s fairly whiny and weak. She gets a great redemption, though, in School Reunion and in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
12. Dorothea “Dodo” Chaplet—First Doctor. Likeable, fun, and energetic. Her tenure felt very short to me.
13. River Song—Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors, with suggestions that she met them all. River generates a lot of controversy, but I always liked her, even when she was being infuriating.
14. Romana II—Fourth Doctor. Lalla Ward is the definitive Romana. Once the character and the Doctor learned to get along, they made a great team (and of course their real-life relationship added some chemistry, both good and bad).
15. Vislor Turlough—Fifth Doctor. He’s another who gets some criticism, but I liked him once he stopped acting like a spoiled child and started standing up for himself.
16. Jack Harkness (just as a companion, not based on his Torchwood performance)—Ninth and Tenth Doctors. Jack has a unique gift for grasping the situation instantly and adapting to it. A good man to have in a fight, and of course he’s charming as can be. Early Jack is almost more interesting than his Torchwood portrayal.
17. Martha Jones—Tenth Doctor. There’s only one Martha, and I’m so glad she didn’t end up in a relationship with the Doctor. She turned out much better for walking away.
18. Susan Foreman—First Doctor, plus a cameo. Susan gets a bad reputation because she was poorly written, but I always felt like the character had so much potential. I want to see her come back and get a regeneration scene while Carol Ann Ford is still with us.
19. Zoe Heriot—Second Doctor. Zoe gets credit for matching so well with Jamie. They were a great duo, and together they perfectly balanced the Second Doctor. I wish she had stayed longer.
20. Victoria Waterfield—Second Doctor. This was always going to be a difficult role to play; she was essentially a teenager with PTSD. Nevertheless, the role was executed well.
21. Jo Grant—Third Doctor. I gave Jo a lot of flak in my reviews, but she turned out fine; I was just feeling burned by the loss of Liz Shaw. In the end, she made a great choice and picked a great cause when she left the Doctor. She grew on me over time, but I admit to thinking she was stupid at first.
22. Harry Sullivan—Fourth Doctor. Harry is one of those incidental companions who never chose this life; he’s just along for the ride. He absolutely makes the most of it, though, and isn’t scarred by it at all—kind of a rare thing among companions.
23. Adric—Fourth and Fifth Doctors. Not the first death in series history, but the most traumatic. He had a great arc, with considerable growth…and then, dead. Just like that.
24. Romana I—Fourth Doctor. I liked Mary Tamm’s performance, and though I also liked Lalla Ward, I was sorry to see Romana regenerate. She was excellent at reining in the Fourth Doctor.
25. Mel Bush—Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Mel was the best thing to happen to Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor. After the doom and depression of Peri’s final appearances, Mel was a breath of fresh air, and it clearly made a difference to the Doctor. Her performance was good enough that the transition to Ace felt like a handshake between friends rather than a change of watch.
26. Tegan Jovanka—Fourth and Fifth Doctors. Tegan loosened up considerably after leaving her job; it was a great direction for her character. Unlike many companions before her, she didn’t leave because she missed home, or found other involvements; she left because of the horror of what life with the Doctor could entail. I compared her to Martha Jones in that regard, and I still think it’s a fair comparison.
27. Grace Holloway—Eighth Doctor. Such a short performance, and unfortunately we’re not likely to get her back in any capacity. She may not have been a good long-term match for the Eighth Doctor, but she was certainly what he needed at the time.
28. Chang Lee—Eighth Doctor. An excellent counterpoint to Grace. Had the show persisted, I could have seen him becoming another Adric. A good kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.
29. Mickey Smith—Tenth Doctor, though also present around the Ninth. Often rejected from lists of companions, but I feel that’s unfair to him. He had a difficult path to walk, watching Rose reject him in favor of the Doctor, and yet still focusing on the bigger picture of saving the world (two worlds, actually!). He ended up with Martha, and I can’t imagine a better ending for him.
30. Rory Williams—Eleventh Doctor. It’s difficult to tie yourself to a person with a very strong personality, but there’s no question about his love for Amy. I felt a great deal of sympathy for him. He could teach the Doctor a thing or two about being a good man.
31. Craig Owens—Eleventh Doctor. And now, here’s an everyman! It may be a bit stereotypical, but Craig played the part perfectly. I’m not sorry he only had a few appearances; making him a regular would have ruined him, and that’s a fate I don’t want to think about.
32. Amy Pond—Eleventh Doctor. I wanted to hate Amy for a long time. She ordered the Doctor and Rory around constantly, and just made life miserable. Then we got Clara, and I realized I never knew how good we had it with Amy. She’s by no means a bad character or a bad person, but she’s headstrong to the point of death, possibly literally. She did improve with time, though.
33. Astrid Peth—Tenth Doctor. Earlier I called her Ten’s Kamelion, because of her short term and her death. Also like Kamelion, she had been manipulated by a worse villain, but she absolutely made good on it.
34. Vicki Pallister—First Doctor. Vicki was quiet and unassuming, and basically just there—and for her, those were good things. She made no demands, just quietly worked and helped and served. I really appreciated her for that.
35. Steven Taylor—First Doctor. I recall commenting that Steven was the victim of having his parts written initially for someone else. As a result, his character was all over the place. It’s a pity; he had the makings of greatness, but he just never had the chance to shine, being caught in the middle of things.
36. Barbara Wright—First Doctor. I only ranked her low because she was the victim of her time. A female character in 1963 was pretty much doomed to do a lot of screaming and make a lot of bad decisions. Her heart was in the right place, though, and she had some good moments.
37. Lady Christina de Souza—Tenth Doctor. We’re reaching the point where characters just don’t have enough material to rank them higher (well, with a few upcoming exceptions). Lady Christina deserved a redemption story arc, but she never got the chance to get it.
38. Rose Tyler—Ninth and Tenth Doctors. I’ve been very hard on Rose over the years, mostly because of her love affair with the Doctor. While I’m not of the camp that says the Doctor should be asexual and anti-romantic, seeing this eighteen-year-old child fawning over him was just sad. She had a lot of good moments, but mostly they were the ones that didn’t involve the Doctor. We do owe her something for being the first companion of the revived series, but I feel like she squandered it.
39. Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown—Fifth and Sixth Doctors. Poor Peri. She started out happy and hopeful, and then the Doctor tried to kill her. She never recovered from it. For the rest of her tenure, she’s a trauma victim; she’s paranoid, easily frightened, distrustful, and whiny. I hated that for her. It was almost a relief to see her go.
40. Ben Jackson—First and Second Doctors. I’m ranking Ben and Polly (you never get them separately) low chiefly because I don’t remember a lot about them. They came and went fairly quickly, and though they were present for some good stories, they didn’t make much impact on me. Otherwise there’s nothing wrong about them.
41. Polly Wright—First and Second Doctors. Polly didn’t even get a last name onscreen, which tells you more about her character than I could say in a paragraph. She was definitely underused.
42. Clara Oswald—Tenth, Eleventh, War, and Twelfth Doctors, with cameos with all of them. Yes, I’m ranking her low. She’s the only companion ever to inspire me to rage. I will give her credit for her early appearances with Eleven; from Asylum of the Daleks to The Name of the Doctor, she was fantastic and compelling. The “Impossible Girl” storyline was great, and had a great resolution, introducing the War Doctor as well. After that, she took over the show and turned the Doctor into her lapdog. I’ve ranted extensively about this in other places, so I’ll let it go for now.
43. Katarina—First Doctor. Just too short a term to say much about her. She was in over her head to begin with. However, she did make a noble sacrifice in the end, thus becoming the first companion death.
44. Sara Kingdom—First Doctor. Has the dubious distinction of being the second companion to die in the same episode as another. She could have been a good character, given enough time; and she was the first enemy to then become a companion.
45. Adam Mitchell—Ninth Doctor. I kept him on the list because the idea of an evil companion is fascinating, but let’s be honest, he’s slimy and despicable.
46. Kamelion—Fifth Doctor. Ranked last for his severe underuse. It’s not his fault; it’s hard to use a prop when no one knows how it works. Unfortunately he came and went with barely a blip on the radar, although The King’s Demons is a good—if insane—story.

The last thing I wanted to mention are my favorite serials for each Doctor (or the first seven, anyway—not enough material for choice with McGann, really). Someone had asked about this; I tried to get into it season by season, but really ran out of time in most cases. Anyway, for better or worse, here were my favorites for each Doctor, and a bit about why:

• First Doctor: The Space Museum. I know, it’s an odd choice, especially when I’ve talked so much about The War Machines. But favorites aren’t just based on seminal moments in the series; they’re based on how enjoyable they were. This serial gets a lot of flak for various reasons, but it was fun to watch, and it created a few ideas that have shown up again in surprising places, like the idea of a mind probe device, or the idea of being out of sync with time. And Hartnell is at his funniest here, which is awesome.
• Second Doctor: Oh, man, so many good choices. Patrick Troughton really is the Doctor who defined the role. But when all is said and done, I’d choose The Tomb of the Cybermen. It’s full of iconic scenes and moments, and brought the Cybermen back from what seemed like the dead after the end of The Tenth Planet. In some ways, Cybermen have always been scarier than Daleks; all a Dalek can do is exterminate you, but the Cybermen can make you one of them, and steal away your humanity.
• Third Doctor: Inferno. Again, probably an uncommon choice, but hear me out. Here you get the Doctor in extremis; he’s alone, in a hostile world, racing the clock, feeling the burden of not one but two worlds, with no TARDIS, no companions, no UNIT—and he wins. Yet, even as he wins, he loses some people he would rather have saved, and it’s clear he’s not perfect, and he can’t do everything. Also, it’s a bit downplayed, but there’s some suggestion that the Leader in the inferno world is the Doctor, or rather, what he would have become had he accepted one of the forms the Time Lords offered him in The War Games.
• Fourth Doctor: Again, so many choices! But I’m going with The Face of Evil. Not only did it introduce Leela, but it also showed us just what happens if the Doctor has to go up against himself (or rather, the computerized version he left behind). It’s an irresistible plot, and one that would be mined again under the Eleventh Doctor (Nightmare in Silver). This is one from my childhood, too, so there’s some sentimentality there as well.
• Fifth Doctor: I’m tempted to say The Visitation just based on the awesome Richard Mace, but the rest of the story wasn’t that strong; and it cost us the sonic screwdriver. So, I’ll go with Kinda. There’s not much to hate about it; the Mara are a great and unique villain; Tegan is fantastic here; and it is dealt with chiefly due to the relationship between the Doctor and his companions, which is the essence of what the Fifth Doctor is about. I didn’t enjoy Snakedance quite as much, but it was also a great complement to this story.
• Sixth Doctor: No, I’m not going to say Trial of a Time Lord; that would be cheating. If it were going to be that season, I’d break it down into its parts. Actually, in general I do prefer that season over the preceding one; but for an individual story, I’m going with Revelation of the Daleks. It’s the first place where the Sixth Doctor really started to come into his own, and Davros is one of my favorite villains.
• Seventh Doctor: Battlefield. No hard decision here. Yes, I know it was rated low, but this is my list, so there. It’s the seventh Doctor at the top of his game; UNIT and the Brigadier still at the top of theirs; an actual battle scene, which is something we rarely ever got in UNIT stories for some reason; a great take on the King Arthur legends; Ace being fantastic; and Bessie, who we all know is my one true love. Just kidding. Still cool to see the car again, though.

So, there it is. Twenty-six seasons, one movie, eight Doctors, thirty-two companions (classic series), one hundred sixty stories, and one blue box—classic Doctor Who in its entirety. There’s far more that could be said, and has been; after all these years, there’s no bottom to this well. Still, this rewatch has given my thoughts on these decades of stories; now, what are yours? This has always been about discussion, and I love seeing everyone’s thoughts and reactions. Feel free to comment!

Some future plans: I’ve already begun an occasional series of reviews of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, and I intend to continue it. It won’t have anything near the regularity of this series; it will just be as I manage to listen to the audios. That series is open-ended; I don’t have a goal in mind, as Big Finish is constantly adding new material. Nor will it be in any particular order; as they add materials for all Doctors, it’s not practical to take them in numeric order as I did with the television series. As I can get my hands on the novels, I may do the same with them; but that series is likely to be even more infrequent than the audios. I have given some thought to continuing with a rewatch of the revived series, and I may do that; but I don’t want to get it mixed up with /r/Gallifrey’s official rewatch series, so I may wait a bit and title it differently. If I do continue, I won’t do an entire season in a single post; there’s just too many stories per season for that. I’ll probably do about three episodes per post.

Thanks for reading! I’m glad this series was well received, and I look forward to everyone’s comments.

 

All seasons and episodes may be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below. Note that these links are not the individual serial links I have previously posted, but rather, links to the entire collected seasons, arranged by era. For convenience, I have included links to the revived series as well.

The First Doctor, William Hartnell, 1963-1966

The Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, 1966-1969

The Third Doctor, John Pertwee, 1970-1974

The Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, 1974-1980

The Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, 1981-1984

The Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, 1984-1986

The Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, 1986-1989

The Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, 1996, 2013

No episodes dedicated solely to the War Doctor have been produced.

The Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, 2005

The Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, 2006-2010

The Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, 2011-2014

The Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, 2014-Present

Changing Times: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Twenty-One

After some delay, we’re back, with Season Twenty-One of our classic Doctor Who rewatch! This season, we will say goodbye to the Fifth Doctor, as well as a few companions. Let’s get started!

Sea Devils and Silurians all together now.

The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough return to Earth’s future in Warriors of the Deep. (Kamelion is also along for the ride, but we won’t see him again until the season finale; his vulnerability to manipulation causes him to hide in the TARDIS most of the time.) It’s 2084, and the Second Cold War is underway; we don’t get the names of the superpowers at war here, and more curious yet, we don’t know which side to “root for”. It’s mostly irrelevant however, as the real problem is the Silurians. They return again, this time enlisting help from their Sea Devil cousins to take over Sea Base 4 with its armaments; they plan to use it to precipitate an actual war on the surface which will eliminate humanity from the planet. Spoiler alert: Once again, it ends badly for them, with all individuals being killed by a gas that targets only reptile biology. Really it’s a wonder they don’t just wage mass war on us, as they get annihilated every time they encounter us.

Always a bad ending for these guys.

This would have been a particularly dark and suspenseful story for Doctor Who, had writer Johnny Byrne had his way. He drew his inspiration from the dark, somewhat decrepit look of the sets of the Alien movies. However, he was overridden with regard to the design, and the brighter, cleaner look that was selected did much to override the suspense. I feel that’s unfortunate; and in a sense I suppose the BBC agreed, as scenes from this story were later used (among others) by BBC executives to push for cancellation of the show. At any rate, we do get a few good lines; there’s an early occurrence of the “When I say run, run. Run!” line that pops up a few times in NuWho, and also, the Doctor expresses a rare moment of dissatisfaction with his TARDIS (“I should have exchanged it for a Type 57 when I had the chance”). Overall, the story is a bit reminiscent of NuWho’s Cold War—one of my favorite stories—with the Cold War backdrop and the reptilian villain (an Ice Warrior in that case).

What have I gotten myself into?!

We remain on Earth for The Awakening, traveling back to Little Hodcombe, England, in 1984. At Tegan’s request, the Doctor is taking her to visit her grandfather; such familial contact will be more common, and sometimes integral to the plot, in NuWho. We can be fairly specific with the date; it’s on or about May Day, May first, as Tegan is to be crowned the Queen of May at the end of the reenactment of the Battle of Little Hodcombe. It’s a two-part serial; as well, though it’s not the final two-parter of the season, it is the final two-parter of the Fifth Doctor era to be filmed in the 25 minute format. (More on this later.)

The Malus

The story shares some important elements with The Daemons, but oddly, it all appears to be completely coincidental (an apparently-supernatural being in a church which turns out to be of alien origin, ending with the destruction of the church). In that respect, it shares some elements with NuWho’s Vincent and the Doctor (a superior story, in my opinion, and one of the revived series’ best). The villain here is the Malus, a creature that arrived on Earth in 1643 in a crashed probe; the sending species, the Hakol, were planning an invasion, but never followed through. The Malus exploits the people around it for psychic energy, which is increased through the war games it inspires. We see a new costume for the Fifth Doctor here, which is only minimally different from the original.

Frontios takes us both out into space, and into the far future. Exactly how far is a matter of some confusion; A History of the Universe, with only Classic series information from which to work, places it after 10 million AD, similar to The Ark, as the scenario is similar. However, it doesn’t gel with events seen in NuWho. Turlough reads off the console that humans fled Earth because of a collision with the sun—not solar flares, but a collision—which is definitely an established event, but NuWho places it in approximately 5 billion AD (The End of the World). Further complicating things: the TARDIS console states that “time parameters [have been] exceeded”, and the Doctor states that they are on the outer limits [presumably of time], having gone too far into the future. To me, that indicates that they are near the end of time. It’s also known that that was the intent of the production team; they have stated they intended to leave the TARDIS destroyed and remove it from the show completely, leaving the crew stranded at the end of time. Of course they didn’t follow through, but there’s no reason the timeframe can’t stand. With all of that said, I’d place the story much later, near the end of time, but prior to Utopia (Utopia/The Sound of Drums) and the world seen by Orson Pink (Listen). Of course this gives the lie to Cassandra (The End of the World) being the last pure human; but many stories have since done that, and it appears she was just simply wrong. The universe is a big place, after all.

Group photo!

Whew. That was a mouthful. The villains here are the Tractators, non-humanoid aliens which control gravity and related forces. They once attacked Turlough’s home planet, which has been hitherto-unknown; the events were enough to cause racial memories, which now awaken in Turlough. They seem to require living minds of others to execute their will, similar to the Eternals, but via a different mechanism. This story sets us up for Turlough’s upcoming return home in Planet of Fire.

Stick ’em up!

Resurrection of the Daleks is the oddball of the season, in that it is only two parts, but the episodes are forty-five minutes long (artificially broken down and re-edited for international broadcast, which is the version I was able to watch). This episode leads to an entire season of forty-five-minute episodes in the following season. It proved to be an unpopular change, and was revoked with Season 23. This story is a sequel to Destiny of the Daleks, in which Davros was captured and imprisoned; it is now ninety years later. The best I can say is it occurs somewhere between 4500 and 5100; there are varying estimates, but nothing definite for either story, or the one which will follow in Season 22. I enjoyed this story quite a bit; it’s a good Davros story, and as well, I felt it looked unusually crisp and modern, more like a NuWho story.

You called for us?

The TARDIS begins the story caught in a time corridor, which is under the control of the Daleks. They want to rescue their creator, Davros, from his imprisonment; they are suffering from a virus that was the final weapon of the Movellans in their stalemated war, and they want Davros to cure it. (Ironically, a species-specific disease is usually a Dalek weapon.) We get the first indication here that the Daleks really do not respect Davros; he is forced to use treachery to take control of them. He also plans to supplant them with a new Dalek race, created from his own DNA; he won’t succeed here, but does so in the future in The Stolen Earth. Failing that, he uses an injectable agent to control both Daleks and humans; the Daleks who result could be said to be the first of the later-revealed Imperial Daleks, loyal to Davros. Meanwhile, the Daleks have been led by a Supreme Dalek, the first such that we become aware of. The Daleks have discovered time travel by now, and seem to have done so in the past ninety years; if they had it in Destiny, they would probably have plucked Davros from the collapse of his bunker rather than digging him out at the end of his entombment.

As for the Doctor’s involvement: The Daleks have developed a technology to duplicate individuals. They intend to send a duplicate Doctor to Gallifrey to assassinate the High Council. If Genesis of the Daleks could be considered the opening salvo of the Time War, this could be considered the long-delayed counterstrike. Although I’m sure it was not planned as such, it’s really a clever plot arc, given that it spans years of broadcast time. We get a new and effective minor villain in the Dalek sympathizer Gustave Lytton, who—surprisingly—survives at the end; and we finish on a sad note, as Tegan leaves the Doctor at the end, having had enough of the carnage in his wake.

A great turning point for everyone.

If Resurrection is the oddball, Planet of Fire is the turning point of the season. We see the end of Turlough and Kamelion’s story arcs; the return of the Master; and the entrance of new companion Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown, the first American to join the TARDIS crew. (She’ll be followed in that tradition by Grace Holloway and—depending on your point of view—Canton Everett Delaware III.) We begin on the island of Lanzarote in May 1984, and proceed to the planet Sarn in the same year. The Fifth Doctor, nearing the end of his life, exchanges his cricket jumper and coat for a waistcoat, at least temporarily.

Goodbye, Turlough (and Kamelion too)

Turlough finally has to face up to the reality of his homeworld, Trion. He had been a junior officer on the losing side of Trion’s civil war, and was banished to Earth; his father and infant brother were exiled to Sarn, which had long been a dumping ground for Trion’s unwanted individuals. His father has since died; his brother, bearing a mark of exile, was raised as a Chosen One by the natives. The Trionians have long kept the volcanic activity in check; but since the war they have not done so, and the planet will soon destroy itself. Its fate is not fully described in the end. Turlough, however, is pardoned and permitted to return home.   Kamelion, meanwhile, falls under the control of the Master again, forcing the Doctor to kill him at his own request. His death and Turlough’s departure marks the end of seven years of non-human companions (beginning with K9 Mk I); as well, Turlough is the final male companion of the classic series. Only three more companions—Peri, Mel, and Ace—remain in the classic series.

Is he dead?! Of course not!…I think.

The Master had shrunk himself in an accident involving his Tissue Compression Eliminator. He seeks the healing numismaton gas on Sarn to restore himself, and in fact finds it; however the Doctor traps him in the gas flames, and he appears (erroneously of course) to burn to death. His final line has prompted much controversy; he says “Won’t you show mercy to your own—“ and is cut off. The writing staff intended him to say “brother”, a revelation indeed! However they kept it vague; and later continuity makes it clear they are not related. I like to think he might have said “oldest friend” or something to that effect.

Farewell to Five

We reach the end of the Fifth Doctor’s life in The Caves of Androzani, one of the classic series’ most famous and popular serials. It really is an excellent story; and in my opinion, it should have been the season finale. It takes place on Androzani Minor in an unknown year (all estimates are based on VERY scanty evidence). The Doctor is traveling only with Peri now. They quickly become embroiled in a battle for control of the hyper-valuable spectrox gas; however, the gas is a double-edged sword, as overexposure causes spectrox toxaemia, to which both the Doctor and Peri fall victim. They acquire the bat milk which is the only antidote; but the Doctor unintentionally spills half. He gives the remainder to Peri, sacrificing himself and sparking his regeneration. It’s a grim ending, and the introduction to a contentious and arrogant Doctor; there are no real winners here.

Regenerating again.

There’s a great crash scene, with the Doctor at the controls of the ship in question; it’s a bit reminiscent of The Night of the Doctor, although the Doctor survives. His celery is finally explained; it turns purple in the presence of certain gases to which the Fifth Doctor is allergic. In the end, the Sixth Doctor gets an introductory scene with actual dialogue, which had never been done before. In my opinion, this is also the only good story for Peri as a companion; more on that in a moment.

The infamous strangulation of Peri.

We end the season—awkwardly, I might add—with The Twin Dilemma. It’s not a good beginning for the Sixth Doctor; the story is sluggish and badly written, and should never have been the finale (though it would have been okay as a season opener). It consistently ranks low in viewer polls, in contrast to Caves; a well-known Doctor Who Magazine poll placed Dilemma last and Caves first. It’s set in the year 2310, though this is not firmly established onscreen; several sources, including the novelization, give this date, and it seems correct, as a monitor onscreen gives the date of a preceding event as “12-99”, probably December 2299. The Sixth Doctor, having just regenerated, appears insane, or at least Peri thinks so; she has good reason, as he tries to strangle her to death. This infamous scene set the tone for their relationship ever afterward; she spends the rest of her tenure behaving like a victim of severe trauma, being very paranoid and unstable. It’s an incredibly sad turn for her. He continues to torment her, as well’; he is arrogant and capricious, though I will admit that he will calm down a bit next season.

Azmael, before his death.

The villain is Mestor, an alien gastropod, who wishes to conquer the galaxy by spreading his eggs. To accomplish this, he wishes to destroy the planet Jaconda in an explosion. The titular Twins, Romulus and Remus, are geniuses he kidnaps to make the necessary calculations. He is aided by the Time Lord Azmael, who is on his final life, and who formerly (and oddly) ruled Jaconda. However, Azmael’s servitude is forced; and he betrays and kills his master by forcing a regeneration, thus also killing himself. This one detail, however, is valuable; it does much to justify how the Eleventh Doctor, dying at Lake Silencio, could be seen to start to regenerate despite being on his last life.

That’s a big uniform to fill, Six. I hope you’re up to the task.

Some thoughts on the season overall: The high point, for me, was Resurrection of the Daleks; I’m a diehard Davros fan, and I thought this serial sees him at his devious best. Lowest for me was The Twin Dilemma, for reasons I’ve already described; I have high hopes for Six, but he’s not off to a good start. Peri had much promise, and I was glad to see her arrive; but I know she will not end well, and that’s disappointing. It was a good wrap-up for Turlough, and even for Kamelion; not so much for Tegan, but I respect her for walking away as she did. Her exit foreshadows that of Martha Jones in NuWho, I feel. Overall it wasn’t the best run for the Fifth Doctor, but his exit could not have been better—short of being the season finale, that is.

Next time: The Sixth Doctor! See you there.

All episodes may be viewed on Dailymotion; links are below.

Warriors of the Deep

The Awakening

Frontios

Resurrection of the Daleks (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Planet of Fire (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

The Caves of Androzani

The Twin Dilemma

The Past is the Present: Classic Doctor Who Rewatch, Season Twenty

It’s been a hectic few weeks behind the scenes, but today, we’re back, with our Classic Doctor Who rewatch, season twenty! Let’s get started!

Omega, looking less than his best today.

I should mention at the outset that this is an anniversary season—twenty years, to be precise—and thus it’s a little different. This season is filled with appearances by villains and other references from the past seasons and incarnations of the Doctor, culminating with the very first official anniversary special, The Five Doctors. (The Three Doctors, while definitely an anniversary story, was technically not a special; it was a normal part of its season.) In our season opener, Arc of Infinity, it’s the villain and former Time Lord Omega, last seen in The Three Doctors—and once presumed dead. Here he returns, in a plan to retake our universe and punish the Time Lords—and he needs the Doctor to do it.

Welcome back, Tegan…were you gone?

The plan is simple, but difficult. Omega wants to cross back into our universe, but as he remains in an antimatter state, he needs the body and biodata of a Time Lord to do so. In vengeance for his previous defeat, he chooses the Doctor as his target; but it quickly becomes clear that someone high in the Gallifreyan hierarchy is also involved, as only a Councilor can access the Matrix to retrieve the biodata. That someone, in the end, proves to be Councilor Hedin, who has been taken in by hero-worship of Omega, and wants to restore him, not believing the danger he represents. In the meantime, the High Council’s solution is simple and draconian: They will execute the Doctor. Without him, Omega cannot cross over.

I feel like I should know that face…

By sheer coincidence—or perhaps not, given that Earth was the setting for The Three Doctors—Omega also has made contact with Earth in 1983 Amsterdam, and has hidden his (antimatter?!) TARDIS there. How he obtained such a TARDIS is never known, but it is clearly a more advanced model than the Doctor’s Type 40. Tegan Jovanka, having recently left the TARDIS and lost her job, stumbles into the situation and is captured by Omega for use as bait. In this manner she eventually rejoins the TARDIS crew. Omega is returned to his own universe, and the Doctor is permitted to go on his way.

Borusa: Man of Way Too Many Faces

Some observations: Borusa has regenerated again—he seems to go through them faster than the Doctor!—and has been named Lord President in the Doctor’s absence. There are also a new Castellan and a new Chancellery Guard Commander (played by a pre-Doctor Colin Baker!), replacing Andred. Neither Andred nor Leela are seen, though it is mentioned that they have married. Gallifrey seems to have relaxed its no-aliens policy, which I like to attribute to Leela. The High Council is considerably smaller in this era than it will be seen to be during the Time War (The End of Time); however it may be that, like the Senate and House in America, not every member must be present to be in session. The Doctor says to Maxil, “If I’m to die, I want to prepare myself mentally. For that I need to be alone.” This bit of dialogue could be taken as distant foreshadowing of the concept of a confession dial. And last, Peter Davison joins Hartnell, Troughton, and Baker in the tradition of playing both the Doctor and a villain in the same episode; he plays Omega’s short-lived form after transference, which shares the Doctor’s biodata.

Let’s go in the snake-headed cavern. What could possibly go wrong?

Snakedance takes us to the planet Manussa in the year 3426, though it takes some mental gymnastics to work out evidence that the date is in Earth years; the planet is a former Earth colony, but with a convoluted history of its own, with two separate empires in its past. One of those empires is the Sumaran Empire, ruled by another past enemy: the Mara. That being exerts its influence over Tegan here, causing her to pilot the TARDIS to Manussa, and then taking control of her to bring itself back to the corporeal world. On Deva Loka, it seemed to lack the strength to control more than one person; here it suffers no such restriction, and quickly spreads its influence. It cannot be beaten with mirrors this time, and must be destroyed by the Doctor, who requires the aid of an old mystic named Dojjen.

The Mara returns!

The Doctor’s behavior here is uncharacteristically frantic and excitable; it’s very similar to the Eleventh Doctor. At one point he’s stuck in a cell; too bad he doesn’t have some kind of sonic device to use as a lockpick…nah, that’s just crazy talk. (Never thought I’d get to use THAT joke again. Even Nyssa jokes about it!) Having rejoined the TARDIS, Tegan shares a room with Nyssa, which is odd given the TARDIS’s internal volume; they seem to just like the company. Overall this story is well-written, and along with its prequel Kinda, it has traditionally been well-liked and enjoyed high ratings. It’s not my personal favorite Fifth Doctor story (after some thought, that would probably be The Visitation), but it’s high on the list.

Welcome back, Brigadier!

Mawdryn Undead takes us back to Earth, and brings back a familiar face: Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. With that reference, though, the serial touches off the infamous UNIT dating controversy. To put it briefly—and I won’t go into all the details here—if the dates given in this serial are accurate, then none of the previously-given chronology for the UNIT stories (and by extension, all the way back to The Abominable Snowmen) can add up properly. We could easily have an entire post about this controversy; therefore I’ll just give the dates as noted in the story, and I’ll say that I just simply consider them incorrect (specifically, too early by several years). I take the vast majority of UNIT stories to be roughly contemporary with their broadcast dates, which this serial would not allow. To me, discarding the dates here is the easiest and simplest solution.

Turlough and the Black Guardian

The story begins in 1983; its flashback scenes are set in 1977. It’s the beginning of the Black Guardian Trilogy, which sees the return of that villain, who wants to fulfill his long-ago promise to destroy the Doctor for his defeat in the Key to Time incident. The Black Guardian enlists the aid of a teenage schoolboy named Vislor Turlough, who has a secret of his own: he’s not from Earth. His true origin will not be revealed until next season. Turlough happens to be a student at Brendon Public School, where the now-retired Brigadier teaches mathematics. In exchange for a promise of freedom from Earth, Turlough willingly helps the Black Guardian in this and the next two stories, but balks at killing the Doctor; he’s not evil, just young and desperate. The Brigadier can’t remember his previous involvement with the Doctor at first; he believes this to be the result of a nervous breakdown in 1977, but in reality, it’s the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Put another way, his past and present selves encounter each other, and upon physical contact, they short out the time differential between them; the resultant discharge of energy temporarily affects his memory. He is eventually set right by the Doctor.

I hate to be THAT GUY, Mawdryn, but your brain is showing.

The subplot from which the serial takes is title is that of Mawdryn, a scientist of a race which attempted to steal regeneration technology from the Time Lords. It backfired miserably, leaving him and his fellow scientists constantly dying, but never dead. They, too aren’t evil, only pitiable; they want the Doctor to willingly give up his regeneration energy—all his remaining lives, in the first hint that regeneration energy is even a thing—to allow them to die. When his companions are affected, he agrees to do so; but the Brigadiers’ discharge of temporal energy at the right moment powers Mawdryn’s machine and saves him the trouble. Afterward, Turlough joins the crew.

A simple schoolboy problem gone catastrophically wrong.

I don’t often talk about behind-the scenes situations, but in this story, the production team inteneded for Ian Chesterton to make an appearance. William Russell proved unavailable, unfortunately; however, we got the Brigadier instead, so I am not complaining. But, what a missed opportunity! Ian has long been one of my favorite companions.

I don’t even know what this thing is. It was a weird and dull story.

Part two of the Black Guardian Trilogy, Terminus, takes us to the 35^th century and the station of Terminus, parked at the approximate center of the universe. The TARDIS is sent there via sabotage by Turlough, who is still under the power of the Black Guardian. Terminus is allegedly a hospital facility for the sufferers of Lazar’s Disease, which has plagued the known universe. However, secretly it kills the sufferers. It used to have the ability to travel in time; it inadvertently created the universe when it traveled back too far and a hydrogen engine exploded, triggering the Big Bang. Tragically, that is NOT the story at hand here, and is only tangentially relevant; the Doctor must prevent a second such explosion which would destroy the universe. (The Doctor himself will be responsible for a “reboot” of the Big Bang in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.)

Not sure if they’re reacting to Nyssa’s exit, or to this dry story.

The Guardian again fails to kill the Doctor, and grows more impatient with Turlough. Nyssa opts to leave the TARDIS here; she is first infected with Lazar’s Disease, then cured, and subsequently she chooses to stay behind and help the other sufferers. The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough travel on without her.

A sailing ship. In space. It’s gonna be one of those stories, folks.

Enlightenment wraps up the Black Guardian Trilogy, and sees the reappearance of the White Guardian for the first time since The Ribos Operation. It returns us to the Sol system, but not to Earth; rather it takes place on a collection of anachronistic ships in space, which are piloted by the Eternals. These beings are immortal, incorporeal (except by choice) and above mortal beings, but are not on the level of gods; they require a living being in order to think for themselves. In this, their only televised appearance, they race through the solar system in search of Enlightenment—true knowledge—which is guarded by the Black and White Guardians. One of them—Wrack, captain of the Buccaneer—is in league with the Black Guardian to cheat and win the race; Wrack will gain ultimate power, and the Black Guardian gains a final opportunity to destroy the Doctor. The tables are turned on him when the Doctor causes the death of Wrack, and Turlough uses the gem of enlightenment to destroy the Black Guardian (temporarily—as the White Guardian points out, he must always return).

The Guardians, watching over the cosmic egg cup–I mean, Enlightenment.

To me this serial was the low point of the season, and I didn’t care for it. However, it sees Turlough, now free of the Black Guardian, join the TARDIS crew in truth, though he still has his own secrets. It adequately wraps up the Black Guardian arc, but felt flat as a story.

The Master and Kamelion.

The King’s Demons is the true season finale, as the following story is a special which was released much later. It’s a historical, dealing with the signing of the Magna Carta, which happens offscreen. It sees the return of the Master, who brings with him a new companion, the robot Kamelion. Kamelion has the ability to impersonate anyone; the Master intends to impersonate King John and see him discredited, therefore preventing the signing, which will weaken human history. Okay, it’s kind of a weak plot for the Master. At any rate, Kamelion also has the weakness of being controllable by anyone with sufficient telepathic strength. As a result, at the end, he is freed by the Doctor and joins the crew; but he will only appear once more, spending the rest of his time hiding in the TARDIS to prevent being taken captive again.

En garde!

The Doctor again shows off his swordsmanship, following in the footsteps of the Third and Fourth Doctors; while no other classic Doctor will do so, the Tenth Doctor will revive the tradition in The Christmas Invasion. The fight against the disguised Master was completed without stuntmen; Peter Davison and Anthony Ainley did all the sparring themselves. Again, the Master’s identity is concealed with a double anagram; the character is called “Sir Gilles Estram”, an anagram for Master, while the actor was credited as “James Stoker”, an anagram for “Master’s Joke”.

“Hey, Doctor.” “Yeah?” “You think they’ll figure out my identity this time?” “Not a chance, Estram, not a chance.”

This is an odd choice for season finale. In addition to being a fairly weak (but enjoyable) story for the Master, it’s also a two-parter, the only one of the season. On the other hand, part one is the 600^th episode of the series; and it’s possible it may have been planned with the knowledge that there would be a special before next season.

That’s a wax figure of Tom Baker in the background.

For the twentieth anniversary special, we return to Gallifrey for The Five Doctors. It truly is an anniversary special, being broadcast (at least, in America, though oddly not in the UK) on 11/23/83, twenty years to the day after the show’s premiere. (British viewers would have to wait two days for their broadcast.) It’s also the first Children in Need fundraising special for Doctor Who, though the revived series has greatly expanded this tradition. Though it’s called The Five Doctors, in fact only four appeared in new footage; Tom Baker declined to appear so soon after the end of his tenure, a decision he has since stated he regrets. Fortunately, footage from the unused Shada was present, and reworked to give him a bit of coverage in which he and Romana II were caught in a time eddy, much as the First Doctor was in The Three Doctors. Also, sadly, William Hartnell had since passed away, and therefore his part was played by lookalike Richard Hurndall (who, unfortunately, has also died in the intervening years). A number of companions appear as well: Susan (now visibly older), Sarah Jane, Romana II, Tegan, Turlough, K9 Mark III (never before seen on the show, but seen in the failed pilot for K9 and Company) and the Brigadier, as well as (in illusionary form) Jamie, Zoe, Mike Yates, and Liz Shaw. K9’s appearance sets the stage for his appearance in NuWho’s School Reunion. The Third Doctor and Second Doctor appear to be snatched from near the end of their lives; the Second Doctor is visiting a UNIT reunion and reminiscing with the Brigadier, and the Third Doctor knows Sarah Jane and is somehow aware of the Fourth Doctor despite never having met him. All of the above characters are collected by the Time Scoop and taken to the Death Zone on Gallifrey, a relic of Gallifrey’s bloodthirsty past, which contains the tomb of Time Lord founder Rassilon.

The Master, summoned! (Could not find a clearer picture.  He is strangely absent from most of the pictures I found for this serial.)

The High Council summons the Master to rescue the Doctor, and promises him a new regeneration cycle as a reward. This is the first indication that they can grant such cycles. He takes them quite seriously, but most likely does not receive the regenerations here, although we know he will receive such a cycle in the Time War. It’s also an early indication that the Master’s relationship with the Doctor is deep and complex; he muses to the Council that “a cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.” He is instrumental in helping the Doctor, but in typical Master fashion—that is, through trickery and deception—and he escapes at the end. For once, he’s NOT the villain.

Rassilon! The man, the myth, the legend, the corpse!

The Villain, as it turns out, is Borusa. Nearing the end of his life, he seeks immortality, which it is said that Rassilon discovered. He uses the Doctor’s various lives to clear the way to Rassilon’s Tower and tomb, and there encounters the mind of the fabled Time Lord himself; however, it proves to have all been a trap, when he accepts immortality only to find himself a living relief carved on Rassilon’s sarcophagus. Immortality, it seems, is too dangerous for anyone. The Doctor—in all his forms—quickly declines immortality, and leaves via the time scoop (though an unused ending would have had them all, with their companions, crowding into the TARDIS—I would have liked to see that!). Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor becomes Lord President by default—and nimbly frees himself from the office, going on the run from his people once again. “After all, that’s how it all started.”

Things I enjoyed this season: Snakedance was a pleasure to watch, though it required a lot of attention. (I’m watching these serials in between tasks at work, so sometimes that is a challenge.) Tegan makes a wonderfully haughty villain, given that her usual personality alternates between mousy and whiny. Mwdryn Undead was great as well, and it was wonderful to see the Brigadier again. The dating of the story may have been clumsy, but the execution was great; any story that directly relies on time travel has the potential to be unworkable, but this one worked out well. I didn’t care for the rest of the Black Guardian Trilogy; a dozen times I was thinking “oh come on, the Doctor MUST know what Turlough is doing by now, even Tegan sees it!” The King’s Demons was a lot of fun, and while I’ve complained a bit that it’s not a very worthy plot for the Master, it was also nice to see something on a smaller scale. I liked Kamelion, and think the character deserves more development than he gets; it’s unfortunate that the prop was so difficult to use, limiting his appearances. And The Five Doctors was great all around. I suppose I may be easy to please, but I’ve enjoyed every multi-doctor story I’ve ever encountered, and this was no exception. Of course I wish that Tom Baker had appeared; but I think they covered it well, and not clumsily. The interaction between the various Doctors and their mismatched companions was something I would love to see more of (attention BBC: Please write a thirteen-Doctor story while these people are still alive! Get on it!).

Next season: Deaths everywhere, and the Doctor too! See you there.

All episodes may be viewed on Dailymotion; Links are Below

Arc of Infinity

Snakedance

Mawdryn Undead (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Terminus

Enlightenment

The Kings Demons

The Five Doctors