The Leisure Hive Meglos Full Circle State of Decay Warriors' Gate The Keeper of Traken Logopolis

BBC Season Eighteen

• A Review by Mike Morris
• A Friendly Intervention by Matthew Brenner
• Three's a Crowd by Rob Matthews
• Braving new territories... by Joe Ford
• Every Which Way But Loose by Andrew Wixon
• After graduation? by Tim Roll-Pickering
• Better than the Graham Williams era, or is it? by Russell J Harding

A Review by Mike Morris 30/5/00

A note for the uninitiated.

The TV serial Doctor Who ran for 26 years or so. Because of this inordinate length of time, fans tend to divide it into "eras". Examples; The Williams era, The Hinchcliffe era, The Cartmel era, the Pertwee era, Season Eighteen...

Er, what? Season Eighteen? That's not much of an era, is it?

And this is Season Eighteen's major problem. Lots of fans like it. Very few fans hate it, and the ones that do are just pissed off because it took the Williams era away from them (a crass generalisation, but hey...). But no-one really trusts it. It isn't part of an era. It's too odd. It's... well... what do you make of Season Eighteen?

I like it, a lot. In fact, it's part of my "favourite seasons" triad (16 and 26 are the other two, if you're interested). I like it because of the quality of its stories, the intelligent approach to SF, the variation of the stories, the portrayal of the Doctor... I could wax lyrical for a long time, but I think you'll have heard all that before. So I'm going to write a more defensive but (hopefully) more interesting review instead.

Various criticisms that have been made of my beloved season - it transformed Doctor Who from a mainstream show to a niche show, it's too complicated, it's incestuous, it's far too straight-laced after the wonderful anarchy of the Williams era, it shifted the show's era to special effects and set-pieces.

If I may refute, Madam Speaker...

Season Eighteen is not responsible for Doctor Who's decline. Pointing at its viewing figures misses the point. Doctor Who's viewing figures had been sliding all through the Williams era; the massive figures for Season Seventeen were distorted by the ITV strike. If the content of Season Eighteen was responsible, then the viewing figures would have slid as it progressed. In fact, they rallied somewhat after the (shocking) low of Full Circle. The fact is that Doctor Who was being given serious competition by ITV for the first time, and as a result the viewers dropped off a little.

The supposed reason for the slide in viewers was the new, more complex storylines. Er, what? Is State of Decay complicated? Is Meglos complicated? The dialogue may have a few words like "CVE" and "tachyons" dropped in, but the essence of the storylines is still pretty simple. Even Logopolis is quite simple once you probe beneath the talk about entropy - A bunch of monks are chanting, if they stop the universe will fall apart. The only genuinely complex story is Warrior's Gate - but it's so bloody good that I don't really care.

And Season Eighteen is not straight-laced, at least not early on. The Doctor's moody side really only pops up in Warrior's Gate and Logopolis, and in both those stories it's highly appropriate. Full Circle and The Leisure Hive are full of jokes; the scene in State of Decay where the Doctor gets hit by a door is one of the funniest bits of physical comedy in Who.

Oh yeah, and then there's the emphasis on special effects at the expense of plot. Sure, Season Eighteen has gaping holes in the plot. And that had never happened before...? The concentration on set-pieces lead to some of Who's most memorable images; the Marshmen rising from the water in Full Circle, the spinning coin in Warrior's Gate...

There's a tendency, I think, to confuse the actual content of Season Eighteen with Chris Bidmead's vision for Doctor Who. Chris Bidmead may have produced a completely inaccessible series if he'd have been allowed to stay in the helm. But he didn't, and what he left behind was a season based on hugely varied themes. There's the gothic horror of State of Decay, the anarchic silliness of Meglos, the fairy-tale that is The Keeper of Traken, the haunting SF of Warrior's Gate. Give or take a burgundy coat or two, it's hard to believe that these stories all took place in the same season.

Besides, the bottom line is quality. I don't care what my Who is like, whether it's Williams-esque or Cartmel-esque, so long as it's good. And the quality of Season Eighteen is astonishing; the last three stories, in particular, are masterpieces.

Season Eighteen isn't "the return to serious drama" that it's so often characterised as. It's something weird and wonderful; it's varied, and rich, and it's the kind of season that only a show like Doctor Who could come up with. And yes, I'm glad Chris Bidmead didn't stay on, because yes, I think he may well have wrecked our beloved show. But he didn't. And what he left behind is a sequence of stories which haven't been seen in any SF series before or since.

And that can't be bad, can it?

A Friendly Intervention by Matthew Brenner 7/6/00

Mike Morris is a friend of mine, even though I've never met him. I say that because based on his reviews, I feel I know him. Because of his great gift of gab, and because he has so much more energy to write these reviews than I do, I've come to adopt a great many of his viewpoints as my own. But I feel the time has come for this particular friend to attempt an "intervention," if you will. I will attempt to show Mike, by my persuasive arguing skills - and by threat of force if necessary, that Season 18 of Doctor Who is 100 percent Flap-Doodle from beginning to end. It was so Toxic, in fact, that it nearly killed Tom Baker. I recommend that you all go out and read John Nathan-Turner's The Tardis Inside-Out, probably the most mis-titled book (if you can call it a "book") that has ever been published. It has a fascinating segment in it about an illness suffered by Tom Baker during the recording of Season 18, which peaked during the filming of the story State of Decay. He even looks emaciated in certain scenes of that story, having shed two stone, which is a lot of weight indeed (my British friends will know how much; 18 pounds? 24 pounds? A lot.). His naturally curly hair, it was reported by Turner, had gone straight as a result of this mystery illness which Baker had contracted and had to be permed (the first time the make-up department ever had to intervene to achieve the famous "Baker" look). Finally Tom took himself to a doctor, a real doctor. When his worst fears were overcome - that he was in fact not dying from a hideous disease - he made a rather speedy recovery. Looking back now, with the benefit of hindsight and the Doctor Who Ratings Guide to keep us warm on cold winter nights and with only a fifth-generation copy of Meglos in the house, it is plain to see what the sickness is and always was: the Doctor did die during that season folks, I'm sad to say. It happened sometime between the stories The Leisure Hive and Logopolis. I maintain that it happened slowly, bit by bit, by accretion - during all of these stories. And while Tom Baker fought it valiantly through the first half of the filming of the season, he resigned himself to fate and history at some key point part way through. And that's when he quit the show. He gained his weight back, his hair re-curled itself. And that was that. What killed the fourth Doctor was the slow, mind-numbing attrition of that season's stories. As has been said elsewhere, most prophetically by those professional Nathan-Turner Bashers "The Two In The Tardis": "All of the stories [of Season 18] ring incredibly hollow." Far be it from me to attempt to review them here. It's been done and a lot better - certainly more earnestly - by people like Mike Morris. But whereas Morris sees "classic" as the sum total of the parts of Season 18, I see something far more dark and ominous. It was the first time in Doctor Who when style triumphed over substance.

Whatever you believe you saw happen in Season 18 - and indeed, we can be agreed that something did happen - it represents a far more seismic event than an "era" of the show. It is the defining moment in the later years of Who. It set the tone and caliber of all the remaining years. And responsibility for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the producer: John Nathan-Turner. 'im again!

First: a quick digression. Fans are instinctively smart, especially Doctor Who fans. Because of the wide breadth of the show's history and because it is all...somehow....connected, we tend not to take ourselves as seriously as do Star Trek or Star Wars fans; and despite what this review may seem, we are extremely tolerant of differences of opinion, even welcoming. It's as if the show has gotten into us somehow, and we're all part of the "revolving Tardis crew". We realize, as Colin Baker once said, that "[everyone] could be a Doctor...some would be 2-minute Doctors; and some would be 7-year Doctors like Tom's." We know that, like the Good Doctor, it's a waste of energy to be too opinionated about anything; to like or hate something inordinately is rather a sign of weakness. And so we mistrust Season 18. That's the key, right there. And it's what I hinge the rest of my arguing on, and indeed, this entire "intervention."

The quality of the stories in Season 18 is just not there. Take the E-Space Trilogy: State of Decay describes the state that script was in when they took it from the shelf marked "Old Terrence Dicks scripts" and dusted it off. Full Circle can be summarized with far less tedium in one paragraph; it became an hour and a half-long show. In Warrior's Gate Costume and Makeup become shorthand for characterization. And don't forget it was Season 18 that put those dreadful Question Marks on the lapels of the Doctor's shirt. And so the fans mistrust Season 18 - give them credit! The Doctor went from being a cooly anonymous and adventurous wanderer to the doorprize-winner at the Annual Costume Ball, all in one season.

I sense that my friend Mike is amending with one hand what he writes with another when he says: "Sure, Season Eighteen has gaping holes in the plot. And that had never happened before...?" Rarely. And at the best of times I would answer no, it didn't, for periods that were as refreshingly long in Television history as they were real. From The War Games to Terror of the Autons (comprising 39 episodes); from The Ark In Space to Genesis of the Daleks (12 episodes); and from The Deadly Assassin to Horror of Fang Rock (22 episodes), to cite just a few: these periods were almost flawlessly executed. Whatever deficiencies they had plot holes were not one of them. But whereas a great Who story is richly detailed in plot and characters, making great fodder for fans of all stripes and critical eloquence, it takes a genius level I.Q. to see depth in Season 18. And that's where the intervention comes in. Mike, you must believe me when I say I act out of the same selfless core that true friendship springs from. For I believe in my heart that you are only projecting your own brilliance onto the prat and baubles and poppycock that is Season 18. What you call "weird and wonderful...varied, and rich" is your own review. I understand that this season is one of the three pillars of your triumverate - 16, 18, 26. But it is time to kick out the offending pillar and replace it with another - any one! One like Season 20, which, though it still falls under Nathan-Turner's reign, still represents for him the best confluence of talent at one time and in one season.

So, I do not want to demean your effort. In fact I'll say it again: your reviews are on-the-mark 89% of the time, and entertaining almost twice as much. And where my favorite 3 seasons would be 7, 14, and 16, I'm prepared to compromise with you on one of them. But please, let it not be Season 18.

Three's a Crowd by Rob Matthews 2/7/00

Whereas Mike Morris reviewed this as a stand-alone season, Matthew Brenner sees it more as a link in a chain, as the beginning of the end. I grew up on DW from season 18 onwards. One of my earliest memories is the image of the Marshmen emerging from the swamp in Full Circle. Another is that of the Melkur/Tardis. One more is the Master 'absorbing' Tremas. Tardises landing inside each other. And finally, the saga of the Watcher. Bearing in mind that I must only have been two years old when the season was broadcast, it surely says something about the potency of these images that they've stuck with me ever since.

Naturally, I was unable to grasp most of the ideas on display at that time, but the basic emphasis of this season continued right through the Davison and Colin Baker years, by which time I was on my way to understanding them a little better.

And I'd like to agree with Mike. Season eighteen is one of the show's best. Or should I say, most interesting. I mean, another of my favourites is season 22. But that's not because it's consistently good; it's because the giddy mix of brilliance and rubbish intrigues me. Season eighteen took Doctor Who right back to its original brief. An entertaining family show that was educational for children. This is what Who was meant to be before it was derailed by Daleks. Of course, it had evolved into other things over the years: fantasy, schlock, horror, comedy, pantomime; but at heart it was meant to educate.

And that's what this season did. It presented a mathematical view of the universe, grappling with concepts like entropy and evolution, and introducing wonderful phrases like Charged Vacuum Emboitment to the vocabularies of children. As I say, I didn't understand a word when I was two, but the legacy lasted throughout most of JNT's tenure -- The Two Doctors was my introduction to genetics, to words like Nuclei and Symbiosis; the Valeyard's description of his accelerator gizmo in The Ultimate Foe made me aware of subatomic particles; from Revelation of the Daleks I learned that the human body is 'an excellent source of concentrated protein'. You might think it would scare a kid to know that his body can be used as food, but education is education.

Maybe that's what people have a problem with where season 18 is concerned. The 'magic' is taken from the show and replaced by reductionism, determinism. The universe is mathematics. So what are we humans? An equation? A small sum? I suspect that kids aren't as scared of these ideas as adults are, because their minds are open and they have less awareness of death. Most adults are probably more akin to the procrastinating Alzarians, locked deep in denial and unwilling to accept things that don't sit well with their worldview. The trouble is, if you take quasi-religion and mysticism from the show, there's a great risk of it feeling hollow. A certain sterility set in during the ensuing Davison years. Hence, about ten years down the line, things had turned around again and the Doctor faced Fenric -- a villain who was basically Satan. That would never have happened in season 18. But the most interesting thing about Doctor Who is its capacity for change, and that's why season 18 is so striking.

There's a mistake in season 19's Earthshock that you probably know about. The freighter travels back in time but is still 'locked on to the same spatial co-ordinates' and so is still heading for Earth. We like to point out that Earth would not have been in the same spatial position 65 million years ago and ha ha! They've made a mistake. But I wonder if I'd still have spotted that mistake had I not grown up on post-season 18 Doctor Who.

Oh, I should address the introduction of the question marks. They suck.

Braving new territories... by Joe Ford 24/4/02

Season Eighteen burst onto the screens in 1980, the first fully produced season by the controversial JNT. Graham Williams was chastised for ruining Doctor Who 22 years ago and people leapt on the more serious tone JNT and Chris Bidmead were going for but since then the Williams era has had a re-surge of popularity so just how well does season 18 fare in 2002….

The Leisure Hive.
Very good. Backing onto The Horns of Nimon I cannot think of two Who stories that are so utterly different in every way. The Leisure Hive is sophisticated, intelligent, superbly acted and beautifully put together by a director with aspirations for movie direction. Just listen to the music, rather than just punctuating the action it actually tells the story in places and quite stunningly I must add. If I had a serious complaint is that it piles on the technobabble a little too much leaving thicko Joe a little none the wiser during the more scientific of scenes. Probably the ultimate effects show with glorious exterior shots of The Hive with swirling radioactive dust. Tom Baker is suitably subdued as the older Doctor (and I LOVE that costume!) and Lalla Ward is as sumptuous as ever. All in all a very strong, clever tale: 9/10
Top moment: Don't look in the cupboard Stimpson! Oops too late…now you're marked.
Top dialogue: "His scarf killed Stimpson!" "Arrest the scarf then!"

Meglos.
Not popular this one and yet I quite enjoy it if only for the return of Jaqueline Hill (our very own Barbara!) to the show. This is another one of my 'guilty indulgence' shows, one that I will only watch alone because of the stoopid blond haircuts, the crappy giant cactus, the terrible desert CSO, the constant abuse of K.9. (haha!), etc. I love Broderdec and his chums, what a daft bunch! The time loop is actually handled fairly well as is the double Doctor which Tom Baker pulls off with his usual aplomb. And can you think of anything more creepy than cactus man….eugh! It's far from perfect bit there is enough to keep you interested (and laughing): 6/10
Top moment: The Doctor coming in after Meglos. "This is your second visit" "I say you've got a marvellous memory!"…very funny.
Top dialogue: "I like his coat!"

Full Circle.
Excellent. The first episode alone is such a triumph, well paced, looks gorgeous, full of incident and intruige. Matthew Waterhouse makes his debut as Adric and for the most part he's quite acceptable (he always seems to try harder next to Tom Baker) although Varsh would have made a much better companion. A shame. The story is full of memorable images…the Marshmen rising from the waters, the TARDIS vanishing, the Marshman tearing up the laboratory, Romana's infection…Peter Grimwade's direction is nothing short of perfect with only the Marsh Spiders ruining the glossy, polished look of the show. The location work is fab especially Adric's breathless chase through the woodland and Decider Draiths terrifying demise. Nice twists too. And a heartwarming yet thrilling ending. Very, very good: 9.5/10
Top moment: Mist swirling, K.9. bleeping, sun shining and suddenly nasty aliens start to rise in slow motion out of the lake….
Top dialogue: "Nobody knows how to pilot this ship." and Tom Baker subsequent reaction.

State of Decay.
Worth watching for Tom Baker's last great OTT performance. He and Lalla Ward are so perfect together in this story they make it an underated gem. It's a pleasant tip back to the gothic stories of the Hinchcliffe era full of thicko yokels, blood sucking vampires, gloomy woods, flocks of bats, giant vampires…it could have been really SCARY but Terrance Dicks adds a lot of comedy and it is pulled of so well by the actors the end result is vastly entertaining. Despite some terrible fight scenes, some beards that make my goatie look GOOD and that sky ray lollipop rocket at the end I give this a hearty reccomendation, it's the end of an era chaps and things would never be the same again. Oh and aren't the Three Who Rule just great, such sensual villains (mind all that subtext with Camilla, Aukon and Adric is just plain disturbing!): 9/10
Top moment: "What is it? WHAT IS IT?" "You jumped on my toe!"…I just love these two!
Top dialogue: "Why am I still afraid?" Not often we see villains with this depth, cherish them.

Warriors' Gate.
This is a clever mystery wrapped up in a solid production. There are loads of 'huh?' moments and loads of 'WOW!' moments, loads of laughs and some seriously f**ked up death scenes. Lalla Ward should have got a larger share of the action considering it's her last story but her final scene is great and very true to character. The timelines and the gateway are all brought to screen inventively and some of the effects (the end of episode three, Biroc entering the TARDIS) are excellent. It commits a real sin…it just doesn't make any bloody sense! After four of five viewings I have a rough grasp on things but it still leaves me baffled. And therefore, irritated: 8/10
Top moment: Romana's smug back chat to the useless crew outside the TARDIS.
Top dialogue: "There's a hole in the hull big enough to step through. In fact, I just did!"

The Keeper of Traken.
Do you know as bizarre as this sounds but this reminds me affectionately of The Aztecs, one of my favourites. An all studio production, a very alien culture, political wranglings, an evil force spreading throughout the peace…okay so I'm mad but this is still a wonderful story. The dialogue is mannered but more excellent for it and the sets are lovely, I especially love The Grove with the moon in the background. 'Melkur' makes a decent bad guy with a marvellously silky voice and the surprise ending with The Master is a promise of great things to come. I still think Tremas (and later The Portreeve, both non-Master roles) are Anthony Ainleys strongest moments in the show. And it introduces Nyssa, shooting loads of people which I just find ace: 9/10
Top moment: The opening TARDIS scenes show how well Doc 4 and Adric work. Who would have guessed?
Top dialogue: "What can't be cured must be endured" "That's the silliest thing you've ever said!" "Oh don't listen to me, I never do."

Logopolis.
Frustrating because there is so much that is good about Logopolis and yet ultimately it's a little flat. Tegan gets a great entrance and has one of the most natural reactions to walking into the TARDIS ever, sheer terror. Tom Baker is perfect is the broody Doctor and the short clips with The Watcher make me shudder each time. The location work is again excellent especially the amusing chase scenes in episode four (with cool seventies chase music!). However after a good couple of epsiodes, epsiodes three and four are just monotonous with all this universe destroying, horribly overblown dialogue, poor sets and silly bits ("You revolting man!" Nyssa's strangulation bracelet!) and Ainley just has none of Delagado's subtlety when it comes to grandiose villany so you're left wondering how such a prat could scheme such a brilliant plan. The regeneration is okay though and does any agree with me that Aunty Vanessa is just great? Her and Tom Baker rattling around the Universe, now that I would PAY to see!: 7/10
Top moment: The Watcher melting into Tom Baker at the end…a great twist ending.
Top Dialogue: "Your aunt! Woman in the hat, red sports car?" "Have you seen her?" "Well a little of her."

Nothing lower than 6/10 and four 9/10's and above…season eighteen is very good indeed. JNT returned a little class back into Doctor Who by upping the budget, concentrating on set pieces and making the show LOOK good again. This is clearly the most stylish and effects-laden season we were afforded. Chris Bidmead brought science and tension back into the show…he has said that he re-wrote practically every story and it shows. There is a consistent quality in both plot and dialogue and some marvellous characters crop up this year. What a shame he was to leave after Castrovalva, I think a Bidmead scripted Davison season would have been wonderful. It's quite an emotional year all round we've regulars leaving and a new ensemble welcomed in (unfortunetely! Oh, except Nyssa, of course!) and I would say it is the fifth strongest season the show produced (after season five, season seven, season fourteen and season twenty six in no particular order). It shows you just how much JNT was actually capable of.

Every Which Way But Loose by Andrew Wixon 13/5/02

Any new DW producer's first season is interesting, as it usually takes a few stories for the new incumbent's vision for the series to take shape. This was never more true than in the case of the first two Tom Baker producers - season 12 kicks off with a Pertwee story in all but lead actor, but gradually ups the suspense, horror and drama quotients (well, Revenge of the Cybermen excepted) until Terror of the Zygons - which while Pertweeish on paper is decidedly not so on the screen. The same with Graham William's debut season - near the start are two gothic horror-ish thrillers but as things go on a much broader, space-operatic tone appears.

And as for season 18 - well, season 18 isn't quite the same thing. If there is a unifying vision behind the seven stories that comprise it, it's not immediately apparent - indeed, it almost seems like an attempt to make the seven most dramatically and stylistically diverse stories possible.

The Leisure Hive is a fairly routine Williams-style runaround, made utterly unrecognisable by extraordinarily flamboyant direction - to the point where the narrative suffers. Meglos is an intentionally old-fashioned story about a megalomaniac with a doomsday weapon (perhaps owing a little to Douglas Adams' Hitch-hiker stories). Full Circle kicks off a genuine story arc, of all things, and is one of the tiny number of stories not to have an actual villain. State of Decay, while bone-crackingly heavy-handed and unsubtle, is a solid traditional exercise in pastiche and atmosphere (mainly due to the age of the original script). Warrior's Gate is the most experimental and intentionally cryptic story of the lot, but succeeds brilliantly (probably) - it's genuine end-of-an-era stuff, too, with the departure of Romana and K9. The Keeper of Traken, to begin with at least, is a lyric fairytale (though it too has a huge role to play in the arc of the season). Logopolis, as well as being massively important in terms of the series history, also stands out as a rare classic not from the pulp SF/action-adventure tradition.

So if John Nathan-Turner had any vision at all in mind, it seems to be one of deliberately stretching the format of the series in every possible direction. Some of his story selections were, of course, forced on him by a lack of time and shortage of any other scripts, but by no means all of them. Rather than a specific vision, he seems more concerned with making individual stories to fit specific criteria: the traditional story, the monster story, the experimental story, and so on.

But there are quite a few threads binding the season together, and most of these come from Christopher Bidmead's script-editing. Most obviously there is the emphasis on science - both thematically and specifically - although it has to be said that much of the time the science in the stories is frankly rather suspect, from the magic tachyon generator of the Argolins to the amazing evolving Marshmen. Much more often, the science in the stories is there simply thematically, ascribed talismanic abilities to repel the forces of evil and darkness (in Meglos and State of Decay) or even save the universe through the power of pure maths (Logopolis). The Doctor repeats that he's a scientist so often it's almost like a mantra. The one exception to this fetishisation of science and its practitioners is in Full Circle, where the scientist Dexeter, while not actually evil, is certainly not depicted as a role-model.

The other main thread in the season is also thematic and revolves around (of course) entropy and the related concepts of closed, cyclic systems. Throughout the season people, spaceships, societies and universes both large and small get trapped in loops, face encroaching decline and fall, find themselves dragged back into the dark ages through lack of knowledge, and so on. From Meglos to - arguably - Warrior's Gate, the Doctor encounters four consecutive societies stuck in a rut of some kind, and suffering because of it. Both this thread and the scientific angle are epitomised brilliantly by Bidmead's own Logopolis. On this evidence he invented the thematic story arc as we know it (season 16 comprises six linked stories, but the linking is purely narrative, rather than thematic) and deserves major reassessment as both writer and script-editor.

But beyond this there's evidence of an attempt to bring the series onto a more realistic footing, and this we can probably put down to JNT. The stories are no longer a set of arch, surreal fantasies barely referring to one another (there are more gratuitous continuity references in the first ten minutes of Full Circle than the whole of Season 17), there's a concerted effort to present the Doctor as an inhabitant of a naturalistic, coherent world. Hence the beefed-up continuity and the way every story bar The Leisure Hive seems to refer back to its predecessor in some way.

This desire to put the series on a more down-to-earth footing is especially noticable in the treatment of the companions JNT inherited - both Romana and K9 are dispensed with (and even before his departure, K9 plays a major role in less than half the episodes, being put out of action early in Leisure Hive, losing his head midway through Full Circle and being confined to the TARDIS for most of State of Decay) and replaced by much more 'realistic', 'identifiable' characters - the '' marks are obligatory given that Adric was someone's idea of a realistic and identifiable character! While he has his moments late on in the season, for much of it he's - ironically - far less likeable than either of the pair he's displacing. It's hard to think of a set of regulars less well suited to become surrogate parents than Tom and Lalla (that's mildly ironic too, of course) and Adric seems like an intruder until after Warrior's Gate, breaking up the Williams-era bohemian idyll.

By the closing moments of Logopolis every trace of the Williams era has been utterly obliterated. It's a quietly stunning feat of reinvention - at no other time, except perhaps in season 24, has the entire style, emphasis, appearance and cast of the series been so thoroughly reimagined. Season 18 is the story of that reimagining, and while it has few clues in it to the direction season 19 would ultimately take, it remains a diverse, fascinating set of stories.

After graduation? by Tim Roll-Pickering 29/8/03

The season opens with a long panning shot of Brighton Beach. It's a dreary place, no-one's about and there's no party anymore. Something has clearly changed...

Tom Baker's Doctor has often been described as being akin to a wild student drop-out. Is it any coincidence that after he visits a university in Shada (even though the story was never finished) he then becomes more restrained, ordered and older. Has he now "graduated"?

It's hard to deny the importance of Season 18 in the series' history. The change is as big as that of Season 7 and represents a bold new direction for the series. In terms of overall style the season is as consistent as perhaps only Season 7 is. It comes as little surprise that the main failures are The Leisure Hive and Meglos, both of which suffer from carrying over elements of the previous era. The former story especially suffers from this, trying heavily to be a Season 17 style comedy at the same time as a bold new step forward and the clash destroys it whilst the latter is a terrible run around populated by uninspiring characters. However the subsequent stories really pick up, showing many strong ideas, successfully disguising their similarities (look at Full Circle and State of Decay - both have effectively the same environment-situation) and offering diversity from horror to court politics to extreme science and more.

Season 18 is pretty quick to get rid of hanging over elements. K9 is blown up in the first few minutes and is frequently incapacitated in subsequent stories before finally being disposed of, whilst Romana is characterised less as a female Doctor but instead more as a strong intelligent companion before she too is allowed to depart (admitedly to be a female Doctor but one with a mission!). The Doctor too has shed for the most part his wilder excesses - like many graduates stepping out into the big wide world he realises that it's no longer an all-out fun place anymore, even if the downbeat grim phase of the series is a few years off. The student days are clearly over. Note also that instead of the jumble of clothes grabbed out of a wardrope at random he now wears clothes that are clearly meant to be worn together. Again there have been advances and the old manic days are gone.

At the time Season 18 was lauded as a veritable triumph, with Meglos panned for much the same reasons as it continues to be so to this day, whilst The Leisure Hive itself did not garner much popularity in the first DWM Season Survey, although few people commented to say why. With the wider public it's harder to say. The middle five Tom Baker seasons all went out as part of what many consider to be the greatest ever evening line-up of programmes the BBC has ever produced - Saturday evenings in the mid to late 1970s when the BBC had a strong line-up of drama, light entertainment and sport all complementing one anohter, up against a patchwork of different oppositions in the different ITV regions. By contrast Season 18 went out in an earlier timeslot, with that evening schedule in tatters after ITV stole or copied vital parts, and up against a unified and serious competition for the first time. The impact of Michael Grade (then an ITV executive largely responsible for this new fierce competiton) was felt on the programme long before the "Cancellation Crisis". Losing that Saturday evening line-up protection was probably the greatest blow struck to the series, leaving it exposed to transient audiences and having little chance to feed off shows around it and generate loyalties to them all.

When viewing the entire series in order from a modern perspective, it is hard to avoid the feeling that the new direction brought by Christopher H. Bidmead and John Nathan-Turner was very much needed, for all the reappraisals of the Williams years that have gone on in the last decade or so. The Docor may be more weary but the series is full of life.

It is often suggested that the entire season is structured to replace the entire TARDIS crew and set things up for the Davison Doctor and companions. But it's hard to detect where precisely this is. As late as The Keeper of Traken Tom Baker's Doctor shows promise and there are signs that there is still life in him and that he could last at least another season, whilst Adric is a character who works quite well with this Doctor and makes a change from the norm. It is only really with Logopolis, establishing both Tegan and Nyssa as companions whilst bringing the Master back again and making clear he will be returning once more that the foundations for the Davison era really get laid down.

Adric is very much a product of this season and he makes for a complete contrast to most companions before him. Unlike many he does not foolishly risk his life in any situation - like many people would act he does think of his own skin and feel it is not worth risking his life to save others from what looks like a hopeless situation. There's a sense of bitterness about his brother's death which was never really explored properly onscreen, but is alluded to and is reminiscent of how many people keep things bottled up. The character has much potential that is sadly underused in the following season but even here there are problems with other characters taking up more screen time.

The other major area in which the season seems more unified are the links between each story. Every single one appears to follow on immediately after its predecessor, give or take a little time to change clothes. Off the top of my head I'm not aware of any Missing/Past Doctor Adventures actually set during this season, a sign perhaps of how tightly integrated it is. There are many other continuity references which don't detract if you don't know what they refer to and whilst some may be confused (such as "Totter's Yard" in Logopolis), they're also a sign of how a long distance of time can confuse the memory. This helps to make the whole thing feel like a series that has been put together with a strong degree of care, determined to offer something worthwhile.

There's a lot of science used, even if some of it may be potentially bogus, but the aim is clear to ensure that magic-like solutions are avoided and the reality of science is shown, even if the details may not always be right. Logopolis may be easy to simplify to a bunch of wizards who have to chant lest the universe falls apart but it is presented clearly in a scientific context and even the most non-scientists amongst the audience can understand there are laws and rules behind this.

The most common theme of the show is decay. Whether it's the Argolans fighting the potential for the oblivion of their species, the Alzarians in their star liner, the "State of Decay" of the vampire planet, the natural fate of the Melkurs, entropy or so much more, the recurring message is clear that nothing lasts for ever and that what tries to stay the same ultimately fails. Instead the way to survive is to be renewed. It is here that the real seeds of preparation for the ending of an era come, although equally it can be seen as a preparation for the climax of the season.

Destroying a large chunk of the universe and having the Doctor save the rest at the cost of his own life seems almost over the top and more at home in earlier seasons. Yet here it is done so in such a way as to make the whole thing seem natural. As the Doctor fights his way to reach a cable upon which the fate of the universe rests, there's a real sense that this is the final desperate act. The Doctor may have been shown as being much wearier and subdued, but when evil does threaten he never disappoints but instead, to coin a phrase, he does what he always does - improvise. He may have been warned about an impending doom, although what precisely was discussed between him and the Watcher we will never know, but he does not run away from it, instead facing his responsibilities head on. That is the true sign of a hero.

It's difficult to imagine a second season working on exactly the same lines as this one. The series has always been about flexibility, renewal and change and so to try to repeat the success of this formula would have been foolish. This helps the season nonetheless. As a one-off it thus stands as a unique part of the series. It comes as little surprise that many fans consider this to have been one of the best seasons overall, rather than many of those that contain stories which routinely top opinion surveys. Although the individual stories may have their own faults, as an overall season this is definitely something spectacular. 8/10

Better than the Graham Williams era, or is it? by Russell J Harding 27/4/08

On the 12th December 1980, The Horns of Nimon Part 4 rolled onto our television screens. This was part of Season 17, which was produced by the arguably struggling Graham Williams, who had been producer since 1977, taking over from Philip Hinchecliffe, one of the show's best producers. Williams' Horns of Nimon was to be the last season of Doctor Who as we knew it; a new producer was on the horizon, John Nathan-Turner.

At the end of Part 4 of The Horns of Nimon, most people thought Season 18 would be similar to many of the seasons before. In an interview just before Season 18, an interviewerasked John Nathan-Turner (or JNT) what would happen to Doctor Who, he replied "I'm tempted to say who knows." Who did indeed.

Finally, The Leisure Hive Part 1 began on August 30th 1980. Rather than the 1970 variant of the traditional Ron Grainer theme, we got the Peter Howell variation of the theme, which I personally hate with a capitol H. Not only did JNT just change the opening music, he redesigned the opening titles and scraped the famous "Diamond" logo, which had been used since Jon Pertwee's last season. Not only that, he replaced the opening titles with a disgusting "starfield" sequence and the diamond Logo fell to a 3D tube logo which was no better than the boring Patrick Troughton logo making its appearance in 1967.

Well, let's forget about the title changes and move on to The Leisure Hive. In this story, we find the 4th Doctor's famous multicoloured scarf has been abandoned in favour of a redish and purple one. (JNT originally ordered no scarf to be given to the Doctor from this season onwards, but the designer luckily gave Number 4 a new one anyway.) The new scarf and outfit that Baker wears does not suit him and would come second in a fashion show any day (out of 2 contestants).

Anyway, let's now focus on quality of stories. The Leisure Hive is quite good and it does have a meaning behind it which is not very common to find, which is the tourist decline in Britain in the 70's. Meglos... How many times have we had stories where the villian needs the Doctor or one of his companions for an evil plan to work? Quite a few times I believe. Anyway, this story is not the best ever broadcasted, but not without its charms.

Soon, we arrive at Full Circle. This was written by a nineteen year old and the ratings of this story were just bad. But why? It does not have the instant changes of The Leisure Hive, as we have got used to them; we have a new companion, Adric; possibly, like the two stories before, it is set on an outer planet by wich time most people have switched off.

When we come to State of Decay again, like the next one and the one after that, it's set on an outer alien world. Involving three lords who are servants of the Great Vampires, this is just taking content out of a horror film and placing it into Doctor Who. Why...?

By this time I am too bored thinking about Season 18 to think about the next two storys, so we arrive at Logopolis. This story is only liked because it is Tom Baker's last. But if we finished it for examples sake - like the Doctor survives falling from the giant antenna and manages to defeat the Master - would it really be such a rememberable classic? I think not, even though it is really too depressing for Tom Baker's last story; his forerunner, Pertwee, got a far better final story in Planet of the Spiders.

My conclusion for Season 18 is that it is the beginning of the end for Doctor Who. Too many things where changed at once: Tom Baker's scarf, Tom Baker's outfit, the series' opening music and closing, the title sequence designs, the Diamond Logo, K9, Romana and, finially, the lapels and the Question Marks!!! What a stupid idea it was to put such ridiculous things on such a great actor's costume. Whatever the idea of them was and why all the changes that were made in Season 18 we will never know, nor what good they did to the show.