Seasons 12 through 14 arguably represent the "imperial period" of Classic Doctor Who's popularity, where it delivered certified banger after banger and many of the show's most revered stories were created. The stories were written by some of its best writers and featured the magisterial Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, along with the ultra-popular Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, the franchise's most enduring companion. Producer-showrunner Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes presided over this period of high-quality output, but the BBC was also inundated with complaints about the show becoming too scary for kids and too adult-leaning. Hinchcliffe decided to leave at the end of Season 14 and new showrunner Graham Williams had a mandate to bring back the show's warmth and humour, and maybe reduce the number of stories about, say, cracking the Doctor's skull open to replace his brain with that of a genocidal madman.
Things kick off with Horror of Fang Rock, which feels like it's just a continuation of the preceding era. The Edwardian setting, the focus of the lighthouse crew being stalked by a shapeshifting monster, and the general "classic horror movie" feel all feel like Hinchliffe is still around. The script by veteran writer Terrance Dicks, with Holmes still on board as editor, is responsible for keeping things on track. Managing to get four episodes out of a small lighthouse setting is impressive, and ably achieved by introducing new elements, new characters (via a shipwreck) and new capabilities for the invading alien force as the story proceeds. Louise Jameson also feels like she's settling in better as companion Leela, even if the writers still seem to occasionally struggle with a companion who's first response to danger is to confront it rather than run away and hide. Overall, a winner.
The Invisible Enemy follows that up by being one of the most unhinged stories in Doctor Who's canon. The opening, where the Doctor is possessed by an alien force and engages in a terrifying game of cat and mouse with Leela, is memorably creepy. The Fantastic Voyage stuff with clones of the Doctor and Leela going into the Doctor's body to eliminate the alien force is also good fun. It's the stuff between, with the alien shambolically taking over the medical space station, that is total guff, and the ending with the giant alien germ being guided around by his minions, may be among the funniest, least-threatening scenes in Doctor Who's history. In the middle we have the introduction of robot dog K9, who makes an immediate impression by shooting a guy in the groin (he was bad, so it was okay, I guess) and being sarcastic and unimpressed by the Doctor. Overall, a story that's probably worth watching only to see how absolutely bonkers it can be.
Image of the Fendahl is another location-limited story, with the Doctor and Leela confronting an alien skull that takes a bunch of scientists over in a priory. Having just had two stories where aliens can appear as other people and taken over people, this feels a bit redundant. The execution is fine, Wanda Ventham is a solid guest actor, but the plot is overly drawn out. The whole story is set in a single house and its grounds and writer Chris Boucher struggles to make the limited setting work as well as Horror of Fang Rock did (he immediately leaves the show after this, moving over to be script editor on Blake's 7, where he thrives). There's some creepy direction, but the final episode does descend into lots of running about and the Doctor spouting nonsense until he fully-expectedly wins. It's okay, but it's a bit Doctor Who-by-the-numbers.
The Sun Makers, on the other hand, is gloriously bananas. The script was basically written by Robert Holmes in an absolute fury over his tax bill, and unrestrained Holmes in full anger is a marvel. The Doctor and Leela arrive on Pluto, where the human race has been forcibly resettled to work off a debt to an alien race. People are taxed to live, eat and even die. The Doctor gets roped in when he stops a worker from committing suicide over having to pay his father's death tax (!) and is soon so enraged by the tax-collecting corporation that he happily agrees to set up a full-blown revolution.
Holmes's script isn't quite The Ark in Space or Talons of Weng-Chiang, but it is constantly witty, bristling with an undercurrent of vitriol. The cast is all on good form (even if the Doctor's motivations here are a bit lacking), especially Richard Leech as Gatherer Hade who delivers his insane platitudes to his superiors with aplomb. In fact, if you want a dictionary definition of "aplomb," Leech's performance is it. He is almost upstaged by Henry Woolf as his superior, the Collector, who comes across as Davros-from-Wish but plays it to the hilt, with his utter obsession with profit forecasts and achieving maximum business synergies (or whatever) even at the cost of thousands of lives, being genuinely repulsive. Everyone else struggles to compete, though there is a good turn by Michael Keating, soon to be immortalised as Vila in Blake's 7. Not Holmes's finest or subtlest hour, but this is a very entertaining story.
Underworld has an interesting idea, with the Doctor bumping into a bunch of Minyans, a race whom the Time Lords previously "uplifted" to greatness but inadvertently gave the tools to destroy themselves, leading to the Time Lord policy of noninterference in the affairs of other species. The Minyans therefore see the Doctor as a cursed god, a great idea that is abandoned after about one scene. The Minyans then arrive on a planet that has formed around a spacecraft they are chasing which holds the key to saving their species. There's a lot of running around in tunnels, rebels rebelling under the Doctor's tutelage (for all the Doctor's hatred of violence, he has no problem with other people doing it on his behalf) and a mad computer to cap it all off. There's a lot of interesting ideas here that aren't allowed to flower fully. The story also suffered severe budget limitations to the point where they couldn't afford proper sets, so instead built models and green-screened people into them. There are some scenes where this works really well, and some where it's a bit of a disaster.
Things are capped off by The Invasion of Time, where the Doctor arrives on Gallifrey and promptly goes bonkers, seizing control of the High Council and allowing aliens to invade for no apparent reason. Obviously there's a whole reason for it, but it's not a particularly good one. Then, unexpected Sontarans! The story is an overlong mess, but it's also oddly watchable. We don't go to Gallifrey all that often so it's interesting to see more of the Doctor's homeworld, even if it's all a bit underwhelming (the Time Lords get outfoxed by some very dumb aliens, and there's some Standard Primitives living like two miles from the city who are a problem but then not, as the plot demands). Season 15 was under huge budget problems due to the rampant inflation of the late 1970s (hence the Underworld issues), which leads to the bizarre sight of the deep interior of the TARDIS looking like a British hospital. We also have Leela leaving for no apparent reason, and the huge open-but-missed goal of not recruiting Hilary Ryan's splendid Time Lady engineer Rodan (after an initial bout of wet-blanketitis) as the replacement companion.
Season 15 (***½) is well-intentioned, with some good ideas, but is ultimately a bit of a letdown after the preceding three seasons. Horror of Fang Rock and The Sun Makers are highlights, but The Invisible Enemy is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. Every other story can be summed up as "promising but underwhelming."
The season is available on DVD and limited edition Blu-Ray. The regular edition Blu-Ray should be out later this year. The season is also available on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on various overseas streaming services.
- 15.1 - 15.4: Horror of Fang Rock (****½)
- 15.5 - 15.8: The Invisible Enemy (***)
- 15.9 - 15.12: Image of the Fendahl (***)
- 15.13 - 15.16: The Sun Makers (****)
- 15.17 - 15.18: Underworld (***)
- 15.19 - 15.24: The Invasion of Time (**½)
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