The Doctor and his new companion Romana, a fellow Time Lord, are summoned to a meeting with the powerful White Guardian and is given a tremendous task: to track down the six missing pieces to the Key to Time, one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. Their quest will take them across all of time and space, but also into a confrontation with the sinister Black Guardian.
Season 15 of
Doctor Who was a bit of a mixed bag, as new showrunner Graham Williams struggled to meet the BBC's mandate to remove the horror from the show that had attracted significant complaints without completely gutting the show of its tension as well. The result was probably the most variable season of the show since the black and white era, if not ever.
For Season 16 (airing from 1978 to 1979), Williams decided to take a different tact by giving the season a much more serialised arc than normal. Whilst Seasons
8 and
12 had explored loose story arcs, the first about the Master and the second about the team being separated from the TARDIS and having to explore time and space by other means, Season 16 was going to have a more focused arc and even its own special subtitle:
The Key to Time. In the event the arc ends up being a bit of a nothingburger. Aside from a bit at the start and end of each story (where some artifact, usually disconnected from the rest of the story, ends up being the Key) the arc might as well not exist, with only the end of the final story really dwelling on the Key and its powers.
The season kicks off with The Ribos Operation, by arguably the show's greatest writer, Robert Holmes. Holmes is no longer script editor, but it's clear new script editor Anthony Read knows better than to mess with a winning formula. We once again get some top-notch worldbuilding, very fine dialogue and the usual assortment of much-better-than-normal guest characters. The setting, a medieval ice planet where the people are unaware of the existence of space travel but the planet's location and resources mean a lot of aliens are undercover there at any one time, is ingenious and the plotting is pretty good, though even Holmes struggles with the "Episode 3 is mostly spent wandering around catacombs" problem, here enhanced by the "the Doctor calls in K9 and wins instantly" syndrome. Mary Tamm makes a positive first impression as new companion Romana, and it's entertaining to see the Doctor having a companion who is as smart as he is and can pilot the TARDIS as well (if not better), but is inexperienced.
The second story, The Pirate Planet, feels like it should be more momentous, as it's the first Doctor Who contribution by legendary British comic SF writer Douglas Adams. Adams had already written his famed radio serial The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy when he started work on Who and some of that humour can be found here. Adams is also clearly not one to let a good idea just be used once, as some elements of the Hitch-Hiker's series show up here with only slight modifications. The Pirate Planet isn't quite on the Hitch-Hiker's level, possibly as Williams' directive for this season was "less humour" after the previous season's Invasion of Time attracted massive complaints for being too silly. The story bounces along quite nicely and there's some good performances, but Bruce Purchase's over-the-top performance as the Pirate Captain is divisive (even if a late plot twist turns him into a much more interesting character than his earlier bombast suggests).
The third story, The Stones of Blood, is the only story this season to take place on Earth. With its invoking of standing stones and druidic ceremonies, the story recalls The Dæmons but lacks that story's warmth and banter (though it also treats its main companion much better). It's still a solid script, even if Beatrix Lehmann as Professor Rumford not only steals every scene she's in from Tom Baker (to the point where even he seems impressed) but his lunch money along with it. The story does an odd thing of completely shifting setting and tone in its final episode which a lot of people seem to hate, but I found quite intriguing, with the alien Megara (who feel like they've just teleported in from an episode of Futurama) proving to be quite amusing.
The fourth tale, The Androids of Tara, takes up to a weird alien planet where humans work alongside androids in a feudal society with kings and ceremonies, but also electric weapons. The story never really explains this oddness, and is rather stronger for it, with lots of political intrigue, scheming, insinuating and sword fights. Aside from the obvious inspiration of The Prisoner of Zenda, the story also benefits from its small stakes (the fate of the universe/galaxy/planet is not hanging in the balance) and the amusing inversion of finding the next part of the Key to Time immediately but the rest of the story is basically how the Doctor and Romana can extricate themselves from the chaos. It's also the strongest showcase for Mary Tamm, who has multiple parts to play and does so marvellously.
The penultimate part of the saga, The Power of Kroll, is the weakest, though still entertaining. The Doctor and Romana arrive on the third moon of Delta Magna where they run into a conflict between the owners of a methane refinery and the indigenous population. Complicating matters is the apparent return of the natives' god, a mile-wide squid called Kroll. Cue lots of running around as the Doctor has to mediate between the two sides, manage a gun-running rogue agent, find the next part of the Key to Time and avoid being killed by the gargantuan megasquid. As a Robert Holmes joint, the script is better than the story and premise deserves, with again some nice worldbuilding and some good dialogue, but Holmes was held back by the directive to include a really massive monster. The story also has a better guest cast than it deserves, especially Philip Madoc (from The War Games and The Brain of Morbius) and John Abineri (whose performance is compromised by the green paint he has to wear). The real star of the episode is the expansive location filming along the River Alde reed beds in Suffolk, which is actually quite successful in depicting a vast area of rivers and swamps on an alien planet, along with a surprisingly decent rubber squid monster (even if it gets a bit over-used) and even some very early attempts at computer graphics. It's just a little bit too Doctor Who-by-the-numbers, especially for Holmes (who considered it his weakest script, possibly because he'd deleted all memory of The Space Pirates from his mind).
The final story of the season is The Armageddon Factor, in which the Doctor and Romana blunder into a nuclear war between the planets Atrios and Zeos. Their quest for the final part of the Key to Time is also complicated by "the Shadow" ("the Shadow? THE SHADOW!"), a servant of the Black Guardian who is also on the trail of the Key. A potentially strong story is weakened by its six-episode length, which the story can't quite fill. However, Doctor Who fans rejoice! This the last six-parter to air in Doctor Who's history (kind of *), which will improve a lot of future episodes' pacing.
The guest cast is also splendid, with John Woodvine suitably authoritative as the Marshal and Lalla Ward making for a very charming Princess Astra, whilst cockney wide-boy Time Lord Drax (Barry Jackson) is extremely random but also entertaining. The story suffers a lot from "K9 solves all obstacles instantly" syndrome and from an ending that so abrupt you wonder if the writers' typewriter spontaneously exploded. The twenty-six episodes of buildup to the completion of the Key to Time and the final confrontation between the Doctor and Black Guardian ends up in the biggest damp squib (not damp squid, that was the previous episode) in the show's history.
Still, despite suffering from a lot of problems, like bogging down in running around caves in its latter part, the story is entertaining enough. The story feels more Robert Holmes than almost any other story not written by Holmes himself (and is mildly better than The Power of Kroll). What is interesting is that the story doesn't really betray the behind-the-scenes turmoil which was going on: Williams and Tom Baker were having an almighty barney, Baker actually quit at one point but changed his mind, and Mary Tamm decided to leave despite Graham Williams having no viable plan to replace her (again, after the exact same thing happened with Louise Jameson a year earlier).
Season 16 (***½) of Doctor Who is fine. It might be the most "fine" season of the entire show. There are no solid gold classics here, but also no total disasters either, and it's a notable improvement over the previous season (and the following). It's watchable, often fun, and the idea of the story arc is interesting, even if it ends up being mostly irrelevant and then underwhelming. Mary Tamm is a fine companion and it's a shame she doesn't come back for another season. One weakness here is Tom Baker's increasing disinterest in the show whenever he's not the centre of attention, with bursts of underacting and overacting, and few (if any) of the sonorous, well-written speeches his earlier seasons featured. This is the beginning of Baker's Latter Shatner Period.
The season can be seen right now on the BBC iPlayer in the UK, BritBox in much of the rest of the world, and is also available on DVD. The season is one of several awaiting release on Blu-Ray.
- 16.1-16.4: The Ribos Operation (****)
- 16.5-16.8: The Pirate Planet (***½)
- 16.9-16.12: The Stones of Blood (***½)
- 16.13-16.16: The Androids of Tara (****)
- 16.17-16.20: The Power of Kroll (***)
- 16.21-16.26: The Armageddon Factor (***½)
* Season 17's Shada was a six-parter but never completed due to filming strikes, though it was later completed through animation. Season 22's The Two Doctors was also three 45-minute episodes in length, so technically would work out the same as a six-parter. But anyway.
