The Doctor continues his adventures in time and space in his new sixth incarnation, along with his American companion Peri. The Doctor's latest adventures see him crossing wits with the Daleks, Cybermen, the Master and the Rani, among others.
The twenty-second season of Doctor Who aired in 1985 and came at a strange time for the show's fortunes. Peter Davison had departed the previous season as the Fifth Doctor and we'd already experienced a full serial with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, one in which he'd memorably tried to kill his assistant Peri in the throes of post-regenerative madness. Fans were sceptical of the new incarnation and the BBC was suffering a series of renewed complaints about the show being too dark and too violent. The new BBC1 controller, Michael Grade, also hated the show and controversially decided to cancel it after the production of the twenty-second season, sparking massive public outcry (and a charity single so horrible that all record of it needs to be struck from existence). The BBC commuted Doctor Who's death sentence to instead a longer-than-normal hiatus, mandating changes to production and improvements in quality for its return (orders that were, arguably not really followed through on).
This was all too late to impact Season 22 itself though. The show returned to airing on Saturday nights, its spiritual home, with a new format. Instead of most serials consisting of four 25-minute episodes (through, between the credits and recaps, the amount of actual new material in an episode averaged 20-22 minutes), this season consisted mostly of serials of two 45-minute episodes, with one coming in at three. The season was still the same length as almost every season since Jon Pertwee's debut in 1970, but how that length was assigned had changed.
Whether it improved things or not is questionable: script editor Eric Saward was keen, feeling it enabled a longer setup of the plot and characters, with less of a mad rush to get the Doctor involved, but fans seemed to feel that this could mean the Doctor not joining the action until too late in the day. The longer setups were sometimes effective, but also sometimes meant a rushed conclusion instead. There was also the practical consideration that the BBC also asked for 25-minute edits of the episodes for overseas transmission, meaning that a mini-cliffhanger had to occur halfway through every episode anyway, so in some cases the longer episodes just feel like two standard episodes squashed together. Still, an interesting idea and one that would be picked up again by the modern show when it began in 2005.
Things initiate with Attack of the Cybermen. The Cybermen had impressed with their return in force in Season 19's Earthshock and their short appearances in the anniversary special The Five Doctors, so bringing them back again was a no-brainer. John Nathan-Turner was interested in bringing in the topical element of Halley's Comet, whose return in 1986 was being hugely hyped up, and also in doing a story that tied in with Doctor Who's past. Fan consultant Ian Levine was talked to extensively about the ideas for the story, resulting in a decision to bring in elements from The Tenth Planet (the first Cyberman story from Season 4, airing in 1966) and Tomb of the Cybermen (a Season 5 story from 1967). The problem was that in 1985, Doctor Who fans did not have access to on-demand streaming or media releases, and neither story was available on VHS (The Tenth Planet missing its final episode and Tomb of the Cybermen being completely missing until its fortuitous discovery and return to the BBC archive seven years after this story transmitted). Levine also suggested some random references to the very first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child, such as a return to the Totter's Lane junkyard. Finally, Saward was keen to reintroduce the character of Lytton from the preceding season's Resurrection of the Daleks.
The result is a story that is belaboured and bowed by the weight of continuity, although it ironically suffers less from this today, when you can actually watch most of the those preceding Cyber-stories on the BBC iPlayer without too much trouble. It's again heavy on action, with lots of exploding Cybermen and fierce laser gun battles, and this can be fun (and certainly a change from the normal problem of Doctor Who monsters being indestructible to normal weapons) but threatens to be monotonous. The story also suffers from a bit too many elements (a common Saward trope) with Halley's Comet, the fixing of the TARDIS chameleon circuit, the Lytton story, the Cryon story, the Cybermen machinations, a failed bank heist and the Doctor and Peri still trying to find their post-regenerative footing all vying for screen time. For all that, the story actually holds together reasonably well and the pacing is certainly very brisk. Production values are reasonable, for once, although the Cyber Controller (reinstated in the story at John Nathan-Turner's insistent, somewhat redundantly) is wasted.
The story also marks the continuation of Nicola Bryant being asked to walk around in ridiculously revealing outfits (her pink leotard is a bit incongruous in the London sewers), culminating in even the Cybermen thinking it's a bit much and insisting she change into something more sensible for their trip to Telos. When Bryant is allowed to actually act as Peri and is given some meaty dialogue or emotions to play, she does very well, but these opportunities are few and far between in the story. The story also fails to capitalise on something it only realises in its closing minutes, that the Doctor has badly misjudged Lytton and failed to realise he is capable of redemption, leading to bitter regret. For all that Saward has a mixed reputation in Who fan circles, he does at least try to make his guest characters more complex, realistic characters. The casting for this story is also superb, with a brilliant turn in particular from Maurice Colbourne as Lytton and Brian Glover as Griffiths, though once again Saward seems inclined to kill characters the second they stop serving a story function, a trope which is starting to verge on the comedic. An interesting story, but a messy one with a lot of unfulfilled potential.
The second story, Vengeance on Varos, is stronger and cleverer. The Doctor arrives on a planet where politicians have to keep their constituents happy not just around the time of elections, but every single day. Instant popularity polls are carried out for every decision and if the elected officials are not up to snuff, they can be punished with pain or even death. The satire verges on the Malcolm Hulkeian (though its actually newcomer-to-the-show Phillip Martin writing), with the secondary characters as well-drawn as any Robert Holmes story. Particularly, utterly magnificent is Nabil Shaban as Sil, the most repulsive villain in Doctor Who history with easily the best prosthetics work. Martin Jarvis is also very strong as the Governor, and Jason Connery provides some rare eye candy for the other side as he is forced to spend half the story in a state of undress. Game of Thrones fans may also spot a young Owen Teale (Alliser Thorne) as a villainous guard.
The story is also notable for its wonderfully modern-feeling metaplot, as much of the adventure is recorded and transmitted to the people of Varos as it unfolds, leading to some superb commentary from the characters watching the story unfold. In a stronger season, the story would perhaps not stand out as much, but arguably it's the strongest or joint-strongest story of the season, so is more notable.
The Mark of the Rani introduces the titular Rani, a renegade Time Lord who, unlike the Master, is not totally evil but instead amoral, interested only in pure research. A superb setup sees the Doctor and Peri arrive in an early 19th Century mining village riven by tensions between the local industrialist and Luddite workers scared of being replaced by machines (oddly topical!), with the Rani (a barnstorming performance by Kate O'Mara) manipulating the situation to her advantage. Unfortunately, the story takes a bit of a nosedive due to the interference of Anthony Ainley's Master, who feels very awkwardly shoehorned into the script. Pip and Jane Baker, not the most popular Doctor Who writers, actually deliver some good work in their debut, the Rani's TARDIS is a very good bit of slightly surreal design (with dinosaur embryos suspended around a central console that arguably puts the Doctor's to shame) and there's both exceptional location filming and some impressive stuntwork. The over-acting and cheesy dialogue for the Master derail (pun intended) what could have been a much stronger piece. Still, it's watchably entertaining and nobody can take over a scene like O'Mara can.
The Two Doctors came from John Nathan-Turner feeling that The Five Doctors was a big hit, so he asked Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines if they wanted to come back for a further story down the line. The story sees the Second Doctor and Jamie running afoul of a conspiracy between the villainous Androgums and the Sontarans, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri showing up to lend a hand. The story is again enhanced by a wonderful guest cast, led by Troughton and Hines at their best, but with Blake's 7's immortally villainous Jacqueline Pearce threatening to steal every scene she's in. John Stratton, Laurence Payne, James Saxon and Carmen Gomez all deliver great performances in possibly one of Who's strongest-ever guest casts, all with a script by the returning Robert Holmes, unleashing devastatingly witty lines.
All of this is extremely good, but the direction is a bit pedestrian, and the story's length - at three 45-minute episodes this is the longest Doctor Who story to air since Season 16's The Armageddon Factor - sees a fair bit of filler added in. The Sontarans also feel a bit pointless, and the story could have easily taken place without them. The location filming in Seville is beautiful and they clearly want to show off the locations by having characters wander around the city and the surrounding Spanish countryside for a bit longer than is optimal, whilst this probably the most egregious story for using Peri as eye candy, although she is also given a bit more do in the story than most of her instalments, which is a relief. It's also clear that Patrick Troughton is having an absolute whale of time, with formidable comic timing and some of the most outrageously good eyebrow-acting you will ever see. His passing just a couple of years after this story was very sad. It just feels the story is overlong and a bit flat in its direction, otherwise this could have been the season highlight.
Timelash, on the other hand, is clearly the season lowlight. The idea isn't bad, with the Doctor returning to a planet he has visited previously to see it crushed under the heel of the villainous Borad, who likes to punish people by throwing them into the time vortex. There's a bunch of rebels who need to rebel (mostly by running around corridors, in the time-proven manner) and need the Doctor's help to do so, and a fascinating secondary villain performance by Blake's 7 star Paul Darrow, here delivering an over-the-top performance that sort of works (reportedly to get back at Colin Baker for a scene-stealing turn on the third season of Blake's 7 five years earlier). The problem is that the story is thin, the secondary cast is undistinguished, and the gimmick of having a temporary companion who turns out to be a famous person is under-utilised. There's also some appalling effects, bad sets and some flat performances (reportedly the result of Nathan-Turner pulling his stars out of rehearsal to go and do PR in the States) resulting in a story that is, at best, deeply insipid.
The season ends with Revelation of the Daleks, an interesting and offbeat story by Saward. Some of his tropes are present here, but the story is less action-packed and more thoughtful than normal, with a well-drawn secondary cast with some great performances, particularly by Terry Molloy, Eleanor Bron, William Gaunt and Clive Swift. Alexei Sayle and Jenny Tomasin give more acquired performances, interesting but more arguable in their success. It's a bit of an odd story with Davros harvesting the dead to turn into Daleks and various factions in the mortuary of Tranquil Repose feuding with one another. The Doctor and Peri spend more than half the story just getting into the building, leaving little time to formulate plans to defeat Davros, and the Daleks are at their least interesting here, despite the great paintjob for Davros's Imperial Daleks (who will be revisited more formidably in Season 25's Remembrance of the Daleks).
There are some really effective horror moments, as well as black comedy, and Saward even remembers to leave a few characters alive at the end so the Doctor can pretend to have achieved an actual victory. There are some stupid moments, with the episode one cliffhanger (in which Davros engineers a polystyrene statue to fall onto the Doctor to not kill him, just scare him) being one of the most underwhelming and weirdly-contrived in the show's history. Still, Graeme Harper's direction is outstanding, the musical score is superb and the horror vibe is for once effectively melded into a Doctor Who story, with some good location filming and a more chill relationship between the Doctor and Peri being much more welcome.
Season 22 of Doctor Who (***½) is perfectly watchable, if rarely outstanding. Colin Baker improves as the Doctor over the course of the season, and every story bar Timelash has some merit to it. Even Timelash arguably falls into the "so bad it's good" category thanks to the sheer volume of scene-chewing going on by Paul Darrow. Nobody's going to call it the best season of Who ever, but if anything it's probably slightly underrated.
The season is available on DVD and Blu-Ray as well as streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and various services overseas.
- 22.1 - 22.2: Attack of the Cybermen (***½)
- 22.3 - 22.4: Vengeance on Varos (****)
- 22.5 - 22.6: The Mark of the Rani (***½)
- 22.7 - 22.9: The Two Doctors (***½)
- 22.10 - 22.11: Timelash (*½)
- 22.12 - 22.13: Revelation of the Daleks (****)
