#DoctorWhoLockdown - The Tom Baker Years

Here it is then: the seven year long leviathan. The biggie. The Tom Baker years are so difficult to rank because we’re never really comparing like for like. City of Death doesn’t feel like the same show that gave us Pyramids of Mars or indeed would give us something as outré as Warriors’ Gate. However, I’ve been very thoughtful in ordering these stories. I’ve asked myself at every turn, “What would I rather stick on the DVD player and watch right now?” The results surprised even me at times. If stories were very closely tied in my affections, I’d think about their respective faults and boons. If lockdown has been good for one thing, it’s the time I can give to seriously re-assessing and reflecting on these fascinating tales.

42. THE INVISIBLE ENEMY

Four seasons in and finally, the wheels come off the Tom Baker waggon. And they do so fairly disastrously. On the Serial Thrillers documentary on the Pyramids of Mars DVD, Philip Hinchcliffe talked about how with each story, he and Robert Holmes would approach a concept whilst begging the question, “Can we do this?” Here, Graham Williams seems not to have heeded that advice. Horror of Fang Rock before it as a taut, claustrophobic thriller on four sets and it works magnificently. Here, we have two planets, a spaceship and the inside of the Doctor’s brain. We have possessed villains, a robot dog, a giant prawn and - weirdly - a clawed bin bag. That last creation is perhaps evidence that the money was being a little stretched. The Invisible Enemy could possibly make a great movie. Bob Baker and Dave Martin always had a keen eye for the epic. But there aren’t any characters to like. Freddie Jaeger’s Professor Marius is deeply annoying rather than innocently quirky. Tom’s heart doesn’t seem to be in it. And every aspect of the design work, whilst clever and laudable (especially the model work), looks like it needed to be the set-piece of the episode, rather than one set-piece amongst the thousand. Stupidly over-ambitious, despite its imaginative nature (even down to its new Space English!), The Invisible Enemy should probably never have made it to the screen. But then… we’d never have got K9 (perhaps the only thing about this clumsy mess that truly works)! Proof positive that if you throw enough darts, eventually you’ll hit a bullseye.

41. UNDERWORLD

It’s never going to completely win anyone over. It looks like snot, the cameras are too static and it feels as if it will never come to an end. However, and it’s quite a big however, that’s only Parts Two – Four. Like The Space Museum, Underworld has a seriously strong opening instalment. The cliff-hanger, as a detached, fearless Tom Baker intones “Carry on, Herrick” and the ship is pounded by asteroids, is as tense as cliff-hangers get, the Time Lord against the power of the universe. There’s also a lovely bit of psychedelia accompanied by Dudley Simpson at his strangest – when the Doctor, Leela and Idas float downwards through the blue, sparkly zero gravity tube. Apart from that though, the other three quarters of Underworld really are as dreary as its reputation suggests which is a shame for a script which includes concepts like the tree at the end of the world, guarded by dragons. The visuals cannot hope to match the conceptual wonder at play by the authors but given what they didn’t achieve in The Invisible Enemy, that should probably have known that.

40. THE HORNS OF NIMON

Now, Nimon’s defenders would have you believe that it’s a fun pantomime. That’s certainly what it looks like. The sets are game show sets, giving no hint as to what the planet beyond may look like, nor any hint of a civilisation. The Nimon costumes look like those you might find in a children’s theatre piece, high heels making them taller, huge “scary” heads. Some of the cast are going over the top for the boys – Graham Crowden and Tom Baker in a room together are majestic. There’s only one problem with The Horns of Nimon: It’s not funny. It’s just pretending to be. There are no scripted gags. The improvised ones fall flat. Look at Tom’s line after the “funny” sound effects echo around the TARDIS set. It’s not a gag about the racket. It’s simply, “That’s very odd.” It’s played with all the beats of a gag but there’s no punchline. Everyone looks to be having lots of fun, except Lalla Ward who looks like she’s auditioning for Tom’s part, but we can’t have fun with them because the script doesn’t want us to. Look no further than Part Four, when Romana is transported to Crinoth. Someone’s turned down the lights, John Bailey plays Sezom for real, there’s an atmosphere about the place: this is what The Horns of Nimon desperately needs elsewhere and wants to be. It needs to be played for real; not sent up. A Doctor Who pantomime might be nice but that’s not what Anthony Read has written and the result is a show which feels spectacularly at odds with itself.

39. THE POWER OF KROLL

The aspects of Kroll which work are those which are usually castigated: the monster itself (the biggest the show had ever seen) looks astonishing for its day; the Swampies are brilliant-looking new denizens of this marshy moon; the location work is original and rousing; Tom playing a reed pipe is unbeatable; everything that is written as a visual extravaganza turns out to be one. The problem is the drab, grey refinery scenes with their drab, grey characters. It’s worth watching though to celebrate the late Philip Madoc’s contribution to the show. He was offered the part of Thawn but gets lumbered with Fenner. The bitterness shows. He stands usually with his mouth forming a piteous, thin rainbow, his lines read sardonically with a vivid lack of urgency. Despite this, he can’t disguise his aching charisma. My favourite moment of bathos comes when Madoc mutters, “You know, I don’t particularly like the Swampies, but I can’t say I really hate them.” Sublime.

38. THE CREATURE FROM THE PIT

This much-lambasted jungle tale suffers far more from some structural issues than it does the giant phallus of its title and reputation. Like Underworld though, its first episode is a corker. The jungle is fantastic (imagine if Kinda looked like this - perfection), the characters are operatic (and the performances thrillingly just short of going over the top), and that first cliff-hanger is a truly shocking moment. What’s more, as the sting crashes in, we see the rope alarmingly thunder round and round and round until… it and our hero are well and truly down the well. Once we’re in the pit, however, the only thing left to do is tease out the relationship between the Tithonian ambassador and Lady Adrasta and it really shouldn’t take two episodes. Sadly it does and even the glorious Geoffrey Bayldon can’t disguise the thinness of his astrological Organon. Tom does his best to entertain but he too is on fallow ground. In the end, he stoops to a blow job. As exciting and off-beat and - in fact - disturbing that soaring cliff-hanger to Part Three is, there’s no disguising the fact that it marks the climax of the entire story. How to fill the rest of the closing instalment is problematic. We then must endure a tepid plot about an otherwise unmentioned oncoming missile. There’s much invention in The Creature from the Pit, and David Fisher does produce some beautiful character work. His worlds are all their own, with customs, idiosyncrasies and believability– Argolis, Tara and Chloris: all rich and lived in places. But here, his structure is all over the shop – that’s what kills The Creature from the Pit in the end.

37. THE PIRATE PLANET

Douglas Adams’s later fame and fortune cast a shadow over this, his first Doctor Who outing. You can hear his voice across it, you can see his wild ideas, but they’re not quite fully formed. They’re not quite working yet. True, structurally this story is as solid as any four-parter. There are several compounding revelations which change the trajectory of the narrative. The very concept of a planet raining diamonds is rather beautiful and the explanation why verges on the genius. But Adams’s comedy, coupled with Tom Baker’s growing improvisation doesn’t quite fit yet. Later, in City of Death they would dovetail beautifully, as it were, into the DNA of Doctor Who. But here, it’s a brand new voice, one that hasn’t quite hit the correct pitch of this show, one that isn’t quite funny enough, nor purposefully freewheeling enough, and like a newborn, is a bit unsteady, a bit unsure of itself. Like a typical first play, The Pirate Planet tries to juggle too many things at once and many don’t end up landing quite as successfully as they might. See the first cliff-hanger as evidence: what is it supposed to be? Funny? Scary? Both? It ends up simply falling flat. Doctor Who doesn’t quite know what to make of Douglas Adams yet. But it will…

36. THE FACE OF EVIL

I feel unnecessarily hard ranking The Face of Evil in such a lowly spot. I struggle to put my finger on why this one doesn’t quite engage me. It’s a great opening story for new girl Leela. Louise Jameson is a class act and puts in a performance which shouts, “Here I am!” without it ever being over-mannered, selfish or showy. There’s some lovely design work, some magnificent concepts, a couple of superlative cliff-hangers and Tom Baker being absolutely terrifying. The scene in which the Doctor and Leela first meet is up there with “Run!” and fish custard as to how to write a new companion meets Doctor scene. Somehow though, somehow, there’s a disconnect. Perhaps it that the ideas are stronger than the characters. The tribe doesn’t quite feel real, possibly due to its lack of women. The Tesh are charmless, irritating and I couldn’t name one of them from memory. Aside from the striking performances from our two leads, there is no one here to truly care about. If this were made today, the death of Leela’s father would be the moment we all remember and filter through ever successive story; as it stands, it’s Tom Baker shouting “Who am I?!” and that in a microcosm, is why The Face of Evil engages the brain but not the heart. It’s got a different set of priorities.

35. THE KEEPER OF TRAKEN

I love Part One. The Keeper arriving in the TARDIS and telling the story of Traken via the Doctor’s scanner is the stuff of legend. It’s an unusual departure for Doctor Who in terms of story-telling vehicles and Denis Carey is quietly, powerfully resonant as the Keeper. In fact, Part One is a lovely little vignette of an episode, leading to a cliff-hanger which although arguably routine feels inevitable and dramatic. After that, however, Traken becomes too wrapped up in its dull politics and rituals. The conversations about “rapport” go on and on. The Melkur is a terrific creation, Geoffrey Beevers beautifully articulating its creeping menace. However, whilst on paper the events of Traken spiral into an exciting climax, the journey there is dull and its people feckless. The costume and design work are nice, there’s an unusual, memorable cliff-hanger ending, but for the most part, The Keeper of Traken is disappointingly dreary, rather like ironically, being told a story on a scanner screen rather than experiencing and feeling it first-hand.

34. THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR

The worst crime committed by The Armageddon Factor is that it’s too bulky. With six episodes to fill, Bob Baker and Dave Martin save their characteristic invention for the second half. The first feels cumbersome but at least John Woodvine is around to offer a twinkly, stalwart RSC heaviness and he and Tom are a match made in heaven. Baker is at his very best here. He’s excruciatingly funny, ploughing through written lines and improv-ed lines at 1000 miles an hour, and then suddenly, devastatingly fierce. The final scene, the last act of the Key to Time is that TARDIS scene. Many see Tom going over the top; I see a performance of almost-manic 360-degree mood swings. His eyes are rolling around in his head, he’s playing the fool, he’s speed-reading and then: Slam! There’s the “colour-blind” line and we know that our Doctor is as present as he ever was, the cogs turning faster than any ordinary human could conceive. We can’t imagine the thought process that goes from eye-rolling to calling out a demi-God. Because this is force of nature Tom Baker, possibly bored, but completely energised, completely in control and with a tangled sense of where this scene is headed which only he can navigate with such dangerous tightrope lunacy. It’s a mad, mad performance but it’s captivating, exhilarating and unique. We can sometimes, given his seven-year stint, take Tom’s performance for granted. Watch the last scene here and remind yourself how unpredictable, extraordinary and intelligent he is.

33. THE ANDROID INVASION

Tom’s got a sore throat. It may seem like a trivial thing but it’s typical of a show that isn’t quite at its best. Sure, this is the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era and its leads are Tom Baker and Liz Sladen, so it’s never going to be dreadful. But there’s a general feeling that amongst the big-hitters of Season 13, this is the one that got away, the one that didn’t quiet come together. The plotting is ludicrous at best, the monsters are average at best and aside from Milton Johns, the guest cast are forgettable at best. Barry Letts puts some stylish touches to his film work, a million miles away from the pedestrianism of Planet of the Spiders. But getting Barry back is symptomatic of The Android Invasion: it’s looking over its shoulder where every other story of the season is looking forwards. When we reach UNIT, we’re forced to ask ourselves why we should still care if even the Brig isn’t going to show up. Like Deep Breath after it, there’s a feeling that this is yesterday’s work and neither the UNIT family, nor the Paternoster Gang are going out with a bang.

32. REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN

There is another version of this story, soon to be released by Big Finish from a script by Gerry Davis. It was printed in the DWB back in the day with some gorgeous illustrations and alarmingly feels much better than Revenge of the Cybermen. I reviewed this recently when the Season 12 Blu Ray box set was released and it struck me that the story is at its best when it’s being The Wheel in Space, the story of the Cybermen infiltrating Nerva Beacon. First they send the Cybermats, then they attack in force. When we get to Voga, Revenge becomes dreary. The politicking Vogans are dull and muffled by their poor half-masks in exactly the way that Davros, one story earlier, wasn’t. Their plight is incredibly difficult to care about. When we get to the end of Part Two, we’ve seen what Revenge is capable of. If you manage to get to Part Four, you’ll see everything it does wrong, from the Cyber massage which even Tom can’t begin to act his way out of, to the climactic spinning loo roll of a planet. If only the story hadn’t felt the need to explore another planet, it could have been a memorable, base under siege. Ironically, just the sort of thing Bob Holmes was so good at.

31. THE INVASION OF TIME

The Invasion of Time does a hell of a lot wrong. The Sontaran tripping over the sunbed is symptomatic of a show which has made those sorts of blunders in almost every area. For evidence from a design perspective, see the corridors: not quite wide enough for a Tom Baker to walk along comfortably. For evidence from a scripting perspective, see the final piece of Doctoring genius – he builds a big gun and shoots the baddie. The story rambles and goes nowhere. I don’t know what a black star is nor are the writers interested in telling us. The Vardans remain in tinfoil form until they decide to disguise themselves instead as poor actors soldiers. Even props are in on the blame game, positioning the Great Rod of Rassilon (oo-er) on a squeaky, bright red, plastic cushion. And yet… that first episode in which Tom becomes Doctor Bad is terrifying in its dedication to subverting the formula. Excitingly, he’s still Doctor Bad for another couple of episodes and we seriously begin to worry that things will not be OK. Tom is extraordinary and frightening, a far cry from the painter clown of Underworld. By the time the Sontarans show up, there’s no steam left in the Doctor Bad idea and we’re into running around hospitals. But for one episode at least, there is the unique impression that this is a very different and dangerous show. The ceremony at the close of Part One is grand and mythic. And Dudley Simpson’s Time Lord organ proves itself the real star of the show.

30. THE HAND OF FEAR

Doctor Who has a strange relationship with nuclear explosions. Or should that be Bob Baker and Dave Martin have a strange relationship with nuclear explosions. In The Claws of Axos, there actually is one, from which the regular cast hide behind some cars, presumably to avoid being… well, nuked. Later, they return into the nuclear explosive damaged building and chat about yoyos. Here, again, Sarah is asked to hold her nose whilst hiding behind a car, the better to save her from an imminent nuclear explosion which thankfully doesn’t happen. Larking aside, The Hand of Fear feels like a strangely modern show for its time. Whilst the rest of the season is invested in history, Gallifrey or future worlds, here we are on present day Earth with hospital sets and indeed doctors straight out of Fawlty Towers. It’s weird but not unpleasant seeing Tom and Liz in their Earthly domestic setting and marks The Hand of Fear out as distinct and memorable. The last episode on Kastria feels a little uninspired from a design perspective, the planet not feeling in any way lived in and lacking a sense of scale. But the scenes in the nuclear power station have a “newness” about them which hasn’t been lost over the years. And when Judith Paris’s incredible Eldrad emerges from the smoke, The Hand of Fear enjoys its defining moment.

29. DESTINY OF THE DALEKS

Destiny has a big issue: it’s called Genesis. With only two Tom Baker Dalek stories from which to choose a favourite, fans have always sided with the hard-nosed, gloomy monument that is Genesis. Destiny seems slighter, far less serious and if there were a modern-day tone meeting word that summed up the mise en scene it would probably be disco. Douglas Adams’s wilting humour and anarchic structures don’t sit well against Terry Nation’s grim, boys’ own page-turners so Destiny starts out with a disfunction at its heart. David Gooderson sadly becomes the George Lazenby of Davroses and the Daleks look and sound knackered. However, there is still much to love about Destiny. Ken Grieve’s location work is ethereal and strange, even for a quarry. The first episode, aside from the very funny regeneration scene, is doomy and atmospheric. The Movellans are such a hit we’d see them again briefly in 2017. Tom is having a ball and the pace rockets along. It might not be prime cut Who but it’s definitely bangers and mash. It’s certainly worth assessment on its own merits as opposed to in contrast with the mighty Genesis.

28. THE STONES OF BLOOD

If there were ever a game of two halves, it’s The Stones of Blood. The first half is positively Hinchcliffean, director Darrol Blake providing a strong, witch-folky atmosphere especially given his decision to shoot all the exteriors on OB. The manor house, the birds, that excellent Part One cliff-hanger as Mary Tamm lets out her first and only proper scream. Dudley Simpson’s music is memorable and haunting. Sadly, the second half in hyperspace dispels with the Gothic richness of the first. Now, it could be argued that Doctor Who is the only place where this sort of dichotomy can really work but it feels as if David Fisher has simply run dry on the spooky mansion plot and jumps instead to something entirely different, namely a space courtroom drama (and we know how well that worked for Doctor Who in 1986). The Magara are tedious and visually unstimulating. Almost every shot they’re in is required to be static. Even Tom Baker’s wig can’t perk things up. You get the sense that where The Stones of Blood should have piled on yet more of that delicious, evocative brooding, instead it’s not quite brave enough to follow it through.

27. THE ARK IN SPACE

I get why this is revered. It’s all about context. From the cosy confines of the Pertwee era comes suddenly a dark tale of humanity and body horror and it’s quite a jolt. Removed from its original context though, it’s easier to see that much, much better was to come from Holmes and Hinchcliffe. The scenes of bodily transformation in The Seeds of Doom, for instance, are far more frightening and well-shot. The production team learned to turn the lights down to create an atmosphere: compare this to Planet of Evil the following year. Kenton Moore’s Noah is as wooden as the (otherwise amazing and rightly celebrated) sets and Wendy Williams needs a shot of something to bring Vira to life. After the first excellent episode has put its stars so wonderfully at the forefront, the guest cast arrive and sap all the energy from proceedings, Part Two being the worst offender in terms of pace. Nevertheless there’s an argument to suggest (bolstered by Russell T Davies’s and Steven Moffat’s vocal admiration for this four-parter) that The Ark in Space is a template for a perfect kind of Doctor Who story: an isolated environment, explored by its regulars establishes the new setting as a star of the show in its own right; the monsters are not simply evil but following terrifying animal instinct; and the climax comes down to a noble act of humanity. It is many ways the strongest of that type of story and there’s a direct through line from here to 2006’s spectacular The Satan Pit.

26. IMAGE OF THE FENDAHL

It’s by no means up there with the classics of the Gothic Horror era, and there’s a tiresome return to the TARDIS in Part Three (I hate it when the show does this – it usually points to a weakness in plotting), but Image of the Fendahl nevertheless is unique in its presentation. The first episode has barely any music and a slow, creeping atmosphere. By the time we reach Part Four, Dudley Simpson has gone full-organ on us and there’s a mania to the events on offer. Similarly the cast seemingly become more and more deranged as the strange happenings spiral out of control. We begin with the innocuous sight of cows in a field and end with a suicide via revolver. Image of the Fendahl is unique in that it is perhaps not best enjoyed one episode at a time, rather as one continuous dreadful departure into the realms of pure evil. Our experience of the story is in that way similar to the way I imagine humans encounter evil: creeping. You don’t realise you’re in its clutches until it’s got you.

25. MEGLOS

What’s so bad about Meglos? I’ve always wondered why this is considered the turkey of Season 18. For my money, it’s probably the most confident classic season of them all in terms of conception and realisation and Meglos has never particularly stood out as anomalous. The colourful, vibrant first episode rattles along, despite our heroes arriving far too late to the plot. Paddy Kingsland’s score is magical and there’s a desolate magic to the plains of Zolfa-Thura. Tom Baker is on terrific form as the Doctor. Aside from the bell-plants and the final appearance of the slithering titular cactus, there aren’t any disastrous design faux-pas and the cast are by and large excellent. What is unforgiveable though is the story’s treatment of science versus religion. There are no complications to the debate. Science is right and religion is wrong. As a confirmed atheist, even I find the handling of this topic shallow, patronising and not a little offensive. There’s no “Logar is everywhere” moment as there is in Planet of Fire to point to the fundamental benefits of faith and belief. Everyone on the Deons’ side of the argument is proven to be foolish, and everyone on the side of science can be righteous, but I suppose that’s only what you’d expect of Jesus H Bidmead. Apart from that, I am really rather fond of this pacey, energetic run-around and its operatic, fun characters.

24. THE SUN MAKERS

Bob Holmes writes his first out and out comedy. His characters had always been one step removed from reality but here, he goes for broke. The Sun Makers is genuinely funny but also genuinely moving and in William Simons’s Mandrel genuinely disconcerting. The Gatherer and The Collector are Dickensian in their realisation and speak a language all of the their own, Richard Leech and Henry Woolf providing tremendous charisma as the company men. Despite the (perhaps deliberate) blandness of the design work, these characters seem rich against it. What this story really needs though, and is perhaps why it is not so universally applauded, is a monster. Imagine if, rather than the Steamer, Leela was sent to the Beast of Pluto, I think people might have a lot more to say about The Sun Makers which, despite its beautiful script, is arguably forgettable from a visual perspective. Its magnificent words risk being lost in a sea of beige, grey corridors.

23. STATE OF DECAY

The keynote of the work of Terrance Dicks is structure and here, as in Horror of Fang Rock, everything in the geography of the world has been designed to aid the story’s shape. Whilst the beautiful costumes, set designs, performances and music combine to make something arrestingly unique in Doctor Who (for the first time in the show’s history every department seems to have picked colours from a mood board), the real star of this show is Terrance’s script. It’s remarkably straightforward with only mentions “The Wasting” itself hanging over from previous drafts, although in my head the wasting is what happens to you when you end up in the castle cellars. Dicks’s scripts have an assuredness about them, a confidence in their simplicity. Here, in the hands of director Peter Moffatt, they’re brought to rich, autumnal life. It’s the only story of Season 18 which doesn’t quite fit. There are no great themes to ruminate on, no complexity to unravel, but simple stories are often the most disarmingly enjoyable.

22. TERROR OF THE ZYGONS

This beloved story arguably punches above its weight. David Tennant loves the Zygons, meaning that there are a clutch of 70s fanboys feeling vindicated in their nostalgic regard for this four-parter. There’s admittedly lots going for it. It’s directed with characteristic gusto by Douglas Camfield and there are supremely memorable moments of titular terror. The not-Harry in the barn with the fork is the stuff of nightmares. The bloodied nurse falteringly finding her way through the forest is sinister. The lauded reveal of the Zygons at the end of Part One is striking: the “o” of the baby-faced creature’s mouth disconcerting and horrific. But Terror of the Zygons is simply a series of exciting moments. It doesn’t particularly hang together. Some work far better than others. The climax in London doesn’t convince for a minute (it’s even less convincing than Scotland) and the Part Three cliff-hanger is strangely lacking and tediously shot. The Doctor’s flight from the Skarasen looks like it comes from a show made ten years earlier, especially considering the fundamentally brilliant design of the Zygons themselves. The story wants to do too much, visit too many places, use too many characters. Destiny dictated that at some point one or two of those aspects wouldn’t quite hit the mark. Fortunately though, with Douglas Camfield at the helm, there are plenty that do and they remain etched in the memory.

21. GENESIS OF THE DALEKS

My theory is that this Doctor Who equivalent of The Odyssey, this sacred text, is just that namely because of the 1970s LP. In shortened form, it’s arguably far better. All the great bits are left in – mostly from the first two episodes – and the dross of finding the time ring and getting locked in a study can be expunged. Of course, those first two episodes are palpably incredible. David Maloney directs the gloomy affair with a keen sense of reality. The first scenes of the gunless Dalek circling under voice control is a pivotal scene in the grand story of Doctor Who. The cast are impeccable. Michael Wisher and Peter Miles are perhaps the ultimate double act of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes years. The “Harry, I’m standing on a landmine” scene is a cracking exercise in how to direct and play out tension. After the opening two episodes, however, the show starts to feel a bit flabby. There’s not quite enough plot left for the remaining four. Sure, there are stand-out moments – Davros’s speeches chiefly. But there starts to creep in a clumsiness. The big moralist speech of the final cliff-hanger doesn’t quite make it there, slipping forward a few minutes to give us a rather drab, though very well directed moment of peril instead. For this seven-year-old watching on its VHS release, I was missing some Dalek action. This is their Genesis but it’s the story of the fall of Davros, not the rise of the Daleks. I’d have loved to have seen them blasting their way out of that bunker, heading out into the universe, a force to be reckoned with. Instead, they decide to talk to camera.

20. FULL CIRCLE

If The Ark in Space is a lesson on how to write a base under siege story, Full Circle is the archetype for how to write an alien planet four-parter. The status quo is set up, the characters introduced, something happens to upset the status quo (an ancient planetary legend coming to the fore), the mysteries of the society are explored and unpicked step by step until the reasons for the ancient planetary legend become clear and the path to overcoming the danger is obvious. All that’s left to do is play out the climax. On paper, it sounds easy but Andrew Smith comes up with a world of such well-thought out intricacy that the twists and turns still come as surprises. He picks his moments of revelation at cleverly judged stages in the narrative to keep the action moving forwards and creates a thematically strong monster to boot. Such structures sound common in Doctor Who but they’re remarkably rare. This is a bullet proof script, masterfully directed by Peter Grimwade, with only the arrival of Matthew Waterhouse, whose character is at least well-written, proving a disappointment.

19. SHADA

Shada has been released on so many occasions now. There was a time when it represented a holy relic, a lost tome. Nowadays, we’re perhaps overfamiliar with it. Its recent completion by animation was a lovely addition to the story’s many iterations, perhaps the ultimate one, but how I wish it had been released in six instalments, whatever their respective lengths. Seen as a movie, it seems unnecessarily cumbersome; viewed as originally intended, it fair whips along. There is so much to love. Tom and Lalla, a couple in love, are at their most endearing. Denis Carey’s Professor Chronotis is a sublime characterisation. Douglas Adams’s additions to the Gallifreyan mythos – the Panopticon archive of dangerous books – brands the Time Lords as a race to be feared once more, to be in awe of. Even their literature can manipulate time and space. Perhaps only Douglas Adams’s imagination could hold a candle to the vastness of the Time Lords’ powers. I adore this perspective on the Doctor and his race – there’s nothing wrong with looking up to the bright, the intelligent. JNT thought, “It was a bit smart up there” and felt the need to lessen the companions’ intelligence to aid viewer identification. Chris Chibnall is in favour of the “flat team structure.” But I like my Doctor to be an edifice. It doesn’t mean he has to be po-faced, distant or Superman; I want him to be the cleverest person in the room, and by having him travel with similarly bright people, it makes me want to be with them even more. Intellectual snobbery? I don’t care. Cambridge looks lovely from here.

18. THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT

Never talked about, bookended by two Doctor Who totem poles, this slight two-parter is what I’d rather watch. It has a peculiarity about it – all shot on location, all on OB, but with no buildings, no horizons which aren’t empty. There is a definite, dreaded feeling of desolation. I love the bleak, bleak atmosphere of The Sontaran Experiment. Styre is a merciless villain, his leaving the man to thirst to death perhaps the cruellest and most disturbing of his gambits. Dudley Simpson plays a blinder here too. Watch as he builds doomily to the Part One cliff-hanger as Rodney Bennett’s cross-cutting shots do the same. You could argue that the robot looks cheap but when it first appears, floating across the moorland, it’s anachronistically frightening. Short and slight, but full of menace and brooding terror, The Sontaran Experiment is a forgotten treasure.

17. NIGHTMARE OF EDEN

Bob Baker’s solo effort for Doctor Who and he writes a story about drug smuggling in space. That’s bold. Nevertheless, he goes for it. He doesn’t shirk away from his responsibilities: we see people high on Vraxoin, we see its devastating effects and the whole interstellar collision stands as a metaphor for the damage such profiteering can provoke. The story is pleasingly structured with a number of set-piece scenes. There are real scares – the eyes in the jungle. There are real laughs – Tom’s probably improvised escape from the security men; the scene in which Tom, chasing a man in a grey suit, walks into a room full of similarly grey-suited extras. There is an intelligent use of what the show can do given its budget: each new floor that the Doctor comes to during his chase is exactly the same set. No, the Mandrels don’t really work and everyone points at the “Oh my everything!” scene as the one where Tom Baker finally loses touch with reality. But nobody mentions the chilling moment a few scenes later when he stares away from Tryst and whispers, “Go away.” It’s the mark of what Tom was so charismatically doing as an actor, choosing his playing deliberately; the silliness of one scene highlights the seriousness of the next. Nightmare of Eden is a tight, well-written, funny thriller and more than holds its own against the season’s clear winner, City of Death. If Shada had been finished, these three stories together might well have enhanced Season 17’s flailing reputation.

16. THE MASQUE OF MANDRAGORA

I think Masque might be better thought of it if started with a different scene. Elsewhere, it proves to be such a rich, vibrant production: lavish costumes, gorgeous set designs, beautiful location footage. But we start in an ill-dressed TARDIS corridor with a CSO boot cupboard. How much better to start with a shot of the new console, pulling out to reveal the glorious wood-panelled control room in all its glory? Even its reveal is fudged because the Doctor has left the lights off. It would be a far stronger statement of intent regarding what Season 14 is going to be: this is Bob Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe flexing their muscles, sure of themselves, at the height of their powers. They know what they want to achieve. If the brief is a Galilean-Italian astrology story of cults and courtrooms, I can think of no more sumptuous example than this edifying, beauteous production. Jon Laurimore, Norman Jones, Tim-Piggott Smith and Gareth Armstrong represent the cream of the crop, a cast of refined, enriching performances and Dudley Simpson returns afresh from The Brain of Morbius, keen to mark the programme out as his show, once again. In every department, Masque succeeds. It’s lavish.

15. ROBOT

As an introductory story for a new Doctor, Robot acts as more of a fond farewell to the era just gone, one last hurrah for the UNIT boys, especially considering that effectively, it really was. That honour might have gone to Zygons had it closed the season, providing a palindromic shape to Season 12, but alas, its shunting to Season 13 makes it seem like an afterthought. By then, we’re a year removed and we don’t need them anymore. Here, they are still assured, professional and comforting and it’s important to feel as if one is coming home, especially on the arrival of a new Doctor (See also, The Power of the Daleks, Spearhead from Space, The Christmas Invasion and Deep Breath). Tom Baker, however, doesn’t need an army to protect him. He leaps from the screen, and although at times uncertain and perhaps even a little mannered, his Doctor arrives almost fully formed and certainly joyous in that wonderful, wonderful costume. His free-wheeling, anarchic breeziness means that within an episode’s time, he’s the show’s star and the regulars are deposed to very definite semi-regulars. Nevertheless, Robot feels like rejoicing. Terrance Dicks produces a script that celebrates what the UNIT family have become and also what the new man means for the future. Because as Robot comes to a close, as Sarah accepts that jelly baby, as Tom smiles that infectious smile, all bets are off. Things are about to change.

14. PYRAMIDS OF MARS

From a watertight Terrance Dicks script to a leaky Bob Holmes one. Paul Cornell suggested that Dicks represents “structure structure structure” whilst Holmes goes for “the big moment.” Putting Pyramids side by side with Robot, that judgement is never more clear. There are moments in Pyramids to thrill any Hammer fan. The death of Namin is gruesome without being gory. The killing of the poacher frightening in its simplicity. There’s an actual bloody shooting in it, a walking corpse, a revived ancient evil, hiding in a priest hole and a mummy in a coffin. Gabriel Woolf’s Sutekh is masterfully voiced. It’s all stirring stuff and you can see in the writing that Bob Holmes was loving throwing one frightening moment after another. But you wouldn’t have got this past Terrance. It doesn’t make any sense. The last episode is woeful in its scripting and in its design. But for the most part, Pyramids is about thrills and for the most part it remains deeply, darkly thrilling.             

13. WARRIORS’ GATE

We never really talk about Doctor Who as high art but if there were ever a story vying for that title, it’s surely Warriors’ Gate (although I’d argue that Ghost Light is absolutely that). Watch the camerawork for about three minutes and you’ll see that Daryl Joyce (and Graeme Harper) are going for a very different approach to televising a sci-fi adventure. Joyce shoots off-set into the lighting gantry. There’s a feeling that this director is creating something new, something Steve Gallagher’s original, off-beat script gives him license to. Later, we see striking shots of Gundan in slow motion, charging a banqueting hall, a glowing Romana and her Tharil friend disappearing into nothingness and the shots in the black and white Tharil gardens have a strange uncanny aura about them. It’s not easy to work out what’s going on in Warriors’ Gate. I’m still not sure that I do. But when Doctor Who looks so rich, feels so different and creates something as unique as this space age analogue poetry, it positively demands to be seen.

12. THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG

This Victorian tale of the macabre should arguably rank higher. Everyone knows the many, many reasons why: Jago and Litefoot, Chang and Sin, Greel and his donors, David Maloney, Tom Baker, John Bennett, Christopher Benjamin and Louise Jameson. This is gruelling, lascivious stuff and deservedly one of Doctor Who’s great texts. However, however, however, it’s only exceptional for its first two thirds, before Robert Holmes’s structural issues again become sadly obvious. He literally writes himself into a corner. When he begins, his sprawling narrative covers a mortuary, a theatre, a town house, a police station and the sewers. By Part Six, Tom and the gang are crouching behind a table and the story has nowhere left to go. Had the story come to its conclusion at the end of Part Four, our heroes thwarting the rogues on their final attempt to retrieve the cabinet, it might well be my all-time favourite. As it stands, Bob Holmes’s self-confessed “dog-leg” that is Parts Five and Six means the story limps to its finish line but perhaps only relative to the glorious success of its preceding episodes. Elsewhere, there is such greatness to be found.

11. LOGOPOLIS

A story once revered now seems to have fallen out of favour. It’s easy to see why. The poor thing looks cheaper and cheaper as the years roll by. For the big season finale, possibly only the second of its type (The Armageddon Factor being the other obvious contender), it’s a shame a little bit more money couldn’t have been put to one side. We have two episodes on the TARDIS set and filmed in a layby, followed by two episodes in the most obvious “outdoor” sets since The Dominators. However, what nobody can deny is the devastating funereal atmosphere of Logopolis. It’s the natural end point of this season of entropy but also of an actor pushed to leave a role he loves, his wings clipped along the way. Tom doesn’t look happy here and he’s always played the Doctor according to his mood. You can sense his frustration. He wants to go out with a bang; instead, he’s waffling about time cone inverters. But that’s what makes Logopolis such an interesting, arresting and deeply sad watch. The world literally tumbles down around our hero. He doesn’t do very much. For half an episode, he’s shrunken and on his own muttering to himself about cheeseboards. But at the last second, with everything stripped away, his fate sealed, what does Tom do? Smile.

10. THE ANDROIDS OF TARA

Why this elegant, swashbuckling tale isn’t more loved, I’ll never know. It’s got a leisurely pace, admittedly, but David Fisher creates a world we’d like to spend even more time wallowing in. Its characters are rich: Count Grendel and Madam Lamia making for a partnership with electricity flying between them. The first two cliff-hangers are particularly wholesome and leave a lasting impression. The costumes, sets and location work are elaborate and lavish. There’s an exciting adventure story (The Prisoner of Zenda) at its heart but it’s also terrific fun, Tom Baker proving that he’s at his absolute outrageous best when larking about. Peter Jeffrey is a magnificent villain and a perfect foil for Tom, the plot boasts genuine surprises, there’s a staggeringly well-shot night-time swordfight and it’s very difficult to find a fault in the gorgeous-looking literary homage. It even pleasingly recycles the Kraal’s android designs, meaning that the world of Tara and the rest of the Doctor Who universe subtly link together. Perhaps it’s because The Androids of Tara does its job so seamlessly that it’s often overlooked in the face of its brasher bedfellows.

9. PLANET OF EVIL

Call me a Philistine, but I’d rather slip this in the DVD player than Pyramids of Mars or even Talons. Certainly Genesis. The story of the Planet of Evil is an exercise in mood. It is genuinely frightening. Roger Murray-Leech’s deep, multi-layered, red jungle is a star of the show in its own right, meaning Zeta Minor becomes as believable an alien a world as Skaro, Ribos or Androzani. Once we get inside the Morestran ship, it’s a joy to find the atmosphere of the first half of the story persist. This could look like The Ark in Space but instead, David Maloney is playing in the dark. Frederick Jaeger puts in a defeated, sickly performance, a million miles away from his irritating, quirky turn as Professor Marius two years later. His transformation into the anti-man, alone in his room with only a mirror for company, is as disturbing as its literary antecedent, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The make-up is inventive and disturbing and the scenes of the anti-man leaving crew members for dead, filmed from a distance, as eyewitnesses spot the fleeing culprit are suggestive enough to be truly horrific without being graphic. This is Doctor Who at its most nerve-shredding. Maybe it’s lost in Season 13 alongside so many fan favourites, but I’d recommend this to a newcomer to the show if they wanted to know what the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era was like. It’s a perfect distillation of their tremendous skills.

 8. THE RIBOS OPERATION

Garron and Unstoffe are a better onscreen double act than Jago and Litefoot. They really should be more celebrated. Iain Cuthbertson and Nigel Plaskitt are remarkably performed and could easily be the stuff of spin-off series. See also, the Graff Vynda K and Sholakh, Paul Seed and Robert Keegan respectively barnstorming their way through this beautifully seasoned Bob Holmes script. Perhaps its position outside the Hinchcliffe era means that it tends to lose points, but to my mind, Holmes returns to the show less fagged-out and more refined. This script has a solidity about it often missing from his much-vaunted classics. Parts One and Two form a heist story with just the right amount of complexity. Parts Three and Four venture into the city and the catacombs, and like all the best stories, it all comes down to character. The power of Paul Seed’s climactic madness as the Graff is far more terrifying than any Shrivenzale. He is spectacular. Speaking of which, so is Tom. Returning after his summer hols, he is a renewed man. In Season 15, he seemed occasionally to be reaching. Now he’s confident and empowered and he knows that comedy is the new black.

7. THE BRAIN OF MORBIUS

Tom Baker versus Philip Madoc was always going to be a winner but here, alongside a rich, Gothic script, Barry Newbery’s evocative, vaulting design work, and Christopher Barry’s assured direction, it’s a sure-fire classic. There’s little to say about Morbius other than whatever Bob Holmes did to Terrance Dicks’s script, he created a bravura horror story of the grand guignol. It’s strong in every area it needs to be: lighting, set dressing, playing. Everyone is in on the act, everyone knows what needs to be achieved for this melodrama to work. Performances are once removed from reality but played for real, cobwebs dangle creepily from the chandeliers and lightning whitens the screen at the most turbulent moments. There’s even overlaid studio rain. Everything is working so harmoniously, so smoothly, that it’s easy to miss quite how much effort and energy has been expended on creating this vivid, grizzly synergy. As a child, the shots of a bloodied Condo, dragging himself along the darkened corridor, actually crying, were starkly moving. For all its frights, there’s a story of abuse here which is no less hard hitting and shows up Solon as the true villain that he is. With Philip Madoc’s innate charm, it’s worryingly easy to forget what a nasty piece of work his character is. Unforgettable stuff.

6. HORROR OF FANG ROCK

The legend goes that Robert Holmes suggested to Terrance Dicks that he’d “always fancied a story set in a lighthouse.” I imagine, knowing what we do of Holmes, that Horror of Fang Rock was exactly the sort of story he had in mind. It is a story of claustrophobia, of abject dread. Scenes go by seemingly leisurely, but we are rivetted, waiting for the worst, because we know it is coming. And indeed, it does. Just this once, everybody dies. Trapped in the small, stone building, they have nowhere to go. As in State of Decay, Dicks has thought of the power the lighthouse has in the narrative and uses it not just as a MacGuffin to rid the Earth of the Rutans but as a hostile environment all of its own, a character in the narrative. He has thought about its geography, the Rutan moving up through the windows on the outside of the lighthouse, so as to avoid detection. Tom Baker is in the mire too. He knows this is a scary one and he plays it without humour. The only moment he seems to relish is in telling the inhabitants of Fang Rock that “Lord Palmerdale has fallen from the lamp gallery” and it sends a chill down the spine. Bleak, ghostly and disturbing, Horror of Fang Rock is the sort of story fisherfolk tell their friends by moonlight, a frightening, local mystery of the unwitnessed deaths of the lighthouse keepers.

5. THE ROBOTS OF DEATH

Almost everything about The Robots of Death is superb but there’s one aspect I’d like to focus on: that cast. Tania Rogers and Tariq Yunus are not going to win any BAFTAs (although Rogers does have the necessary innocent, privileged girl quality about her) but you can’t ignore David Collings, david bailie, Pamela Salem or Brian Croucher. All seem to truly inhabit their parts. This is a world they are living in. The way they operate their future-world apparatus (wrist communicators, chest mics and keypads) as if they do these things every day gives the planet a strong sense of believability. Salem seems begat by terror in the latter instalments. Croucher is far more frightening here than he ever was as Blake’s 7’s Travis. Best of all, however, and rarely celebrated when talk turns to Robots is Russell Hunter. He makes for a supremely complicated Uvanov. Bitter and sensitive, strong and frail, Hunter’s Uvanov is fascinatingly real. I’d like to direct you to one line in particular. He is on the bridge stairs in Part One addressing Zilda. “You know it’s amazing the way you people stick together,” he says then stops and quickly corrects himself, “No, it’s not amazing; it’s sickening.” I don’t know whether Hunter is correcting a stumble here, but it is delivered so believably, so honestly, that we forget he’s acting. He’s living this part. And true to character, he corrects himself so that he can throw an insult at someone. Robots is full of this stuff from him and it’s all the richer for it. But, of course, Hunter is just one cog in Michael Briant’s beautifully efficient machinery that forms the holistic wonder of The Robots of Death.

4. THE SEEDS OF DOOM

Six-episodes of high-octane action which see Tom Baker thump a chauffeur unconscious, dangerously twist John Challis’s neck and throw himself through a glass ceiling. This is the Doctor as action hero. He even picks up a revolver and we believe he’ll use it. We never really think of Tom Baker’s Doctor as James Bond. That epithet is usually reserved for Pertwee but it’s a role that suits Tom down to the ground. Because he’s the spy that’s even more eccentric than Bond, MI6’s (or UNIT’s) loosest cannon and along with his knack for fisticuffs, he’s inventive, knowledgeable and here, brilliantly detached. “You must help yourselves,” he says spookily after proffering the only advice the men on the Arctic base are going to get. The violence here points to a show that has disregarded the shackles of its youth, that wants to be adult and gruelling, and it manages it so successfully in The Seeds of Doom. The scenes in the cottage are desperate and unsettling. The scenes on the Arctic base are doomy and tense. There’s nowhere to run from the approaching beast and the characters, like real people - not the ones of traditional children’s drama - begin to snap at one another, make chemical bombs, make feeble but desperate decisions and in some circumstances, simply run away. This is hard-edged, uncomfortable viewing. Just look at how Tom screams “Scorby!” in Part Two as a statement of how seriously everybody is taking this. It all comes from the top and when the top is Tom Baker as Bond, you know this is going to be something truly special.

3. THE LEISURE HIVE

When my Dad picked up the 1998 DWM polling issue in Forbidden Planet Manchester, I was only 13 years old. He flicked slowly through the pages, counting down from 10 to 1, starting with The Web of Fear. He asked me what my favourites were and as each page turned, I hoped that fandom would think the same, that we would be celebrating the greats together. Unfortunately, it seemed that fandom didn’t like Revelation of the Daleks, Ghost Light and The Leisure Hive quite as much as I did. I was thoroughly disappointed. I hadn’t, up until that point, realised what the Greatest Ever were supposed to be. The Leisure Hive, even today, I think is one of the very finest. For many, I suppose it represents the point at which Doctor Who turned its back on fun and those 70s titles and Tom’s lunacy, but just look at what it replaced them with: Lovett Bickford’s frankly staggering direction is lustrous, poppy, imaginative and artful. There’s a notable piece of camerawork every few minutes. The opening pan along the tents is exciting. We’ve just had the new title sequence. It’s a shock. We need that to bed in. And we know that the pan is going to end up somewhere. Cleverly, we realise where we’re headed as we hear Tom’s snores and just before we reach the TARDIS, we know it’s about to appear. It’s a punch the air moment. Then there’s the disappearing crane shot from the beach into space, the TARDIS appearing in a moving shot, the cross-fade from the out of focus extra to the shuttle, the upshot as Stimson is killed, the cliff-hangers. It’s relentlessly fantastic, shot after shot after shot right up to the end of Part Four. Peter Howell’s incredible score marries spectacularly with the pictures. And David Haig is mesmeric. This is the brand-new Doctor Who, confident, blistering and definitely, definitively, here. I love it.

2. CITY OF DEATH

How can any romantic not love City of Death? Unlike perhaps any other Doctor Who story, including the new series’ Tenth Doctor and Rose, this is the Time Lord and companion in love. They race across the streets of Paris hand in hand, accompanied by that delightful Dudley Simpson refrain. They talk about bouillabaisse and order double waters. It’s joyous and funny and a thrill to share time with them. They are the “perpetual outsiders” we can never hope to engage with, but we can observe them on their lofty purchase, gladdened that our Gods know how to holiday. The Jagaroth in the bubble, I hear you cry? Makes perfect sense to me: before the chicken and the egg at the start of all creation came the Jagaroth. It’s what ultimately the story is about. City of Death’s only issue structurally (and it’s amazing that there’s only one given the speed at which Douglas Adams and Graham Williams knocked this out) is that we don’t know the human race is under threat until the very last minute. If we had, maybe there’d be a bit more tension as the Doctor races alone across Paris in that final episode. But who cares? City of Death is funny, timeless, shamelessly romantic, it has John Cleese in it and even finishes with a sexy saxophone motif. In Doctor Who, that right there is unheard of.

THE DEADLY ASSASSIN

Never has Bob Holmes produced a script of such structural aplomb: four episodes, four very different problems to solve. Save the president! Fight the court case! Escape the Matrix! Stop the Master! That might seem over simplified, but it ensures that each episode is a riveting sketch in its own right. The Deadly Assassin is knowingly grandiose. We start with scrolling text, let’s not forget, narrated by Tom Baker as if to warn us that this is big stuff. Gallifrey is, for the first and best time, richly explored and its society is a vital and complex one. The politics are real, the characters fascinating, the results perfection. The mystery of the Time Lords was once treasured by fandom – but for me, there’s a woolliness about those early appearances - and Holmes decides he’s the fellow who’s going to go for broke and dismantle the whole wretched pack of them. He does so with such unforgettable prowess that the mythology established here would follow the series forever. The very latest episode, number 851 no less, returned to the Matrix, as did the Wachowskis in 1999. On the story’s DVD commentary, Tom Baker attests that “this might be the best Doctor Who story I’ve ever seen.” It’s very difficult to find fault with that statement. This is the best. This is as good as they come. And the best of it all is the unfettered dreamscape that occupies Part Three. The Deadly Assassin is the definitive story of the Time Lords and in that respect it has never, ever been bettered. Monumental.

JH