The Collection - Season 22 Blu Ray

Cards on the table: Season 22 has never been a personal favourite. As a child, I came to the stories in piecemeal form: some early VHS releases, the Revelation repeat and UK Gold. Whilst I’d LOVED Revelation, the tantalising glimpses of Colin’s first season on Resistance is Useless and even The Troughton Years led eventually to some stories which looked great ultimately feeling flat. The childhood “first look” tends not to lie. Who doesn’t still love those films they watched over and over again as children? (I’ll throw Romancing the Stone in the Blu Ray player any day.) Watching the 1985 season this week, I’d still stand generally by the assertion that Season 22 looks fizzy but tastes flat. However, the year 2022 represents the most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had with these grizzly, dazzling, bright and in their own way intriguing tales.

Colin Baker strides through the season as if this were the part he was born to play. It’s impossible to view the series without the knowledge that the Sixth Doctor has recently attempted to strangle Peri and failed to apologise for it though. As Attack of the Cybermen begins, we’re not quite sure he won’t do so again and the relationship between Doctor and Companion feels worryingly akin to an abusive husband and an abused wife. Peri just keeps doing as she’s told and the Doctor keeps putting her in unforgiveable positions: asking her to shoot Terry Molloy’s Russell; pushing her off in the direction of David Ashton’s Karfelian “tour”; dismissing her fears of rabid dogs and relentlessly belittling her dialect. Even when she asks if she has a say, he responds, “Of course not. Be quiet,” in a tasteless bit of ha-ha 80s mansplaining. It’s a wonder she stays with him and an even bigger wonder that Colin Baker manages to make our lead such a charming and loveable Time Lord. He rails against the lines, finds a nuance that often isn’t there and smiles through moments which could be needlessly terse. The lengthy TARDIS scenes which delay our heroes’ arrival become a somewhat irritating staple. Whilst events unfold on Karfel, for instance, Peri is busy looking at a curve on a screen, wondering when it might become a line. Whilst events unfold on Varos, Peri is busy finding a big book for the Doctor to unceremoniously slap on the floor. Whilst events unfold on Necros, Peri and the Doctor climb over a small wall. Having two actors of such calibre, such dependable and cherishable leads who are, without fail, acting their hearts out, finding depth, unpredictability and surprise in their dialogue, demoted to C-plot status and given so little to do, is the biggest crime of Season 22 and chiefly its script editor.

There are glimpses of greatness though. Peri wonders what her “first trip to London” might look like above ground, lending a sense of reality to the American botany student in the early moments of Attack. Her interest in the hedgerows in The Mark of the Rani and the unusual flora on Necros remind us that Nicola Bryant is playing a real person with a history. Equally, the Doctor is given some occasionally terrific scenes to play. Colin Baker feels completely relaxed in the role by the time he’s locked in the cooler with Flast the Cryon, finding diverting ways to play some over-verbose speeches. His apparent death at the end of the first episode of Vengeance on Varos feels real and is harrowing. His dialogue with Davros is eminently Doctor-ish and Colin plays his first meeting with Timelash’s Herbert with cool comic timing. He's also a match for the great Patrick Troughton in The Two Doctors, a show which – perhaps more than any other multi-Doctor Classic Who tale, feels like a story with equally billed leading men with equal screen time of equal quality. This should be a show that is working well, that is firing on all cylinders. The ingredients are all there – even including JNT’s infamous “shopping list” stories (This is a season with Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, the Master and the Second Doctor, for heaven’s sake – It should fly!) but nothing quite gels. Because, and it must be laid at his door again, Eric Saward doesn’t really know what to do with his stars and he doesn’t quite know how to solve a problem like 45 minutes.

Four of the six stories here have massive pacing issues. (The other two suffer from minor pacing issues too.) Attack of the Cybermen feels like a hodgepodge of random ideas cobbled together with little coherence and certainly doesn’t feel like a story in two acts. Despite the fact that fans often point to Part One being the more successful though, I’d argue that Part Two is far surer about the tale it wants to tell. There remain so many questions in the end: why, for instance, does Lytton affect a diamond robbery, gathering together some cronies, to then find the Cybermen who are in the sewers (for what reason?), for them to take him to Mondas, for him to steal a time-ship for the Cryons, whom he presumably left there in the first place? Jesus, he even knew about Stratton and Bates. The diamond job seems like a bloody long-arse way of going about things, Lytton. Resultantly, in Attack things just happen, one event after the next, with little regard for cause and effect, ironic for a time travel story. In The Mark of the Rani, the script starts strongly, with the promise of a meeting of great scientific minds to be crashed by the Master remaining a dangling narrative carrot. Unfortunately, when we should be tearing towards a climax which might leave history devastated in its wake, the Rani (and her companion the Master) are wondering around an empty forest placing land mines on the ground which turn people into trees. The story doesn’t even seem to finish. The Doctor simply fiddles with the Rani’s TARDIS and leaves her and the Master in limbo. Despite a cracking cliff-hanger at its mid-point, Part Two of The Mark of the Rani is arguably the weakest episode of the season and feels constantly as if it’s coming to a grinding halt. The Two Doctors also starts well – we get a whole twenty minutes of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines having an adventure. It’s a bold way to begin. And when we meet Colin and Nicola, we’re even happier that we’re getting an extra adventure with them. Unfortunately, the plot meanders around the block a few times, with Part Three enjoying at least three unrelated endings: the Sontaran ship exploding, Oscar Botcherby’s horrible death and then (the least effective) Chessene falling out of a plastic DIY time machine with a half-arsed yelp. Part Two opens with a huge scene wherein the Doctor deduces that the universe is collapsing, ruminates on the effect that will have on the butterfly, then changes his mind and realises that he’s wrong. It gives the show a questionable air of seeming partly pointless and most definitely playing for runtime. Timelash, too is an oddly formed beast, the greatest of which (Paul Darrow) is offed too early into Part Two. As Darrow himself asserts on the show’s Making Of: “When I’m dead, stop watching. It’s boring.” There are exceptionally tedious TARDIS scenes in the programme’s later stages leading to yet another story that doesn’t know how to fill its allotted minutes successfully. Revelation of the Daleks is surprising in how so assuredly and successfully it breezes across the screen in all its violent glory, its narrative threads working beautifully in parallel with one another, the one story written with only Eric Saward at the helm. (Perhaps he just couldn’t fix other writers’ scripts?) Vengeance on Varos – the outlier – shows how to structure things more traditionally, Part One’s cliff-hanger perhaps the best moment of the season, so satisfyingly meta is it in its timing. Its only fault is that the big finish doesn’t quite work in studio, the poisoned tendrils seeming rather feeble and trifling when compared to the hangings, the acid baths and the giant flies of earlier threat.

So if the unusual structures of these episodes don’t quite work, what is so great about Season 22? Most obviously, the production values are absolutely worthy of note. The Mark of the Rani looks the most sumptuous, every aspect of the serial convincing in its historic detail and the Rani’s TARDIS interior is shockingly grand and original; Attack of the Cybermen has a contemporaneous feeling of urban grit in in its filmed sequences; considering it’s all shot in studio, there is a feeling of dread and hostility running throughout Vengeance on Varos; and the fortuitous snowy sequences of Revelation end the season with a peculiar touch of class. There is some fantastic design work, especially in Attack of the Cybermen. The tomb sequences, although not quite evoking the Tombs of the 60s, boast a robustness and realism often lacking in “futuristic” sets. Varos has a holistic feeling to its world’s design, domestic home dwellings looking almost identical to the prison cells from which they have evolved. Revelation too boasts a world we can thematically believe in, the creams and pastels of the DJ booth and Kara’s offices belying the dark underbelly of Necrosian society.

There’s also a real feeling of diversity to the stories on offer which is deeply pleasing. Attack’s large-scale planet-hopping gives way to the oppressive darkness of a series of claustrophobic tunnels on Varos which in turn opens up to the expansive location shooting on The Mark of the Rani and the foreign shoot of The Two Doctors. Each story feels visually different and arresting and there’s a sense of scale and variety across the season. As a body of work, the series is allowing each story a chance to pop, to show off what makes it individual. There’s a sense that the series, despite what Michael Grade asserts elsewhere on this Blu Ray release, can feasibly and believably create alien worlds and a wealth of varied vistas.  

Directorially, there are some excellent decisions made across the season, with Matthew Robinson and Graeme Harper staggering the viewers with their often viscerally thrilling choices, whilst Ron Jones – now a director of considerable Who experience – proves his reason for being on the rota in his best work for the show. Newcomer Sarah Hellings puts some lovely classical work to camera, but also presents some markedly poor fight sequences, whilst staple directors Peter Moffatt and Pennant Roberts ultimately disappoint. Moffatt at times seems to be in battle with the script, the notorious reveal of a Sontaran in long shot only the tip of the iceberg. Look at the TARDIS’s first materialisation. Where is the establishing shot of the kitchen? He’s not even obeying the ordinary go-to rules of a director. We simply cut to Shockeye as if we ought to know who he is. This is a director who doesn’t really understand how to tell the story he has been handed because as I am sure he would have admitted, he didn’t really understand it at all. At best, he succeeds in putting a show on camera. Pennant Roberts, on the other hand, tries his best but struggles with a studio-bound tale without a budget. Viewed in the context of the season, Timelash is easily spottable as the cheapie. Roberts does manage some striking reveals – the Borad himself is shot sparingly and his eventual realisation is a masterclass in make-up and camerawork. Unfortunately, the Borad is the best thing in a show which does unfortunately fail quite catastrophically. The eponymous punishment is a dangerous pit you have to be thrown up into, made even more bizarre by being thrown up into it by an android who lightly taps its victims skyward. The Doctor’s escape from the android via mirror and electronic soundtrack is so awkwardly staged as to be embarrassing and the less said about the Bandrils, the better. For much of its screentime, however, Timelash is mostly tedious and slow. Even the new CGI which works wonders can’t save a story without a shape.

There are shows in Season 22 which should be fantastic. The Two Doctors is full of craftsmanship; look at the cast: John Stratton, Jacqueline Pearce and James Saxon giving performances of supreme skill and personality with dialogue which soars, but the scenes feel disjointed and without consequence. The music from Peter Howell is one of the best of the classic series and the Spanish film work is spectacular. But the uneven structuring and the lack of narrative momentum often brings things to a stuttering pause. What’s missing from this and other tales elsewhere on this boxset is a real sense of purpose. There are no narrative bombs, at least not bombs which are exploded. Why isn’t The Mark of the Rani racing to the finish as its successor, the less-celebrated Time and the Rani most definitely is? Why does the otherwise superb Revelation rely on a few Daleks from a previous story to come to the rescue at the end? Why aren’t the Cybermen’s converting of workers in the sewers the real heart of their particular story? Season 22 is full of ideas which don’t coalesce. Perhaps that’s because they’re ideas thrust upon Eric Saward by John Nathan-Turner rather than ideas which have come into their own fruition via the story writers? For instance, the only bit of the otherwise brilliant Revelation (apart from the slightly fudged ending) that abjectly doesn’t work is the statue of the Doctor which JNT insisted be inserted into the narrative. It’s quite clear that Robert Holmes favours the Androgums to the Sontarans and that Pip and Jane Baker prefer their own Rani to the Master. So JNT’s menu – whilst exciting the fan genes superficially – in the end comes off poorer than the delights found elsewhere in these stories. It’s striking that perhaps the most memorable character in all of Season 22 is Philip Martin’s Sil, the most original creation, embodying an actual socio-political idea.

Season 22 may still fall some way short of greatness, but this boxset does illustrate it at its best. We’re now a healthy distance away from its airing which was poisoned by the announcement of cancellation, and so instead of despairing at Peter Moffatt’s Sontaran in longshot for instance, we can instead thrill at the spaceship explosion behind the villa. We can appreciate and balk at what was great and be a little more relaxed about aspects of the show which didn’t work quite so well. I can’t spend enough words praising Revelation either which I feel I’ve given short shrift here: it’s fantastic. William Gaunt, Alexei Sayle, Terry Molloy, Clive Swift, Eleanor Bron and indeed our regulars shine in a script which is rich in detailed, lyrical dialogue, is blisteringly funny, melodramatic, violent and savage. This Grade A story alone is worth the entry price.

As ever, the team led by Russell Minton have produced a most staggering presentation of a hefty chunk of our favourite show. Whilst the DVD range chose often, rightly, to analyse and digest the shows, the Blu Ray range chooses to celebrate the whole lot, whatever fan opinion might be. Whereas Timelash, for example, was chosen as a “vanilla” DVD release given its reputation, here it’s adorned with new CGI which affects to make the inside of the timelash itself feel joyously dangerous. Attack is gifted a terrific new 5.1 mix and Varos boasts a newly edited full-length rough-cut which proves intriguing and worthwhile.

New documentaries Location, Location, Location and The Making of The Two Doctors are celebratory and touching. As we witness Colin Baker in the twilight of his career reminiscing of happy days, it’s so much easier to feel fondly about these stories. For our stars, these were crowning achievements. Their interaction is full of love and joyful memories. Despite an interview with Nicola Bryant which discloses a worrying and awkward relationship with JNT, Bryant is still clearly so fond of her days with the Doctor. Michael Grade comes across as crass and uninformed which makes his decision to cancel the show seem even more miscalculated. I was loathe to watch the interview given my opinion of Grade but the tyrant exposed himself as the narrow-minded conservative that he undoubtedly is. Colin Baker, on the other hand, is utterly charming and here, more than ever, proves why he was such a fantastic choice to play our leading man. His interview with the fantastically skilled Matthew Sweet allows us a chance to explore a more personal and tragic side to Colin’s tale and viewed through this sadness, his achievements throughout this boxset are even more miraculous. What a talent.

In the end, Season 22 has the last laugh. Here we are, over thirty years later, enjoying the season anew, through the often-reviving lens of the Blu Ray range, brightening the show’s memory and doing justice to these less appreciated eras. I feel better about Season 22. Whilst it has its faults, there is so clearly much to enjoy and here, perhaps finally, it is allowed to shine once more in its inherent brilliance. Thank goodness for this indomitable Blu Ray range.

JH

Doctor Who As Long Form

 I loved Flux. Chris Chibnall and his team promised the biggest story ever last year and – remarkably – their promotion was absolutely on point because Flux was massive. We journeyed from Halloween 2021 to the creation-spanning flux event, via the Crimean War, the 1960s and even the space between universes. We met Ood, Sontarans, Angels, Daleks and Cybermen, all in the one story which, on the whole, boasted an exhilarating sense of cohesion and confidence, only stumbling at its clunky climax, perhaps failing as a result of having a little too much to do. But the ride is indeed a thrill and it begs the question: is long-form Doctor Who the future? Indeed, is long-form Doctor Who better?

We might look back at the show’s past and sideways into its own varied universes to answer this poser. Because arguably, Doctor Who has spent much of its time operating in long-form. We can see a direct throughline from An Unearthly Child to the end of The Time Meddler, which acts as coda to the Ian and Barbara romance, opening up new possibilities for the show to move ever onward, and ending with its own bespoke closing titles which accentuate the end of one story and the start of another: the Doctor and his new companions looking out to pastures new through a universe of stars. Those early tales didn’t even have their own titles. Instead, each episode ran into the next and with only a few weeks off for the summer holiday, early Doctor Who had the staying power of a soap opera, its ending never really a consideration for the viewers. Tellingly though, the story of Ian and Barbara – the longest run of episodes in the show’s history to boast the story of companions is as blisteringly effective as no doubt it was in the 60s. As Hartnell and O’Brien walk away from the time-space visualiser, their sadness is palpable. After 77 episodes, the viewers must have felt equally destitute.

Ironically, the following year, the series offers up its first explicit epic in The Daleks’ Master Plan, the 12-part masterpiece so big it got its own prequel. Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner present a pulpy, comic strip adventure with a hard edge, not unlike the later Flux. Its scope is similar: several alien planets, spaceship travel, a range of villains and creatures and varied tones and registers. Perhaps Master Plan employs a more innocent, linear story-telling form but boasts several dramatic narrative punches including the violent and felt deaths of key characters. There are many four-parters which feel more sluggish than the Hartnell epic, and the vinyl release makes for perfect comfort-listening over the Christmas period. Flux meanwhile is purposefully disjointed and boundless, even de-constructing its own form by having the Hartnell-era closing titles of Episode 4 interrupted by guest characters from the previous episode updating us on their progress and Next Time trailers which boast surprises that leave the viewer aching for more. Perhaps given the success of Doctor Who’s two largest stories, there’s an argument to suggest we should get these megathons as a matter of routine.

The moody Master Plan and the following doom-laden Massacre is interrupted by a mini-season from Big Finish Productions: the Oliver Harper trilogy which consists of three stories by Simon Guerrier – The Perpetual Bond, The Cold Equations and The First Wave. Despite being what is probably extremely niche, even amongst Big Finish followers, this set of terrific tales ought to be heard by many. Threads of science, philosophy and finance run through a unique trilogy with an atmosphere all of its own. Richard Fox and Lauren Yason provide an unsettling and beautiful soundtrack and Guerrier’s final scene is haunting and ethereal, cementing this run as pivotal to the journey of the First Doctor and prizing itself into the even longer story around it forever. Guerrier’s similarly atmospheric Sara Kingdom trilogy (Home Truths, The Drowned World and The Guardian of the Solar System) tells another long story up there with some of the best Doctor Who ever written.

Other televisual season-long arcs include The Key to Time and The Trial of a Time Lord, both criminally under-rated. The Key to Time is discrete in the fact that it features no returning elements at all from previous stories and even introduces new companions and new (old) friends and acquaintances of the Doctor. The season feels fresh, limitless and full of optimism, each of the stories breezy, larkish and fun. The Trial, despite its concept clearly not quite knowing what it wants to do with itself, boasts stark, memorable scenes such as the death of Peri and the machinations of the Valeyard inside the Matrix, as well as a stellar cast of season-long regulars, not least the great Michael Jayston. Whilst these seasons may not represent Doctor Who at its absolute prime, there’s something to be said about their wide-reaching ambitions and the overpowering feeling that this is stirringly epic stuff.

At around this time, the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip begins to come into its own, the Sixth Doctor adventure Voyager in particular offering majestic imagery certain to print itself indelibly on the minds of younger readers. Arguably, however, it’s in the strips of The Eighth Doctor that the magazine stops seeing itself as lesser than the series from which it was spawned and forges ahead with its own identity building a distinct continuity for itself. Alan Barnes’s Endgame begins the story of Paul McGann’s cartoon incarnation with bravado and romance, a reinspired joi de vivre evident from the off, that first panel of Eight stepping out of his TARDIS into Stockbridge heralding a new era of bonhomie and fun. Boldly, the centrepiece of this ecstatic era is the 10-part The Glorious Dead, a story which reinvents the Master and tells tales in a way only a comic can, panels decorated with shredded newspaper clippings in spiralling vortexes. This to the Eighth Doctor and his Master is what The Sea Devils is for the Third and Delgado or Last of the Time Lords is for the Tenth and Simm – era-defining.

DWM tells huge stories for later Doctors too. The Child of Time thread running through several of the Eleventh Doctor strips is mysterious and gripping. The return visits to the planet of Cornucopia create a lovely narrative thread between the adventures of the Eleventh and Twelfth. Best of all though is the story of the Tenth Doctor and Majenta Price, presented in all its totemic glory in the DWM Graphic Novel, The Crimson Hand. Giving the Doctor a comic-only companion after having stuck so firmly to the world of the TV series since 2005 allows the strip to flourish again as it did under the Eighth Doctor and what the TV show loses in the Specials year of 2009, we gain in DWM. Arguably, the strip has never enjoyed a better uninterrupted run, before or since, than the stories from Hotel Historia to The Crimson Hand.

Elsewhere in the Whoniverse, we’ve got the Twelfth Doctor book trilogy The Glamour Chronicles which mirrored the longer tales of that year’s TV series; the media-spanning labyrinthine headfuck that was Time Lord Victorious; and the 50^th anniversary BBC Audio series Destiny of the Doctor which allowed each Doctor and era their time in the spotlight – every story presenting an authentic representation of the respective era from which it sings. Big Finish’s take on the Hartnell epic in their own equally thrilling Syndicate Master Plan is just one example of their season-long successes, the others including the massively lauded adventures of the Eighth Doctor and Charley which climaxed in the characteristically massive Neverland via the poll-topping The Chimes of Midnight, spring-boarding from the grand and gorgeous Storm Warning (also from Alan Barnes, whose palpable affinity with Paul McGann’s Doctor seems undeniably inherent). The company’s 20^th anniversary 6-hour tale The Legacy of Time was a success on every level, each story offering its own thrills and hoorahs – after 20 years, that’s really something.

Longer TV stories always seem to fare well in the polls: The War Games was voted the best story of the 1960s in DWM’s latest fan survey in 2014 and Season 7’s clutch of 7-parters is widely regarded as a huge success. What all the best of these novel-size stories do is offer a narrative which is as thrilling in its constituent parts as it is marvellous from a holistic perspective. You can pick any episode of The Daleks’ Master Plan and find an enjoyable 25-minutes (yes, even The Feast of Steven) but viewed in all its 12-part glory, it represents a hugely satisfying body of work. Similarly, the gripping edge-of-the-seat horror of Village of the Angels on its own is as admirable as the wild ambitions and twists of Flux in its entirety. But longer series of stories which may not have been as well received at the time seem to meet with greater acclaim over time. Russell T Davies’s epic three-parter - Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords (charting at 55 in the DWM poll) – now feels mythic. Similarly, his at-the-time-bloated-seeming The End of Time now feels like its tone meeting moniker: The Best. More recent finales seem also to do well in the polls: World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls is hailed as a modern classic on fan forums and always fares well in online polls. Stand-out episodes of the series such as Heaven Sent, A Christmas Carol and Voyage of the Damned (boo to the miserable nay-sayers) are improved by dint of their increased running time. If there were an episode that could feel like a bona-fide Doctor Who Movie it’s Voyage of the Damned, although Deep Breath and of course, the official number one, The Day of the Doctor, are equally totemic, and of course, enjoyed cinema screenings.

When Doctor Who returned to the screen in 2005, many criticisms were made of the 45-minute format, fans feeling that stories of this brevity simply didn’t work as well as longer ones. I was not in this camp: Father’s Day and Tooth and Claw are two of the most perfectly formed Doctor Who stories in the arsenal, each making a virtue of their runtime. But maybe there is something in Doctor Who as a long-running series? The Top 20 stories in that 2014 poll run as follows:

The Seeds of Doom – 6 parter
The Power of the Daleks – 6 parter
Inferno – 7 parter
The Eleventh Hour – Feature length episode
The Web of Fear – 6 parter
Dalek
Terror of the Zygons
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways – 2 parter
The War Games – 10 parter
The Robots of Death
Remembrance of the Daleks
Human Nature/The Family of Blood – 2 parter
Pyramids of Mars
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances – 2 parter
The Talons of Weng-Chiang – 6 parter
City of Death
The Caves of Androzani
Genesis of the Daleks – 6 parter
Blink
The Day of the Doctor – Feature length episode

Only eight of the twenty stories above have running times which could be deemed as standard for the show in their respective contemporary periods. Several of the stories in those eight - Dalek, Terror of the Zygons, The Robots of Death, Remembrance of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, City of Death, The Caves of Androzani and Blink - can’t even be said to be typical of the format. Blink, most obviously, tells a very different “short story” style narrative; Androzani is a theatrical Jacobean tragedy and neither Pyramids nor arguably City of Death boast masterclasses in how to structure a well put-together tale. Tellingly, at the other end of the scale, only five stories run longer than usual: The Space Pirates, The Dominators, The Time Monster and The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Sensorites. The King’s Demons, also in the bottom 20 is actually shorter than usual and Meglos sports unusually slight episodes, perhaps suggesting more obviously that longer is better?

Perhaps as a fandom we do want our stories to feel bigger, more epic, more universal, in keeping with the breadth and imagination of the show itself. The Daleks’ Master Plan, as I have argued before, is perhaps the story that best typifies the programme as a whole: planets, history, space, Daleks, Time Lords, starships, contemporary Earth, fun, danger, comedy and tragedy, all vying for attention across its five hours, the very distillation of Doctor Who. When the show returns in 2023, rumour has it that RTD will produce three feature-length specials. Judging by fandom’s bent towards the epic, we could be in for a treat. Hell, we all know we’re going to be spoilt by the boss. Steven Moffat’s The Day of the Doctor topped the polls in the 50^th anniversary. Will RTD manage to top it come the 60^th? With longer stories, I’d put money on it.

JH

The Collection - Season 17 Blu Ray

 

I must admit, when this collection of table wine stories was announced as the next chapter in the continuing range of phenomenally well-presented Blu Ray Doctor Who episodes, I was a little deflated. There is a definite feeling amongst fandom that this is the worst of Tom Baker’s seven-year stint, its stories (City of Death aside) regularly found in the doldrums of DWM and online polls. Some are seen (even by their directors) as the “nadir” of Doctor Who. Many consider the heady brew of the excesses of Tom Baker combined with the freewheeling knockabout vibes of a young Douglas Adams a recipe for trouble. The season climaxing in a half-finished story seems emblematic of a show in turmoil, laughing so hard at itself because it knows it’s only a strike away from cancellation.

What a treat then to come to these stories afresh, free from the context of their day, the attendant anxieties and comparisons, and presented as one unit of work – 26 chunks of late 70s sci-fi hokum to be enjoyed 40 years later on their own merits. I was surprised. Watching Season 17 in December 2021 is the most enjoyable it has ever been and positioning the (rightly) exalted City of Death amongst its contemporaries shines a healthy light on the remaining 22 episodes. The charm and wit of City is present across the season. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward make for a confident, brassy duo across the series, becoming our touchstones. When Tom stops taking things seriously, for better or for worse, so do we, but Lalla’s always there playing sensibly to counter him. There is a glorious amount of film footage, not just in Paris but on Skaro, on Chloris and in Cambridge. Made under incredible budgetary constraints, there is a feeling that this show still aims high. We not only scale the Eiffel Tower but in its cheapest production visit two different planets, explode a city-sized ever-moving labyrinth and meet alien minotaurs and collapsing corpses as well as witness space walking and a spinning TARDIS slow-bowling its way from an asteroid. This is a television series that still knows no limits.

Destiny of the Daleks is amazingly well-directed, perhaps controversially even more so than Genesis. The first admittedly clunky regeneration scene sets entirely the wrong tone, however. It isn’t particularly funny, is badly filmed (look at that opening shot!) and lacks the wit of stories and even scenes around it. It feels clumsy and thrown together. June Hudson emerges as the first obvious star of this season, as Lalla Ward arrives in that glorious pink cossie. As soon as we materialise on Skaro, though, there’s an immediate pleasingly filmic aura to Destiny. Ken Grieve turns off Dudley Simpson’s music and we’re left with unearthly sound effects and slow rumbling to complement an atmosphere of palpable dread. Tom Baker is serious, playing his scenes perhaps in reverence to Genesis, remembering its mythic status and one of his great early successes. Our heroes run from the soundscape back into studio and we find our first very successful set, helping to bridge the gap between studio and location, wonderfully designed by Ken Ledsham. His Movellan ship is also striking and replete with detail, complemented again by June Hudson’s fabulous robotic costumes. As the Daleks smash through the walls at the close of Part One, they re-establish themselves as a force of terror and the low, gliding mirror shots of them later in the tunnels are menacing and dreadful. It’s lovely to see Davros again too in this his first return, the cobwebbed cadaver recalling ancient, almost legendary fear.  

True, as with most of Season 17, there are some lapses, the likes of which the series’ naysayers hold up as evidence of a show losing its way. David Gooderson, whilst dignified and valiant, remains the George Lazenby of Davroses, even his untreated voice (now fixed thanks to the wizardry of Mark Ayres who propels the story aurally into the 21^st century with dazzling aplomb) sounds manic to the point of vulnerability. He loses the eerie whisper of Michael Wisher and doesn’t quite reach the arrant mania of Terry Molloy. As he cries, “Remove the explosive!” warbling uncontrollably, we see a Davros who is beginning to lose his status as a serious threat. Later, as he repeats “To your right!” to a clearly stupid Dalek, there’s a sense that the show can’t attain the sense of pandemonium it is clearly trying to reach and the banality of the dialogue is a testament to that. Like the initial TARDIS scene, this feels slipshod, despite some well-judged explosives. Perhaps the best way to exemplify Destiny as a whole is to look at its Daleks – shot well, credibly dangerous and happy to go kamikaze, but in the end, they look a bit rough around the edges, have the wrong voices and are a bit wobbly. There’s much to love about Destiny and a great deal of skill on display in terms of design, camerawork and performance, but its ambition means that it sometimes feels slapdash and rough when at its best, it’s striking and dangerous.

City of Death is the crowning glory of the Douglas Adams season, created by its era’s great minds: not just Douglas himself, but Graham Williams and David Fisher, the too-often unsung heroes of late 70s Who. Fisher knows damn well how to tell a fun Doctor Who story using a limited cast and a few choice sets. Although he distances himself from City of Death, his hallmarks remain. This has Fisher written all over it in much the same way that we can hear Douglas’s voice in tandem. It’s a perfect storm, matched by one of the finest guest casts the show has ever had and some of the best guerrilla filming ever undertaken by the Doctor Who film crew.

Some commentators point to a very specific weakness in City of Death – famously the Jagaroth’s unexplained appearance in the time bubble. But to my mind, that’s exactly what gives the Doctor the knowledge that before the chicken and the egg came the Jagaroth. It’s here that he works out what the exploding ship at the dawn of time means to humanity. It’s a shame that he doesn’t tell the viewer though before we reach the plains of ancient Earth. The threat of the Jagaroth isn’t seeded well enough and we don’t really know why it’s such a bad thing for Scaroth to be reconstituted until the very end, meaning the journey through Parisian walkways as we approach the climax seems to lack a narrative motor. Apart from this slight structural issue though, and a piece of dodgy spaceship design in the first few minutes which in no way matches the amazing prior model shot, there’s very little to pick holes in here. Its wit is justifiably famous, its lines infinitely quotable. City of Death offers minute to minute joy. Dudley Simpson’s last great score and John Cleese’s very funny cameo mark out this adventure as a thing of not only the overused adjective genius but also beauty and finesse. This is the BBC at the peak of its 1970s prowess, producing Doctor Who at the peak of its 1970s prowess. This is classic television, up there with those most celebrated shows: Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses and Morecombe and Wise. But better.

It would take a monolith of a story to beat those final moments of Dudley Simpson’s glorious, romantic saxophone. The Creature from the Pit is not that monolith, but it has a damn good stab at continuing the high standards set by its predecessor. The first episode is fantastic. Indeed, it’s difficult to think of ways in which it could be improved. David Brierley’s new K9 is perhaps a little too forthright and the bandits are a thinly characterised bunch but again, we have sumptuous set and costume design, beautiful film footage and (mostly) vital, daring performances. The opening scenes, shot on that fantastic jungle set, assure us that we’re on our way to a continuation of the high standards set by the series so far. There are some genuinely funny gags, the more serious Myra Frances, the more eccentric Tom Baker becomes, and we end with an astonishing cliff-hanger, perhaps the best of the season, with a lunatic hero doing something completely unexpected. It’s a defining Doctor moment.

Sadly, The Creature from the Pit doesn’t stick the landing. The eponymous Tithonian is – bluntly – horrendously imagined. When Tom starts to suck it off, there’s absolutely no doubt that that is exactly what he is doing. The clumsy effects shots of the tri-pronged green mattress cross-fading its way over clumsily from the slimy model shots don’t remotely convince. This might not be a problem but for the fact this is the titular threat. Having said that, Geoffrey Bayldon gives a joyous performance, there are some pleasingly well-lit cave scenes and despite some time meandering around down there, we reach a climax to Part Three which feels unexpectedly dangerous and frightening, not least in thanks to Myra Frances’s tangibly terrified Adrasta matched by a suddenly threatening and quiet Tom Baker. The unusual cross-fading, building music and fine performances make for a most unusual episode ending and The Creature from the Pit’s best moment. Part Four is frankly a write-off. The plot and indeed interest have come to an end with the death of Adrasta and there’s a very weak incoming missile narrative which gifts us some cool video effects in the TARDIS but little else. It’s the first episode of the season which feels like a real failure but that’s by no means bad going for a series so often found in fandom’s collective bargain bin of fondness.

Nightmare of Eden is another cracking story. Bob Baker’s script is the best of the season after City of Death. It’s got the functional clarity of a Terrance Dicks, the insatiable need to get to the next big moment of a Robert Holmes and the attendant gags of a Douglas Adams. Perhaps it’s a bit too neat in this season of more outrageous plotting but it saves its surprises even till its final episode. Its characters’ motivations are clear, its geography is defined and there’s a real assuredness about Bob Baker’s work. This is the voice of a veteran Doctor Who writer.

It’s a shame that Nightmare of Eden has clear directorial issues. Two actors embarrassingly talk straight to camera in the first five minutes, Tom Baker emerges from the TARDIS in a clearly difficult mood and the ship seems to have been designed by the same person who invented the avocado bathroom suite. Some of the performances are ill-judged, Lewis Fiander’s Tryst whilst occasionally unsettling is for the most part irritating and graceless. The scenes of intoxicated Vraxoin sufferers, whilst possibly naively scripted, are played too broadly, despite David Daker clearly living those moments. It’s the women keeping this show afloat – Lalla Ward and Jennifer Lonsdale creating some much-needed credibility and Ward making the most frightening moment of the season (the eyes of the jungle) come to very real life.

The Mandrels are badly imagined, their arms uncontrollable, their flares enviable. The ships’ collision (now happily fixed by Jonathan Picard and Anthony Lamb with their spruced-up CGI) is difficult to understand visually and the infamous “Oh my everything!” scene feels like the state Tom Baker reaches after three days in studio with a director who can’t beat him. Thankfully, we have his steely “Go away” moment a few scenes later and he very quickly retains his powerhouse status. I feel like I’m giving Nightmare short shrift. There’s the fantastically, wittily shot chase sequence in Part Two to enjoy. There’s the ingenuity of a cleverly conceived script – full of imaginative concepts - to goggle at. There’s the fantastic cliff-hanger to Part Two, where the show’s narrative motors vitally in a new direction, and there are the very dangerous-seeming jungle scenes at the start of Part Three in which Tom gets unceremoniously soaked. There is a lot to enjoy in Nightmare of Eden but its real star, not envisaged as well as it should be, is its well-structured, unshowy but exciting script. At its heart, there is one great big idea: the monsters are the drugs! That simple, unpredictable cleverness perhaps defines Season 17.

It certainly defines The Horns of Nimon, an effortless segue of Greek and sci-fi mythology. The classic ships are spaceships, the minotaur is the Nimon and most cleverly of all, the labyrinth is an electrical circuit. It may seem like simple transposition but again, like Nightmare of Eden, its done with efficient clarity and neatness. Like Eden, though, Nimon suffers visually. This season opens with three stories boasting lavish film material and aside from an incredible explosion, both Eden and Nimon haven’t got any, meaning that they suffer by comparison, seeming the weaker cousins of their earlier, grander predecessors. It seems most notable in Part One here though, where the spaceship set is clearly one row of rooms and a fourth wall. There isn’t a window – or even a porthole - into space or a pilot’s seat facing the right direction. Whilst the sets of Nimon are again, clever and full of detail, especially Soldeed’s office, they lack any real sense that people might live here. The strange gameshow-style area in which the TARDIS lands has a painted empty wasteland behind it. Where do the people of Skonnos dwell? Where are the houses? Where do the corridors lead? Even the moving maze we never actually witness move. June Hudson – her again – saves Nimon from looking completely shoddy, her elaborate costumes enlivening the screen immeasurably. That said, her Nimon creatures themselves are ultimately another monstrous failure, blokes walking in stilettos balancing water jars on their heads, the plasticky horns the final insult to the poor performers.

Graham Crowden is worth the entry fee though, his crazed Soldeed another in the line-up of Season 17’s impeccable leading villains. His last fall into lunacy is a masterclass in overacting and actually rather fine melodrama. Tom tries to out-act him by turns and is often, surprisingly, defeated. The problem is that the actors are treating Nimon as if it’s the same knockabout comedy we’ve come to expect from this season, but actually, it’s a fairly humourless script, more concerned with its grim locust-like demonic scheming than making us laugh. When the cast try to, therefore, it’s not particularly funny. After the comedically elaborate whizz-pops and bangs from the TARDIS console, we might be forgiven for assuming a punchline is on the way. “That’s very odd” is not that punchline. Lalla Ward again gives a heroic performance which goes a long way to saving the day and she’s certainly the heart of Part Two. This means that The Horns of Nimon ends the season on a tonally uneven beat which thankfully, the now “Definitive” edition of Shada has a chance to rectify.

Viewed in six parts as intended, freshly edited so that each episode is roughly the same length, this feels as close to the original Shada as we’re ever likely to get. There’s a feeling from both the 1979 team and the 2021 team that this is a true labour of love. The animation has been “enhanced” and the music and sound effects slightly altered in such small ways that they’re almost imperceptible but it’s little things like the “undergraduate voices” which really help lift scenes. I love Shada. It may be a little flabby, a little undisciplined (Why hasn’t Skagra looked at the last page of the book yet? Hasn’t he even flicked through it?) but it’s so charming, so cherishable and it’s a crime that it was never completed. Denis Carey is fabulous as Chronotis and Christopher Neame is Season 17’s last adorable villain. If I’ve one complaint, it’s that – in the re-working of the edited material – the newer version uses slightly weaker takes of scenes in terms of performance. Some fluffed lines slip through which weren’t there in 1992 because alternative takes were used, notably in the first scene between the Professor and Chris Parsons. But it’s a small niggle in what is a fantastic production and ends the season on a latter-day Tom Baker laughing at us, the old man looking back on his glory days, knowing they were golden. Judging by this boxset, he’s not wrong. Season 17 is the best it’s ever been and its stars – Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, June Hudson, Dudley Simpson, David Fisher, Bob Baker and Anthony Read – are shining more vividly than ever, with special thanks to the new stars of Doctor Who: Mark Ayres, Peter Crocker, Pete McTighe, Matthew Sweet and the rest of our Blu Ray heroes.

This presentation, as is now - unbelievably - standard, comes with an extensive range of special features old and new. The restoration is jaw-dripping, picture and sound across the set crisper than a May week in June. New documentaries on Destiny of the Daleks and Douglas Adams are stand-out films, with contributions from major players the DVD range never managed to collar; it’s lovely to hear from David Gooderson, for instance. Matthew Sweet’s interview with Bob Baker is perhaps not as riveting as his usual explorations but that’s perhaps because Baker doesn’t seem to be a particularly philosophical or alarmingly articulate contributor. He doesn’t really seem to want to talk about himself which makes the interview almost self-defeating. Tom Talks however, sees the other Baker in a spell-binding mood and offers some lesser heard anecdotes, proving this old dog still has so much to give. I’m sure, like he himself readily admits, we’re happy he’s alive. Lee Binding’s artwork is as superlative as ever, and even better in your hand than online. The CGI menus, the box itself, the oh-so-obvious care and attention – all combine to produce a first-rate Doctor Who product, the standard to beat. Many, many thanks and congratulations to all concerned. It’s impossible to believe that our little show is offered so much affectionate and high-quality curation. We are blessed.