The Keeper of Traken

(Series 18, Episodes 21-24)

Summary: The Doctor and Adric are back in N Space and have about much chemistry as a broken Bunsen Burner.  After the Doctor has a rather soporific conversation about the fate of Traken with its ailing Keeper, they land there only to be immediately framed by a wooden statue which turns out to be Crusty Master’s TARDIS.  The Master’s plan to become Keeper is foiled but he pops out of his clock TARDIS to take over the body of the anagramically named Tremas.

Watch it because: The Master reborn…as Anthony Ainley.

Original Air Date: 31 January – 21 February 1981.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Adric (Matthew Waterhouse).

Writer: Johnny Byrne.

Director: John Black.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Warriors' Gate

(Series 18, Episodes 17-20)

Summary: The crew of a spaceship are using the cast of Cats as unwilling navigators, the Doctor makes friends with some very wordy robotic knights and, like all good SatNavs, K9 spends most of his time recalculating.  It’s hard to keep up with time jumping around all over the place but it turns out to be all about slave trading (I think).  Rorvik rather unsportingly tries to strangle the Doctor with his own scarf whilst Romana is left in the void with K9, saving the cat people from enslavement.

Watch it because: Eerily atmospheric direction.  Paul Joyce may not have been practical but he certainly had vision.

Original Air Date: 3 – 24 January 1981.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Romana (Lalla Ward), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) & K9 Mk II (Voiced by John Leeson).

Writer: Stephen Gallagher.

Director: Paul Joyce.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

State of Decay

(Series 18, Episodes 13-16)

Summary: Still stuck in E Space, the Doctor meets a bunch of peasants with curiously advanced technology who are all afraid of the Wasting. Adric waltzes in and makes himself at home, revelling in being the chosen one.  (I know he gets a lot of hate but I kind of love how much of an unapologetic dick he is.)  Things get a little suspicious when the Doctor discovers fuel cells filled with human blood and, if you ask me, that tower looks an awful lot like a rocket…

Watch it because: Zargo’s beard.  Truly a thing of beauty.

Original Air Date: 22 November – 13 December 1980.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Romana (Lalla Ward), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) & K9 Mk II (Voiced by John Leeson).

Writer: Terrance Dicks.

Director: Peter Moffatt.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Full Circle

(Series 18, Episodes 9-12)

Summary: Romana mopes in her room because she doesn’t want to go back to Gallifrey whilst the Doctor is cheerfully dismissive of her concerns.  Instead of getting back to Gallifrey, they end up in E-Space where some colonists are living in fear of swamp monsters.  I do admire Romana’s guts in saying “it’s just a spider” but it is the size of a small dog with glowing eyes so a little healthy fear wouldn’t go amiss. The Deciders have been lying to their people just because no one can work out how to fly a spaceship but, after a lot of indecision for a bunch of deciders, they manage to fly their ship away.  Adric arrives in his yellow pyjamas with his badge for being good at maths and is so devastated by the death of his brother that he stows away on the TARDIS.

Watch it because: Don’t we all wish we were seventeen-year-old Andrew Smith?!

Original Air Date: 25 October – 15 November 1980.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Romana (Lalla Ward), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) & K9 Mk II (Voiced by John Leeson).

Writer: Andrew Smith.

Director: Peter Grimwade.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Meglos

(Series 18, Episodes 5-8)

Summary: Science takes on superstition over a dodecahedron on the planet of the dodgy blonde wigs.  A pair of imbecilic bounty hunters offer up a Jacob Rees-Mogg lookalike as a sacrifice and are menaced by a large cactus (don’t question how the cactus managed to work all those computers with no fingers).  Said cactus traps the Doctor and Romana in a phenomenally boring fold in time which they are forced to ham-act their way out of and Romana suffers the fate of so many Doctor Who companions when she is attacked by a plant.  Despite everyone being very confused by the Doctor’s cactus-face doppelganger, Meglos is defeated and the people of Tigella learn to live and work side by side in peace and harmony.

Watch it because: Jacqueline Hill.  Need I say more?

Original Air Date: 27 September – 18 October 1980.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Romana (Lalla Ward) & K9 Mk II (Voiced by John Leeson).

Writer: John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch.

Director: Terence Dudley.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.