Four to Doomsday

(Series 19, Episodes 5-8)

Summary: Tegan seems so determined to get back to make her flight – she should really just take the opportunity to slack off through time and space.  The TARDIS lands on a spaceship containing three green crusties with a suspicious interest in fashion who are on their way to Earth.  They’ve got what appears to be a bunch of kidnapped people from various Earth cultures throughout history on board but it’s ok because it turns out everyone’s a cyborg.  Adric sucks up to a power-crazed autocrat just because he calls him smart, Nyssa gets brainwashed and the Doctor foils a crackpot plan to travel in time and enslave the people of Earth using poisonous frogs.

Watch it because: The Doctor’s penchant for puns.

Original Air Date: 18-26 January 1982.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).

Writer: Terence Dudley.

Director: John Black.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Castrovalva

(Series 19, Episodes 1-4)

Summary: Problems with his regeneration mean the Doctor has to hang out in the Zero Room whilst the Master uses Adric as a stooge to programme the TARDIS controls to fly them into the Big Bang.  Adric’s caught in the Master’s web, luring the Doctor to Castrovalva - the only place where he can sort out his regeneration complications – where Tegan and Nyssa set out with the Doctor in the Zero cabinet in very unsuitable shoes.  Everyone becomes trapped in a splintering universe and a suspicious librarian saves the day.

Watch it because: I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be absolutely splendid.

Original Air Date: 4-12 January 1982.

Doctor: Peter Davison.

Companions: Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).

Writer: Christopher H. Bidmead.

Director: Fiona Cumming.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Logopolis

(Series 18, Episodes 25-28)

Summary: In a contender for most boring opener ever, the Doctor and Adric measure the TARDIS and get stuck in TARDIS stacking dolls while air hostess Tegan struggles to change a tyre and gets watched by a creepy white guy.  The Master is back and shrinking people and Nyssa just loves what the air on Logopolis has done for her father’s complexion.  The Master unleashes entropy and then must join forces with the Doctor to prevent the end of the universe.  Interestingly, the only planet with the computers to do this is Earth so they all return, only for the Master reveals he’s rigged it so he can control everything.  Sadly for him, he’s so busy trying out his maniacal villainous laugh that the Doctor manages to pull the plug on his ambitions but unfortunately ends up falling to his death from a satellite dish.

Watch it because: “It’s the end.  But the moment has been prepared for.”  Farewell, Tom Baker. 172 episodes is a helluva run.

Original Air Date: 28 February – 21 March 1981.

Doctor: Tom Baker.

Companions: Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) & Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding).

Writer: Christopher H. Bidmead.

Director: Peter Grimwade.

Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

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.