Serial 113: Warriors' Gate - The E-Space Trilogy Part III

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Romana II, K-9, Adric


Written by: Stephen Gallagher
Directed by: Paul Joyce & Graeme Harper


Background & Significance: Wanting to push Doctor Who out of the complacency he saw under the purvey of Graham Williams, new producer John Nathan-Turner set about completely re-jiggering the show over the course of its 18th season.The first changes and were small but important when he commissioned a new opening title sequence, musical arrangement of the theme, and standard, codified outfit for The Doctor. The final major change was the turnover of Tom "he-pretty-much-is-Doctor-Who-at-this-point" Baker in the season's finale.

But before he did that, Nathan-Turner did a complete companion turnover.

 As with the other turnovers in the season, they came slowly and over time, so as to not be too jarring to the audience. Adric first appeared three stories in and became a full companion proper in the subsequent story. After the escape from E-Space, Nathan-Turner introduced new companion Nyssa in the season's penultimate story, and the final new companion (Tegan) in the season finale. It would leave an over-crowded TARDIS (a problem not really remedied until the departure of Nyssa in "Terminus"), but it still gave a new direction towards "relatability", which Nathan-Turner felt was lacking, especially when The 4th Doctor was as aloof and unconnectable as he was (and only getting more and more so as time went on), the first incarnation of Romana had proved as cold and unrelatable as she was, and the wonderful sidekick of the Tin Dog could only ever be a silly robot (and thusly not relatable). Lalla Ward's Romana definitely helped the situation by bringing levity, but in Nathan-Turner's eyes the fact that The Doctor (a Time Lord) was stuck sticking around with a robot dog and another Time Lord only made the show less connectable and personal...

So Romana and the Tin Dog... They'd have to go. And go they did.

Interestingly enough, "Warriors' Gate" was not the original conception for their departure. Initially, script editor Christopher H. Bidmead had commissioned a story from acclaimed novelist Christopher Priest (of "The Prestige" fame, amongst many many others) entitled "Sealed Orders", which supposedly would have featured "A political thriller set on Gallifrey in which the Doctor is seemingly ordered to kill Romana by the Time Lords. A complex plot involving time paradoxes would result in the appearance of a second Doctor (who dies) and lead to Romana's departure; it also involved the idea of time running into itself, resulting in one TARDIS existing inside another." [source]

Unfotunately, Priest was a novelist, not a television script writer, and the script proved unfeasible for television, resulting in Bidmead to using a fall back script by Stephen Gallagher he had commissioned for such an event.

And so "Warriors' Gate" came to be.

It wasn't a smooth transition, however. Gallagher's script proved to be fairly unfeasible for television, resulting in the story's director, Paul Joyce, working with Bidmead to do some major uncredited rewrites on the script to make the story workable. Joyce himself caused friction because of his ideas on the script, especially with Nathan-Turner (who contemplated firing him), and at one point handed over the reins to production assistant Graeme Harper, who worked on a few sequences alongside Nathan-Turner in what would be his first uncredited directing work.

And what we're left with is... a hell of a story. It's a jumble, it's a puzzle, and it's a hell of a ride. I mean, after all that we just talked about, it'd kinda have to be, right?

So let's get to it!

Serial 112: State of Decay - The E-Space Trilogy Part II

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Romana II, K-9, Adric


Written by: Terrance Dicks
Directed by: Peter Moffat


Editor's note: Hey kids! Matt here to interject a few words before Cassandra takes over. Hope you've been enjoying this week-long look at E-Space (I know I have...). We'll be back to our regular Tuesday schedule on Tuesday but not before I round out the week with a look at "Warriors' Gate" on Friday. So check that out. Until then, feast your eyes on Cassandra stepping in to talk about some vampires.


Background & Significance: "State of Decay" is something of an anomaly in Season 18.

With the arrival of producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Christopher Bidmead, Tom Baker's final season saw a definite shift in the show, as is normal when a new producer/script editor regime takes over.  Shying away from the Williams aesthetic of wonder and fantasy, Bidmead and Nathan-Turner strove to ground the show with a more "realistic" sense of hard sci-fi.  But we've gone over all that before.

So what is a Terrance Dicks penned vampire story doing here, right in the middle of E-Space?

"State of Decay" was actually intended to kick off Season 15. Developed by Dicks and Robert Holmes, the story fell in line with the deliciously Gothic horror tendencies of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, inspired by Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.  However, the BBC stopped all production on the story, then called "The Vampire Mutation", because they were about to do a very expensive adaptation of Dracula, and it wouldn't do to have Doctor Who stepping on its toes with a vampire story of its own. Therefore, Dicks had to abandon his scripts, and wrote "Horror of Fang Rock" instead.

Enter JNT, three years later. Out of all the unproduced scripts that he had at his disposal as producer, he liked the vampire one the best. And so, he hired Terrance Dicks to rework it, replacing Leela with Romana, adding in Adric and K-9, and so forth.  Christopher Bidmead made changes as well, cutting back on the Gothic horror elements and playing up the sci-fi, so the story was more in line with his sensibilities.

So what we're left with is an interesting adaptation of an adaptation of sorts, a Gothic horror story trussed up with sci-fi elements to make it fit the new vision of Doctor Who. But does it work? Or is the tension between the new and the old such that they are entirely incompatible?

Well, let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 111: Full Circle - The E-Space Trilogy Part I

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Romana II, K-9, Adric

Written by: Andrew Smith
Directed by: Peter Grimwade 

Background & Significance: Season 18 of Doctor Who is something of a strange beast if for no other reason than because it marks a period of transition for the show. Most transitory periods only last a few or so episodes (the transition from Pertwee to Tom Baker is a good example, where "Robot" is a weird UNIT story and not really the Hinchcliffe/Holmes vision of the show), but this season marks a big paradigm shift as the show prepares to move away from Tom Baker and towards the stewardship of Producer John Nathan-Turner.

This is the one where you really start to feel its effects.

As Philip Sandifer is talking about all this week, the hand off from Tom Baker to Nathan-Turner happened in stages. Certain things were immediately apparent, the change in costume being the one that really stands out. Nathan-Turner really helped to codify the Tom Baker costume, which is... well... it's a good thing, I think. I mean, I'm personally a huge fan of the first three years of Tom Baker's look: Huge coat, colorful waistcoat, tie, button down shirt, slacks, perfect-length scarf... hat optional. It gave the Doctor a sense of ordered chaos and manner of appearance. As time went on though, Tom Baker started to take more liberty with his costume. No tie. Waistcoat optional and unbuttoned (which makes me ask why he even bothered keeping it around). Scarf that looks like a two-story tall curtain rather than an actual scarf. (Compare the two and you'll see the difference).

If nothing else, the burgundy scheme really points towards Baker's imminent departure. It feels very restrained, very somber, very foreboding. Funeral clothes, if you will... but for his own funeral. It's an ominous touch that just feels so good and so right, especially in retrospect.

But then you turn around and talk about script editor Christopher H. Bidmead, who brought in an almost over-saturation of "science" into a show that had been so defined by the "world of dreams and fantasy" under Graham Williams. It's not that I don't like his ideas (I mean, I love "Castrovalva", and "Logopolis" was totally watchable), but the focus on that is a bit silly, especially when it gets into Bidmead's own perspective on "science" which is much more based on conceptual interests (entropy) than actual data, facts, and real physics or whatever.

Which brings us to our week-long discussion of E-Space, which will see the arrival of Adric and the departure of Romana and K-9. E-Space is a big sci-fi concept that really pushes the Bidmead conception of Doctor Who more than "The Leisure Hive" or "Meglos" ever could. Those two stories were conceived and commissioned by the previous production team (re: Graham Williams) and don't make for "Nathan-Turner" stories. The next story ("State of Decay") was a product of long time Doctor Who stalwart Terrance Dicks. Fortunately/unfortunately Nathan-Turner didn't want to be undermined by any experienced Doctor Who crew who could undermine his authority, so Dicks is an old holdover. Almost in response, Nathan-Turner went in the completely opposite direction and commissioned "Full Circle" from Andrew Smith, who was only a teenager at the time.

Talk about fresh blood. Youngest writer on Doctor Who ever. I'm curious to see how it works out.

So let's get to it!

Serial 118: Kinda

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka, Adric


Written by: Christopher Bailey
Directed by: Peter Grimwade

Background & Significance: "Kinda" is one of those stories that gets a lot of talk in Doctor Who circles. Those who see it either hate it or love it with little to no in between. To a lot of people, it's "The one with that silly-looking snake" or "the one that has the forest that looks like a television studio". But my god. That's like saying "City of Death" is the one with that green dude with the tentacle face. Or "The Deadly Assassin" is the one with the dermatologically-challenged Master.

"Kinda", as with many others, is a rare story that is an excellent sum of its excellent parts and more.

It helps that the story is written by Christopher Bailey, who came to Doctor Who with a background in play writing, Buddhism, and academia. As such, the dialogue sparkles and the story is layered with peel-backable meanings that make it ripe for analysis.

The best part about all that is, of course, that you can just watch it and not have to give a damn about what any of the crazy thematics and allegory Bailey's working with actually means. You can take it as a straight story and be none the wiser as to the significance of certain elements or why certain things play out as they do. Sure, it's a little bizarre and (I'll warrant) a mite confusing as to the dynamics of the piece if you don't actively engage the text on some level, but it does at least make sense on its own insane internal logic. But it's rare for a Doctor Who story to work on so many levels at once, or to have a story that can so clearly convey the message while bringing up and discussing so much more. And yet, despite the layers of subtext and metaphor, the story is remarkably simple and easy enough to get at one go. It's just that the more you watch it, the more you think about it, the more you discuss it, the more you'll get out of it.

This story's also significant for being early early Davison and (by proxy) early early JNT. Having spent his previous year concerned with "science" and cleaning the slate of Tom Baker, it was with Davison's run that you really started to get Nathan-Turner's vision for the show, and "Kinda" is one of the benefits of that. It was commissioned by outgoing script editor Christopher H. Bidmead, overseen for a time by Antony Root, and then completed by Eric Saward. Because of such turmoil behind the scenes in the writing phase, the thing ended up not feeling like anything else, even a traditional Doctor Who story. But it's here that you can see just how versatile Nathan-Turner was (or perhaps could have been), and it's astounding how it does fall into line with what I consider the "high adventure" of the Nathan-Turner era (which is why I tend to love The Davison era so) while still being something more, something truly truly special and impossibly unique amongst all the Doctor Who stories that have ever been told.

So let's get to it!

Serial 117: Four to Doomsday

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Written by: Terence Dudley
Directed by: John Black

Background & Significance: A few months back we talked about "Castrovalva" and sure we had a right old laugh celebrating Peter Davison's first story, but what I failed to mention was that it wasn't ACTUALLY Peter Davison's first story. "Four to Doomsday" was the first serial Peter Davison filmed, and it's in this story that we get to see him having his first few steps as The Doctor. And boy howdy, man. Boy howdy. That guy is on from minute one.

Written by previous Doctor Who director Terence Dudley (he of "Meglos"-directing fame) who would go on to do "Black Orchid" and "The King's Demons", "Four to Doomsday" is a fairly typical Doctor Who story. It's a bit slow in places, a lot of it is about characters and mystery and seeing how annoying Tegan can be and watching Adric do whatever it is that Adric does. (Also dancing. Lots of dancing.) It's the first real Fifth Doctor adventure in the sense that "Castrovalva" is a lot about dealing with the aftermath of "Logopolis" and The Doctor's recovery as he transitions into this new chap we're going to be following for the next three years. This is a lot more about The Doctor going out and having a great adventure, saving the day, and really taking the car out for its test drive.

It's also here that we really start to see what Nathan-Turner's influence really kick in. The previous year was just about cleaning house and preparing the way for his vision to start, but here... Man. All the things he brought to the table are here: new markets, Star Wars, fun adventuring, the works.

Interestingly enough, "Four to Doomsday" was supposed to be a point for the show to get rid of Nyssa. Producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner (obsessed with Tegan and feeling Adric was a good touchstone for the young viewers) thought getting rid of Nyssa was a good idea to trim back the oversized TARDIS crew, but after intense lobbying from Peter Davison (who felt Nyssa was the most Fifth Doctorish Companion (and she was)) decided against it. It really is a classic case of actor knowing more than producer if you ask me, especially because Nyssa is TOTALLY Davison's strongest companion (at least for his Doctor) and losing her would have been a huge mistake, especially if you consider that the alternative means that Adric wouldn't have died and Waterhouse woulda been around for at least another season beyond this one.

So let's get to it!

Serial 120: Black Orchid

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka, Adric

Written by: Terence Dudley
Directed by: Ron Jones

Editor's Note: Hey, kids. Matt here to intro Cassandra back for this week's blog. Don't worry, though. I'll be back next week for "fun" or something. (God help me). But for now, Cassandra's gonna take us through a lovely little two part Davison ditty. It's not very long, but let's be honest: there's not a whole lot to say (as she'll probably tell you). Enjoy!

Background & Significance: "Black Orchid" is an anomaly.

When Johnathan Nathan-Turner was planning for Peter Davison's inaugural season as the Doctor, he managed to get enough of a budget to make 28 episodes--two episodes up from the previous standard. Instead, however, he decided to allocate those two extra episodes to making the pilot of the failed spin-off show K-9 and Company. So much for that.

Now with two less episodes to make, and having a staunch aversion to the traditional six-part serial, JNT decided to go ahead and have a two-parter, which hadn't been seen on the show since "The Sontaran Experiment" way back in Tom Baker's first season.

Another thing that separates "Black Orchid" from the norm is that there are no sci-fi elements in the story at all. In fact, it's very much a standard murder mystery in the vein of an Agatha Christie novel, even taking place in 1920's England. In an era of Doctor Who marked very heavily by big science fiction concepts and ideas, this serial stands out much like a sore thumb.

But you don't necessarily need the big bendy concepts for a good Doctor Who adventure, which this serial proves quite well. While highly atypical, "Black Orchid" is a fun little interlude, which is exactly what our TARDIS crew needs before heading into something like "Earthshock" (the following serial). This story, in the context of the entirety of Season 19, serves as the calm before the storm, a simple, entertaining adventure before the plunge into the next.

It also serves as a sort of spotlight on Nyssa, which is great, because I love Nyssa. It's a nice highlight of Sarah Sutton's acting abilities, much in the way the previous story "Kinda" is for Janet Fielding, and "Earthshock" is for Matthew Waterhouse.

And murder mystery. Did I mention murder mystery? Everyone loves a murder mystery.

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 116: Castrovalva

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Adric, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka


Written by: Christopher H. Bidmead
Directed by: Fiona Cumming

Background & Significance: It's no secret that I have tons of affection for Peter Davison. I know I mention it every time we talk about one of his stories, but really, I can't help it. The man is a born and bred actor with a real penchant for the character that holds from... minute one, I'd say.

And this is his minute one.

Comparing him to the just-gone-by Tom Baker, the contrast is stark. Again, a Doctor always seems to be a reaction against The Doctor before. Tom Baker's Doctor was... an alien, quick to anger, very... loopy, mismatched in his clothing choices, and... a drunk (haha to that last part). Looking at Davison's Doctor... Davison is decidedly... not.

Davison's Doctor always seems to have a good head on his shoulders, is wonderfully human, always present, rather calm, very dapper... I suspect that, more often than not, people have the propensity to not get him because... he is a challenging Doctor (not, perhaps, as challenging as say Colin Baker, but for that I blame the stories Colin Baker was burdened with). He's much more subtle than all the other Doctors, very much a background player and not a limelight-stealer.

Not only that, but his inception as almost the anti-Tom Baker instantly turns off all the rabid Tom Baker fans who blindly follow him despite many examples of his failures.

Davison's era ushered in a real creative renaissance to Doctor Who. For a show that had been mostly languishing for the several years (and let's be honest, the show was never quite the same after the departure of Hinchcliffe/Holmes), the Doctor Who team (led by Davison, Jonathan Nathan-Turner, and script editor Eric Saward) shot the show full of adrenaline the likes of which the show hadn't seen in years. What had started with the final season of Tom Baker spun off into a new direction under the new Doctor.

"Castrovalva" is where all of that starts, with an adventure I've mostly heard called "slow", "boring", and "underwhelming" for the most part. That's a moot point as the real question is: does it effectively setup this new Doctor for his tenure and his stretch of stories? We've already seen a few post-regeneration stories, all designed to set us up to this new guy we're supposed to love. My question is, as always, does "Castrovalva" work?

So let's get to it!

Serial 115: Logopolis

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Written by: Christopher H. Bidmead
Directed by: Peter Grimwade

Background & Significance: After seven long years, Tom Baker had finally decided to move on.

Most interesting is the prospect that this might not have been his final season.There's a thing I heard once upon a dream that he totally would have gone and done an eighth had the opportunity arisen, but as it stands, the introduction of producer Johnathan Nathan-Turner as guy with a specific vision (for better or worse) and the variety of changes Nathan-Turner imported to shake up the show proved to be too much for Tom Baker.

So he left.

Personally, I find that strange. Well, sorta. The early Nathan-Turner years were something of a creative renaissance for Doctor Who (especially Davison's three seasons. Woof). As we saw in "The Keeper of Traken" earlier this week, that story is leaps and bounds ahead of most things in the Graham Williams era (certain exceptions notwithstanding), and "Warriors' Gate" (which we'll talk about eventually, I promise!) was no slouch either. But it's interesting that Tom Baker was pimping out of there in a season that was far from awful, especially because he didn't mind sticking around even when the stories got really, really, really awful (I'm looking at you "Underworld", "The Armageddon Factor", "Destiny of the Daleks", and "Horns of Nimon" just to name a few). It feels to me like Tom Baker had come across a producer who wasn't going to take any crap from him, someone against whom Tom Baker couldn't win any fights. And from what I understand, Nathan-Turner really did want Tom Baker to pimp out of there, tossing out the old and re-inventing the show from the ground up. So from a Nathan-Turner perspective, this really is a good thing.

So... Tom Baker decided to leave. And that gave rise to a whole 'nother mess of issues. How would people react when the most popular Doctor, the one who had been around for so long, left? They had to bridge the gap and ease people into this new transition that would be... difficult.

One of the ways they did this was by incorporating both The Master (re-introduced in the previous story "The Keeper of Traken" and continuing onto the next story "Castrovalva") and the introduction of several new companions to help guide The Doctor through his forthcoming regeneration to bridge this totally new gap. It's a very "An Unearthly Child" approach, to be honest, and terribly smart (if flawed; it would take almost three years for the show to shake this "Party in the TARDIS and everyone's invited" mentality).

Not only that, but how in the world do you provide an adequate sendoff to the most popular, longest lived Doctor there was (and so far is)?

What we're left with is "Logopolis," a story with big sci-fi ideas and huge stakes (someone once called them in the vein of Russell T Davies but to them I say harumph!) and... an ending. It's certainly aided by the knowledge that this is Tom Baker's final story, but... It's difficult. You can tell that Tom Baker's glory days are long over and done with. The peak and height of his powers is long gone and the quality of his reign had been in an eddy for at least two seasons (possibly more). So sending off such a beloved character required... Well... I guess we can talk about that as we go through it...

And it turns out Tegan is still the worst companion and that's true from minute one.

So let's get to it!

Serial 114: The Keeper of Traken

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Adric

Written by: Johnny Byrne
Directed by: John Black

Editor's Note: Hey guys and welcome back (or for the first time: Hello!) Matt here introducing Cassandra's entry on The Keeper of Traken, the first of the trilogy that will conclude our anniversary celebration. She's got some good stuff, so I hope you guys enjoy it and I'll see you in a few days back here for my discussion of Logopolis!

Background & Significance: The end of an era.

Well... the prologue to the end, really.

When Tom Baker announced that he would be leaving Doctor Who after Season 18, the prospect made more than a few people nervous. Would people still be willing to accept a new leading man as their Doctor after 7 years of seeing the same face on their screen? Producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner, in order to ease viewers through the transition, sought to provide a familiar face to hold on to; considering the fact that the companion at the time, Adric, was relatively new, he tried to get Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane) or Louise Jameson (Leela) to make a few guest appearances, to no avail. So, out of feasible options, he decided to bring back an old enemy instead: The Master.

"The Keeper of Traken" is the first in a loose trilogy of stories that deals with the return of The Master and the regeneration of Tom Baker's Doctor into Peter Davison's. This serial sets the stage for the regeneration adventure "Logopolis," but it also accomplishes the reintroduction of The Master to the show after a four year absence, ultimately in the form of Anthony Ainley, who would go on to reprise the role many times until the show's cancellation in 1989.

This serial also introduces Nyssa, played by actress Sarah Sutton, who would go on to become a Companion (JNT liked the character so much that he chose to bring her on in the next story), as well as serving to establish the dynamics of the relationship between Adric and the Doctor, since this is their first adventure together since the departure of Romana and K-9.

But enough of all that. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Serial 121: Earthshock

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companions: Tegan Jovanka, Nyssa, Adric

Written by: Eric Saward
Directed by: Peter Grimwade

Background & Significance: Sometimes Doctor Who lacks punch. I mean, let's be honest. Doctor Who was designed to be an edutainment Saturday night family programme. It's designed to be inherently new-viewer friendly. Anyone can pick up any story and be able to watch and follow and understand it.

As such, the show is resistant to major status quo shifts and changes in terms of the overall scope of the narrative. Sure there have been major changes, but very little in the show's whole is dependent on past continuity. All you need to know is there's a weird old alien dude named "The Doctor" and he has a blue box that travels through time and space so he goes around with his companion(s) and gets in adventures and that's all you really need to know to get started.

But what happens when something major happens? What happens when something happens to The Doctor? Aren't his regenerations almost always considered legendary and powerful, regardless of the quality of the episode? The fact that The Doctor dies gives the story weight and stakes in ways that the show, to be honest, rather lacks in many places. How many times can you end a cliffhanger with someone pointing a gun at the Doctor and saying "mwahahaha" before you realize that "No. They can't kill off The Doctor. That's stupid." Hint: not many.

But let's say we have something happen. Let's say a companion dies in the line of duty.

It's almost hyperbole to say companion deaths over the course of the show are rare. By my count, the rate of companion deaths is... five? Maybe? There's only been one companion death in the modern era (and even that was retconned) and between the show's creation and Peter Davison (eighteen years) there were only two companion deaths, both in the same serial and with characters we barely knew. They were deaths for shock value, not deaths that mattered and hit on a great emotional level.

"Earthshock" is different. "Earthshock" by itself is a good story, but couple it with the death of a companion and the story becomes nothing short of legendary and wonderfully pyrrhic. It carries weight and is powerfully affecting, regardless of how you feel towards the character in question.

So let's get to it!

Serial 119: The Visitation

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companions: Adric, Nyssa, Tegan Jovanka


Written by: Eric Saward
Directed by: Peter Moffatt

Background & Significance: Tom Baker's reign (previously described as legendary) ended after seven years. It was legendary, epic, and gave the world easily the most popular and well-known Doctor from the classic series. When he left, the producers were left with a crisis:

How could they possibly follow up one of the greatest Doctors to date?

The answer, interestingly enough, came from casting something that was completely different from the previous four Doctors, who were all fine gentlemen, but the youngest at the time of casting was Tom Baker, and he was 40 when he got the job. So they tried something completely different: They cast 29 year old Peter Davison.

A radical departure from all of the previous Doctors, Davison was notably younger than all the actors had been when they took over (note that he was over a decade younger than Tom Baker when Tom Baker got the role) and casting him (and I believe he was quite the popular actor at the time) was a huge gamble. It was also an attempt to bring in a younger crowd, especially in the wake of Star Wars coming in and becoming a massive influence on all of sci-fi forever. The show went back to basics, focusing on classic stories, science fiction (as opposed to the goofy humour of Baker's era), and the return of old villains.

So part of the question is... did it work? Did the ridiculously young Doctor work?

The Visitation takes place halfway through Davison's first season, with Tom Baker's final companions (Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric) still hanging around, and for the first time on this blog, there is nothing special about it. No Daleks. No Cybermen. No Master. No multiple Doctors. No nothing. Just a classic Doctor Who story.

So let's get to it.