Serial 95: The Sun Makers

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companions: Leela

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Pennant Roberts

Editor's Note: Hallo hallo! Dropping in to point out that this is Cassandra's last entry! Lordie lord we are racing towards an ending and quickly, aren't we? By golly we are. But yes. Here's Cassandra with some discussion on "The Sun Makers".

Background & Significance: So the name of this game is 'satire'.

When I watched this story for the first time, the point flew right over my head and so I ended up disliking it.  "Robert Holmes?" I thought.  "Oh, surely this shall be another heavy masterpiece."  And it's not, so, I was confused and felt a bit betrayed and let down, since this was the last Robert Holmes story we did on our initial watch-through.

But just because this is much lighter fair than what I've come to expect from Holmes, doesn't make it bad.  On the contrary, it really shows off his range as a writer, as good comedy is one of the hardest things to master.

And this is a comedy.  It's a very biting satire on Imperialism and Colonialism as well as the British equivalent of the IRS, which I think is hilarious.  Granted, there are some dark elements/moments that we'll talk about in a bit, but at its heart this is a comedy, which makes it fit in splendidly with the Williams era aesthetic.

This is also one of the last stories featuring Leela as a companion, which makes me really sad because I love Leela and I think she's really great here, which may or may not have something to do with the return of Pennant Roberts, who also directed Leela's debut story "The Face of Evil".

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

Serial 92: Horror of Fang Rock

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

Written by: Terrance Dicks
Directed by: Paddy Russell

Background & Significance: "Horror of Fang Rock" slipped through the cracks.

Even though this is the first serial produced by Graham Williams after he took over producership from Phillip Hinchcliffe, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. More than anything, it feels like a big last hurrah commissioned in the waning hours of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, approved before Williams took over, and stamped with all of the Holmesian trademarks of his run with Hinchcliffe. Williams, as nascent producer, didn't do much to change it to match his vision.

Really, that's the thing about "Horror of Fang Rock" that I find so terribly interesting. It doesn't feel like a Williams story at all. No. It really feels like the last great Hinchcliffe hurrah and even deals with the tropes and stylings and tones of his era to the letter.

It's directed by Paddy Russell (who had previously done "The Massacre", "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", and "Pyramids of Mars") and would be her last contribution to the show. It's also written by Terrance Dicks, who would disappear for a few years only to come back and write about some vampires and then a big multi-Doctor mashup, so in a lot of ways it really does feel like a changing of the guard. It's after this that Holmes's work on Doctor Who undergoes a noticeable shift away from his carefully cultivated tone and style towards the more playful work of the Williams era, and you can really feel his fingerprints all over this story as they make the transition from here into something... less good.

And perhaps most interesting of all is that this kicks off a season that is... middling in my opinion. It's good that the Williams run starts off so strong, but also sad because it means he can only go downhill from here.

So let's get to it!

Serial 96: Underworld

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)

Companion: Leela

Written by: Bob Baker & Dave Martin

Directed by: Norman Stewart

Background & Significance: "Underworld" is not exactly a well-regarded story. In that famous Doctor Who Magazine ranking of all the stories of Doctor Who from "An Unearthly Child" to "Planet of the Dead", "Underworld" was the lowest ranking Tom Baker story. And not just low ranking for Tom Baker standards (his stories get a "Tom Baker bump" because everyone loves him so frakking much), but low as in bottom five Doctor Who story. Of all time.

Now, I should qualify that by saying I don't agree with a fair bit of some of the rankings on that list, but when you get so much concentration on positive (the top ten is fairly solid, if misguided) and the negative, it turns out that the masses are really not that wrong.

I hate Underworld. I'll just say that in the background and significance. It comes in one of my least favourite eras (The Graham Williams era) and suffers from being the first 4th Doctor story not overseen in at least some respect by Robert Holmes. And I think it REALLY shows you how much you need a good writer to bring something to the table to really make a story... you know.... good.

It also suffers from being written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, more jovially referred to as "The Brighton Boys" when they were a duo or whatever.

I'll also repeat something that I've said previously: Baker/Martin are not good. Or at least, the stories that they make are traditionally stories I REALLY don't like. The only time I've actually relished in a story that they wrote, it took Patrick Troughton to frakking save the day and completely steal the show. And of the only other times I found two other of their stories enjoyable, one had the benefit of being completely re-written by Robert Holmes and based on a half-decent concept AND the departure of one of the finest companions ever, while the other was handicapped to being just two parts.

Also, two of my all time least favourite Doctor Who stories OF ALL TIME are written by these two guys. Three if you count this one. So ummmmmm..... Not a huge fan, no.

But enough blather and mea culpa whatevering.

"Underworld" comes towards the end of Tom Baker's fourth season and is still in the early years of Graham Williams's producership and it's everything I associate with the era. It's poorly written and constructed, it looks awful, it makes no sense, it's cheap, and it's schlocky in all the worst of ways. Gone is the good writing and it shows you how much Baker/Martin can't stand on their own. Known for high concept ideas, studying Baker/Martin stories is a clinic in how to not do certain things. Which I'll elaborate on.

Honestly, this story is a mess even before the really awful CSO (green screen) kicks in. It's an awful travesty, and my god do I loathe this story.

Ugh.

So let's get to it!

Serial 97: The Invasion of Time

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela, K-9

Written by: David Agnew (a.k.a. Graham Williams and Anthony Read)
Directed by: Gerald Blake

Author's Note: Hey guys! Before we get into this week's review, I just wanted to say that I'm one of the new co-hosts of this sw33t Doctor Who podcast called "The Doctor's Companion" where my co-host Scott and I discuss Classic Who stories in recap form not so unlike this blog (but also much unlike it too because it comes in "sound-word" form). The first episode is available for download here and I encourage everyone to subscribe in iTunes (or whatever tickles your fancy) cuz it's tons of fun and I promise a super great ride. And now on with the show!

Background & Significance: "The Invasion of Time" is, to me, something of a case study in the Graham Williams era. If nothing else, it really just reminds me that sometimes it's really hard to be hard on Tom Baker's second producer.

We've talked about it before, but it's definitely worth repeating here. The Williams era is, in my mind, a much maligned era, and how could it not be? He's coming right after three seasons of ridiculous high quality under producer Phillip Hinchcliffe, who had a much firmer grasp on his vision of what he wanted the show to be and was thusly able to execute it that much more effectively than Williams. In addition to that, the show's budget was slashed as hard times fell on England (or something. THIS ISN'T A HISTORY SHOW. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT DOCTOR WHO), Tom Baker (best-Doctor-ever-no-contests) was growing increasingly more and more heady and drunk when it came to his influence on the show, and the BBC came forward to tell Williams to cut back on the violence and horror of the previous era, focusing instead on something much more "important": Humour.

And then you remember that Hinchcliffe's vision was supported by the insane quality of having Robert Holmes in charge of the stories they were telling and you just realize that Williams... Williams didn't stand a chance.

But he gets props for trying.

"The Invasion of Time" is probably the thing I think of most when I think about Williams trying incredibly hard to make something that's awesome and matters and really cool. If you go and look at what Williams was trying to do, he was just trying to make the best Doctor Who stories he could make. The level of the fantastical was increased as Williams scoured the Earth for the best stories that he could find.

Building off the success of an extremely high water mark from the previous season's already extremely high quality, Williams thought Robert Holmes's fantastic Time Lord opus "The Deadly Assassin" a mythology rife with potential to expand and build upon. It had proved to be incredibly popular, so why not build on it by telling another story set on Gallifrey but with a different focus? He even asked Robert Holmes to come in and write it as a companion piece/sequel to "The Deadly Assassin". When Holmes refused and other possibilities proved fruitless, Williams and new script editor Anthony Read opted to write it together under a psuedonym in order to cut back on costs.

What we're left with is... this. And... Oh boy does it merit some discussion.

Before going into it, I'd almost recommend coming at it from a place of leniency. It needed to be made on the cheap, and what they're dealing with was... I understand why they did it and they get super props for at least trying it, because really... Why shouldn't you? Revisiting Gallifrey and Time Lord society was bound to happen at some point and choosing to revisit it wasn't a bad choice.

But... let's be honest... Neither Williams nor Read are Robert Holmes. And he's the only one who's proved himself capable of writing a quality Time Lord story. Ah well. They couldn't have known. Ce'st la.

So let's get to it!

Serial 93: The Invisible Enemy

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Leela, K-9

Written by: Bob Baker and Dave Martin
Directed by: Derrick Goodwin

Background & Significance: So once again we have a team up by writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who have been mostly underwhelming in my eyes with a view gems of greatness sprinkled in here and there.

"The Invisible Enemy" is firmly rooted in mediocre Doctor Who, perhaps elevated again by the script editing of Robert Holmes (as we'll see as well in the next few weeks) but also lowered by the newly arrived takeover by Graham Williams as producer.

More than anything, it's here that you can see the first influx of Williams's influence. It's rather silly and much more focused on the fantasy and silly elements of Doctor Who than it is with the hard scifi or horror of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. That said, the continued presence of Robert Holmes helps the proceedings, and certain elements of the horror of the monster or even the scientific elements are much more Holmesian than Williams. But more than anything, this just reinforces the idea that the next story, "Image of the Fendahl" was an anomalous hurrah than it was final last hurrah. That goes to another story we'll be talking about in a couple of months.

That's not to say it doesn't have good ideas. We get some interesting conceptual story ideas (that ultimately don't really matter) and the introduction of K-9. So that's.... that's good. I guess. Go that.

We also start to see the influx of what we'll start to call "Drunk Tom Baker", but I'll go into that more as we start to see it. Again, I blame Graham Williams.

So let's get to it!

Serial 94: Image of the Fendahl

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


Written by: Chris Boucher
Directed by: George Spenton-Foster

Background & Significance: After the Gothic period, the BBC removed Phillip Hinchcliffe as producer of Doctor Who and replaced him with Graham Williams, whom they told to "lighten the tone" of the overall series and to make it less violent.

Graham Williams' era ran for three years, including this season, the Key to Time season, and then the "Douglas Adams year", which we'll get to eventually. The time saw the rise in popularity and input from Tom Baker and a decline in viewership after the rampantly popular Hinchcliffe era. So... I'll cut him some slack.

"

"Image of the Fendahl" comes right at the start of this change, after the departure of Hinchcliffe but just before the departure of Robert Holmes as script editor. As such, this story is noticeably lighter than the very dark, grizzly content of "The Deadly Assassin", but it does have a noticeably horror-like tone to it, especially in the last episode.

As a story, I was a bit worried about this one, as I'm not sure I'll like the widely-accepted-as-lesser-quality post-Gothic Tom Baker, but it actually delivered in the end. Also of concern was the introduction of Companion Leela, whom I didn't know what to make of going into this, and coming out of it...

Well... I'm still not sure.

That said? A story that's both a haunted house horror story with roots based on a Time Lord Ghost Story? And with an unprecedented amount of sexual tension? Awesome.

So let's get to it!