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Classic Doctor Who, Season 16 Review
So guess whose back to watching Doctor Who! I was glad to have the break, since I feel like it allowed this season to feel like it's own thing separate from the previous one. A season with a major story arc also served as a nice way to really zero in on the show and take a break from everything happening in the world right now. Suffice to say, the concerns I expressed last season appear to be (mostly) unfounded as I found this season to be pretty consistently strong. Not to the same level of, say, season 13, but I found every story to be either great or at least pretty good, and there was nary an Underworld among them.
On one hand it feels like the Fourth Doctor era has been flying by, but taking a step back I realized that the only Classic Who content I've consumed this year is the Fourth Doctor era - and it has felt like quite a lot. So I guess I have some small sense of just exactly how long his run on the show really was. At five seasons Jon Pertwee was leaving, but Tom Baker still has two more seasons under his belt. And this is easily the lightest of Four's seasons so far. Hell, even the contents of those silly bootleg outtakes don't feel so out of place in the contents of the canon material. That's not necessarily a bad thing - in particular, it feels like the show has a much better handle on how to utilize K-9. I'm really looking forward to where the show continues to go tonally over the next ten (!!) seasons.
Like the previous fifteen seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. This season had six stories, and was a bit interesting to rank since this season as a whole felt very cohesive.
The Characters
Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor - Baker had leaned into the Doctor's eccentricity more last season, but he really took it to new heights this year. And it mostly worked? There were a couple of moments where it nearly took me out of the story, but those were few and far between. I'm honestly impressed at the tightrope he's managed to walk with this more manic take on the character, and its obvious he's put a lot of thought into the character and his performance. It certainly helps that Romana acts to help counterbalance this tonally, and I thought he had great chemistry with her. The fact that there were also characters like Drax who were decidedly more eccentric helped calibrate it even further.
Mary Tamm as Romana - Though this is her sole season in the role, she certainly came and went on a high. She was still high-strung all the way through, but by the end seemed to have a genuine affection for both the Doctor and the people they'd end up saving. She also serves as the perfect type of companion for this new era the show is heading into - one where Earth-centric stories are an endangered species. Leela was a step in this direction, but you can't take a bigger swing than to have the companions be another time lord and a robot dog. Nary a human in sight! It's disappointing that we won't get an actual exit for this incarnation of the character, and I'm interesting to see how the next incarnation is similar and different to this one, and if the events of this season informs the type of character she becomes at all.
John Leeson as K9 Mark II - This version of K9 is, for all intents and purposes, the same as the one from last season. However, the show has gotten much better at utilizing him in the narrative, only sidelining him in one story. A big part of the reason why is that narrowed the scope of where he can be used as a plot device - mainly interfacing with machines and doing a limited amount of combat. He's gone from being a kind of Deus Ex Machina to one of the many tools at the Doctor's disposal. It also helps that he seems to have a much friendlier - or at least playfully antagonistic - relationship with the Doctor than the previous model. Mark I had a clear preference for Leela which made his decision to stay with her on Gallifrey logical, but this version seems to get along very well with both the Doctor and Romana, acting as a nice middle ground between the two early in the season.
I'd be remiss not to mention Cyril Luckham as the White Guardian and Valentine Dyall as the Black Guardian. Both left less of an impression than I thought they would, and I'm glad the show will circle back to them later. I do think they were utilized well in this arc but I was left wanting more and I can definitely understand why people were frustrated by how everything ultimately shook out.
The Serials
I've ranked the serials based off my own personal preference which is only tangentially related to how good they are on a critical level.
6) Serial 5, Episodes 17-20 - The Power of Kroll
5) Serial 1, Episodes 1-4 - The Ribos Operation
4) Serial 4, Episodes 13-16 - The Androids of Tara
3) Serial 6, Episodes 21-26 - The Armageddon Factor
As for the story itself, I thought it was clever and had so many plot twists that the beginning and the end hardly resembled one another. Having the final story center on the Key to Time was the right call, and seeing it manifest it's powers in a sense was enlightening and also made for good dramatic stakes. The heightened drama also gave the cast a lot of material to play with. Like, as sad as I am that Romana I didn't get an actual exit scene, her final story was a very strong showcase for her character and how much she's grown over the course of the season. I guess I also should mention that she shares a number of scenes with her successor in the role, Lalla Ward, as a different character named Princess Astra. Ward didn't leave a particularly strong impression on me one way or the other, and to be honest I probably wouldn't be mentioning her at all in this review if it weren't for the casting. So I guess I'm going into next season with an open mind and no real expectations? The guest character I did really like was Drax, who was so weird and goofy and incompetent that I kind of wish he'd tagged along as a new companion - or at least popped up again in a later story. Seeing more varied presentations of what time lords are like outside of the theatrics of The Doctor/Master or the stuffy hierarchy of characters like Borusa is always a treat.
2) Serial 3, Episodes 9-12 - The Stones of Blood
1) Serial 2, Episodes 5-8 - The Pirate Planet
The Doctor really got to shine in this story as well, grappling with the dramatic stakes of everything that's happening while also being allowed to be clever and genuinely trick the villains on more than one occasion. Romana also got put in the first situation where her outlook and methods were truly challenged. In the end, I think the story was let down a bit as it didn't quite have the resources to commit to the big ideas and plots it was doing, but god what they were able to do was still marvelous. And the adrenaline rush I felt watching this still sticks with me. I didn't find out until after that Douglas Adams wrote this, and it just makes me all the more excited for next season.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think the Key to Time is probably the weaker of the two season-long arcs we've seen so far (the other being Season 8's Master arc) but it still successfully added a sense of purpose and structure that the show definitely needed after the mixed bag that was last season. I thought Romana was a great addition to the show, and feels markedly different from both Sarah Jane and Leela and what they each respectively brought to the role of the companion. I also think this season had a much better handle on the lighter tone of this production team, as last season it felt a bit strange since some stories were still clearly the product of the gothic sensibilities of the previous team. But yeah, I'm definitely sold on what this team can offer, and season 17 is one I've heard about in vague terms before - and is the series high ratings-wise, so I'm very excited to see what it's like.
Also, while it's not an aspect of the show that impedes my enjoyment of it or one I fixate too much on, I will say that it's gonna be interesting heading into the era of the show that had the most turbulence behind the scenes. From the strike issues shutting down production of Shada next season, to all the issues with John Nathan-Turner and his tenure as the show's producer. It's something I'm used to, especially with everything happening in the current era of New Who, but it's still something I'm taking into consideration as I go forward. I know there's a lot to love coming up, and I'm excited to see what I think of it all: Especially a brand new Romana!
On one hand it feels like the Fourth Doctor era has been flying by, but taking a step back I realized that the only Classic Who content I've consumed this year is the Fourth Doctor era - and it has felt like quite a lot. So I guess I have some small sense of just exactly how long his run on the show really was. At five seasons Jon Pertwee was leaving, but Tom Baker still has two more seasons under his belt. And this is easily the lightest of Four's seasons so far. Hell, even the contents of those silly bootleg outtakes don't feel so out of place in the contents of the canon material. That's not necessarily a bad thing - in particular, it feels like the show has a much better handle on how to utilize K-9. I'm really looking forward to where the show continues to go tonally over the next ten (!!) seasons.
Like the previous fifteen seasons, the serials are available to watch via streaming on Britbox. This season had six stories, and was a bit interesting to rank since this season as a whole felt very cohesive.
The Characters
Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor - Baker had leaned into the Doctor's eccentricity more last season, but he really took it to new heights this year. And it mostly worked? There were a couple of moments where it nearly took me out of the story, but those were few and far between. I'm honestly impressed at the tightrope he's managed to walk with this more manic take on the character, and its obvious he's put a lot of thought into the character and his performance. It certainly helps that Romana acts to help counterbalance this tonally, and I thought he had great chemistry with her. The fact that there were also characters like Drax who were decidedly more eccentric helped calibrate it even further.
Mary Tamm as Romana - Though this is her sole season in the role, she certainly came and went on a high. She was still high-strung all the way through, but by the end seemed to have a genuine affection for both the Doctor and the people they'd end up saving. She also serves as the perfect type of companion for this new era the show is heading into - one where Earth-centric stories are an endangered species. Leela was a step in this direction, but you can't take a bigger swing than to have the companions be another time lord and a robot dog. Nary a human in sight! It's disappointing that we won't get an actual exit for this incarnation of the character, and I'm interesting to see how the next incarnation is similar and different to this one, and if the events of this season informs the type of character she becomes at all.
John Leeson as K9 Mark II - This version of K9 is, for all intents and purposes, the same as the one from last season. However, the show has gotten much better at utilizing him in the narrative, only sidelining him in one story. A big part of the reason why is that narrowed the scope of where he can be used as a plot device - mainly interfacing with machines and doing a limited amount of combat. He's gone from being a kind of Deus Ex Machina to one of the many tools at the Doctor's disposal. It also helps that he seems to have a much friendlier - or at least playfully antagonistic - relationship with the Doctor than the previous model. Mark I had a clear preference for Leela which made his decision to stay with her on Gallifrey logical, but this version seems to get along very well with both the Doctor and Romana, acting as a nice middle ground between the two early in the season.
I'd be remiss not to mention Cyril Luckham as the White Guardian and Valentine Dyall as the Black Guardian. Both left less of an impression than I thought they would, and I'm glad the show will circle back to them later. I do think they were utilized well in this arc but I was left wanting more and I can definitely understand why people were frustrated by how everything ultimately shook out.
The Serials
I've ranked the serials based off my own personal preference which is only tangentially related to how good they are on a critical level.
6) Serial 5, Episodes 17-20 - The Power of Kroll
The Power of Kroll is a serviceable story that introduces some heavy themes which it quickly abandons in favor of a GIANT SQUID. The Doctor and Romana are mostly running around as everyone is dealing with either worshiping or trying to kill the GIANT SQUID. I mean... it's fine. (x)
Okay, I'm gonna start out by saying that I didn't hate this serial! I didn't even dislike it. It's only on the bottom because it had the rotten luck of being merely serviceable in a season where every other story was more than that. I thought the themes it presented were interesting and the story it ended up telling was entertaining. But in the end this story just boils down to everyone being terrorized by the giant squid. There are themes of colonization and exploitation and the worship of false idols meant to keep the population in line that are mostly soft-boiled in favor of giant squid antics. That's fine, but it's a giant squid story. I can't rank the giant squid story any higher than this. The Doctor and Romana got to be their silliest here, which was fun and worked well with their evolving dynamic over the course of this season. But they were facing off a mindless, giant squid. I don't dislike the squid. I'd ask him to be a pallbearer at my wedding. But it's a giant squid.5) Serial 1, Episodes 1-4 - The Ribos Operation
The Ribos Operation constructs an interesting new season arc while delivering a very engaging stand-alone story at the same time. While the new regular cast lineup gelled pretty well, it's the grifter guest star characters that really steal the show and leave you wanting more. (x)
This serial gets most of it's juice from the first episode, where it introduces both the arc for this season and the new companion, Romana. After that it turns into the story about a couple of grifters trying to pull one over on a would-be king who wants to regain control of the kingdom that threw him out. The story is interesting enough but it didn't feel like there was a ton there. The guest cast was fun, particularly the grifter characters, but a lot of it felt like people standing around and having the same conversations ad nauseum. I will say I liked how it wasn't clear from the get-go who would actually be the villain in this story. Overall, this story is ranked this low not because it was bad, but because the sum of its parts felt unremarkable compared to the other stories in The Key to Time. Like, at least The Power of Kroll had a giant squid. This one had... British Colonel Sanders as The White Guardian? Okay.4) Serial 4, Episodes 13-16 - The Androids of Tara
The Androids of Tara uses androids as a plot device but is actually about royal scheming to gain control over a thrown reminiscent of an earth-bound historical story. Romana rises to the challenge in a ridiculous set of circumstances, even though her outfit is terrible. (x)
This story almost feels like a weird send-up of stories that came before. It gives me echoes of Enemy of the World, The Android Invasion, and The Masque of Mandragora - though it never quite commits as a send-up of any of these. Rather, uses a lot of elements such as androids, deceptive body doubles, coincidental body doubles... well, as set dressing rather than being the focal point of the story. It's almost weird that this story has Androids in the title considering they only feel slightly more important than the Taran Wood Beast... which was something. That weird design pales on comparison to Romana's outfit in this story, which is... well, I'd heard jokes about her wardrobe prior to this season but I still wasn't expecting that. All that aside though, I think this story ultimately works. Moreso than the previous stories, it puts Romana in a situation completely out of her control and forces her to adapt and improvise, essentially the Doctor's modus operandi. The Doctor and K9 also get a lot of fun material, and since this story is relatively simple it allows them room to be goofy without it detracting from the pacing of the plot. I do kind of wish it ended on a more conclusive note, as this is a planet that is not visited again in the series, but it does at to the sense that these are simply side quests in service of a more important story.3) Serial 6, Episodes 21-26 - The Armageddon Factor
The Armageddon Factor serves as both an excellent culmination of the season-long arc, but also offers a very well-constructed story of its own. The guest cast worked very well, and all three leads got a lot of moments to shine. Tamm goes out on a very strong note as Romana I. (x)
Okay, we're starting to head into the part of the list where ranking was extremely difficult. When I started writing this review I actually thought this serial would take the top spot, but upon further reflection I ended up bumping it down to third. But the point is that the margin between the top three is razor thin. Like, as I type this I'm still trying to decide which of the other two will land on top. All that aside, I get why this story gets some of the flack it does, specifically the ending where the Doctor breaks and scatters the pieces of the Key to Time again makes a lot of this season feel superfluous. However, I did like what ultimately motivated him to do that. I was also riding the high of a theory I'd had at the beginning of the season be proved correct... sort of. Basically, I thought that the White Guardian seen in The Ribos Operation was actually the Black Guardian in disguise, tricking the Doctor into the getting the Key to Time for him. While that was ultimately not the case, the Black Guardian does disguise himself as the White Guardian at the end of this... even though he doesn't look anything like Colonel Sanders and is just some guy wearing white. Still, very satisfying for me that my instincts weren't completely unfounded. I do wonder what this means for the mission that the White Guardian sent him on to begin with, but I suppose we may get an answer to that later.As for the story itself, I thought it was clever and had so many plot twists that the beginning and the end hardly resembled one another. Having the final story center on the Key to Time was the right call, and seeing it manifest it's powers in a sense was enlightening and also made for good dramatic stakes. The heightened drama also gave the cast a lot of material to play with. Like, as sad as I am that Romana I didn't get an actual exit scene, her final story was a very strong showcase for her character and how much she's grown over the course of the season. I guess I also should mention that she shares a number of scenes with her successor in the role, Lalla Ward, as a different character named Princess Astra. Ward didn't leave a particularly strong impression on me one way or the other, and to be honest I probably wouldn't be mentioning her at all in this review if it weren't for the casting. So I guess I'm going into next season with an open mind and no real expectations? The guest character I did really like was Drax, who was so weird and goofy and incompetent that I kind of wish he'd tagged along as a new companion - or at least popped up again in a later story. Seeing more varied presentations of what time lords are like outside of the theatrics of The Doctor/Master or the stuffy hierarchy of characters like Borusa is always a treat.
2) Serial 3, Episodes 9-12 - The Stones of Blood
The Stones of Blood presents itself as much more complex than it really is, which is fine because the elements that do pan out are very entertaining. I particularly appreciated the role of Professor Amelia Rumford, who served as a compelling pseudo-companion in this story. (x)
Okay, for real, I nearly put this in the top spot. I put way too much thought into this considering these rankings are, at the end of the day, very arbitrary, but typing this out I feel good with this placement. This story scratched my 'occult earth things being connected to Doctor Who sci-fi elements' itch that previous stories like The Dæmons, Pyramids of Mars, and Image of Fendahl but veered more away from the Earth element into the sci-fi element than any of those stories did. This both helps and hurts it, I think, because it helps this story stand apart from those, but at the same time just exposes all the early parts of the story as, essentially, just window-dressing. What keeps it from falling out of my esteem though is that, well, it's not just window-dressing, and the visual of giant rocks attacking people is hilarious all on its own, but the guest character of Professor Amelia Rumford was such a delight. I tweeted after this story that I'm "starting to suspect my favorite type of doctor who story is the one where the doctor and/or the companion befriend a kindly old person in the setting where they land who helps them defeat the villain" (x). She helped ground the more ridiculous elements of the story, and honestly it was just a lot of fun watching her interact with the Doctor and K9. Even the ridiculous Megara introduced halfway through ended up being more of a charming novelty than actively annoying. As I'm typing this all out, there's no reason this story should have been anywhere near as good as it ended up being.1) Serial 2, Episodes 5-8 - The Pirate Planet
The Pirate Planet feels much larger in scope than Classic Who stories typically do, and feels unlike anything that the show has done before. It could have been streamlined a little more, but the end result, and the performance of the Doctor in particular, leaves an impact. (x)
I actually didn't think this one was gonna take the top spot. I was convinced The Stones of Blood or The Armageddon Factor would be #1 because I think they're more well-rounded stories overall. However, the sheer ambition of this story blew me away. It felt epic in a way that Classic Who doesn't usually do, mostly because the show has a budget that can only go so far. But when they revealed what exactly the so-called "Pirate Planet" was doing I was actually stunned, and the serial kept my rapt attention for it's entire run. It's actually fairly obvious that this was probably a scaled down version of whatever the first draft was, and I honestly kind of wish this was a six-parter so they really could have committed to it. The slow reveal of the story's ultimate villain was also deftly handled, and I didn't figure it out until the reveal even though the clues were clearly choreographed. On a design level, I also thought the story just looked really cool! (Aside from the area where the Tardis lands, which just looks like a really boringly designed courtyard).The Doctor really got to shine in this story as well, grappling with the dramatic stakes of everything that's happening while also being allowed to be clever and genuinely trick the villains on more than one occasion. Romana also got put in the first situation where her outlook and methods were truly challenged. In the end, I think the story was let down a bit as it didn't quite have the resources to commit to the big ideas and plots it was doing, but god what they were able to do was still marvelous. And the adrenaline rush I felt watching this still sticks with me. I didn't find out until after that Douglas Adams wrote this, and it just makes me all the more excited for next season.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think the Key to Time is probably the weaker of the two season-long arcs we've seen so far (the other being Season 8's Master arc) but it still successfully added a sense of purpose and structure that the show definitely needed after the mixed bag that was last season. I thought Romana was a great addition to the show, and feels markedly different from both Sarah Jane and Leela and what they each respectively brought to the role of the companion. I also think this season had a much better handle on the lighter tone of this production team, as last season it felt a bit strange since some stories were still clearly the product of the gothic sensibilities of the previous team. But yeah, I'm definitely sold on what this team can offer, and season 17 is one I've heard about in vague terms before - and is the series high ratings-wise, so I'm very excited to see what it's like.
Also, while it's not an aspect of the show that impedes my enjoyment of it or one I fixate too much on, I will say that it's gonna be interesting heading into the era of the show that had the most turbulence behind the scenes. From the strike issues shutting down production of Shada next season, to all the issues with John Nathan-Turner and his tenure as the show's producer. It's something I'm used to, especially with everything happening in the current era of New Who, but it's still something I'm taking into consideration as I go forward. I know there's a lot to love coming up, and I'm excited to see what I think of it all: Especially a brand new Romana!