Looking Back: A brief overview of the first half of the Tom Baker years.

Having recently started to watch Tom Baker's final season of Doctor Who, I've been looking back at some of the essays I did for a fan page a few years ago and stumbled across this overview from December 2017. I'd just reached the halfway point of the era and this briefly sums up my thoughts on the serials between Robot and The Sun Makers. I'll be doing an overview of Tom's entire tenure next Spring, but in the meantime here are my thoughts from almost three years (!) ago:

It's been a long journey with quite a few surprises (falling in love with the Pertwee era after over a decade thinking it was a bit rubbish being one example!) and some stories have fared better than others (The Space Museum seen one episode a week is actually quite brilliant; The Mind Robber less so) and two weeks ago I reached the halfway mark of the Tom Baker era. So I thought I'd look back over the first half of his run and share what I thought.

It didn't get off to a great start. As I said, I fell in love with the Pertwee era and Robot just didn't sit well with me. It felt like a parody of the UNIT stories, but with no humour or affection. I felt everything about it was incredibly silly, from Think Tank to the Professor to the Robot itself. Sarah Jane, who I was finding it hard to warm to after Jo left, was annoying throughout, Harry looked like he was a one off stand-in for Mike Yates and the Brigadier felt like a caricature. Given how good a writer Terence Dicks is, I have no idea how he managed to write such a terrible story - it's so far (in my marathon) the worst story I've viewed, which isn't great for a Doctor's first adventure. Tom himself, whilst wildly different to Pertwee and difficult to get used to, was pretty much the only good thing I could find, and I wasn't even sure about him!

Fortunately, things improved. The Ark In Space and The Sontaran Experiment are two incredible stories, the latter being particularly great, which develop the new Doctor's character and give us two decent companions to travel with him. Harry complements Sarah Jane perfectly, being laid back, thoughtful, funny and blunt in comparison to her abrasive, inquisitive, impetuous and uptight character. They both have a great relationship with Tom's Doctor and it's a massive shame their adventures together were so short lived. Ark's first episode is a great three-hander which serves as a proper introduction to the two new personalities travelling with Sarah in the TARDIS and everything about these two stories is impressive. Likewise, Genesis Of The Daleks also exhibits great production values, but despite it being a renowned 'Classic' I found it rather dull and over-long. This is most likely because I'm not the hugest fan of the Daleks and I can't stand war films, and Genesis is the show's most blatant example of a World War II film pastiche. I'm not saying it's bad, far from it, but for me it was a bit too relentlessly grim and just a little bit dull. Unsurprisingly, I was much happier with the return of the Cybermen which, while not as well plotted, written or directed, was more entertaining and featured some great location work at Wookey Hole.

Season 13 was book-ended by two utterly brilliant stories by Robert Banks Stewart. They felt like a perfect opening and closing chapter for that series. The Zygons were a great new alien threat and the plot and action didn't let up. If I hadn't been entirely sure about the new Doctor at the end of the previous series (and I wasn't) I completely accepted him here. Despite the disappointment of Harry leaving, Terror Of The Zygons proved a great start. The series dipped a little in the middle - Planet Of Evil was very good with some amazing jungle sets and was a nice homage to Forbidden Planet, but faltered by part three when the focus switched to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and events on the Morestran ship. I enjoyed it on the whole, however. Pyramids Of Mars, likewise, is great for three episodes but a bit disappointing throughout Part Four. The Android Invasion suffers the same way with plenty of atmosphere and mystery (albeit remarkably similar to the season opener) but an underwhelming conclusion. I felt that, had the Kraal invasion happened in Part Three and the second half of the story had focused on events on Earth it may have been vastly improved. As for the return of Benton and Harry in the story, I felt they may as well not have been there (which is really sad in retrospect!). Things picked up in The Brain Of Morbius, the Sisterhood, Solon and Condo being brilliant creations and the plot hanging together quite well. As I previously said, The Seeds Of Doom felt like a perfect final chapter for the season, the Doctor and Sarah returning to Earth and investigating the Krynoid pod discovery and subsequent theft in a hugely entertaining, spy-thriller-esque way. However, it felt like the Brigadier, Benton and Harry should have been around one last time, rounding off the UNIT years in style. And by this point I had tired of Sarah Jane Smith. Without Harry around she devolved into Generic Female Companion, spending most of her time either getting kidnapped, tied up or simply complaining about practically everything! As Seeds began, I felt that it was time for her to go and a new companion introduced for the next series.

It didn't happen, and whilst The Masque Of Mandragora exhibited the usual fantastic production values associated with BBC period drama, and the basic plot of Heironymous and Count Federico vs Giuliano and his boyfriend was okay, I found the entire story unbelievably dull. It plodded along, Sarah was incredibly annoying and Mandragora just never seemed to be much of a threat. The Hand Of Fear was a vast improvement, not just because Sarah left the show (in a rather unnecessarily hasty way) but largely because of Judith Paris' wonderful performance and the fact that the industrial locations looked so different from the warm Gothicism which prevailed during this period. The Deadly Assassin was much more enjoyable than I'd expected and incredibly funny, new companion Leela got a great introduction in the brilliant The Face Of Evil, The Robots Of Death was a beautifully designed but rather plot-lite thriller and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang concluded the Hinchcliffe era as if this was what the show had always been headed for. Horror, drama, mystery, Victoriana, theatre, a Phantom Of The Opera pastiche and a barrage of phobia-type scares (rats, puppets, melted faces) in one of Robert Holmes' best scripts. Leela, too, was a breath of fresh air; likeable, curious, proactive, incredibly violent and more independent than Sarah Jane Smith ever was, her relationship with the Doctor is far superior and much more entertaining.

Horror Of Fang Rock continued the high quality and is a fantastic Leela story. I have noticed that she seems to get all the best lines! The Rutan were a great addition to the series after being mentioned in the two previous Sontaran stories. Then The Invisible Enemy came along. Not all bad, but incredibly poor, I found it better than Robot (obviously) and on a par with Mandragora - while that one looked good but was intensely dull, The Invisible Enemy didn't look good but was more engaging. Image Of The Fendahl was a great story to watch over Hallowe'en with skulls and covens and dark, scary woods. Ma Tyler was a great character, another in a line of batty old women who punctuated the 4th Doctor's era. And finally, The Sun Makers (Holmes' greatest ever script) reintroducing K9 after unexpectedly being brought in as a new companion two stories previously then utterly ignored throughout Fendahl, and giving him plenty to do alongside the Doctor and Leela.

Midway through the 4th Doctor's era, I find the series at its most enjoyable since Season 10! There have been more highs than lows but the lows have been pretty bad and the middle ground often felt like it should have been better. It has slowly improved, though, picking up momentum once Leela arrived. She's by far one of the best companions the series has had and was worth the wait. I never did warm to Sarah Jane, although I did find her less annoying while she had Harry around to bounce insults off. And Tom has taken over the role with aplomb; I still prefer Pertwee (and Hartnell), but Baker is so incredibly different to every Doctor who preceded him that, whilst he took a fair bit of getting used to, he's developed into a thoroughly likeable, albeit weird, incarnation of the Doctor.