Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Era (1974-1981) - Part 1

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm still reviewing (almost) every classic Doctor Who story based on my fuzzy memories of the Twitch marathon aired across June and July.

I've finally reached the part where I get to share my thoughts on the Fourth Doctor era, which is good, because everyone seems to like it, and bad, because man the guy had a lot of serials to write about! Tom Baker was in the role for seven years and had almost twice the stories of any other Doctor. 30% of the classic Doctor Who serials I watched starred the guy with the scarf! Fortunately, his seasons divide pretty well into three eras, so I've split him up into three articles.

This first post will feature Philip Hinchcliff and Robert Holmes' three gothic horror-themed seasons, spanning from Robot to The Talons of Weng-Chiang. If you want a list of what's in there, check at the top of any 'Greatest Doctor Who Episodes Ever' poll.

There will be SPOILERS below for each serial and maybe earlier ones as well, but I'll not be spoiling anything that happens after.

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I'm rating the stories for this, so here's a helpful guide to what the numbers mean to me:

10	An outstanding episode from an acclaimed series I'd never watch, like Sopranos or Better Call Saul etc.
9	I embarass myself gushing over how awesome it is to people who watch more respectable series.
8	Duet from Deep Space Nine, Chrysalis from Babylon 5, that kind of level.
7	If I'm watching a series I love and I get an episode like this, I come away satisfied.
6	I'm pretty sure liked this one.
5	I could stay focused on the story.
4	Can't say I wasn't distracted.
3	Really started to lose me.
2	And the Children Shall Lead from Star Trek, The Outrageous Okana from Next Gen, that kind of level.
1	A bad fan film recorded on a camcorder from the 80s.

I've given out exactly one 7 so far, for The War Games, so if the Fourth Doctor can match that he's doing well.

1974-75 - Series 12
075	Robot	4 parts	5
Robot was a story about a robot who eventually went nuts, grew huge due to bad science reasons, and fell victim to some hilariously bad CSO effects while trying to remake King Kong. But it was also a story about the Doctor waking up with a new persona and suffering from regeneration madness... which would last the next seven seasons. Actually, he wasn't that bad here I thought; Tom Baker was basically playing him as a clown at first, but even here the Fourth Doctor was able to focus and settle down into a Doctorish form when it mattered. He was like a wise old childish wizard who put his feet up on everything and acted the idiot, but could calculate the force used to crush a flower in his head in an instant and understand why that would ever be relevant. He was able to run around without tripping over his giant scarf, that's how brilliant and mad he was. The actual plot, about science Nazis holding other countries to ransom because their governments somehow thought it'd be a good idea to let Britain hold onto the triggers for their nukes, didn't really grab my full attention, and the story of the poor robot going crazy because people kept using him for evil wasn't entirely appealing either, but Tom Baker was determined to entertain here and he brought the whole serial up a level in my opinion. Though I do have to give the producers credit for their innovation, as it featured a mad professor with huge white hair building killer robots over a decade before the Mega Man games. It also featured a gun that could shoot a hole in the Moon... though when UNIT got hold of it suddenly became worse than useless, because they're never allowed to save the day while the Doctor's around. So it was fortunate for them that the Doctor chose this story to leave the Earth-saving to them and resume his life as a wandering hero! Less fortunate for their actors though. Here's some pointless trivia for you: Pertwee's first serial was the first in Doctor Who history to be shot entirely on film, while Baker's first serial was the first to go completely the other way, with even its location filming shot on video (so they could do the bluescreen effects with the robot). Personally, I think Spearhead ended up looking a lot better than Robot, but hey at least they were both consistent. Both stories were also the beginning of a new era for the series, as Robert Holmes took over as script editor here and Philip Hinchcliffe took the reins as producer for the next one. Robot wasn't quite as jarring a change though as it played out a lot like a Third Doctor story, except with the wrong Doctor. I think it would've worked fine if they'd gone in a different direction with a completely clean slate and had the new Doctor confusing a complete stranger with his post-regeneration cravings for fish fingers and custard, or whatever, but it was cool to see familiar characters reacting to the difference so I'm glad they did it this way.
076	The Ark in Space	4 parts	6
The last story ended with the Doctor and Sarah Jane basically kidnapping UNIT Doctor Harry Sullivan for a laugh (I guess the Doctor was backsliding into old habits), which made Harry the first male companion on the Tardis crew since Jamie five years earlier! And he was a pretty good one here I reckon. I was 100% captivated by the first episode, which featured the three of them inadvertently triggering every possible way for the space station they'd materialised inside to automatically kill them, but as the actual story started to develop my attention began to wander. I had no complaints with Tom Baker as the Doctor though, and his dialogue with Harry was occasionally amazing, as he delivered stinging compliments that would've bruised any regular man's ego for weeks. He had some hurtful words for Sarah Jane as well, once she'd finally recovered from all the oxygen deprivation and drugs, but in her case they were to motivate her into escaping from a vent and his tone changed immediately once she was safe. The Fourth Doctor was weird, but this story showed that he still cared about his former self's last companion, even though her diminished screentime gave them less opportunity to team up here. It seems like the horror movie the writer was ripping off this time was Alien, with the people waking up from sleeping pods in space, the alien hive, the crawling through vents and the ending with the shuttle taking off and incinerating the creatures. The similarities are so blatant that it was kind of hard for me to forgive them for it, even considering the fact that Alien came out four years after this serial. It was even harder for me to forgive the green bubble wrap used to show this guy transforming into an alien (I kind of like his Star Trek: Beyond uniform though.) The story's concept was a little similar to the Hartnell serial The Ark as well, which also featured an ark in space keeping the remnants of humanity safe after a cataclysm rendered Earth uninhabitable, but I guess that's an idea they're going to keep returning to. In this case though, the survivors actually got to go back to a regenerated Earth! Just not right away, as the Doctor had to T-Mat down and finish the next episode first. That's got to make this the first serial to end with the Doctor separated from the Tardis, right?
077	The Sontaran Experiment	2 parts	3
This was another two-parter, the first since The Rescue ten years earlier! I always looked forward to the two-parters because as a modern fan with no attention span 50 minutes seems a more sensible length for a story than 2-3 hours, and when you're watching four stories a night you really feel how long they are. But they rarely impressed me and this wasn't the exception. Sontaran Experiment wasn't the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed entirely on location, but Spearhead from Space was shot in locations like offices and a hospital, while this seemed to be filmed entirely on a hill. They did well dragging that spaceship prop all the way up there to add some sci-fi scenery, but it still kind of felt like a bunch of actors playing around on their holiday in Wales. The first episode, to my recollection, was all about people taking turns falling down a hole, and the second was about the sinister Sontaran himself and his sadistic experiments... which came across more like ideas he was trying out to torment contestants on his new reality TV show. He forgot to do the 'does anyone actually live on this planet' experiment first though, which some might say is the most important when considering an invasion, as it kind of makes testing the inhabitants pointless if there aren't any (and there weren't, the Earth was abandoned). It all ended with the Doctor challenging the Sontaran to a fight, which was a brilliant plan with only one minor drawback: he wasn't Pertwee anymore. Still, with team work (and a neck brace hidden under his scarf for the sake of Tom Baker's broken collarbone), he managed to get the guy to run back to his ship to recharge. Which led to the Sontaran's head deflating due to Harry's surreptitious sonic screwdriver sabotage. I can't say I expected to see that. Then the Doctor cancelled the invasion with a quick video chat with the guy's boss and it was all over! So that was piss easy. This was Bob Baker and Dean Martin's fourth story for the series, after The Claws of Axos, The Mutants and The Three Doctors and for me it was actually the worst of them. Sure Claws of Axos repelled my attention outside of the scenes with the Master, but at least it had scenes with the Master! Though I did like that the Doctor actually arrived on Earth in a perfectly normal way this time, to do a perfectly normal maintenance job, and people still didn't believe his story.
078	Genesis of the Daleks	6 parts	6
Another serial without the Tardis! If I'd been watching this weekly on TV I would've been getting anxious about now. Genesis of the Daleks is considered by fans to be one of the best episodes, with the Doctor Who Magazine 50th Anniversary poll sticking it at #3, below Day of the Doctor and Blink, but personally I found it to be alright. And really bloody long. Though it did feel kind of monumental due to the fact that it didn't just show the literal genesis of the Daleks, but it finally brought the characters into a war mentioned way back in the second serial of the first season! Plus the Doctor and friends always arrive in the midst of catastrophe, but things were different for this one as the Time Lords didn't just send the Doctor on a job, they sent him on a mission to change history by killing the Daleks in their crib. That's right at the very top of things he should not be doing! Well okay, he does it every week, but only because the timeline in which he interfered is the correct one... or something. Anyway, this was a really dark, bleak, miserable, gritty serial which should've really traumatised the Tardis crew out of ever going on a trip with the Doctor again. Not only was Sarah Jane put through a horrific ordeal where she had to work in an irradiated missile silo, then climb the scaffolding to the top while other prisoners were gunned down around her, but Harry was attacked by a giant clam! Sarah Jane's side adventure would've probably been better though if it hadn't existed to set up a cliffhanger where she fell... a short distance to a ledge below and then got caught, making the entire escape pointless. Though it did help show that the Thals weren't exactly angels during the war either... until the war ended, and they immediately let all Kaled prisoners go free to wander around their base! The side in the Nazi uniforms got their shades of grey as well, as the real villain in the story was clearly Davros, the ultimate space bastard. The guy lived on a world without space travel and didn't believe that there's life on other worlds, but he still sacrificed his entire people so that he'd be able to make his mutant army and conquer... pretty much nothing but radioactive piles of ash. He was an interesting lunatic to watch, even if no one ever seemed to spot his obvious manipulation, and not just because he had three eyes, one arm and rode around in half a Dalek. Actually, only his cybernetic eye on his forehead seemed to work, which I guess explains why he forced his ultimate life forms to view the world through a periscope and hold things with a plunger: he wanted them to be superior to everyone... except for him. The dude has issues. Well, he had issues anyway, as he surprisingly died at the end of the story when his merciless killers killed him without mercy. There's a clip from this that I've seen many times before, of the Doctor holding two wires that he can touch together to trigger the explosives in the Dalek incubation room and erase them from history. He wonders if he has the right to do it as it'd be a massive change to time and not necessarily for the best, as future worlds will become allies thanks to their common enemy. It's a great scene out of context, but when I finally got to see it in the episode it was spoiled a bit by the fact he was let off the hook at first, and when a Dalek ran over the cables and triggered it for him the explosion ultimately changed nothing. Still, everyone had fun and that's what matters.
079	Revenge of the Cybermen	4 parts	4
Man, this had been a stressful week for the Fourth Doctor. He'd only been born like three days earlier, but after this story he'd already had to face his three main recurring villains, along with a giant robot, science Nazis and a green bubble wrap monster! It was a hell of a change of pace to his time as the Third Doctor, where he probably spent weeks between invasions just hanging out in his lab trying to fix his dematerialisation circuit and upgrading Bessie. In fact, the Cyberman skipped his era entirely! But after a six-year break, the Cyberman finally came back for this story and this time they had guns in their heads and a weakness to gold. I really felt like I was missing out on something watching this, as their hatred of the gold planet seemed to be something I was expected to know about from a lost Troughton story. I was surprised to learn afterwards it was it was all made up for this serial, even the other planet which had pulled a Mondas and wandered into Earth's solar system in a way that planets typically don't. This time the aliens living there were on our side... well, some of them anyway (classic Doctor Who loved its infighting), but sadly I couldn't take any of them seriously, which kind of killed all the drama over there for me. I did love their caves though. They actually filmed them on location instead of building a set, for possibly the only time in the classic run, meaning that this features the most realistic looking caves we will ever get in Doctor Who. While I'm mentioning things I liked about the story, the murderer being a double agent working against the Cybermen was a twist I didn't see coming, plus the idea of blackmailing the Doctor by strapping a bomb to him rigged to explode if he attempts to remove it was interesting. Also "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE" was a great line, and not just because it came right after the poor idiot accidentally killed the double agent with rocks and then tried to take the bomb off the unconscious Doctor he'd just knocked out. Those are pretty much the only parts I can remember liking, which isn't as actually bad as it sounds because I came out of the serial with very little memory of what I'd just watched.

1975-76 - Series 13
080	Terror of the Zygons	4 parts	6
This one was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except with the Brig in a kilt! The Brig and UNIT were only regulars during Pertwee's first two seasons, but they'd returned to bookend each of the next three and that was supposed to be the case for Baker's first season as well. Terror of the Zygons was originally planned to its season finale, but it was held back a few months and became this season's opener instead. I think it would've made more sense to have this story at the end of the previous year, as it featured the Doctor and Sarah Jane finally finishing their season-long trip, dropping Harry off, and saying goodbye to the Brig and Benton as they went back to the Tardis for some old school adventures in places other than near-future Earth. But this way Pertwee's second season started with Terror of the Autons and Baker's started with Terror of the Zygons, so it still works. It was great to see UNIT back one last time, especially as they showed up in a well-paced four-parter that let the Brig save the Doctor at the end with bullets and actually gave Sarah Jane something to do as well. Harry less so, though his evil duplicate Evil Harry got to lunge at the camera with a pitchfork a few times before accidentally impaling himself and turning back into the creepy starfish monster he really was. Some extra trauma for poor Sarah Jane there. The Zygons are unusual for classic Doctor Who monsters because despite making a couple of appearances in the modern series, one of them being the massive 50th anniversary special, they really didn't show up much in the original run. In fact, this was the only time they appeared, despite their elaborate design and interesting ability. It's a shame really, as the Cybermen were already basically the Borg decades before Star Trek: The Next Generation and if they had made a serial with the shape-shifting Zygons teaming up with the Sontarans' clone army they would've had Deep Space Nine's villains covered as well. Except with more tentacle suckers on their faces Now I'm wondering what classic Doctor Who monster's going to appear in Star Trek: Discovery as its main recurring antagonist. I suppose the cybernetic Loch Ness Monster's still available.
081	Planet of Evil	4 parts	4
I couldn't actually tell precisely what horror movie they were homaging with this one, but that's mostly because I haven't seen Forbidden Planet yet. Planet of Evil a cautionary tale about how we should find alternative energy sources instead of plundering the anti-matter dimension, because anti-matter doesn't mess around. It'll stalk your people through the forest like the Predator, taking them out one by one. It'll infect people, giving them Jekyll and Hyde transformation issues. It'll even drag your whole spaceship back down to its fiery demise so long as even one drop of anti-matter is on board! I kept waiting for the twist that it was actually Omega from The Three Doctors doing all this, seeing as he had his own anti-matter universe, but nope. Though while I'm mentioning other villains, the sinister puddle on an abandoned planet that was screwing with the rescue team did remind me of Armus the miserable oil slick from Next Gen's Skin of Evil. I wish I could've liked this story more than I did, because it featured a lot of spaceship people doing spaceship things, like hanging out on their massive two-story bridge, and firing dead people out into space in coffins. In fact, they even had a dedicated coffin eject system designed especially for cliffhangers and heroic self-sacrifice. But I found it pretty tedious for the most part, and not just because it's all about arguments with stubborn/insane people. There's one interesting fact about this story though: Elizabeth Sladen and Tom Baker were both born in Liverpool, which means that with Harry's gone this was the only era in Doctor Who's run where the entire Tardis crew were Scousers. Well except for the TV Movie.
082	Pyramids of Mars	4 parts	5
It's pretty easy to guess what horror movie inspired them to make this story of monsters serving an Egyptian god. I mean it's Stargate, isn't it? The trouble I have with this era of Doctor Who is that I'm not really a horror fan, and this serial made me realise that I don't give a damn about mummies unless Brendan Fraser is involved. Which is a shame really, because Pyramids of Mars is considered by fans to be one of the best. It was mostly about the Doctor, Sarah Jane and their new friend running back and forth from a mansion to a nearby house, as they spied on what the villain was getting up to for a bit and then went off to do something else. Except for the last episode where it turned into a retread of the puzzle dungeon in Death to the Daleks, except with the Doctor following the villain and solving the puzzles after him this time. Why they only had to answer a few riddles to release an evil prisoner that took several 'gods' to capture was never explained. Part of the problem with the story for me is that Sutehk was such a massively powerful threat that the Doctor was in serious business mode throughout and wasn't doing his Tom Baker thing. I mean I like them taking the setting and the danger seriously, I don't want Doctor Who to be a camp parody, but I'm in it for the wit. Things were so grim in fact that the Doctor handed Sarah Jane an old rifle at one point and she was an instant marksman with it, instinctively knowing how to use the weapon without any practice. Because she had to be; it was just that sort of day. One thing stood out in this story to me and that's Sarah Jane revealing that she's from the year 1980, meaning that the UNIT stories were set around five years in the future! I didn't expect them to ever pin that down. Plus the Doctor actually decided to leave and return to her time mid-adventure to check on how things would turn out if he didn't interfere and save the day, and near present-day Earth was a wasteland. That's actual proof at last that the Doctor's meddling is keeping the timeline intact; he should use that as evidence next time the Time Lords catch him and put him on trial. Though it'll probably be best if he keeps quiet about how he's apparently responsible for every major fire in Earth's history. First Rome, now the mansion that was replaced with UNIT HQ; the guy really does like a good fire.
083	The Android Invasion	4 parts	6
This one was Invasion of the Body Snatchers again, except this time there was no Brig and no kilt. There was an Evil Harry though, and real Harry and Benton make their last appearances in the series here as well. I have a feeling that they're part of why this story isn't a fan favourite, because it did nothing with them! But the main problem with The Android Invasion, is that it's called the bloody Android Invasion; the title gives the game away from the start and puts you a step ahead of the Doctor for ages, which isn't generally where you want to be. Especially when the first episode was all about setting up the mystery of the guy's pocket full of new coins, the calendar with only one day on it, and the pub patrons getting delivered by truck. Another problem is that the alien masterminds behind it were rubbish, with the actors giving a performance to match their goofy rubber suits, despite the fact they were supposed to be genius scientists. But rest of the serial was interesting enough for me to ignore that little flaw, and all the other little flaws, like the scene where Sarah Jane accidentally saved herself from a horrible death when she poured her plague-infected water out so that she could use the little bit of damp floor in her plan to electrocute someone. For me, this will always be the story where Sarah Jane's face fell off and the Doctor threw himself out of a window, then walked right back into the building pretending to be his android doppelganger. It's the story where the Doctor was obsessed with ginger pop and the astronaut working with the aliens never thought to check under his eyepatch to see if there was an eye there. Plus he disappeared for two years and came back with an eyepatch and no beard, yet no one suspected a thing. It's also the story where the Doctor was wearing a different coat, which I thought was awesome. Not because I had a problem with his last coat, but because it meant he wasn't going to be stuck wearing the same costume like a uniform for his entire run, which was a real problem for the next three Doctors that came after him. Also, I might not watch Doctor Who for the horror, but this story had one genuinely terrifying moment in it: when the Tardis disappeared for no reason with the key hanging out of the door. Anyone could've gotten inside and taken it for a joyride!
084	The Brain of Morbius	4 parts	5
This was yet another horror homage, this time to Frankenstein. Only instead of creating life, it was about sustaining life, either with mad science or magic potions. Well okay, they weren't really magic, the stuff was actually a product of the substances in the gas and the cave wall; it was just pure coincidence that the people who made the stuff also had magic teleportation powers and could bring spaceships crashing down from orbit. Providing that they did the chant and dance first of course: sac-red fire, sac-red flame, sac-red fire, sac-red flame; man if there's one thing I've learned from this Doctor Who marathon, it's when you see a 'movement by' credit at the end you know you're in for bad times. Meanwhile, a rogue neurosurgeon and his dumbass manservant were living in a creepy gothic castle basically next door, where they spent their days trying to find the bits to construct a crab-handed monster body to stick their evil glowing Time Lord brain into. It was like Dr Frankenstein trying to resurrect Dracula. So they were pretty happy when the Doctor showed up and actually fell for their drugged drink trick. I guess living five years as the Third Doctor had made him unable to resist a free glass of wine. He couldn't resist trying to murder everyone else in the castle with cyanide gas at the end either, which a: is a little dark, and b: is very dumb when you're stuck in a room locked from the outside. One thing I noticed about this story, is that the Sisterhood of Karn were always on the same page about what to do, there was no infighting there, and that's so rare for classic Doctor Who. Though I suppose Dr Solon and Condo had a few mild disagreements... which escalated to the point where they were ended with a gunshot and a brain falling on the floor. Fortunately, Sarah Jane was around to assist fake Frankenstein instead (while blinded) and he was able to complete Morbius's brain installation surgery using a fishbowl with eyestalks sticking out in place of the Doctor's head. I kept waiting for the twist where Morbius regenerated and transformed into a perfectly healthy Time Lord, but instead he had a bit of a mental battle with the Doctor, won, and was chased off a cliff by an angry mob with torches. Which I guess is how this story had to end really. One thing that was interesting about the mental battle scene is that every one of the Doctor's faces flashed up on that screen, from Baker to Hartnell, and then it kept showing more! According to script editor Peter Hinchcliffe, the intention was that the extra faces were the Doctor's unseen earlier incarnations before becoming William Hartnell, not Morbius' previous bodies, but then he played one of the faces so he would say that! Fortunately, there's nothing that makes it explicit either way, so continuity with The Three Doctors and other stories remains intact.
085	The Seeds of Doom	6 parts	3
I hate the word 'overrated', it's the most arrogant word in the English language. You'd have to have think pretty damn highly of your own opinion to say that the majority of people are wrong for liking something that you personally didn't. For instance, if I said that Seeds of Doom is massively overrated and doesn't deserve to be in the top 200 Doctor Who stories, never mind top 20, you could rightfully point out that thousands of fans disagree with me, so I'm massively outnumbered. But to be fair in this case I do have one objective fact to back up my ridiculous claim, and that's that I was booooooooooooooooored. I was bored out of my mind watching this serial! The serial actually featured two connected stories, with the first being set in an Antarctic base, where things went a bit like The Thing, and the second taking place in England, where male Bond villain Poison Ivy rocked out in his greenhouse for a while before unleashing an evil plant monster in his regular house. So like Pyramids of Mars there was a lot of tedious creeping around inside and outside a mansion in this one. On the plus side it had the Doctor jumping through a skylight and saving Sarah Jane with violence and a gun... hang on, that seems like it should be a bad thing. It was also nice to see UNIT again, or at least it would've been if The Brig, Benton or Harry had shown up, but these new people were barely characters at all. I'm fairly sure I liked the Bond movie deathtrap in the basement at least, but I didn't like how they padded the story out with the subplot about the elderly artist who wanted to be a spy so those cancelled each other out. Honestly, it was only stubbornness that kept me watching until the end. If I hadn't been so keen to watch every episode in the marathon I would've quit halfway through. Though I do have to admit it was the last story of the day and I'd been sitting there for six hours.

1976-77 - Series 14
086	The Masque of Mandragora	4 parts	5
I got into Doctor Who with the modern series, so I'm pretty used to the Doctor meeting Vikings in the 9th century, or visiting Pompeii on Volcano Day. That's the only excuse I have for not realising how unusual Masque of Mandragora was at first, in that it takes place in the 15th century, in Italy. Not present day Britain. Last time that happened was when the Third Doctor took a trip to ancient Atlantis in The Time Monster, four years earlier, and that serial wasn't exactly a historical. Something else I'm used to as a fan of the modern series, is the Tardis control room regenerating every few years to an entirely different shape (usually because the Doctor blew it up), and that happens in this story too! Well okay, the Doctor and Sarah Jane really just walked to a different room and decided to use it instead for a change, but the result was much the same. The place looked cosy as well, with wood panelled walls and railings. Plus the central console doubled as a desk, which is pretty handy. This was a really great looking episode in general, with beautiful sets and costumes, and fantastic scenery filmed at Portmeirion. So that's something else nice I can say about it. I also liked the Doctor's escape from his execution, even if it did conveniently take him exactly where he needed to be at the right time to save Sarah Jane. I'm sure there was something else I liked about the serial, but I'm struggling to think of it. I mean it was watchable enough, but it was very focused on what the guest cast were up to and I didn't find their schemes interesting enough to make up for all the Tom Baker I wasn't getting. Plus Sarah Jane spent the whole serial being captured, drugged and hypnotised, and didn't get a whole lot to do. Which to be fair might have been a side effect of her originally not being in it at all. Elizabeth Sladen was about to leave the series, but she signed on for a few more months when she found that they were making Mandragora. Something else that bothered me was that the Doctor revealed he'd known that Sarah Jane had been hypnotised from the moment she asked him how she could understand the local language, as it was out of character for her. She was a journalist! Her main character trait was being inquisitive! Though to be fair not one of his companions had ever wondered about this during the preceding 13 years of the show, so I guess it would've set off some alarm bells for him. So this serial was the one where the Doctor finally revealed that his companions' ability to speak and understand other languages was "a Time Lord's gift I allow you to share." Well that's bloody vague.
087	The Hand of Fear	4 parts	6
I think my main takeaway from this serial is that ELDRAD MUST LIVE!! On paper, this one doesn't have a great story. After a confusing intro taking place at some kind of alien outpost, it cut to the Doctor and Sarah Jane arriving in an actual quarry and then getting buried in rocks. Sarah Jane was taken to hospital along with an evil hand and an evil ring which soon possessed her and made her go down to an actual nuclear power planet so that it could get at all the radiation. Stuff happened, the hand turned into a crystal woman, they brought her back to her planet, she turned into a crystal man and revealed he's actually evil, they tripped him up with the Doctor's scarf so that he fell down a hole, the end. But the serial turned out to be one of my favourites of the Fourth Doctor's run, and I think a lot of that's due to how focused it was on the Doctor and Sarah Jane. Sure that was because Sarah Jane was basically the villain for the first two episodes, but she also had some good scenes with the Doctor here once she was depossessed. Like the one where she slipped through the gate to join him as he went to confront Eldrad, and revealed that she was as worried about him as he was about her. Plus there was the ending where she claimed to be sick of their adventures and that she wanted to leave the Tardis, only to suddenly change her mind when he explained that she actually did have to leave. I've no idea how anyone who went through the ordeal of Genesis of the Daleks would ever want to keep travelling in that blue box of nightmares, but man Liz Sladen sold what Sarah Jane was feeling in that scene. Also the clothes the character was wearing in this story were a dead giveaway that she'd gone as mad as the Doctor by this point. The episode didn't actually give a reason for why the Doctor couldn't take Sarah Jane to Gallifrey, so I just assumed it was a Time Lord rule and didn't think about it. But then I read a comment later that made me feel like an idiot for not picking up on what was right there in the dialogue. When Sarah Jane was told he was going to Gallifrey she asked "Hey, you're not going to regenerate again, are you?" encouraging viewers to think back to the events of The War Games. Then just before leaving he said to her "Oh, Sarah. Don't you forget me." The Doctor couldn't take Sarah Jane to Gallifrey because the last time he brought someone there the Time Lords wiped their memories of their time with him! Because the Time Lords are gits. Or maybe Tom Baker and Liz Sladen came up with all the dialogue themselves and weren't thinking of The War Games at all, I dunno! The last thing Sarah Jane said to the Doctor before leaving was "You know, travel does broaden the mind," which might as well be the moral of Doctor Who overall, as the series is about an antisocial scientist who was transformed into good man and then into a hero by his adventures, who now helps do the same for everyone who travels with him. In fact, Sarah Jane grew so much during her time in the Tardis that she ended up starring in two spin-offs afterwards! Nice job Bob Baker and Dean Martin, I forgive you for Claws of Axos!
088	The Deadly Assassin	4 parts	7
It's been pointed out that this serial's title features a redundant adjective as assassins are all deadly by definition, but I disagree. That's only true if they're any good at it. The title assures us that this is about a competent assassin... and it turns out that it's the Doctor!!! (Except not really.) I knew a few things about this story going in, like that the Doctor wouldn't have a companion (meaning this is probably the only proper serial in the whole run without any female characters), but no one ever told me that it has an opening scroll with a fancy font! It's impressive how shameless they were with ripping off Star Wars, especially as this aired 6 months before it hit cinemas. Even more impressive is how they ripped off The Matrix 23 years before that came out, with a virtual reality world literally called 'The Matrix'. Also, there was a bit of Minority Report in there too with the clever way that the prediction of the Lord President's assassination was redirected as a telepathic vision to the Doctor to lure him into a predestination paradox while also concealing it from the Time Lords. Not that I'm implying that the serial was entirely innovative, because... well, it's a Doctor Who story. By Robert Holmes even, script editor for Tom Baker's entire 'let's base it on a horror movie' era. I spotted The Most Dangerous Game in there not long into episode three and it was apparently inspired by the The Manchurian Candidate as well. Another thing I've noticed during this marathon is that there seemed to be a correlation between my interest during a serial and how much focus there was on the Doctor being smart, witty, and doing things, and The Deadly Assassin definitely seems to back that up. This story was all Doctor all the time, running rings around security officers, defending himself on trial, and fighting for his life against an assassin, and I was actually gripped right to the end. Well, maybe not to the very end as the last episode lost my interest a little (partly because I hate scenes where the villain shoots the hero dead... except it was only on stun), but I'm just nitpicking now. I've found classic Doctor Who to be alright so far, but this serial I genuinely enjoyed. Part of the reason for that is all the world building; if it had featured some other throw-away civilisation it wouldn't have been as interesting, but the Doctor was on Gallifrey, his homeworld, and they finally gave viewers an opportunity to learn something about it here. In fact, viewers got to learn a lot about his planet and the Time Lords, as the serial showed off the 'seldom worn' ceremonial robes they'll be wearing even into the modern era, revealed their regeneration limit, and introduced Rassilon, Borusa, the Eye of Harmony and the Matrix. Plus now I know that they do the chalk outline around bodies thing too, except it's funnier when they do it. The side effect of all this exposition is that there was a ton of dialogue, but it was good dialogue so I was happy enough. Plus it got far less wordy in the third part, when the Doctor ended up in a nightmare world where he was haunted by a biplane, a tiny train and an underground clown. The most horrific thing of all: the implication that clowns naturally emerge in all extraterrestial cultures given enough time. Actually the surreal Matrix world was inexplicably Earth themed in general, though it soon settled down so that the Doctor could face off against the mysterious assassin in a forest. Turns out that I'm an idiot because I didn't suspect for a moment that the killer was Gulliver... uh I mean Chancellor Goth, despite the fact that there was barely anyone else it could've been. Also the Master was in this story, looking significantly more decayed than he did last time. The guy's a lot more sinister when he doesn't have a moustache to twirl and the new actor was fine, but I felt the lack of Roger Delgado. I'm not sure I can honestly say I enjoyed this more than The War Games, but there's no shame in it being my second favourite serial of the marathon to this point. I guess I just really like stories set on Gallifrey.
089	The Face of Evil	4 parts	7
Hey, I've finally reached that serial I already wrote about last year. I don't even need to review this one, because if you click the name above you'll get all four parts analysed in detail, with screencaps! Back then I'd seen maybe half a dozen classic Doctor Who stories and I didn't really know how Face of Evil compared. It seemed decent enough to me, but for all I knew it was below average and could've been considered a huge disappointment at the time. 140 serials later I have a much better idea of where it sits in the grand scheme of things, and I'd put it... just above The Deadly Assassin in my personal top 5. So they produced two of my favourite classic stories back to back! Maybe I only like it so much because was a novelty to me the first time I saw it, maybe my fondness is a side effect of studying it closely for my review, or perhaps I just like stories more when I'm not watching four of them a night for two months straight, but the fact is that I enjoyed this more than 98% of classic Doctor Who. I think it helps that didn't involve Robot King Kong, robot Bodysnatchers, robot mummies or Space Frankenstein etc. (though the projections were a bit Planet of Evil). Plus it gave the Doctor a lot to do and some awesome lines to say, his relationship with Leela was great, they weren't just trying to stop a monster, and all of the problems weren't solved by killing the villains for once. And this time I got to watch eight other Leela stories afterwards.
090	The Robots of Death	4 parts	5
The Robots of Death is one of the few classic Doctor Who serials I'd already seen years ago, but it didn't seem to leave much of an impression on me as I remembered how it started and very little of what came after. Which is both good, because I got to experience the mystery again, and bad, because it means it was a mystery I didn't even care about the first time around. Plus when have the robots in this series not been of death? The biggest twist in this story is that one of them was an ally. With its sandcrawler mining vessel and its stylish Art Deco robots, it felt to me like they might have slightly been influenced by Star Wars a bit on this one. But it aired out a few months before the movie so they were probably both pulling from Dune. Though making it a luxury mining vessel and giving the crew those hats were probably ideas all of Doctor Who's own. Apparently looking like disco lizards was very fashionable for mining crews in this era. Unfortunately, the miners were dying off so fast I barely had a chance to learn who they all were, never mind suspect anyone. Though I can't really complain about the way the story prioritised making them suspicious and giving them reasons to hate each other over giving me reasons to like any of them, because that's what murder mysteries do... I expect. It's not really my genre. On the other hand, the robot detective was great, though I suppose he did have the unfair advantage of the script giving him lines like "Please do not throw hands at me," and "This is a communicator... Would you like to use it? I cannot speak." In fact, they should've totally brought him onto the Tardis crew somehow! Maybe he could've worn a paper bag to disguise his plastic head.
091	The Talons of Weng-Chiang	6 parts	5
Leela's been doing well so far, as that Doctor Who Magazine poll I've been checking put Robots of Death in the top 10 for the classic series and Talons of Weng-Chiang in the top 10 for the entire run. I'd rank them close together myself... but they'd be a long way from the top of my list. This is the serial in which a pig cyborg from the future who nearly caused World War VI goes crazy, gets into a giant dragon statue with huge balls, and starts firing lasers from the eyes at everyone in the room. I remember that scene very clearly, because that's when I woke up. Okay, I didn't actually find it that boring, despite it being a six-parter, but my attention was very much starting to stray at times. Which is a shame really, because this was one of the better-made serials, with good acting, fantastic sets, moody lighting, and etc. In fact, the lighting was sometimes dark enough for it to basically be an audio drama, but for the most part it looked expensive, and that's not something I can say about many classic Doctor Who stories. Though this was maybe the one time that the Doctor and Leela actually made the effort to land somewhere specific and dress the part, but when they got to the theatre they found that the production crew hadn't even bothered to cast an actual Asian actor to play the Chinese magician! I knew going in that Li H'sen Chang wasn't the Master in disguise, but I was kind of hoping that he was anyway because that's the only way they could've redeemed that makeup. Or someone in disguise at least, if they absolutely couldn't find an appropriate actor with enough experience. Sure they were likely going for the Fu Manchu homage, as the villain's been played by a lot of actors and likely none of them Chinese, but by making it so that the character was in makeup they could've commented on the practice of having actors play other races instead of participating in it. I'm fairly sure that's not the only thing I didn't like about the serial, but I'm finding it hard to pin down exactly why my attention went wandering and I can't criticise anything specifically because I wasn't paying attention. I guess this could be further evidence to support my theory that my interest in any Fourth Doctor serial was directly proportional to the amount of Tom Baker clowning around in it, as the story kept getting distracted by what the side characters were up to. Though I was actually looking forward to finally seeing Jago and Lightfoot as I'd heard that they were great in it (good enough for their audio drama spin-off to run for nine years)... and then they didn't even meet until the fifth episode! Still, I could never hate a story which let Leela act as the Doctor's bodyguard and jump out of a window.

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COMING SOON

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, the Fourth Doctor's adventures continue into the Graham Williams and Anthony Read era. Oh, plus a guy called Douglas Adams was script editor for a while there too.

If you feel like leaving a comment below then that's great news, as it means your mind is working. It's all due to my influence, of course. You mustn't take any credit.