Twenty Fourth Season
By it's twenty fourth season, Doctor Who was in freefall. Feared cancelled, it was given one last bite of the cherry, and nobody else wanted the job (or the BBC wouldn't let anyone else have the job) other than John Nathan-Turner. His plans to go were put on hold and he carried on to make the show that he cared about.
Unfortunately, for many factors, one being new Script Editor and main cast, the show couldn't hit the ground running as it might have otherwise. Nobody knew how they wanted to play the Doctor, so it took the first appalling show to figure it out. Mel was given little to do beyond scream and hang about in a quarry. What we did get out of the show, was a more mild mannered buffoon that harkened at first back towards Patrick Troughton and there was a glimmer of hope.
The next story of Paradise Towers was far better, and helped flesh out this Doctor. Mel was more dynamic, but for all the great setting and story, the nuances were quite clunky and the baddies were lame.
Delta and the Bannermen helped cement the idea that the show was heading more towards the fantastical side of the comic book stories. It was an off the wall, stand alone concept that would have likely worked well on the page, but again, the show just didn't have the budget to convince us and the ending just deflates. We narrowly avoid a motorbiking welsh girl, but the concept for a rebellious companion has been cemented in the teams mind
The final show of the season, Dragonfire doesn't know what to do with itself. It takes the mythological concepts of folklore, the horrors of Alien, and then puts them on a supermarket planet with badly realised costumes and naff characters. Mel makes bizarre decisions and the explanation for Ace being there is almost as bad as ... because... The only redeeming feature is the way the bad guy melts at the end. If the high ups in the BBC were hoping for a re-invention of the show, this is pretty far from what they (or any of us) were expecting
Twenty Fifth Season
Finally having an idea of where they wanted to go, and how they wanted Sylvester's Doctor to be, the show finally begins making traction. It's silver anniversary is starting strong with a decent (but not perfect) story from Ben Aaronovitch. Daleks shooting it out in London is a good sight to see and the return of Davros is better, but can anything top Ace beating one up with a baseball bat?
The Happiness Patrol is again, good idea and almost executed right this time. Harking on images of Thatcher's Britain, the only real thing that lets it down is the studio shooting for city streets. With the budget they had, it was the best they could do, but ultimately the slick black floor and rubbish go-carts detracted from a gritty noir feeling story.
Then we get to the silver anniversary story, aired on the same day, 25 years after An Unearthly Child. I wish it was a ground breaking story and as impactful as that first one. The reality though is that it is just the same plot as Remembrance, regurgitated and thrown together in a lot of nonsense with the vaguest hint that something more is going on. A shame as Cybermen are staples of the show but this is one of their worst outings.
The final outing of this season has yet more of the failings the others have. Good play on an idea, but the reasonings and finale are just put together with an "it'll do" approach which causes it to suffer. We see more manipulation by the Doctor and things start to turn a little dark in his world.
Twenty Sixth Season
The final season starts with a story that brings the show into a new era with a UNIT full of foreign people. It also harks back to the past (both arthurian and 1970's) and lets go of both by giving the Brigadier a jolly good send off rather than turning him into a school teacher. The monster is probably the best one the show has ever made and despite the lame fireworks for weapons, it is an enjoyable watch, even though it also suffers from the nonsense past Seventh Doctor stories suffer from.
The next story is the first of a trilogy looking at Ace and it is gothic, and broody and great atmospherically. If only we could truly understand what's going on without having to google it! If it had come after Curse of Fenric, I think it would have worked a lot better, but as it is, it's one of the good shows, and finally we're getting promise of a return to good stories from the Doctor.
The Curse of Fenric should have stuck to parodying Dracula as it does well to capture the sinister feel of it, especially with a great job by Nicholas Parsons and the great soundtrack accompanying it. Ace's background story is fairly well done too. For me, it once more deflates in the ending with Fenric being less of a horrifying entity than he should have been and the least said about The Ancient One being a mutated human, the better.
The end of an era then greets us. Survival. A return to suburban stories with fantastical elements. The first two episodes are halfway decent, promising something good going on, but the payoff is very much lacking because little or no thought had gone into it. The Master is there for almost no reason and Midge the bad boy is just lame. Ace almost turning savage is worth the watch, but that's about it.
So, for the higher ups, they missed the fact that the show was steadily improving, and put it back on hiatus, forever it seemed. The show which had given us much joy as a nation was over, and it went out with a whimper rather than a bang.
The Doctor
Even before his supposed Masterplan, Andrew Cartmel had helped to shape a Doctor worth watching in my opinion. As much as I do like Colin Baker, the constant rattiness and bitching with Perri was wearing mightily thin and we only got a glimpse of it towards his end. The Seventh Doctor is the antithesis to that and was a very welcome one.
Most will look at the latter seasons, which to be fair, is where the production team were taking the Doctor, Nothing wrong with that, and if you look back over my reviews, you'll see that I frequently like the darker episodes. What I remember though is the feeling of hopeful joy when it looked like we had a reasonable, clumsy buffoon style Doctor that mirrored some of the more pleasant traits that Patrick Troughton had. Regardless, many people will judge the Seventh Doctor's run on the stories they told and their poor execution, but it should be noted that despite that, he was a great Doctor.
Favourite Moment
Some people will find it cringeworthy, but I think the Doctor's heartfelt plea to Morgaine in Battlefield was somewhat moving. Often prone to melodrama, Sylvester McCoy turns this lecture into a sincere moment that tells us no matter how dark and manipulative his character gets, he's still on the right side, fighting for the good of us all.
Worst Moment
Possibly many to choose from - honourable shout out to the frantic escape chase in a motorised go-cart, or almost all of Delta and the Bannermen. The one that has to top it all is the literal cliff-hanger for no good reason!
Favourite Story
This story plays on the history of the show, and is by no means the best, but it adds good elements of its own. The Dalek civil war is a very interesting concept, the conversion of Davros to the Emperor, the hint that the Doctor came to Earth in 1963 for other reasons and if nothing else, the Special Weapons Dalek are all pretty cool!
Worst Story
The worst story, although there are some good contenders, has to be Time and the Rani. It is just so tedious and frustrating to watch that you really have a hard time keeping your attention on the screen.
Favourite Companion
Someone has to be last, and sorry to poor Mel, she is the one this time. Despite the god-awful 80's costumes, I never particularly minded her as a companion. Especially around the Sixth Doctor, she was quite pro-active and intelligent. Unfortunately, as what happens with some companions, she was gradually reduced to running around and screaming a lot. Bonnie Langford knew this was the direction she was going and decided to jump, quick, going back to never never land to continue her tenure as Peter Pan in panto.
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