Season 18: Too Po Faced?

Season 18 is arguably the most bizarre season of the original series with the sudden change in tone and its standalone quality, but it is also known for being a very marmite season....

So what do you think? Season 18: Saint or Sinner?


My ratings

The Leisure Hive: 2/5
Meglos: 3.5/5
Full Circle: 4/5
State Of Decay: 4.5/5
Warriors Gate: 4/5
The Keeper Of Traken: 4/5
Logopolis: 2.5/5

It starts pretty awfully. I have a feeling if I'd been watching the show at the time, The Leisure Hive would've honestly made me give up on the show there and then. It's just loud and incoherent.

The E-Space Trilogy however did seem to be the very promised renaissance for the show under the new regime. One that seemed to suggest a beautiful learning curve for the makers. Sadly it turned out to be short-lived, but I definitely see State of Decay as a keeper, and Warrior's Gate is pretty impressive, even if Romana's goodbye is completely out of left field.

Sadly I just think bringing the Master back in the last two stories was always a mistake, and taking the villain as far as Logopolis did, without him facing any punishment or reckoning, and effectively still remaining on the loose for the rest of the series, I think really was the beginning of the sickly overkill nihilism that I find so distasteful about the 80's era, in which nothing the Doctor does seems to matter anymore.

Overall I think it was kind of what the Davison era would look like if done competently and maturely, and done with genuine cinematic sensibilities, rather than feeling like it's been made by some cultish Sunday School. I struggle with whether it's worth treating like a keeper as a season, and in recent days I find myself thinking 'no', and that I was happier with the show back when it was still doing stuff like Androids of Tara and Destiny of the Daleks. Sadly these days I find myself wishing they'd made the Scratchman or Krikkitmen movie instead.

Yeah, I'm really not a fan. Meglos is underrated, and Decay is a classic, but the rest of it... ugh.
Leisure Hive is one of the worst things ever, a painful sickening hangover after the glorious party that was season 17. And the last two stories, including - unforgivably - Tom's finale are just BORING.
It's easily Tom's worst, and it may even be the worst 80s season after Trial.

I like it, honestly one of my favourite seasons.

I love the change in tone, and I love the attempt at grounding the show in harder science.

My favourite kind of Sci-Fi.

I rather like it myself. I go back and fourth on it a lot, but I adore the entirety of the E-Space trilogy, and find that each of the other stories have their redeeming qualities. I’m not too keen on The Leisure Hive, Traken or Logopolis (they’re rather dull, frankly), though they’re far from being particularly offensive to my view.

I’ve also come to really appreciate the austere aspects of the season, and its overarching literary and scientific influences (especially in Warriors’ Gate- a polarising story, but one with shit loads of influences, ranging from Cocteau to Jung, etc)- qualities rarely exhibited by the all too often anti-intellectual nature of New Who. It’s an imperfect season, and one I go back and fourth on, but a very ambitious and admirable one.

I like what it tried to do, but I just don't think it did it very well. It's a strange hotchpotch of stories really. Oddly enough, it kinda reminds me of the third season of the original Star Trek. It's got that 'been done before/not as good as it used to be' sort of vibe.
The Leisure Hive isn't too bad, but in the grand scheme of things it's fairly average, though not boring as a couple of others from this season. Somehow it feels like a Davison story with the wrong Doctor in it.
Meglos just seems like a leftover from S17, a bit silly and not very good, and yet somehow feels 'old', like the rest of the season does.
Full Circle again feels very much 'been there, done that'.It's not terrible but again it's more bland than snything.
State of Decay was originally meant to be 3 seasons earlier, and it shows. It's the only one that's got a bit of Hinchliffe atmosphere to it, which is why it's easily the best of the season.
Warriors' Gate is something I feel I ought to like, and conceptually it's a very worthy attempt, but somehow it just falls so terribly flat. Disappointing and boring.
The Keeper of Traken is more watchable, but much like The Leisure Hive it feels pretty average, and more like a Davison story.
Logopolis is easily the worst of the season IMO. A real drag. Even more so than Warrior's Gate. Tom seems to have phoned in his lines, and introduces the Emperor Ming Master who just cackles his way through his performance, almost like hr doesn't know what else to do.
A very poor season. Not the worst, but far from glory days of Tom's early deasons.

To be honest, I always thought a story in the style of Decay would have been a better final story for Tom as it combines elements of all three eras (Hinchcliffe's horror, Williams humor and a small slice of Bidmead's psuedo scientific concepts).

I definitely agree there. Aside from Horror of Fang Rock, I think State of Decay would've been the most appropriate final regeneration story for Tom, and would've felt like a proper farewell to his era, rather than him being stuck in a premature Davison story (with typical homages to Pertwee) that largely treats him as an unwanted, lingering inconvenience.

At one point I wondered if that was a topic worthy of a thread itself too, about whether particular Doctors ended up passing by what could've been a more fitting regeneration story for them (i.e. should Hartnell really have regeneration on The Daleks' Masterplan instead?).

Tanmann wrote:At one point I wondered if that was a topic worthy of a thread itself too, about whether particular Doctors ended up passing by what could've been a more fitting regeneration story for them (i.e. should Hartnell really have regeneration on The Daleks' Masterplan instead?).

Sounds like a good idea for a thread.

Ah, Season 18....surely a saint not a sinner!

In 1980, I'd already approved of Lalla Ward's splendid Romana being introduced in the previous season that started out excitingly enough with the Daleks' long awaited return in Destiny followed by the enjoyably stylish City of Death (not surprisingly it was those two stories that were selected for repeats back in that summer if I recall correctly). Unfortunately the last Williams season had soon lapsed into weeks of very silly, unconvincingly lightweight stuff (Creature, Nightmare and Horns) that perhaps made Tom's era feel like it had already run its course. However, so established was Tom by this stage, it was still very hard to imagine the programme at all without him.

As soon as this season launched, there was clearly a radically different quality to the programme as indicated by the changed music, costumes and overall style. Too, the more serious tone of Leisure Hive was in my view very much of a welcome return to the rather more serious style of earlier Who eras. And I enjoyed the variety and relative novelty attempted in all the Season 18 stories, ranging from the atmospheric return of Gothic Who (State of Decay) to the weird complexity of Warriors' Gate.

As the shock of Tom's departure approached, there was a real sense of change coming to the show but the return of the Master as well as the departure of K9 offered long term viewers hopes perhaps of more traditional Who to come. The fact that the delay before Davison's first season was filled by the then unprecedented repeat of previous Doctors' stories, via the Five Faces season, definitely raised my hopes at this time. This was probably because (much as I'd loved Tom's Doctor) it definitely felt like the Williams era had simply gotten way too smug and too silly for the show's own good. So I think the show did need to change in order to survive at this point and indeed change it did - to the credit of JNT, whatever later disappointments he was subsequently responsible for.

BillPatJonTom wrote:Unfortunately the last Williams season had soon lapsed into weeks of very silly, unconvincingly lightweight stuff (Creature, Nightmare and Horns) that perhaps made Tom's era feel like it had already run its course.

I think individually I could appreciate either of those three stories as an anarchic lightweight lark with some interesting ideas in there (though that said, I always found Nightmare of Eden a bit of a bumpy headache).

The problem is watching all three together, they quickly begin to feel horribly samey and seem to blur together indistinctly. There doesn't seem to be the rich variety and adventure the show used to have, even a season before.

However, so established was Tom by this stage, it was still very hard to imagine the programme at all without him.

Odd that the show should seem that way, since Horns of Nimon actually did seem to marginalize Tom into a peripheral joking background figure whilst Romana herself takes the lead instead. And I could easily imagine a version of the story in which Tom was absent completely and it was entirely Romana's show. At that point it seemed a Romana spin-off could've had its own longevity. So I don't know if Tom's presence was really that needed anymore.

As the shock of Tom's departure approached, there was a real sense of change coming to the show but the return of the Master as well as the departure of K9 offered long term viewers hopes perhaps of more traditional Who to come. The fact that the delay before Davison's first season was filled by the then unprecedented repeat of previous Doctors' stories, via the Five Faces season, definitely raised my hopes at this time. This was probably because (much as I'd loved Tom's Doctor) it definitely felt like the Williams era had simply gotten way too smug and too silly for the show's own good. So I think the show did need to change in order to survive at this point and indeed change it did - to the credit of JNT, whatever later disappointments he was subsequently responsible for.

I think on balance I would say of Season 18 and even of Logopolis, that it did seem like it could've been the beginnings of something great, and a more dangerous new era. That there was a sense the show could've gone either way from it, and built on its foundations a more vital show. The trouble is, the show seemed to waste that potential and take a subsequent succession of wrong turns very quickly.

It seemed to be kept going, but almost in a zombified state.

[quote="Tanmann"][
I think on balance I would say of Season 18 and even of Logopolis, that it did seem like it could've been the beginnings of something great, and a more dangerous new era. That there was a sense the show could've gone either way from it, and built on its foundations a more vital show. The trouble is, the show seemed to waste that potential and take a subsequent succession of wrong turns very quickly.



I agree with you.

Pity there were so many wrong turns down the road sadly.

Completely concur that Decay should have been Tom's exit. There's even an obvious way to work it into the existing story without needing to change it much - just say that the Hydrax autopilot was clapped out, and it had to have a pilot. Tom sacrifices himself to destroy the Great Vampire.

Way better than what we did get in Logoboris.

Yes I like that idea. State of Decay was of course a revamped (sorry!) Hinchcliffe era story so indeed it might have worked as a more appropriate swansong for Tom than what we actually got. Logopolis just seemed at the time to be a bit of a damp squib and as such a very lacklustre conclusion to Tom's reign.

I recently saw the blu-ray version of Logopolis with enhanced effects that did slightly improve it, mainly by quite subtly upscaling the somewhat shabby looking special effects and in particular reworking Tom's climactic fall from the telescope into something more dramatic. But, despite the plot setting up a worthy threat (the end of the universe no less) for Tom's last adventure, it might have been more impressive with more of an emphasis on a Holmesian "Final Problem" feel to the way it depicted the Doctor's ultimate battle with the Master.

Perhaps Logopolis should have been a six parter (with Traken cut down to two parts to compensate), with the first half set on Earth, perhaps even bringing back the Brigadier for a guest appearance, and with much more of an epic feel to the Logopolis setting and story. Of course there were budgetary constraints but did it really have to be such a cheap looking conclusion to what should have been a real celebration of so important and successful an era in the show's history?

Perhaps Logopolis should have been a six parter (with Traken cut down to two parts to compensate), with the first half set on Earth, perhaps even bringing back the Brigadier for a guest appearance, and with much more of an epic feel to the Logopolis setting and story.

I think Tony Howe from the Australian Who fan club said something similar. That he really disliked the arbitrary way JNT had decided to veto anything longer than a four-parter, and that if Logopolis had been allowed to work as a six-parter, they could've done a hell of a lot more with some of its story elements. Saying for instance how the sub-plot about Nyssa being fooled by the Master pretending to be her father could've ran for longer than just half an episode.

I believe JNT did actually try to interest Elisabeth Sladen in returning as Sarah Jane for the story. But she refused.

The Brigadier being back would've been a nice touch. Infact it could've paved way for a nice and neat follow-up to Logopolis. Where rather than having to take place immediately after, you could just immediately cut ahead several days and establish the new Fifth Doctor having been taken into UNIT's care, and do a basic UNIT story from there. Possibly involving the Master again.

Of course there were budgetary constraints but did it really have to be such a cheap looking conclusion to what should have been a real celebration of so important and successful an era in the show's history?

I think they were thinking more along the lines of making Logopolis more a cliffhanger for the next era, than an appropriate end to the current one. And I think that's why it's not terribly satisfying, in the same way a lot of Moffat's story arc approach wasn't.

I mean I can take my hat off to its ambition, and demonstration of how ambitious the show and its stakes can be, but even in that, all it really ends up being is a bit of a false dawn, and makes everything after seem comparatively too low-key to matter.

Logopolis is a frustrating story as it has a lot of good elements that are sadly outweighed by the bad elements.

For starters, my biggest pet peeve is that arguably the big event of the story: Tom's departure, is tacked on as a side thought with the episode too busy trying to set up the next era. Not to mention Tom just looks bored out of his mind and looks like he just wants to finish and bugger off down the pub. Whereas The War Games and Planet Of The Spiders paid perfect homage to their respective Doctor's eras without slipping into the OTT self indulgence of all the NuWho regeneration stories and Androzani gave Davison a chance to shine for once. Logopolis is just basically seeing Tom Baker now as a stranger in his own show.

And the other problems are pretty big as well. For starters, the tone is too fucking depressing. whilst I like my Who dark, Logopolis is at times overly dreary and depressing to watch. The sets look really cheap (I know this is a rather superficial criticism but seriously, for a season that had at this point rather excellent production values, they cheaped out on the big event of the season) and with the acting, only John Fraser comes out of this well.

The good elements are there (Grimwades direction, the Watcher scenes and Paddy Kingsland's haunting score) but sadly they are outweighed by the bad elements.

Sadly, at the end of the day, Logopolis is a frustrating mess and Tom Baker deserved a much better exit. 2.5/5

Sorry for this ramble, but I have just come back from a re-watch and just witnessed my memory of the whole thing collapse.

Mercury wrote:Whereas The War Games and Planet Of The Spiders paid perfect homage to their respective Doctor's eras without slipping into the OTT self indulgence of all the NuWho regeneration stories and Androzani gave Davison a chance to shine for once. Logopolis is just basically seeing Tom Baker now as a stranger in his own show.

I think the other issue is that Troughton and Pertwee's demise stemmed from a comprehensible decision that the audience understood and saw the poignance in. Troughton decided he had to call on his people for the sake of returning all the soldiers home. Pertwee knew he had to face his fear again, and defeat the Queen Spider.

Tom's decision to go to Logopolis ends up being based on a very cryptic decider, and making no real sense. At the start of the story he says it's to use their science to affect the Tardis' chameleon abilities so that his presence might be more inconspicuous in future to known enemies like the Master.

Then when he realizes the Master is aboard, he sensibly declares the trip to Logopolis off, anticipating the kind of murder and chaos he'd cause there. Then for whatever reason, his meeting with the Watcher convinces him to forget that wisdom, forget the Master's aboard and go to Logopolis anyway. Presumably it's something he's told is predetermined and has to happen, but again this removes any understandable, personal stake in the choice.

And unfortunately it seems to become the model of making the Doctor a complete indecisive mess of a character from hereon in the era ahead.

And the other problems are pretty big as well. For starters, the tone is too fucking depressing. whilst I like my Who dark, Logopolis is at times overly dreary and depressing to watch.

Indeed. It only really seems to come alive properly in its final three minutes' showdown.

It took some time for me to put my finger on the problem with Logopolis, and it's basically that it ends Tom's era by cavalierly, in one go, undoing nearly all his good heroic work. His Doctor now might as well not have saved all those worlds' from Morbius' devastation or the Vampires, or Daleks, or from being swallowed by Zanak, given the amount of worlds lost to the entropy spread anyway.

Made worse by the fact it was the Doctor's carelessness that brought the Master to Logopolis in the first place, and that it was down to the Doctor back in The Time Monster, that the Master was even free to do it rather than imprisoned forever by Kronos. It just seems to pour salt in his mistakes and discredit a lot of his former wisdom.

On the other hand, yes Doctor Who is a dark show sometimes, and it is one where atrocities and defeats sometimes happen. It's what gave the show an edge over most family entertainment as a show worth taking more seriously. The Doctor is a hero who fights injustice, and sometimes it's worth emphasising what that injustice looks like and what can happen if the Doctor loses. And I can certainly understand the makers maybe feeling that this was something we'd not seen in the show since Genesis of the Daleks, and it was worth re-emphasising.

The problem is that if they're going to go that far, there really should be an implicit promise in there that this isn't just going to be forgotten. And that if the reason everything turned out so horribly is because the Doctor had gotten too old and over the hill, then the hope should be that the new Doctor will be the fresh improvement who fixes it all, and rights his predecessor's wrongs and ultimately avenges him.

For the first half of Season 19 that kind of happens. Infact the first half is more twee to the extreme. But at the same time it's like Logopolis never happened. And then around Season 20 and 21, the show just reverts to being just as depressing a series of nonsensical defeats again, in a way that never really vindicates what Logopolis was perhaps meant to mean for the show's hero.

Basically, I think I could've lived with Logopolis being so bleak, if it had given the show a burst of new purpose and urgency afterwards. But by God, that did not happen at all.

The good elements are there (Grimwades direction, the Watcher scenes and Paddy Kingsland's haunting score) but sadly they are outweighed by the bad elements.

For me what does kind of work about the story is that it seems to unfold in real-time, and the stakes to Earth feel believable. And also that it is the kind of story concept I don't think could be, or indeed has been, done in any other show. I think it perhaps deserves kudos for being unique.

Also there a quite few bizarre plot points as well which bug me

Why do the police treat the shrunken corpses of the policeman and Aunt Vanessa seriously (As far as they know, they are just a couple of dolls)

Don't get me started on the flushing out the TARDIS idea, Hardly your best idea Bidmead....

When the Doctor removes his scarf to trip the Master, why does he waste bloody time by putting it back on?

Also, after the Doctor falls and the companions rush to him, the guards are right behind them, yet they are nowhere to be seen during the regeneration. Later, at the start of Castrovlava, they're back on their heels again.

I know these are stupid and rather flimsy criticisms but still....

I'd say that Logopolis lost me sorely on The Master's premise, aka, threatening the universe with a tape recorder. Which is up there with the likes of stealing a plane for fun, or turning the entire population of the world into him, in terms of most idiotic plans. But I will credit Logopolis for having a great atmosphere and having a wonderful regeneration scene. But it's easily the weakest regeneration story out of the Classic Series.