Season 25: A Return To Form?

The 25th anniversary season is either seen by fandom as where Doctor Who started getting good again after the ''nadir'' that was the Colin Baker era or just as bad as its predecessors.

Yeah, You know the drill by now.....



My ratings

Remembrance Of The Daleks: 5/5
The Happiness Patrol: 3.5/5
Silver Nemesis: 2.5/5
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy: 4/5

Remembrance Of The Daleks: 7/10

The Happiness Patrol: 3/10

Silver Nemesis: 5/10

The Greatest Show In The Galaxy: 4/10

Sometimes I think it's a bit cultishly overstated by fandom how much of a return to form the McCoy era actually was. It certainly wasn't a return to the Hinchcliffe era. It was an improvement on the Saward era and Season 24, but that's not exactly difficult.

I agree in principle with what Cartmel felt the show needed to do to fix the problems with Saward era (namely getting away from the nastiness, nihilism, moral murkiness, and the Doctor being ineffectual), but often the McCoy stories felt like a gross overcorrection with too much whimsy and adolescent right-on political posturing, the Doctor being too powerful and too able to intimidate officialdom to be believable.

I think overall Remembrance of the Daleks is the one that gets the balance rightest, and in that, the McCoy era does briefly become magnificent and more than the sum of its parts. and indeed makes me weep that we couldn't have gotten scripts like that far sooner.

The Happiness Patrol has some gem scenes in it worthy of a short film masterpiece, but also moments of utter cringe. The balance is a bit off, and as a result between a great beginning and ending, it's a bit forgettable and meandering. Plus the Doctor's part in killing Fifi does leave a bit of a nasty taste.

Silver Nemesis is a mess, and is as sloppy as the McCoy era ever got, but there is an infectious sense of the cast and makers having terrific fun making it all the same. which does make me a bit more inclined to pick it off the shelf for a rewatch occasionally. It's a bit of a tempting guilty pleasure for me, I think.

Greatest Show in the Galaxy is actually among my favourites of the McCoy era. I feel like it's one of those stories that shouldn't work but somehow does. It's compelling, eerie, delightful, and completely off the wall. It's lightning in a bottle, I think.

Overall I think that's a good average.

Love it. Nemesis is the weakest but it's still a fun romp. Great Doctor and companion and some great stories. Top 4 for me.

Remembrance Of The Daleks
After Caves of Androzani, this is probably my favourite story of the ‘80s. Despite McCoy and Aldred’s sub par acting at times, I like the actual story, and the guest cast are great.
Has to lose a point for acting inadequacies, but 8/10.

Crapiness Patrol
What a come down.... The worst classic series story outside of S24. 1/10

Silly Nemesis
A slightly improvement, but still embarrassing. 2/10

Greatest Show
Not as bad as the previous offerings, but it’s still a big let down after such a strong opener. 3/10

Remembrance of the Daleks: 9/10
A true Dalek story that sees the shows most iconic aliens back on form. There's little I could add to what most have said on the positive front so I'll mention why I knocked a point off. We have hang overs from Destiny and Resurrection, with the Daleks apparently been to rational and machine minded when they have always been anything but. This next one may be petty but I always hated the normal Daleks white with a black dot eye storks and when I first watched all the available Dalek stories it was by this point it really started to annoy me. Thank Seven that the Imperial Daleks have better ones.

Best part, the Seventh Doctor transitions from his unfocused, Second Doctor Light caricature (which was amusing don't get me wrong) to the Chess Master.

The Happiness Patrol: 7/10
An intreasting and satirical story let down by it's budget. The rat people were totally unnecessary and could have simple been replaced with Killjoys. Personally I always liked the Kandyman, a psychotic sugar robot is both scary and funny. Sadly the story never really lets him do anything, which takes a lot of the bite out of the character and makes you again wonder why they had him when they're not going to use him? Seven further displays his new proactiveness by toppling a tyrannical government in a single night.

Silver Nemesis:5/10
Also known as Remembrance Light. This story is pretty much the same in terms of basic plot of the seasons first story but nowhere near as good. We have three different antagonist factions all vying for the same timelord McGuffin, but each is totally unconnected with the other. This means that their parts in the story are much diminished and they there for are all less interesting. The Cybermen are totally wasted here and, while the Cyber-Leader is always great, they could have been swapped out with any other villain and little would change. The Cybermen's weakness to gold is also taken to kryptonite levels as a single arrow will kill them stone dead. Said golden arrows also feel shoehorned in. It's not all bad, as the story helps rebuild some mystery around the Doctor and there is potential in the script, but it's just comes out as messy.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: 10/10
The last Seventh Doctor story I ever watch. A wonderful cosmic horror style story that works in a ton of complimentary elements and is also deceptively complex. This story has a lot of subtext revolving around facing your fears and satire of the show itself. We also get out another dark counterpart to the Doctor and Ace, in the form of Captain Cook and Mags.

I rewatched season 25 and my opinion of Silver Nemesis did go up from just ok, to pretty damn good. - 8.5/10

My opinion of the other stories didn't really change though:

I still like Remembrance a lot. - 9/10

I still agree with those that say Happiness Patrol was a low point for the show. - 5/10

Greatest Show has it's moments and I like Mags and Captain Cook, but overall it still just doesn't work for me. - 6.5/10

"A return to form"

It happened a year earlier

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:"A return to form"

It happened a year earlier later

Fixed that for ya.

Ludders wrote:

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:"A return to form"

It happened a year earlier later

Fixed that for ya.

Sorry, your answer is incorrect. Try again. Remember, use the evidence to help you

I already have.

My favourite season of all time, featuring my favourite Doctor & companion!

My love for Doctor Who was at an all time low by the time Series 25 rolled around in October 88. I had become totally demoralized by almost everything that came after Davison, and although I preferred McCoy to Colin Baker Season 24 at the time felt like a damp squib.

I tuned in to Remembrance episode 1 out of curiosity more than anything else and was immediately blown away.

It felt like Ace had been a companion for years, And McCoy had gone from being a bit of a comedic buffoon to playing THE DOCTOR. The rest of the season had me enthralled, I fell in love with Sophie Aldred and Sylvester became MY Doctor.

Remembrance of the Daleks 10/10
The Happiness Patrol 8/10
Silver Nemesis 6/10
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy 8/10

Is Season 25 perfect? No. Not by a long way, but it was better than anything since Davison left, possibly better than anything since Season 18, and it was the season that rekindled my love for the programme.

HAPPINESS WILL PERIVALE!  

Probably the best post Season 22 Series but still not a scratch on pre hiatus quality.

Much watch Greatest Show again at some point soon. It's been ages, and I really can't remember that much about it (which isn't a good sign) apart from Ian Reddington being crap.

Rob Filth wrote:Probably the best post Season 22 Series but still not a scratch on pre hiatus quality.

You prefer Season 22 over Season 25 Rob?

The Brigade Leader wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:Probably the best post Season 22 Series but still not a scratch on pre hiatus quality.

You prefer Season 22 over Season 25 Rob?

Yup.

Rob Filth wrote:

The Brigade Leader wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:Probably the best post Season 22 Series but still not a scratch on pre hiatus quality.

You prefer Season 22 over Season 25 Rob?

Yup.

So do I.

I do really like season 25, though. Remembrance and Greatest Show are very good indeed, and I actually find the Happiness Patrol rather underrated too. Although I prefer Revelation of the Daleks to anything in season 25, and generally find season 22 more consistent in tone overall. That, and I tend to give it an extra pass due to how unfairly maligned it generally is.

Bernard Marx wrote:
I do really like season 25, though. Remembrance and Greatest Show are very good indeed, and I actually find the Happiness Patrol rather underrated too. Although I prefer Revelation of the Daleks to anything in season 25, and generally find season 22 more consistent in tone overall. That, and I tend to give it an extra pass due to how unfairly maligned it generally is.

Revelation of the Daleks is a very good story, and has some great performances and characters.
Orcini/Bostock & Kara/Vogel are two great Holmesian style double acts, and the always reliable William Gaunt and Clive Swift are brilliant in their roles.

However... I always have this problem with Saward scripts in that it's obvious he really doesn't care about, or want to write for the doctor and the companions. In revelation, The Doctor and Peri are separated from the action and limited to sporadic cameos as they take almost an entire episode just getting to Tranquil Repose!

My view has long been that the JNT/Saward period was overall, a write-off.

Season 22 was however, *almost* a step in the right direction in that it wasn't as unbearably, childishly sanctimonious as the Davison era (which might infact be why some fans hate it more).

And I did think by Revelation maybe the era was beginning to justify itself and show promise. That Saward (a decent guest writer who was nonetheless promoted too fast) was finally beginning to learn how to write the show well, Colin's performance was showing more promise, and the era seemed to be forming an actual new 80's identity rather than just being soulless remakes of Pertwee classics by clueless hacks.

Nonetheless, whilst Cartmel's era was hit and miss, he did seem to believe in the show and the Doctor as a hero in a way Saward obviously never did. Under Cartmel, the Doctor comes off as a genuine maverick. Under Saward, he comes off as an unfit for purpose inconvenience.

Under Cartmel The Doctor became a god-like figure, completely invulnerable. It led to the current shit status of the character in NuPooh.

Saward still had the central character of ClassicWho, solving problems via deduction and process and elimination rather than super-powers, and The Doctor still had vulnerabilities, could misjudge characters or on occasion fail.

Sadako does type some tiresome fucking rubbish from his shitewriting keyboard.

Saward understood more about the character(although he was more interested in mercenary characters) than Cartmel ever did who was too busy wanking over Number 6 in episodes of "The Prisoner" at the time.

Small wonder the programme got cancelled with that incompetent dickhead writing fucking babble gibberish dialogue into everyone's fucking scripts.