Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Season 19, 1982. Four parts.

Castrovalva^[1] is a frazione of Anversa degli Abruzzi, a municipality in the Abruzzo, region of Italy. The village, which clings to the top of a steep hill, was depicted in M.C. Escher‘s 1930 lithograph “Castrovalva”. The first serial of the 19th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who is entitled Castrovalva, which was first broadcast in 1982, was named after this lithograph

After his regeneration, the Doctor is disoriented and unable to function, so Nyssa and Tegan try to help him recover and in the TARDIS’ database find a location called Castrovalva, which seems an ideal place for a rest. Unfortunately, The Master has kidnapped Adric and used his powers of math to create this otherwise fictional Castrovalva, The heroes figure this out when they cannot leave because of “recursive occlusion” which is a technobabble way of saying they’re stuck on MC Escher’s looping staircases.

The Master stupidly reveals himself and one of the NPCs in the village sacrifices himself to free Adric, which cause Castrovalva to collapse around The Master, though our heroes escape through a secret passage. The end!

Every time the Doctor regenerates, he’s out of it for a while, which gives the companions some time to shine. This is a good idea and the young actors do an admirable job here. The Master as always is hammy and moustache-twirling, missing no opportunity for an evil laugh at camera (sometimes with no sound?)

This story could have been half the length. Scenes spent chasing string through the halls of the TARDIS and hauling a box through the woods could have been cut. Also, why did The Master create Castrovalva with free will and a magic tapestry that functions like a scrying pool – or were those parts Adric’s doing? “The Master leaves nothing to chance,” the Doctor says. Oh reaallllyy?

Next: Four to Doomsday

Fourth Doctor, Season 18, 1981 – four 25 minute episodes

It’s Tom Baker’s final Doctor Who story!

Floating through space and time, we learn that the TARDIS has a Cloister Bell to warn of trouble (have we seen this before or since?) but the Doctor decides to go to modern England to fix the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit – the device that allows it to appear as any object, and the reason why the TARDIS has been stuck in the shape of a British police box for hundreds of episodes. For some nonsense reason, in order to effect repairs, he has to take precise measurements of an actual police box and take them to the what I like to call The Holy Order of Maths on the planet Logopolis.

The Doctor’s arch nemesis The Master gets wind of this plan and materializes his own TARDIS around the police box, which causes a recursion loop (whatever that is) and traps the Doctor and Adric. A very big problem but it actually isn’t as they soon appear outside the TARDIS for reasons unexplained.

A mysterious white watcher figure tells The Doctor to go to Logopolis immediately, where a bunch of old white dudes are doing math in their heads to hold the universe together. The Doctor asks their help with his Block Transfer (whatever that is) but the Master ruins the computations by shrinking some of the old men and now the TARDIS is shrinking with the doctor inside. This is resolved in short order with more maths.

The Master keeps messing with the old men and now the universe is unraveling, cause people to be eaten away by special effects, buildings to crumble, and electronics to stop working (sometimes). Entropy is accelerated!

Now to save the universe The Doctor has to team up with The Master. They flee back to Earth to an observatory to use the antenna to shoot a data program into a Charged Vacuum Emboitment (whatever that is), but the dish has to be realigned. Once this is done, the Master naturally betrays the Doctor, and broadcasts to the entire universe that they must acknowledge his rule, otherwise the universal collapse will continue.

The Doctor runs to disconnect a cable but falls off to his death, or rather his regeneration.

So this is a pretty weakly-written story that introduces two new companions (Tegan and Nyssa) and a new Doctor (Peter Davison). Some of the ideas are legitimately great but the execution is mostly sloppy and nonsensical. They could have made the recursion loop interesting and dangerous but instead it’s just a couple minutes of “oh no! we’re trapped!” until they move on. The control room of the Logopolans was, in universe, built to model an Earth observatory for what I have to assume is budget reasons, and the Fifth Doctor appearing as a white shrouded figure throughout the episodes is another interesting idea that really only seems to usher them to the next plot point.

Worth watching if you want to see the transition between the doctors, or if you’re a fan of The Master, but otherwise, meh.

Next episode: Castrovalva

Fourth Doctor, Season 18, 1981

So they took Doctor Who off Tubi but thanks to my good friend and occasional Caustic Soda Podcast guest Allan I was able to continue my journey on DVD. And so:

The Fourth Doctor and Adric are visited on the TARDIS by the wizened Keeper of Traken, who warns that a great evil has come to his planet in the form of a Melkur – a calcified statue. The Keeper is nearing the end of his reign and seeks the Doctor’s help in preventing the evil from taking control of the bio-electronic Source that is the keystone of the Traken Union‘s civilization.

The planet Traken is described as a place of such good and niceness that evil cannot exist there. This isn’t explained, and indeed the opposite is shown as some of the people are greedy and manipulative, though this could be explained by the Keeper about to expire causing a time of tumult. Anyway, the Melkur landed in a garden some time ago and one of the leading body on Traken (Kassia) has tended to its paralyzed, inert form (thanks to the goodness) for years, but in that time she has become twisted by it and now seeks to put it in place of the Keeper. She manipulates the council, and the rising evil is blamed on the Doctor, who is imprisoned, but finds an ally in the science-minded consul Tremas (also the husband of Kassia, and the father of the young lady Nyssa). I thought for sure Nyssa was going to leave the planet at the end of the story and join as a second companion, but I was wrong (but not for long, it seems).

Anyway, spoilers – the eye-laser-shooting Melkur is a vessel for the return of Doctor Who’s version of Moriarty – The Master – and for a time his plan succeeds and he becomes the Keeper. However Adric saves the day by sabotaging the bio-electronic Source. But at the very end The Master takes possession of Tremas (notice what that name is an anagram for) and further evilness is teased in upcoming episodes.

All in all this is a skippable, by-the-numbers episode, The Doctor doesn’t actually do much and there’s not much of interest to look at.

Next: Logopolis – the last Tom Baker episode.

Season 17 1979-1980 (4 parts)

The declining Skonnan Empire is under control of the evil ‘god-like’ NIMON, which dwells in the power complex that is for some reason also a labyrinth. It communicates with the fabulously garbed Skonnan leader SOLDEED and promises armaments in exchange for a tribute of crystals and Anethian youngsters.

The Doctor and Romana come across a spaceship on its way to Skonnan, bringing the tribute. The ship has broken down and is stranded near a black hole, but the Time Lords fix it and make their way to Skonnan. 

When the Nimon summons more of its kind, we learn the Nimon travel via artificial black holes between planets, draining resources before moving on to conquer new worlds. Such will be the fate of Skonnos if the Nimons are not thwarted!

A notorious episode and for good reason. Bad script, dreadful pacing and the minotaurs, er, I mean – NIMONS do the usual Doctor Who laughably slow, pantomime lumbering that you see in most dudes in monster costumes. But HEY – they can shoot lasers from their horns!

Graham Crowden as Soldeed is reminiscent of Jonathan Pryce as the Master in the Doctor Who parody The Curse of Fatal Death, however…

Crowden does his best to take the award for Best Worst Death Captured on Video since that 1973 Turkish movie Karate Girl

Overall, a real stinker

Next: Shada!

Season 17, 1979, 4 parts, Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

Stilted minotaur aliens with laser horns dupe an impotent militaristic planet (Skonnos) into letting them invade via a black hole. The Nimon emissary’s workshop is a maze that constantly reconfigures itself for a hand-wavy reason. The leader of Skonnos looks like Jonathan Price and wins the award for most outrageously hammy acting in the series… so far. Not recommended.

Next: Shada

Season 17, 1979, 4 parts, Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)

Romana regenerates, despite being in perfect health, and she chooses various forms before settling on a doppelganger of Princess Astra (see previous episode). The TARDIS lands on Skaro, home of the daleks, but untold years since last we saw them, and their battle computer is in a stalemate with the battle computer of the robotic Movellans. The daleks last hope is to drill down to find and excavate the body of Davros, creator of the Daleks, who was believed to be dead. Naturally the daleks are using humans as slave labor. The Doctor and Roman run about and get separated multiple times, and The Doctor blinds a dalek by throwing his hat on its ocular extender. Meanhile the Movellans are likewise made inert by removing a very obvious and exposed item from their belt, which causes them to do a weird falling down dance.

Not a particularly fun or interesting episode, sadly. The only remarkable aspect is the interesting look of the Movellans, who are cast largely by non-white actors.

Next: City of Death