Review of the Fourth Doctor’s era, Part 1
| 1975* – 1978 | ||
| Robot The Ark in Space The Sontaran Experiment Genesis of the Daleks Revenge of the Cybermen |
Terror of the Zygons Planet of Evil Pyramids of Mars The Android Invasion The Brain of Morbius The Seeds of Doom |
The Masque of Mandragora The Hand of Fear The Deadly Assassin The Face of Evil The Robots of Death The Talons of Weng-Chiang |
| Horror of Fang Rock The Invisible Enemy Image of the Fendahl The Sun Makers Underworld The Invasion of Time |
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| *Only the first episode of Robot aired before 1975, on 28 Dec 1974. | ||
After a brief pause for Eleven, I got right back in the marathon saddle with Four. Three had had the longest run yet (five seasons), and Tom Baker was relatively unknown when he came into the role. People weren’t too sure they were going to like this new guy. Of course, as you probably already know, he went on to become the most popular Doctor of all time (until Tennant became Ten, if you believe certain polls), as well as the longest-running, with a total of seven series to his credit.
From the get-go, Four was a bit off-the-wall (witness the costumes he presented to the Brigadier as possibilities before settling on his well-known look). With his huge, toothy grin and unruly curls, he came across as an even bigger clown than the Cosmic Hobo (Two), but there was steel beneath that outer veneer. We get frequent glimpses of the deep-seated rage that bubbles out more frequently in his post-Hiatus personas – Four is not afraid to let his exasperation with intolerance and incompetence turn to anger. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and it can be a bit frightening.
This incarnation shows a fairly dichotomous attitude toward his Companions, too. On the one hand, he’ll gladly refer to Sarah Jane (and later, Leela) as his “best friend”; on the other, he’ll pooh-pooh their requests for his attention, always assuming that whatever he’s thinking about is clearly more important than anything his Companion might add. Irritatingly enough, during his first series, Four’s attitude includes a chauvinistic throwback to One’s era as he’ll brush off Sarah Jane and nearly defer to Harry, who becomes a sort of latter-day Ian – a dashing, young hero whose capability tends to overshadow the female Companions, if not the Doctor himself.
Along similar lines, Four has a tendency toward Lone Ranger-ing. He loves to ditch his Companion(s) and swan off by himself to Save The Day (or at least make inroads). Nor does he seem particularly opposed to using violence – whether some form of fisticuffs or the use of weapons – to further his ends. Much has been made in various eras of the fact that the Doctor “never would” use a gun on an enemy, but at least the first part of Four’s run shows unequivocally that it’s simply not true. Perhaps not on an unarmed adversary or in anger, but the Doctor most certainly will use a gun.
Due to his long tenure, Four had more Companions than anyone except One – between seven and ten, depending on whether or not you count K9 Marks I and II separately, or the last “transitional” Companions as his or only as Five’s. Here are those who appeared in Four’s first four seasons in order, with the stories in which they first and last appeared and how they left the Doctor:
- Sarah Jane Smith
The Time Warrior to The Hand of Fear
Dropped off at “home” because humans weren’t allowed on Gallifrey - Harry Sullivan
Robot to Terror of the Zygons
Doesn’t accept a lift “back to London” in the TARDIS - Leela
The Face of Evil to The Invasion of Time
Stayed behind (on Gallifrey) for love - K9 (Mark I)
The Invisible Enemy to The Invasion of Time
Stayed behind with Leela
Somehow, Harry never made it onto my mental radar before. He was almost always the Companion I forgot when it came time to list them all. Upon reviewing these stories, I really can’t understand why that was the case. Perhaps my Neowhovian mind was so focused on the more familiar character of Sarah Jane that just about all else paled in comparison.
Several of the stories themselves also got lost in the shuffle. Yet these series include the classic Hammer Horror-inspired Hinchcliffe/Holmes era (stories clearly borrowed from The Mummy, Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera all crop up in their own special Whovian way). I definitely got more out of The Brain of Morbius, The Robots of Death, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang on a second viewing than I did the first time around. Many Long Term Fans would consider this the Golden Age of Who.
Even if you’re new to Who, though, there are things you’d recognize from the post-Hiatus series. There’s a classic case of Time Can Be Rewritten during Pyramids of Mars, for instance, and when Leela and K9 choose not to continue traveling with the Doctor, we get the first bare inklings of the Lonely God (though, in true denial-is-the-best-defense fashion, he immediately brings out a box full of parts for K9 Mark II and gives the audience a cheeky grin).
One of the things that I love is that even this far in (these were the show’s 12th to 15th series of 26, pre-Hiatus), the show is trying to mix it up a bit and do something new when it can. From The Masque of Mandragora through The Invisible Enemy, for instance, the Doctor flew the TARDIS from a secondary control room, and part of The Invasion of Time involves a hot pursuit through the bowels of the TARDIS, giving us a rare glimpse of her great expanse.
At the same time, I have to laugh a bit at the way the show dates itself – not just in the effects, which all make valiant efforts, but sometimes are just tragic in execution. I mean that the writers’ attempts to make characters sound knowledgeable and futuristic occasionally fall flat. Take the case of a moment in Revenge of the Cybermen, set in the distant future. Someone tells the Doctor there’s a newly-captured moon orbiting Jupiter, and he responds, “You mean there are 13 now?” Since, as of 2011, there are 64 known moons of Jupiter, such a declaration is a bit jarring. Similarly, the newly-introduced K9’s assertion in The Invisible Enemy that cloning first occurs in the year 3922 surely would startle anyone who’s ever heard of Dolly the Sheep.
Summary
The first half of Four’s era is well worth the time of any fan wanting to learn more about the pre-Hiatus history of the show. It includes several stories that are widely regarded as “classics,” among them Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, The Brain of Morbius, and The Talons of Weng-Chiang. There are some truly awful ones, too, of course (~cough~Underworld~cough~), but this appears to be a time in the show’s life when things were just chugging along pretty smoothly. It was at the height of its popularity – like the mid-career young exec, this is how people generally remember the show when they look back on it from posterity.
It’s a lovely view.