Doctor Who: Series 18, Episodes 9-12 – “Full Circle” (1980)

The first of the E-Space trilogy.  As is typical with classic Who arcs, the arc storyline only factors into the story minimally, with most everything proceeding like any other serial.  For better or worse, it’s notable for the introduction of Adric.

The Fourth Doctor and Romana II (along with K9) are summoned back to Gallifrey.  However, it doesn’t quite go as planned, which is quite all right with Romana, who doesn’t want to give up traveling with the Doctor.  Instead of taking them to their home world, the TARDIS crosses over into E-space, a universe of negative space with coordinates opposite our own.  Our heroes find themselves on the planet Alzarius, where a group of young people are mounting a resistance against their elders, who maintain a series of fear-based rules that they expect everyone to follow without knowing why.  In the middle of it all is Adric, a boy genius courted by the elders whose older brother is a key member of the resistance.  There’s more to the situation than the Alzarians know, and it’s up to team TARDIS to find out what that is.

While I wouldn’t put “Full Circle” up as one of my favorite stories, I do enjoy a good yarn about a planet’s history mixed with its mythology—who knows what, what secrets are being kept, and what’s been lost entirely.  The story is in that vein, with shades of “The Mutants” or “The Face of Evil.”  I like the stuff going down with the mist, the marsh men, and the elders’ plans for the starliner.  It’s always fun to see the Doctor and co. poking around into things the planet’s own inhabitants don’t understand themselves.

As I said, the headline here is the first appearance of Adric, and again as I said, that’s not necessarily a good thing.  I’ll admit to not being a big fan of him as a companion, and he doesn’t do much to endear himself to anyone in his debut serial.  He can be quite the officious little twerp who’s very impressed with his own knowledge and kind of weasely in the way he looks out for number one.  I wouldn’t say he ever tanks a serial for me, but in this his intro story, he doesn’t exactly to his best to endear himself to me.