Doctor Who: Series 21, Episodes 13-16 – “Planet of Fire” (1984)

Series 21 is kind of hit-or-miss for me, but I think this is one of the better serials. It’s certainly packed—a companion’s backstory, a new companion introduction, the Master getting up to shenanigans, a rare Kamelion appearance, etc.—and while I don’t know that all of it necessarily works, I enjoy it.

Investigating an alien signal on Lanzarote, the Fifth Doctor and Turlough discover a piece of technology from Turlough’s home planet of Trion. As they trace the signal to the volcanic planet Sarn and both of them run into some unwelcome peers, they unwittingly bring along an American student named Peri.

Right from his introduction, Turlough’s situation was interesting to me: an alien already living on Earth at the time he meets the Doctor. From there, things quickly pivot to the Black Guardian arc and we don’t really follow up on where Turlough comes from, so it’s good to return to his story here. I appreciate filling in some of these gaps, as well as meeting other Trions and seeing how Turlough interacts with them.

I like a good ol’ classic Who companion stowaway/accidental absconding. And Peri is thrown even more into the deep end than someone like Zoe or Sarah Jane—she’s unconscious when Turlough brings her aboard after he rescues her from drowning, so when she wakes up in the TARDIS, she doesn’t know about the whole “bigger on the inside” thing. Not to mention, once they get to Sarn, she’s separated from both the Doctor and Turlough for much of the episode.

Instead, she’s dealing with Kamelion, the most unfortunate robot in the Whoniverse. Barely featured on the show because of how tricky he was to operate, Kamelion makes his second and final appearance on the show after a lengthy hiatus. Just like “The King’s Demons,” Kamelion’s incredibly prone to psychic tampering, and with the Master around, that spells trouble. So Peri’s introduction to TARDIS life involves being terrorized by a possessed robot who’s being controlled by a renegade Time Lord in quite the entertaining predicament. Not an ideal situation for her first adventure.

And look: I complain about overuse sometimes and there can be diminishing returns on occasion, but for the most part, I usually enjoy a good Doctor-Master standoff. This episode is no exception! Even if Three and the Delgado Master are my favorite classic Who combo, Five and the Ainley Master are pretty great together too, and this is a good story for them.

Doctor Who: Series 19, Episodes 19-22 – “Earthshock” (1982)

*End-of-serial spoilers.*

This one is iconic, understandably so. I’ll be getting into all that, after I take a look at the story overall.

The Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan come to Earth in the future, where they come across an archeological team that’s suffered a devastating attack. Naturally, our heroes are blamed for this, as they always are when the TARDIS drops them off near a murder scene. But there are larger matters at play than the humans realize—out of the sight, the Doctor’s old nemeses the Cybermen are hatching a plot.

Because the Cybermen are so frontloaded in classic Who, I tend to think they’re more prominent throughout the series than they really are. After being introduced in One’s final serial, they’re all over the Two era. But then they skip the Three years entirely, and after that, each classic Doctor has just one Cyberman story. At the time that “Earthshock” aired, it had been like seven years since we’d seen the Cybermen as a major baddie, which is nice. With the big villains like this, I think it helps to take breaks from them. Much like the Daleks, there can be diminishing returns with the Cybermen, so spacing out their stories like that keeps them from feeling too repetitive.

I enjoy this story. We get a classic “must defuse the bomb!” crisis, an out-of-control spaceship barreling through time, and callbacks to Cyberman lore from earlier episodes. But while the sci-fi stuff is entertaining, this serial is more noteworthy for its character moments, so let’s get into it.

I’ve talked about many a companion exit in various episode/serial reviews, but Adric’s last story is justifiably renowned. In the new Who era, where RTD preferred heartbreaking “to the pain” endings for his companions and Moffat killed every single one of his (but also not-killed?), it can be hard to remember that tragic companion endings used to be rare.

In the classic series, the farewells are frequently sad, with the departing companion wistfully looking on at the dematerializing TARDIS even when it was their choice to leave. But a companion dying, getting killed over the course of an adventure? Before Adric, the only companion deaths we got were Katarina and Sara Kingdom way back in the One era, and both of them were only in a small handful of episodes. It’s wrenching for the Doctor, as well as Nyssa and Tegan. Just in general, they’re horrified at Adric’s death, and it’s made even worse by the fact that they’re not there when it happens—they can only watch helplessly on the TARDIS scanner screen.

I’m no Adric fan, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, but I do really like his final scenes. And no, not in a “good riddance, he’s gone” way! In a very genuine way. Adric has a good death, and while it has elements of a traditional heroic sacrifice, that’s not quite how it plays out. Trapped on the freighter as it falls through time on a collision course with Earth, Adric is determined to solve the logic puzzles the Cybermen placed on the controls, retaking control of the ship so he can save himself/the others on board and prevent the crash. Yes, he is trying to save himself and others, though he doesn’t recognize the significance of the ship slipping back 65 million years—the crash will be part of Earth’s prehistoric record, not its destruction.

But when Adric refuses the chance to get away on an escape pod, it’s about more than just stopping the collision and (he thinks) saving Earth. A significant motivation is tied back to his analytical mind and his relentless need to solve puzzles. As he’s being pulled into the escape pod, he’s hit with an epiphany, and he slips past the closing door almost casually. He’s not thinking about the danger or the possibility that he’ll be killed. “Of course! That’s it!” he exclaims. He’s only thinking about besting the logic puzzle that’s been thwarting him. Likewise, when he’s on the verge of solving it and a Cyberman shoots the controls at the last moment, condemning him to die in the crash, Adric’s final words are, “Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

It's just such an Adric way to die, and that’s what I really like about it. It’s so rooted in who he is and how his mind works, and even if I don’t like his character that much, it’s very effective from a storytelling standpoint. So well done!

Doctor Who: Series 19, Episodes 17-18 – “Black Orchid” (1982)

If I have my Whovian factoids straight, this is the show’s first pure historical since the Two era (“The Highlanders,” if I’m not mistaken,) and the only one since then. No aliens, no time shenanigans beyond arriving and leaving in the TARDIS—just a romp and a mystery in the 1920s!

The Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan arrive in rural England in 1925, where they find that the Doctor (or rather, a doctor) has already been invited to a cricket match at the nearby Cranleigh Hall. There’s more than one case of mistaken identity afoot, as they discover that Ann, the fiancée of Lord and Lady Cranleigh’s son, is almost identical to Nyssa. Our heroes settle in to enjoy cricket, good food, and a costume party, but the festivities are interrupted by a series of attacks committed by a mysterious figure looming in the shadows.

Before we get into it, there some pretty unsavory tropes on display here. I’m not sure if these sorts of things would’ve still been commonplace in 1982 or if they’re some misguided “homage” to the period setting, but we get references to a “savage” indigenous tribe, and there’s some potent “ugly law”-style ableism that’s critical to the story.

It’s a frustrating serial, because it has these really reductive elements baked into what’s otherwise a frothy, entertaining historical. At just two episodes, it keeps things fairly contained while still taking time for a lot of fun. I love the Doctor’s Edwardian cricket outfit becoming suddenly plot relevant, Adric goes hog-wild on the finger food, and both Nyssa and Tegan are adorable—I’m especially fond of the fabulous matching costumes Ann rustles up for her and Nyssa at the party, and Tegan teaching Nyssa how to Charleston is too cute.

The mystery is a bit bog-standard, and again, it leans into the less desirable parts of the story, but there are some things about it that I really like. There’s the slippery motives of one of Team TARDIS’s hosts, secret passageways are always welcome, and a mask at the costume party is used as a cover for murder.

So much here that makes for a good time, but I fully understand why some fans might not get behind it due to its problematic tropes.