Doctor Who: The Peter Davison Years

That didn't take long, now did it? After combing through the seven years of Tom Baker, I found it rather a breeze to traverse the three seasons of "Doctor Who" with Peter Davison, 1982-1984. Unlike Tom Baker, I had seen a fair amount of Peter Davison's "Who" prior to starting the chronological journey and consider him one of my favorites straight through to the end. Before delving into the episodes, here's a little backstory.

John Nathan-Turner took over as producer in 1981 and would drastically revamp the series to become more in touch with the new decade, changes that would remain until the show's cancellation in 1989. Nathan-Turner was a young, first time producer with a great many ideas for the direction the show should go, including filling the show with young companions and steering away from the silliness the series had reached in the Douglas Adams days in favor of hard science-fiction. These decisions put him at odds right away with the established Baker and it was decided that the show's 18th season would be the last for the Fourth Doctor.

Another decision that put Nathan-Turner apart from his predecessors was not to cast another unknown in the part of The Doctor as Tom Baker had been and instead he cast Peter Davison who was currently a regular on three other series (the product of such short seasons in Britain) in the role. Davison was the youngest Doctor to date at just 29 when he took over and some worried his age and good looks might distract from the already well-established character.


In order to fight against these trepidations, John Nathan-Turner loaded the last few Tom Baker stories with new regular companions as holdovers to take the audience into the new era. Among them were Adric, a mathematics whiz kid, Nyssa, orphaned scientific genius, and Tegan, a mouthy Australian flight attendant. The precedent was set early in the show's history, as the First Doctor began his travels with three companions, though after so many years of one regular sidekick, the writers had to work to give each character their due and often come across as one dimensional. In the three seasons, the Doctor saw six different companions, later including devious alien Turlough, a robot called Kamelion, and finally a young American girl named Peri Brown. It is this era of the show that is often cited as "The Crowded TARDIS."

During the Davison era, the show saw a reinvigoration in the fans as well, with ratings returning to upwards of 7 million viewers and even reaching the 10 million point for some of the 19th season episodes. Despite its success, Davison had made his decision to do only three seasons on the advice of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton. Both Jon Pertwee (5 seasons) and Tom Baker (7 seasons) found it difficult to be separated from the role and get non-Doctorish work. Troughton before them had only appeared in three seasons and had almost immediately returned to steady work as a character actor. So the Fifth Doctor's time was limited to three seasons, and while there are fewer standout stories than in Baker's time, Davison's stories held together as a continuing saga and his performance was much more accessible and grounded, and to my mind more likable.


There are definitely five great stories in the Davison bunch which I will discuss now. The first is 1982's penultimate adventure "Earthshock." This serial saw the Doctor and his crew land in a cave in Earth's future only to be accused of murdering a team of scientists by some military types. Who really murdered the scientists turns out to be old foes the Cybermen, who are basically people enslaved to become large monstrous robots. The Cybermen are secretly operating out of the scientists' own freighter orbiting the planet. The original plan was disrupt a peace accord between the Earth's dignitaries, but eventually they decide to just crash the nuclear freighter into the Earth itself, destroying all life on it. The Cybermen are excellent villains and display a deviousness in this story not seen before. This story is also notable as it saw the death of a regular cast member, Adric played by Matthew Waterhouse. While an annoying character, no one likes to see a good guy blow up.


The next one for you is "Enlightenment" from the series' 20th season. It is the end of the three-story arc known as "The Black Guardian Trilogy" in which the evil Black Guardian tries to force new companion Turlough (Mark Strickson) to kill the Doctor for foiling his plans some years ago (see: The Key to Time). This is easily the best of the three, in which the TARDIS lands under mysterious circumstances aboard an Edwardian sailing ship, apparently in the middle of some kind of race. The ship's officers are definitely a little off and the crew have no idea when they boarded or when or where the race began. We eventually find out that this ship is not in the water at all, but is a space ship designed to perfectly mirror its historical counterpart by strange beings called Eternals. The race, between ships from all different historical periods, is for "enlightenment," though exactly what that is is not known. This offers some of the best sets and costumes of the whole of Davison's era and the idea of sailing through space plays very well.


Thirdly we have "The Five Doctors" which was a 90-minute special that took place between seasons to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the show. Much like the tenth anniversary special, "The Three Doctors," "The Five Doctors" saw all the previous incarnations of the Doctor working together to stop a great evil. Someone or something is pulling the Doctor's various selves out of their respective timelines and into a strange land where they must reach a massive tower or be destroyed, rewriting history and ending the whole show right there. Obviously they weren't about to let that happen. Tom Baker refused to take part in the special as he had only recently left the program and was still very proprietorial of the part, so his appearance was limited to footage from an unfinished story from season 17. Also unable to appear was First Doctor William Hartnell as he died in 1975, so for the purposes of the special, the original version of the character was played by Richard Hurndall, who did an okay job considering. Second Doctor Patrick Troughton and Third Doctor Jon Pertwee did appear along with some companions from each of the eras, as did villains The Master, The Cybermen, and a Dalek for good measure. While the storyline doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it is great to see so many versions of the character all in one place. This story will always hold a special place for me as it was the first Classic Who I had ever watched.


Speaking of Daleks, we have 1984's excellent "Resurrection of the Daleks," which has the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough getting trapped in a time corridor only to be spat out on present-day Earth. The nature of the time corridor turns out to be caused by the oldest of foes, the Daleks, who are kidnapping people in authority positions around the world and replacing them with clones who will do their bidding. Also reappearing is the Dalek's creator Davros, who is thawed out of suspended animation to replenish the dwindling population of the mechanical mutant species. Davros and the Dalek Emperor do not see eye to eye and are soon at odds with each other over who should rule. This was a surprisingly dark story that saw something like 43 onscreen deaths, not including Daleks. After "Destiny of the Daleks" from Douglas Adams' season as script editor, which was stupid and ridiculous, it's nice to see a return to form for the pepperpots. This also was the last appearance of Tegan (Janet Fielding) who was the Doctor's longest-running companion. She doesn't die though, so don't worry.


The last and absolute hands-down best story from the Peter Davison age was in fact his final story. By the time "The Caves of Androzani" was being filmed in 1984, it was already well-established that Davison would be leaving, so John Nathan-Turner decided to make the changeover as easy as possible, again, by having the Doctor lose his companions, first Tegan in the aforementioned "Resurrection of the Daleks" and then Turlough in the following story, "Planet of Fire." In the latter story, which I have not seen as it isn't released yet, the Doctor picks up a young American girl named Peri Brown, played by English actress Nicola Bryant, to be the upcoming Sixth Doctor's regular consort. It's the fact that he barely knows his new companion that makes the story all the more fantastic.

The Doctor and Peri land on the rocky, cavernous planet of Androzani Minor, which serves as a mining planet for the people of the twin planet of Androzani Major. What is being mined is the strange elixir called spectrox which gives the drinker an unnaturally long and youthful life. As you might expect, such a drug is in very high demand and is therefore the most expensive thing in the universe. After venturing into a cave to explore, Peri falls into a strange webby hive thing which the Doctor then touches to get her free. They develop rashes and blisters where they touched the stuff, which they find out is the first symptom of spectrox toxemia, a disease contracted from touching raw spectrox. The only cure for this is the milk of a rare bat which lives in the caves (not kidding), otherwise they will die.


Before they can even attempt to retrieve it, they become embroiled in a war with three rival factions: the military under employment of cruel businessman Morgus who owns all the spectrox mines, androids controlled by the mysterious masked Sharaz Jek who has commandeered a stockpile of spectrox for ransom, and a group of ruthless mercenaries lead by Stotz, who are playing on both sides. Jek has a score to settle with Morgus who caused his disfiguration. He kidnaps the lovely young Peri, who is dying of toxemia, and the Doctor is taken aboard the mercs' ship for questioning by Morgus. The Doctor, despite slowly dying himself, escapes his shackles and crashes the ship back into Androzani Minor, saying "I owe it to my friend to try to save her." This is Davison's Doctor to a T. He might not even know the person that well, but he would risk everything to see that no harm comes to them, no matter the odds. From the first, to his very last, the Fifth Doctor is the selfless hero. "The Caves of Androzani" stands as one of the best written, directed, and certainly acted stories in all of "Doctor Who." Davison himself has said several times that if he got more scripts like "Caves," he might have stayed on for a fourth season. In 2009, after the 200th story of the show was broadcast, a poll was held for fans to rank all the stories, and "The Caves of Androzani" came in at No. 1, beating out the much loved David Tennant episode "Blink."

And that's what I know about the reign of Peter Davison. I will soon (after a trip to San Francisco for WonderCon) be starting the stories of Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. I have never seen a single Sixth Doctor story and I've heard the quality starts to go downhill during this time, but I will see for myself.



You're welcome.
-Kanderson