This was MY Doctor. The one I grew up with…the one I watched from beginning to end, without interruption. Peter Davison, star of the classic British television show All Creatures Great and Small, became an even bigger star because of Doctor Who…and would go on to be one of Britain’s busiest & most popular actors (the man has been in EVERYTHING, including Campion, A Very Peculiar Practice, At Home with the Braithwaites, The Last Detective…and now he’s King Arthur in the current UK run of the stage hit Spamalot). He was only 29 when he took over the role, fearful of following in the footsteps of the iconic Tom Baker. But take one look at any of his episodes, and you won’t see a young man…you’ll see a centuries old Time Lord who looks as fresh as spring time on the outside…but full of ancient sadness, especially in his eyes.
He’s also one of my cherished childhood heroes — from my first glimpse of him, during a PBS double-bill of his first two stories, I was hooked (and you should have seen my 11 year old outrage if I ever missed a Saturday viewing). His Doctor was heroic, kind, passionate, irritable, sarcastic…did I mention heroic? He’s a throwback to a more innocent age, in a universe that became increasingly dark - an old man trapped in a young man’s body, the only white-hatted hero left in an uncompromising universe. He’s not to everyone’s taste, but he’s my ultimate Doctor…although David Tennant comes ever so close these days.
The stories I discuss below are more than just essential viewing…they’re a flashback to my own personal golden-age of Doctor Who…and when you’re 11 years old, it doesn’t get much better than this! 
ESSENTIAL VIEWING - THE FIFTH DOCTOR (PETER DAVISON)
1982 - 1984
Season 19 - 4 episodes
Somewhere in the jungle of an alien world, a dark mental force is waiting to emerge. It preys on human weakness, and seeks to harness this weakness in order to escape the dark places of the inside. Meanwhile, pseudo-imperial English colonists are slowly losing their minds, hiding inside their technological bubble from the natural world they think is closing in on them…
It all ends with the manifestation of a giant pink snake…but at least it’s unexpected! 
Few new additions to the Doctor Who monster collection have made as much of an interesting impact as the debut of the Mara (which would return the following season in Snakedance).
Kinda sees Doctor Who plumb the depths of psychology, religion, madness - even sexuality - that it has barely touched on in previous years. It takes elements of Buddhist and Christian mythology and turns them inside out, to create a magnificent parable about greed, survival, and understanding of other cultures and the inner self. It leaves the kids in the audience a little blank faced, but this is the kind of story that improves with age - there are always new discoveries to be made on repeated viewings.
It has one of the finest ensemble casts in Doctor Who history, with mesmerizing performances from Simon Rouse, Mary Morris, Jeffrey Stewart, UK film legend (and Oscar nominee) Richard Todd, and especially Nerys Hughes - she and the Doctor develop what amounts to the first romantic relationship for our leading man since The Aztecs all the way back in season one! Let’s not forget Janet Fielding, who starts as a terrified victim of mental torture, trapped in a black void…and transforms into a possessed, self-involved, sultry monster. It’s her best ever performance as Tegan.
And yes, that damn snake comes along and nearly ruins everything. Luckily, it’s so VERY big and the reactions to it are so VERY compelling that the actors and the director nearly get away with it (something at which Doctor Who has much practice). In all honesty, in a story so full of allusions, metaphors and symbols, a giant pink snake being the ultimate representation of the Mara could mean all sorts of things…good and bad.
Kinda manages to be intimate and epic simultaneously…something the best Doctor Who stories have managed since the series began. It also happens to be the most intelligent Doctor Who story in over a decade…and that’s a much harder accomplishment to achieve, considering the competition. Perhaps paradise can be a little too green…
Season 19 - 4 episodes
After seven years, the Cybermen - the number two monsters in the Whoniverse - return to wreak havoc in what could be Doctor Who’s most action-packed story up to that point in its entire run. Certainly no other story before Earthshock (and very very few afterwards) could claim the ridiculous number of scenes, cut, paced and directed to resemble nothing more than Doctor Who’s budget version of The Terminator…and two years before that movie premiered, no less.
And…dear God…it works brilliantly!
It’s a story with the creepiest, darkest caves ever made for the series…laser gun fights that even today don’t look exciting, as well as incredibly dynamic…androids so simple yet stunning in appearance that they make perfect angels of death…and the surprise revelation of the new look Cybermen: sleek, stylish, menacing, and full of wonderful CyberLeader catchphrases such as “MORE POWER” and “EXCELLENT!”
The design elements of Earthshock are sumptuously first rate…but they would be meaningless without an equal amount of frantic, thrilling conviction from the cast…and we’re definitely not disappointed. Perhaps Clare Clifford does let the side down briefly in latter episodes (she makes a very wet & useless professor), and Nyssa is stuck in the TARDIS for most of the story…but the rest of the ensemble is terrific. James Warwick struts his stuff as a new-age Brigadier substitute, TV legend Beryl Reid makes the most astonishing Sigourney Weaver substitute, and June Brown is a reliably stoic first officer. Special accolades must be given to David Banks - he would play the CyberLeader in all Doctor Who stories from this point on…but he’s at his best here, especially in his confrontations with Peter Davison’s Doctor over the usefulness of emotions. Meanwhile, Janet Fielding turns Tegan into a one-woman guerilla fighter, and Matthew Waterhouse’s Adric gets to be more useful than he has been since his debut.
But Earthshock’s biggest impact lies in its re-introduction of mortality to the Doctor Who universe: in short, the unexpected death of Adric. For the first time since the early Tom Baker era, the Doctor is shown to be vulnerable and impotent in the face of overwhelming odds. He saves the Earth from the Cybermen, but at the cost of so many innocent lives…including the life of his young friend. At the time, the final scene was shocking and moving…and its continued impact after multiple viewings speaks to its impact. The look on Davison’s face says it all: this is a brutal universe, and sometimes even the Doctor can’t save everyone. Earthshock is a morality play masquerading as an action blockbuster - something many stories in the future would try to imitate. But many of them would fail (some spectacularly), and rest would never quite reach the heights of these four wonderful episodes.
20th Anniversary Special - November 1983
Reasons to love The Five Doctors:
(1) It’s written by Terrance Dicks - the longest-serving script editor in Doctor Who history, and the author of nearly two hundred Doctor Who novels, novelizations & other assorted books. There are few people on this planet who know as much as Terrance does about what can work in Doctor Who…and nowhere is this more evident than in his teleplay for the anniversary. He is the godfather of the series - there are few who could have done better at writing the lyrics to such an ambitious happy birthday aria.
(2) It’s a party, and everyone in the cast is in just the right mood. It’s epic when it’s supposed to be epic, it’s funny when it’s supposed to be funny (the Jon Pertwee/Pat Troughton interplay is as delightful as ever), and it has a final scene that actually made the film crew cheer in approval - a statement of everything that Doctor Who is all about, after 20 years on the air.
(3) It’s got all the Dalek/Cybermen/Yeti action you could hope for…and then they throw in the Master for good measure. Speaking of the Cybermen, it also has the best action sequence since Earthshock: the acclaimed Cyber-massacre, courtesy of the simple-yet-terribly-effective Raston Warrior Robot.
(4) It’s a reunion, and the warm feeling of watching so many familiar faces on screen threatens to wash the audience away in a joyful tide. The Doctors’ good natured bickering, out of time companions helping to battle against evil…even a surprise twist involving someone we all thought to be an ally…it’s all part of the fun.
(5) It’s a nostalgic celebration of everything we loved about the first two decades of Doctor Who - it’s not art, it’s not a stunning breakthrough, it’s not even the best of the best…but it has everything a birthday movie requires, and it utilises those ingredients with great skill and joy. This is simply pure, unadulterated FUN!
Season 21 - 4 episodes
Chris Bidmead’s talent as a world-builder was showcased in his previous outings (Logopolis and Castrovalva) but Frontios is his triumph. The last dregs of humanity, washed up on an alien shore, face to face with extinction…the script deals effectively with the emotional turmoil of humanity’s last survivors, and the constant fight against hunger, disease, crime, & unaccountable disappearances. Director Ron Jones and designer David Buckingham add their own embellishments - doing a stylish job with an all-studio production by making exteriors feel real, the superstructure of the ship feel enormous, and the underground caverns feel dark and creepy.
The new element is the monsters - something Bidmead strenuously avoided during his time as script editor of the series, but something he finally embraces with Frontios. The Tractators are a combination of early Hinchliffe alien hordes (one articulate spokesman for an invading force), and scientific observation of the wood lice in his own flat. Doesn’t sound like a workable combination, but the end result are the Tractators: a fascinating race of creatures, whose plan to hollow out the planet and drive it around using magnetism actually looks and sounds more believable than a similar plan contemplated by the Daleks 20 years beforehand!
The regular cast relishes the richness of the production. Peter Davison is on top form, ramping up both the Doctor’s irritation & his insatiable curiosity at being caught on this bleak & puzzling world. Janet Fielding is at her resourceful and feisty best…and Mark Strickson pulls out all the stops to give his best performance in the series as Turlough: at some points, convincingly off-his-rocker, at other points quiet, dark & brooding.
To my mind, this is the archetypal 5th Doctor story. It showcases the slightly more adult and cerebral approach to the era, while still using classic Doctor Who monster & horror elements to a high standard. It also showcases the most interesting characteristics of the 5th Doctor, and highlights the magnificent nature of Peter Davison’s performance. Definitely not a story to miss.
Season 21 - 4 episodes
This is the can’t miss episode. This is THE story…considered by a majority of fans to be one of the best…if not THE best…set of episodes in Doctor Who’s history. It’s easily the best story of the Davison era, and I could easily run out of superlatives when I consider the following:
(1) The return of Robert Holmes to the writing side of Doctor Who after a five year break. He takes two previous plots that didn’t quite gell for him, re-writes them, mixes them together, and sets in motion a chain reaction of plots and sub-plots that threatens to overwhelm virtually everyone…including the audience!
(2) The arrival of Director extraordinaire Graeme Harper. He takes Holmes’ excellent script and elevates it into something sublime: an art-house-action flick that takes the melodrama of the story and transforms it into a stunning Jacobean revenge tragedy, worthy of being performed in the court of James I himself! Violence & brutality combine with Shakespearean asides to the audience, jarring hand-held jerky-cam action (ten years ahead of its time) and in-your-face, intense close ups. Not bad for a FIRST directing assignment…and his style continues to serve him well in his new series outings.
(3) Christopher Gable - his performance as the deranged & pitiful Sharaz Jek is one of the key moments in the series. Jek is a hateful, vengeful, paranoid individual…one who was deeply scarred, deeply hurt, and deeply damaged by events we can’t even begin to comprehend. It’s the most astonishing, intelligent performance in the story…and that’s saying a great deal in a cast this talented, this powerful, and this stunning (and don’t forget to give John Normington, Maurice Roeves & Robert Glennister a round of applause for their own stellar work as Morgus, Stotz & Salateen respectively).
(4) Nicola Bryant, separated from the baggage she would carry through the Colin Baker years, makes her own mark, in only her second appearance in the series as new companion Peri Brown. No one has so successfully played a dying companion since the first year of the program…and Bryant nails it with a fabulous, intense performance.
(5) Peter Davison. He saves the best for last…after three years of giving his best as one of the greatest character actors to play the role…and after single-handedly saving the odd trashy story with his considerable talents. Holmes didn’t know much about the 5th Doctor, and wrote the story with the 4th Doctor in mind…but the end result simply amplifies the Davison Doctor’s qualities to the Nth Degree: the humour & sarcasm become jet black, the irritation turns into repressed panic, the determination becomes fiery and desperate. For those pitiful few people who still view Davison’s performance in the series a dull and wet…show them this story. Or tell them to watch something else.
(6) The regeneration. Special cameos instead of flashbacks…a Beatles-inspired miasma of sound and colour…and a pounding, thundering pace that takes your breath away until the BANG moment when Colin Baker sits up in the spot where Peter Davison once lay. It’s like watching a car accident in real time: utterly brutal, yet strangely compelling & beautiful…and to top it all off, the 5th Doctor’s final word is “Adric”.
The Caves of Androzani is a high water mark - perhaps the last high water mark in the classic series. There would be a number of other superlative stories in the years to come (especially in its final two years)…but BBC indifference, and the disastrously-changing viewing habits of the 1980s would combine to ensure that Doctor Who would never again have quite the same impact…until its 2005 revival. Aside from being essential viewing, it’s far and away my favourite story, from my favourite Doctor…and from my favourite television series of all time. 
