Doctor Who Season nine: Hey Daleks, nice to see you again

Considering how strong season eight was, it was likely that the follow up was going to seem like a letdown. Still, there is a considerable drop off here, buoyed mainly when the Master appears in a couple of series later on.

The 1970s presented an interesting point in the show’s history, as two actors played the role over the course of 12 seasons. Apart from Jon Pertwee (5) and Tom Baker (7) no other actor played the Doctor for more than three years. While that gave the show considerable stability during the era, it also meant that the relentless reinvention that has been a hallmark of Doctor Who had to take a back seat. The producers found other ways to freshen the show during these years, from changing companions to exploring season-long story lines to introducing a robot dog – but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Meanwhile, we have Pertwee’s third season here – remember, most often the final season for the actor in the lead role – and there is some fatigue. That’s not so much from the actor’s performance, as Pertwee remained strong in the role throughout, but the concept of the Third Doctor began to show cracks as producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks searched for a more winning formula.

Day of the Daleks

They got off to a solid start with the return, after being sidelined since The Evil of the Daleks, of some familiar foes. Apparently, the gap meant that the voice actors for the roles forgot how to bring life to the characters, as the first one we meet says…his…lines…very…slowly. Daleks are supposed to be relentless, cold-hearted killers, not brain-dead stoners. (Maybe there was a note – the delivery got much closer to the familiar cadence as the serial went along.)

Apart from that, we’ve got a story where time travel actually is the plot. Obviously it’s always been a device on the show, allowing the characters to get to their various points and sometimes even being used as a solution to a problem (see The Claws of Axos). Here, however, the story turns on a paradox: the ruthless-but-rather-incompetent freedom fighters travel from the Dalek-infested future to change history by killing off an overblown diplomat, but instead trigger the events they were attempting to stop.

Sure, it’s not “Blink,” but the intriguing story and fast past – and for once in this season, not stretched over six episodes – makes for a solid start to the season.

The Curse of Peladon

There’s a Troughton back in the house for this adventure, as Patrick’s son David plays a sort of primitive-in-space young Shakespearean ruler, King Peladon, who is leading an effort to have his planet join a galactic federation. It’s quickly evident that elements of his planet, led by his longtime advisor, don’t want any part of it. The Doctor and Jo get sent over by the Time Lords and then improvise their way into being the Earth ambassador and then working to unveil the plot. The Ice Warriors make a return but – in a fun twist – aren’t the bad guys. Some of the costumes – especially that of eyeballed alien Alpha Centauri – are pretty weak by today’s standards, but there is an engaging vibe throughout. So much so, in fact, that we’ll back in season 11 for another round at Peladon.

The Sea Devils

Here’s where the season starts to go pear-shaped. Sometimes you wonder if the scriptwriters actually thought out the storylines from beginning to end. Often, the longer Doctor Who stories would start out like gangbusters and then lose, literally, the plot as it grew into episodes four and five before finding some kind closure. New characters showing up late in the proceedings was usually a good sign that things were off the rails, and here we get an odious civil servant (Martin Broddey, who is really terrific as the annoying and always-hungry Wilson) who makes his appearance in episode five. Plot wise, we get the lizard cousins of the Silurians pretty much doing the same thing as in that storyline – waking up cranky and deciding to take over the world. Roger Delgado has his usual fun as the Master, including a famous moment (reflected in the new series’ scene with the Master and the Teletubbies) as he watches a nonsense children’s show and thinking they are aliens trying to communicate.

The Mutants

The season nine slog-a-thon continues with another piece that would have been considerably sharpened by a shorter length. By the end, it’s clear that the story is just marking time, going over the same plot points over and over again. There is some intrigue here, as the serial attempts to tackle weighty subjects like colonialism and evolution, but makes some ham-fisted decisions along the way that short-circuit the good intentions (such as having the natives mutate from dark complexions to becoming blond). The acting is, at best, variable with poor Rick James (no, not that Rick James) giving perhaps the worst performance in Doctor Who history.

The Time Monster

By almost all standards, The Mutants is better than The Time Monster. The story makes more sense. There is an attempt to actually say something. There isn’t a giant pantomime bird flying around, supposedly the eater of all time. Yet, watching the Time Monster is a lot more fun than slogging through the Mutants. The key to this? Roger Delgado. The chemistry the actor had with Jon Pertwee and the rest of the regular cast was fantastic, while his relish at unleashing his mad plot helps to rough over the poor pacing and plotting of the serial, which is a classic six-parter “one story for the first four episodes, a different-but-connected one” for the last two story. Still, we get baby Sgt. Benton out of the deal.

Next time, old friends return for The Three Doctors, and we finally get free of Earth for a while.