Doctor Who Season 19 ranked Worst to Best.

So, I've been working my way through the whole classic era of Doctor Who (from 1963 to 1989), excluding of course the missing episodes from the 60's, and most recently finished watching Peter Davison's first season as the Fifth Doctor from 1982.
After seven years of Tom Baker in the role, Davison gave a more human, more fallible, younger-looking incarnation then any Doctor we had seen previously. However, the producer, John Nathan-Turner, decided to team his Doctor with THREE younger companions, which ended up with an ironically-crowded TARDIS, and difficult ways to give each of the three different things to do in the stories.
Davison's first season is a mixed-bag - some are fantastically realised stories, and some are cheap-looking productions that just didn't have the budget to incorporate what the script demanded. So, without further ado, here are the seven stories of Doctor Who Season 19 ranked worst to best. *WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS*


7) Time-Flight

Was it ever going to be anything else? The final story of the season, penned by Peter Grimwade (who was a better director then a writer, as we shall explore later), is often voted the worst story of Davison's tenure...and having watched it, it's hard to argue with that. I'd actually say it's the worst Who story ever!
The main problem with Time-Flight is that the budget simply wasn't enough to bring to life what Grimwade's script demanded. But the BBC were always going to struggle with a story that sees a Concorde landing on Prehistoric Earth! Add in terrible-looking bubble monsters, and the Master (Anthony Ainley) in a pointless genie disguise, and you get one of the worst examples of cheap-looking Doctor Who. They also quickly gloss over the events of the previous story in the first five minutes, before getting straight into another romp. The post-Earthshock events should have been a darker story with the Doctor, Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) and Tegan (Janet Fielding) realising that the journey they are on is truly dangerous, but instead we get two minutes of grief, then back to the Doctor moaning about the state of English cricket, and into a incredibly below-par story clearly designed so producer John Nathan-Turner could get free Concorde tickets!


6) Black Orchid

Ah, two-part Doctor Who stories. Nowadays, we are used to them, what with each episode being 45 minutes long (sometimes an hour), but in the classic era, Doctor Who episodes were 24 minutes long, meaning they had less time to develop the story. There were three Davison stories which were two-parters (not counting Resurrection of the Daleks, which was a four-parter broadcast as a 45 minute two-parter due to the Winter Olympics), and the first was Terence Dudley's Black Orchid.
A rare example of a story with a purely-historical setting and no sci-fi elements at all (the first the show had had since 1967), Black Orchid sticks out like a sore thumb amongst Davison's first season of stories. Set in 1925, it sees the TARDIS crew get up to costume ball shenanigans at an English country house, and get accused of murder. Davison does get to play cricket however, which is a highlight of the story, but apart from that, this is average Who. There's also the ridiculous scene where the Doctor proves he is innocent of murder by showing the police inside the TARDIS. Also, one of the characters is a doppelganger of the Doctor's companion Nyssa, but that doesn't really add anything to the plot.


5) Four to Doomsday

Also penned by Terence Dudley, Davison's second story was actually the first one he recorded as the Fifth Doctor. Set aboard a vast spaceship, it guest stars Stratford Johns (most famous for Z-Cars) as a humanoid alien frog called Monarch, with Paul Shelly and Annie Lambert as his two Ministers, Persuasion and Enlightenment (who take on human forms based on a drawing Tegan does). There is also a crew of humans from different stages of Earth's history who have been converted into androids, including Greek philosopher Bigon (Philip Locke) and Chinese Mandarin leader Lin Futu (played by Burt Kwouk of Pink Panther and Tenko fame).
Like most of Dudley's scripts, this one is quite dull, but it has some good performances, and the effects for the floating black sphere cameras (the Monopticans) are impressive.


4) Castrovalva

Davison's debut story, penned by the legend that was the show's departing script editor Christopher Hamilton Bidmead, this follows directly from the ending of Logopolis, with Tom Baker regenerating into his younger-looking successor. Davison spends half of this four-parter in a confused post-regeneration weakened state, which gives him time to establish the kind of Doctor he intends to play.
With the Doctor useless, and Adric captured by the Master, Nyssa and Tegan pilot the TARDIS to Castrovalva, a place where the Doctor can recover.
The guest cast of the story are impressive, especially Derek Waring as Shadovan, and the great Michael Sheard (in his fifth Who appearance) as Mergrave. Also, Anthony Ainley's Master adopts the most convincing of his disguises as the elderly Portreeve (credited in Episode 3 as 'Neil Toynay').
By the end of this story, Davison had totally won over the audience who had watched seven years of Tom Baker in the role. The future of the Doctor was in safe hands.


3) Kinda

Following on from the end of Four to Doomsday, this story solves the problem of the overcrowded TARDIS by having Nyssa faint and sit out the whole story, giving more for the remaining three regulars to do. This is a major story for Janet Fielding, as the first two episodes see Tegan in a dark dream realm, before getting taken over by the snake-like Mara. There are impressive guest performances in this story from the legendary Richard Todd (and no, I am not going to go into the anecdote about him and Matthew Waterhouse, as it's probably not true), Nerys Hughes (of The Liver Birds) and Mary Morris. But the best performance of the story has to be Simon Rouse as Hindle, giving single-handedly the finest portrayal of madness in Doctor Who history. The scene with the cardboard people is a particular highlight. However, Kinda does have one major flaw: namely the 'bouncy castle' snake effect at the end (which thankfully you have the option of replacing with a better-looking CGI version on the DVD)! Apart from that, it's a fine story from Christopher Bailey, who would return the following season with the sequel Snakedance.

Oh, and look out for a young Jonny Lee Miller as one of the Kinda children!


2) The Visitation

I will start this entry with a personal anecdote: this story was actually the first Davison story I ever watched on video. So I have a real soft spot for it.
Set in 1666, and penned by Eric Saward (who also became the show's new script editor), it begins in a really interesting way. A group of four characters are introduced, who we are led to believe will be major players in the story, only for them all to be slaughtered before the TARDIS even arrives! This is quite shocking, especially as one of them is played by John Savident (Fred Elliott from Corrie - 'I say, I say...').
Anyway, the TARDIS arrives at Heathrow, but 300-something years before the airport is built. Tegan storms out in a huff, the Doctor goes after her to apologise, and before you know it, they are being chased by angry peasants who are scared that the new arrivals have the Plague! They are rescued by highwayman and proclaimed thespian Richard Mace (a fantastically fruity performance from Michael Robbins, most known for playing Arthur, Olive's husband in On The Buses), who offers them shelter. After finding artifacts that should not exist in 17th Century England, the Doctor suspects alien involvement. Soon, the TARDIS crew and Mace are facing against a group of escaped Terileptil prisoners (bipedal reptiles, the leader of which is played by future Queen Vic landlord Michael Melia, under a very impressive animatronic mask), and their bejewelled android, which disguises itself as the Grim Reaper! Adding in a plot to kill the whole human race using an extreme form of plague, and a final battle in London which ends in a very famous conflagration, and you get a standout story of Davison's first year.


1) Earthshock

Of course this was gonna be #1! Written again by Eric Saward, directed brilliantly by Peter Grimwade, and featuring the shock return of one of the Doctor's greatest foes after a seven year absence, Earthshock is, without question, one of the true classics of 80's Who.
Landing inside some caves on 26th Century Earth, the TARDIS crew find themselves accused of the murder of a group of geologists who have gone missing. The truth is soon revealed: the real killers are a pair of androids, who are guarding a metal hatch in the cave. However, the real power behind them is shown in the shocking surprise reveal at the end of Episode 1: the Cybermen were back!
Having not been in the series since Revenge of the Cybermen in 1975, it was the perfect time for the emotionless metal-men from Telos to return to our TV screens. The Cybermen costumes seven years previously had not been very effective, so they were redesigned for Earthshock in true early '80's style, with silver-sprayed fighter pilot suits, moon boots, and see-thru mouthpieces, allowing us to see some of the humanoid element of these classic enemies.
Anyway, after disarming the Cyber bomb hidden behind the aforementioned hatch, the Doctor follows the bomb's signal to a freighter not far from Earth, of which the Captain is Beryl Reid, in black leather gloves, and a red beehive haircut - a classic example of 'stunt casting', which is the term used for when John Nathan-Turner cast someone in a role more because they were a famous face rather than them actually being right for the part. Far better cast is James Warwick as the tough moustachioed  Lieutenant Scott. But the true stand-out of the guest cast is David Banks, making the first of four appearances he would make playing the Cyber Leader. Using his height, his electronically-altered voice, and his crushing hand gestures to great effect, Banks creates a Cyber Leader for the ages.
If I had to pick out a problem, it's that this is another example of a story suffering from the 'crowded TARDIS' problem, as Nyssa spends two episodes stuck in the TARDIS with another character who then gets killed for no apparent reason in Episode 4. But it was the other thing that Earthshock is most remembered for that solved the problem of this overcrowding, as, for the first time since 1966, one of the Doctor's companions was killed off.
Adric's death at the story's conclusion, blown up aboard the freighter when it crashes into Prehistoric Earth, is a powerful moment for the series. Despite Adric being a character that several fans have hated, and Matthew Waterhouse's acting skills being slated, this is actually a very poignant moment, and Waterhouse gives a good performance - his final moments in particular standing out. The closing credits being played out in silence however is perhaps not the best idea, as it comes off a bit cheesy really.
However, I need to single out one true star without which this story would not be the same, and that person is director Peter Grimwade. From the shadowy androids walking through the dark caverns, to the mirrored three-shot of the Cybermen marching down the freighter's corridors, to the one Cyberman getting frozen in the control room door, Grimwade created some memorable Who moments in this story. Sadly, this would be the final story he directed for the show.
It is all these things that make Earthshock a true classic, and far and away the best story of Season 19.

Well, that's my review of Season 19. Hope you liked reading my thoughts. I will be reviewing Season 20 in the near future.