Doctor Who: Season 18 Recap

This wasn't the best season of the show, which is sad, as it is Tom Baker's swan song. You would hope that such a long standing Doctor would get an epic send off. The season is rather lackluster, but at the same time I have to admit its light years better than Season 17, which was nothing short of an abysmal failure.

We said goodbye to old friends in Romana and K-9, and said hello to new ones Nyssa and Tegan...oh yeah and Adric is there too. We get the sort of crowded TARDIS at the end of the season...three companions...jeez.

Overall I would say the major flaw of this season is that Tom Baker just didn't gel well with JNT. JNT's sensibilities made the show too stylized, and Tom Baker's costume is awful. His look had always been rather eclectic, which was the charm of it. Suddenly it was pristine and clean, which is what JNT likes, but it didn't suit this Doctor. The other problem is that the costume became more of a uniform. The Doctor wears the same thing everyday suddenly. He used to have a style with variation. Same went for Pertwee or Hartnell, and to a lesser extent, Troughton. But now the Doctor has very distinct clothes that look like they were made especially for television, and he never changes. Ever. He has got to stink.

But this season kicked the show in the pants. It was serious again, and while it wasn't always strong it was definitely better than it had been. Luckily while the JNT style never suited Tom Baker, it fit the tone and style of the Davison years quite well.

NEXT TIME: The Cricketing Doctor