Castrovalva: The back half is marvelous, but the front half is mispaced as the show tries to grapple with its strange new airing schedule. This marks the beginning of “post-regeneration stories are about the absence of the Doctor through post-regeneration confusion” trope, which was largely disastrous. Ainley’s Master becomes a joke as of this story. Still, there are lovely bits shining through the overall lack of working, and it’s impressive for the strained circumstances of its creation. 7/10
Four to Doomsday: One of the most jarring drops in quality ever - after the Bidmead era so convincingly provided a new style for Doctor Who, this suddenly becomes tedious, predictable, and no fun. Bidmead drained the humor of the Williams era and replaced it with wonder. This drains the wonder and replaces it with boredom. Absolutely dreadful. 2/10
Kinda: Like Warrior’s Gate and Logopolis, a story that delights in showing off new frontiers in what Doctor Who can do. This time it’s done with a slick confidence and focus that Davison’s first season otherwise completely lacks. The only complaint is the giant snake, and really, this is Doctor Who. 10/10
The Visitation: Not as bad as it could be, and its reputation isn’t helped by knowledge of what’s to come from Saward. This is basically harmless. Derivative and a dumb runaround, yes, but that happens. The biggest problem is the decision to only have one supporting character - a disastrous structural decision that should have been fixed in editing. Why they’d then hire this writer as the editor is a mystery, but that’s not this story’s fault as such. 4/10
Black Orchid: Novel, but plagued by the fundamental structural difficulties of a two-parter aired over two days and the fact that Terrance Dudley is not actually a very good writer. Was much better when it was called The Unicorn and the Wasp and written by Gareth Roberts. 5/10
Earthshock: At the root of it, the problem is that Doctor Who is not actually very good at doing big action films. Still, it has its moments - the Cybermen reveal is lovely, as is Beryl Reid. The death of Adric is completely mishandled on screen, the plot doesn’t quite hang together, and, again, the show that just screwed up a giant snake should maybe be a little more hesitant about a massive action set piece. As good as “Doctor Who does space marines” can be, which isn’t actually very. 6/10
Time-Flight: Horrible and unwatchable, except for the fleeting moments where it’s suddenly charming and terribly clever. Somewhere in here was a brilliant story, and every once in a while you can see it trying to get out from under… um… this. As all-time lows of Doctor Who go, this is one of the more watchable ones. 3/10
The Arc of Infinity: This is how we decide to begin the big 20th anniversary; with a story only Ian Levine could love. Gallifrey is treated as familiar and known, the plot twists are contrived and either insane or predictable, and the whole thing depends on us remembering a villain that hasn’t been mentioned in a decade. The pacing is shot, the ending doesn’t work, and even if you do happen to both know The Three Doctors and not know the twist here it’s fairly lame. Crap like this is why the series was cancelled. 1/10
Snakedance: Rob Shearman considers this his outright favorite Doctor Who story. I am not about to argue with Rob Shearman. Intelligent, well-acted, full of clever ideas. There are probably flaws to identify, but really, why would you nitpick something this fun? 10/10
Mawdryn Undead: It drags in bits, and the Black Guardian is borderline intolerable, but this has so many clever ideas and makes such a good show of them. It introduces timey-wimey without any of the ostentation that Moffat uses (and I’m not even a Moffat critic), uses the Brigadier well, and has a fantastic non-villain. This is one of the good ones. 9/10
Terminus: It’s a complete mess, of course, but under the surface is a script by the guy who brought us Warrior’s Gate, and it’s just as brilliant. It’s a pity, really, that Saward took a good thing and ruined it, and Mary Ridge ruined it further. I want to like this story a lot. I don’t, but I can be reminded of the version in my head that I do love while watching it, and some days that does well enough. 4/10
Enlightenment: There’s some logic that fails to recognize this as one of the pinnacles of the classic series, little yet one of the pinnacles of the 1980s. I do not understand this logic. This is self-evidently what Doctor Who is for - an idea only it could do. Every detail of this is marvelous. Even in the years where I was burnt out on Doctor Who and not terribly invested in it, I liked rewatching Enlightenment. The basic image here is one of my favorites in the series. 10/10
The King’s Demons: Well. That was pointless rubbish. Once again Dudley demonstrates why the cliffhanger is the worst thing ever to happen to two-parters, as part one takes ages to reveal the point and part two rushes through everything. This is a lovely premise, and deserved to actually be done seriously. Instead… this. 2/10
The Five Doctors: It doesn’t shoot to be good so much as fun. It manages this despite a wealth of obvious problems. This is not a model for how to do an anniversary story, but it also manages not to squander its goodwill. It would never work in the modern day, and that’s probably a good thing, but given how staggeringly the Davison era can fail when it fails the fact that it achieves basic entertainment value is a good thing, and in an age without home copies of things the nostalgia runaround was a sound idea. These days there’s nothing in it where it wouldn’t be more fun to watch the real thing on DVD. But all of this is desperately querellous. It’s not good television, but it didn’t have to be. (Whereas the 50th, I fear, does have to be.) 5/10
Warriors of the Deep: Correctly investigated for being unfit for transmission. There’s a school of thought that says this could have worked with better effects, but there’s a school of thought that thinks climate change isn’t real too, so really, who cares about that? Absolutely nothing about this story comes even remotely close to working. A misconceived disaster, and yet another example of John Nathan-Turner having no sense that maybe you should avoid putting a complete piece of crap out as a season premiere (See also the premieres of Seasons 18, 20, 22, 24, and 26.) All that can be said is that at least with Season 21 he avoids putting the worst story out as a season premiere. Instead he saves the worst story for an even more important slot. Oh dear. 1/10
The Awakening: Surprisingly good, actually - it understands how to do a two episode story, has some compelling images, and moves along at a nice clip without overstaying its welcome. And who doesn’t love a good evil stone face. Probably the overlooked classic of the Peter Davison era. 7/10
Frontios: There’s a slight but significant mismatch in tone between the writing and directing, but the tension elevates the story as often as it hobbles it. Bidmead is always welcome, and his trademark interests mesh fascinatingly with a darker and more militaristic tone characteristic of the Saward era. The sort of thing you’re glad Doctor Who did. 8/10
Resurrection of the Daleks: A waste of Daleks, Davison, Tegan, and, really, everything else. High on the success of Earthshock (which wasn’t actually good at being an action story) Saward goes back to the well and gets Doctor Who being bad at action movies again, only now with incoherent plotting. Redeemed only by the spectacularly if inadvertently pervy scene of the foam exploding out of Davros. 3/10
Planet of Fire: It wobbles around pointlessly a lot and has some poorly thought through ideas, but most of those poorly thought through ideas can be described as “trying to do all of these things in one story.” For what it is, it works. What it is, however, is a very, very dumb idea. 4/10
The Caves of Androzani: Is there much to say here? It’s brilliant. It demonstrates how vitally important good writers are to the series. It demonstrates how vitally important good actors are to the series. It demonstrates how vitally important good directors are to the series. And it makes it crushingly, brutally, awfully apparent how rarely the Davison era actually had all three. Many stories in the Davison era got good ratings because it’s easy to overlook one weak aspect of a strong story. This needs no apologies. It’s just good. 10/10
Four to Doomsday: One of the most jarring drops in quality ever - after the Bidmead era so convincingly provided a new style for Doctor Who, this suddenly becomes tedious, predictable, and no fun. Bidmead drained the humor of the Williams era and replaced it with wonder. This drains the wonder and replaces it with boredom. Absolutely dreadful. 2/10
Kinda: Like Warrior’s Gate and Logopolis, a story that delights in showing off new frontiers in what Doctor Who can do. This time it’s done with a slick confidence and focus that Davison’s first season otherwise completely lacks. The only complaint is the giant snake, and really, this is Doctor Who. 10/10
The Visitation: Not as bad as it could be, and its reputation isn’t helped by knowledge of what’s to come from Saward. This is basically harmless. Derivative and a dumb runaround, yes, but that happens. The biggest problem is the decision to only have one supporting character - a disastrous structural decision that should have been fixed in editing. Why they’d then hire this writer as the editor is a mystery, but that’s not this story’s fault as such. 4/10
Black Orchid: Novel, but plagued by the fundamental structural difficulties of a two-parter aired over two days and the fact that Terrance Dudley is not actually a very good writer. Was much better when it was called The Unicorn and the Wasp and written by Gareth Roberts. 5/10
Earthshock: At the root of it, the problem is that Doctor Who is not actually very good at doing big action films. Still, it has its moments - the Cybermen reveal is lovely, as is Beryl Reid. The death of Adric is completely mishandled on screen, the plot doesn’t quite hang together, and, again, the show that just screwed up a giant snake should maybe be a little more hesitant about a massive action set piece. As good as “Doctor Who does space marines” can be, which isn’t actually very. 6/10
Time-Flight: Horrible and unwatchable, except for the fleeting moments where it’s suddenly charming and terribly clever. Somewhere in here was a brilliant story, and every once in a while you can see it trying to get out from under… um… this. As all-time lows of Doctor Who go, this is one of the more watchable ones. 3/10
The Arc of Infinity: This is how we decide to begin the big 20th anniversary; with a story only Ian Levine could love. Gallifrey is treated as familiar and known, the plot twists are contrived and either insane or predictable, and the whole thing depends on us remembering a villain that hasn’t been mentioned in a decade. The pacing is shot, the ending doesn’t work, and even if you do happen to both know The Three Doctors and not know the twist here it’s fairly lame. Crap like this is why the series was cancelled. 1/10
Snakedance: Rob Shearman considers this his outright favorite Doctor Who story. I am not about to argue with Rob Shearman. Intelligent, well-acted, full of clever ideas. There are probably flaws to identify, but really, why would you nitpick something this fun? 10/10
Mawdryn Undead: It drags in bits, and the Black Guardian is borderline intolerable, but this has so many clever ideas and makes such a good show of them. It introduces timey-wimey without any of the ostentation that Moffat uses (and I’m not even a Moffat critic), uses the Brigadier well, and has a fantastic non-villain. This is one of the good ones. 9/10
Terminus: It’s a complete mess, of course, but under the surface is a script by the guy who brought us Warrior’s Gate, and it’s just as brilliant. It’s a pity, really, that Saward took a good thing and ruined it, and Mary Ridge ruined it further. I want to like this story a lot. I don’t, but I can be reminded of the version in my head that I do love while watching it, and some days that does well enough. 4/10
Enlightenment: There’s some logic that fails to recognize this as one of the pinnacles of the classic series, little yet one of the pinnacles of the 1980s. I do not understand this logic. This is self-evidently what Doctor Who is for - an idea only it could do. Every detail of this is marvelous. Even in the years where I was burnt out on Doctor Who and not terribly invested in it, I liked rewatching Enlightenment. The basic image here is one of my favorites in the series. 10/10
The King’s Demons: Well. That was pointless rubbish. Once again Dudley demonstrates why the cliffhanger is the worst thing ever to happen to two-parters, as part one takes ages to reveal the point and part two rushes through everything. This is a lovely premise, and deserved to actually be done seriously. Instead… this. 2/10
The Five Doctors: It doesn’t shoot to be good so much as fun. It manages this despite a wealth of obvious problems. This is not a model for how to do an anniversary story, but it also manages not to squander its goodwill. It would never work in the modern day, and that’s probably a good thing, but given how staggeringly the Davison era can fail when it fails the fact that it achieves basic entertainment value is a good thing, and in an age without home copies of things the nostalgia runaround was a sound idea. These days there’s nothing in it where it wouldn’t be more fun to watch the real thing on DVD. But all of this is desperately querellous. It’s not good television, but it didn’t have to be. (Whereas the 50th, I fear, does have to be.) 5/10
Warriors of the Deep: Correctly investigated for being unfit for transmission. There’s a school of thought that says this could have worked with better effects, but there’s a school of thought that thinks climate change isn’t real too, so really, who cares about that? Absolutely nothing about this story comes even remotely close to working. A misconceived disaster, and yet another example of John Nathan-Turner having no sense that maybe you should avoid putting a complete piece of crap out as a season premiere (See also the premieres of Seasons 18, 20, 22, 24, and 26.) All that can be said is that at least with Season 21 he avoids putting the worst story out as a season premiere. Instead he saves the worst story for an even more important slot. Oh dear. 1/10
The Awakening: Surprisingly good, actually - it understands how to do a two episode story, has some compelling images, and moves along at a nice clip without overstaying its welcome. And who doesn’t love a good evil stone face. Probably the overlooked classic of the Peter Davison era. 7/10
Frontios: There’s a slight but significant mismatch in tone between the writing and directing, but the tension elevates the story as often as it hobbles it. Bidmead is always welcome, and his trademark interests mesh fascinatingly with a darker and more militaristic tone characteristic of the Saward era. The sort of thing you’re glad Doctor Who did. 8/10
Resurrection of the Daleks: A waste of Daleks, Davison, Tegan, and, really, everything else. High on the success of Earthshock (which wasn’t actually good at being an action story) Saward goes back to the well and gets Doctor Who being bad at action movies again, only now with incoherent plotting. Redeemed only by the spectacularly if inadvertently pervy scene of the foam exploding out of Davros. 3/10
Planet of Fire: It wobbles around pointlessly a lot and has some poorly thought through ideas, but most of those poorly thought through ideas can be described as “trying to do all of these things in one story.” For what it is, it works. What it is, however, is a very, very dumb idea. 4/10
The Caves of Androzani: Is there much to say here? It’s brilliant. It demonstrates how vitally important good writers are to the series. It demonstrates how vitally important good actors are to the series. It demonstrates how vitally important good directors are to the series. And it makes it crushingly, brutally, awfully apparent how rarely the Davison era actually had all three. Many stories in the Davison era got good ratings because it’s easy to overlook one weak aspect of a strong story. This needs no apologies. It’s just good. 10/10