Doctor Who: How well does the sixth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures capture the tone of Season Eighteen?
By James Aggas
Following our recent reviews of Series Series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, we decided to look at the series as a whole. Was it able to capture the tone and feel of Tom Baker’s final season of Doctor Who?
It’s kind of funny: despite listening to Series Seven and Eight of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, it’s only recently that I’ve listened to Series Six. A key reason for this is that, like many of Big Finish’s Doctor Who ranges, the series doesn’t exactly happen in chronological order. One year, we might get the Fourth Doctor with Leela, another with a completely original companion.
For both 2016 and 2017, it was Lalla Ward’s Romana that featured as the companion. However, Series Five and Six went for different approaches. While Series Five aimed to capture some of the style and eccentricity of Douglas Adam’s only season as script-editor, Series Six went for something closer to the more harder sci-fi take given in Season Eighteen. But how well did Series Six achieve this?
If I’m honest, looking back on it as a whole, there aren’t that many stories that quite go for the hard science tone of Tom Baker’s final season. While Dethras is definitely a perfect fit for it – with its take on evolution complimenting the TV story Full Circle rather well – there’s a surprisingly wide sense of variety to this series in terms of style and genre.
A real highlight of this series was The Haunting of Malkin Place, which was essentially a Doctor Who take on a ghost story done right.
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Horror influences
For example, the first three stories, The Beast of Kravenos, The Eternal Battle and The Silent Scream, while very different, all have very strong horror influences. We only got one typical horror story in Season Eighteen with State of Decay (although it has to be said, it is definitely one of the stronger serials from that year).
We also got something of a ghost story with The Haunting of Malkin Place. Probably my favorite from the series, this is a very effective and spooky story while also providing an interesting and fleshed out scientific explanation.
What’s particularly interesting about this series is that it seems to go for a tone of transition between seasons Seventeen and Eighteen. Especially when you’ve got stories like Subterranea, which is fantastic, but definitely seems to fit more the world of Douglas Adams than Christopher H. Bidmead. The fact that the Movellans returned in The Movellan Grave also shows this transition.
Leading into Season Eighteen
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Aside from Dethras, the closest this series comes to Season Eighteen is the finale, The Skin of the Sleek/The Thief Who Stole Time. Which actually fits nicely, really. It doesn’t directly lead into Tom Baker’s final season on television, at least not plot-wise. But it does suit the tone, and reminds me quite a bit of Warriors’ Gate in how strange and surreal it is, at times.
As for the quality of Series Six, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I must admit, I didn’t love it quite as much as Series Seven or Eight, both of which include many fantastic stories both epic and dramatic.
I also didn’t enjoy it as much as Series Five, the previous series with Romana which emulated Season Seventeen. Which is strange, as I actually preferred Season Eighteen as a whole compared to Seventeen. However, Series Five included many highly imaginative stories, including one of the best stories ever, The Trouble with Drax.
But Series Six is a good series in its own right. It has a nice mixture of stories, and surprisingly has a strong horror influence in many of them, which I quite enjoyed. It’s not a series I’d recommend quite as strongly as more recent ones, but I also wouldn’t exactly skip it, either.
dark. Next. Ranking all the regeneration stories
Have you listened to any of the stories from Series Six of The Fourth Doctor Adventures? Were there any stories that stood out to you? Are there any that have grabbed your interest? Let us know in the comments below.