Full Circle [TV/1980.10.25 ~ 11.15]

★★★★☆

  Season 18's most wonderful achievement, apart from all its other wonderful achievements (turning the show practically upside down at the time, making a truly fresh start -- it's still a classic season I hold dearly), is the E-Space trilogy. If you thought the Fourth Doctor of the earlier S18 serials were more morose than his Graham Williams era counterpart, think again; Tom Baker gets some of his finest materials to tackle as a purely dramatic role, being incredibly brooding, focused and moralistic. One of my absolute favourite scenes of Four comes from this serial specifically, when he confronts the cowardly Deciders head-on and delivers a frightfully good performance of rage and righteous determinaton, mourning the pointless loss of life and accusing these elders of failing to save their own people. In a serial full of wonderful moments for the Doctor (as he is forced to reckon with a society that fights its own ancestors, lost in another universe with no way of escape).

  Full Circle is a work by a seventeen-year old, and even considering that there were probably a couple of rewrites, it's still a remarkable feat by Andrew Smith. For my money, this is precisely when the John Nathan-Turner/Christopher H, Bidmead approach to Dr. Who started paying off in droves -- it's the most "grounded" sci-fi the show's been for years, mixed with a wonderful sense of fairytale whimsy and foreboding mystery (the score delivers this feeling so well), and the Doctor and Romana truy feel like outsiders intervening in worlds and other people's affairs, rather than two intergalactic hippies running around their own universe-sized playground. With Peter Grimwade's beautiful direction and a refreshing turn from the main cast, Baker and Lalla Ward, this is one not to miss. Matthew Waterhouse as Adric is so unoffensive that I can't fathom why the fandom decided to bay for his blood for all these years. He make a great addition to the team, the boy wonder who benefits greatly from the fatherly mentoring and occasional humbing from the Doctor. I've always loved Full Circle, and it brings me great pleasure that I finally got to write for it. This is afine addition to Season 18 indeed, and the beginning of its winning streak.