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Fourth in the series! As with the previous entries, what in the Fourth Doctor's era, from "Robot" to "Logopolis" would you improve if you could?"

I'd get David Maloney to take over as producer from Phillip Hinchclliffe.

Five more seasons with Tom Baker.

The finishing and airing of Shada.

More Romana II.

Another season with Mary Tamm.
More humour in Tom's last season.

Tom should have gone after the key to time season. He stayed in the role 2 years too long for me. I stopped watching at the end. Peter Davison was a breath of fresh air when he took over. You can't improve over toms 1st 3 seasons though. Doctor who's best era bar none.

I'd employ a producer strong enough to keep Tom in his place after his first three wonderful seasons. When actors start dictating how a show is run, it's akin to monkeys taking over a zoo.

What would I improve in Tom Baker's era? The second half, from Invisible Enemy onward.

The only things I'd change about the first three Seasons is Harry's exit and the way the phasing out of UNIT was handled.

With Harry, as with Liz, I'd love to have seen inside the TARDIS Control Room and see him muck all the controls up in person. With his exit, he should never have been brought back after the Zygon story. He was wasted in The Android Invasion as was Benton. I'd put the Zygon story back at the end of Season 12 where it should have been and made it a six parter, concentrating on the fact this was UNIT's last story and we could have said goodbye to Harry properly and the Brig and Benton. Would love to have seen Captain Yates appear in a story with Baker's Doctor, but maybe his story was already done in Planet Of The Spiders.

I just feel in Season 13, with The Android Invasion and The Seeds Of Doom that we have a lot of replacement characters for The Brigadier and in the latter, it doesn't feel like a proper UNIT story at all with all the main characters missing. You could have had those two stories slightly rewritten without UNIT.

Revenge Of The Cybermen I'd completely rewrite and give it more of an Earthshock style impact as they'd been away for several years.

As for the rest of the Era, I'd completely rewrite Leela's exit and give her a more heroic send off. Agree that I'd give the First Romana one more Season outside The Key To Time search. The Black Guardian I'd have featured more in The Armageddon Factor. After 26 weeks of looking out for him, his appearance is over in a flash.

I would tone down the humour of the Williams era but not completely as it was a nice contrast from the Hinchcliffe stories.

I would ensure Baker left after Season 17, get Shada completed as his send off.

And if he was still there by Season 18, I would switch his interpretation of The Doctor back to his Hinchcliffe one and wouldn't cut out the humour. I'd do away with the costume redesign and make the changes less radical though refreshing. I'd have also brought in a new title sequence earlier as it was getting boring by Season 17.

Just a question, you have started these threads and well done for that, enjoying them very much but.....I notice you haven't given an opinion on any of them!

Any reason for that? Just think it's a bit weird to start threads like these and not give an opinion???????

oh i don't know, i rather enjoyed the following seasons. The only series i think was too many was his last one but even that was peppered with absolute classics

Hell yes! But then I'd have been deprived of the best three series of Blakes 7 so a bit conflicted on that. To me the Fourth Doctor era was perfect up to when Hinchcliffe left. The last series (JNT) I could have done without but even that contained a couple of stories I love.

The Hinchcliffe years are as perfect as Doctor Who will ever get, after that it's a bit hit and miss but I could never say I wish Tom had gone earlier of anything like that, each of the following years contained stories that are amongst my all time favourites.

Image of the Fendahl, Stones of Blood, City of Death and Logopolis would hate to lose any of these.

Perhaps just a little more control over Tom and no firective from above as to the direction the series should go would be the only things I'd change and I also would have liked Elisabeth Sladen to have accepted the offer to return in order to see Tom out.

If I had my own Tardis & could travel back in time to 1975, I think I'd find out where Mary Whitehouse lived & done something like slipped acid in her tea. Anything to stop her being so vocal objecting to the Philip Hinchcliffe era, which, watching a lot of the extras on the DVD's, I believe her actions in particular led to him being forced to leave & be given another programme at the BBC, and also toning down the gothic nature of the show. A real shame. He was one of the best things ever to happen to the original show & almost anything of his era was pure gold working with the writers and Tom.

I think what you say above is almost correct. Horror of Fang Rock was the 1st story after his reign, but still very much of that genre (& still fantastic).

Agree with you on the JNT era. If you took the best of that series & the best of the previous so that Tom only stayed for 6 series rather than 7 (he was starting to look long in the tooth) that would have been about right for such a great Doctor.

In terms of characters, agree with comments about Harry, he should have stayed on. It was a great team him, the 4th Doc & Sarah. I would have featured more stories still with UNIT too, ideally 1 a season if/when they could get Nick Courtney. Further along, I'm only now finally watching The Keys to Time season. I think most of the stories (on the whole) are pretty average really. Great premise for a season though. What I really like however is Romana mk I. She's great -great banter with Tom (particularly 1st two stories). If only she stayed on & the stories were more in the classic mould (PH still there, with Whitehouse gagged or mysteriously gone missing or something..)

I agree with the sentiment of this and yes, maybe another Season or two with Hinchcliffe would have been nice, but Doctor Who is about change and evolving constantly and the one thing I wouldn't change about the 4th Doctor's Era is in fact all the changes that took place as it went along. I just love it how it immediately evolved from the Earth bound stories of Pertwee's era and gradually went through the 'Horror' story phase to the comic one and then onto the more sci-fi based one in Season 18, setting it up nicely for Davison to take over.

When I watch The Tom Baker Years Video in one hit, it really takes you on a journey through the era and all these changes and how far the show had come from the start to end of his era. Obviously as we all have said, there's individual changes we would make but as a whole, I wouldn't change the overall constant evolving one bit.

I would have given Sarah Jane a less sudden and more thoughtful exit.

I was only six when Hand of Fear was aired and had grown up thinking Doctor Who was a show about the Doctor and Sarah Jane. I just didn't understand why he had dropped her off on earth at the end of the story.

Even when Leela was introduced, I still expected him to return to collect Sarah Jane at some point. Honestly, this left a gaping hole in my young life - where was Sarah Jane?

If only Sarah Jane had been given a reason to stay on earth, I think it would have worked. Maybe she stayed behind for love, or to adopt an alien boy, or to take up a role protecting the earth when the Doctor wasn't around. Anything, really. But having the Doctor turf her out so suddenly because he couldn't take her to Gallifrey (and then not go back for her) was just awful.

Ironic, really, that Sarah Jane didn't get any closure until School Reunion 30 years later and (to be honest) that was when I had closure too.

Funny how that one thing (for me) hung over the rest of Tom's time as the Doctor.

Mrfipp is a Time Lord who is actually going to make the suggested changes.

I believe it was The Deadly Assassin, that provoked the most complaints from Whitehouse. Particularly the drowning sequence at the end of episode 3. After this episode, the BBC were in hot water over the violence in the story. This made Hinchcliffe's future with the show untenable. They then hired Graham Williams who was instructed to reduce the violence in favour of more humour.

I interviewed the chap who replaced Mary Whitehouse as president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association back in (I think) 98 or 99. There had been a controversial documentary shown on TV about abortion and - please note - the following is spoilered because it contains information some of you may find upsetting:



Naturally, it had caused outcry at the time and I was expecting the NV&LA to take a really hard line on it. But they didn't because they felt it was important people see what was involved as (clearly) they disagreed with abortion.

So it seemed to me that the NV&LA was happy for offensive material to be broadcast as long as they agreed with the sentiment behind it. Which is not really what they claimed to be about.

Now this is a toughie. 3 years of consistantly high quality Who under Hinchcliffe and 3 (admittedly much less consistant) years of often highly imaginative fun from Williams (Love Season 16 in particular), and Season 18 certainly has it's moments too. Particularly like the e-space triology. So not much I'd change really.

I do think Tom needed to be reigned in a bit more than he was at times; "....my *everything*!" scene from Nightmare on Eden springs immediately to mind! As does the protracted scenes of him talking to a giant green phallus in Creature....but also wish he'd been a bit more focused in Season 15, which IMO is his least consistant performance-wise.

More Mary Tamm would most certainly have been nice (swoon) and a particular casting decision for one of his later companions wasn't too successful. (Guess. But that's a bit mean. Didn't think they were as bad as some do.)

Maybe Tom did stay too long, but then we wouldn't have had some IMO great later performances, say City of Death, the e-space trilogy, Keeper...and Logopolis when he was on fine form.

Harry deserved a better farewell.

Generally, though, I think it's a wonderful period of the programme.

I'd make everyone involved with the programme take seasons 15, 16 and 17 seriously. There are some gems but I can't sit through loads of those episodes. There's something that comes close to contempt for the audience at times. I love the Hinchcliffe era now and loved JNT's stint then.

Oh, and scrap K9.

You can't scrap K9. Every kid loved K9 then.

Leaving Adric in e-space. More Harry Sullivan and Duggan becoming a full time companion (seriously, the biggest missed opportunity in the history of the show). Tom Baker's Doctor always worked best with the slightly antagonist companions.

I wouldn't! He was the best Doctor with the best stories! Although I'd've NOT had the Peter Howell theme until Peter Davison's Doctor came along. I think that was a little premature in my book, really.

Lastly, I would have the entity in Planet of Evil, look more realistic, and not as poor computerised blobs of colour.

That's it really. Nothing else I can think of.

I wasn't over-keen on him, and I was 8 to 12 during both of the versions of K9s times with the show. They came out with the occasional funny bit of dry humour, but that was about it.


Remind me which adventure Duggan was in, and who he was.

He was in City of Death, when the Doctor and Romana II went to Paris, France.

This will explain in more detail:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Duggan