Change and Decay: A Look at the Themes of Tom Baker's Final Season

The glorious artwork by Lee Binding for the Doctor Who Season 18 Blu-Ray.

Doctor Who underwent a number of large-scale changes in 1980. A new producer, a new script editor, new titles and theme music, a new visual style and a new tone and ethos which was designed to launch it into the 1980s. Like it or not, producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Christopher H Bidmead brought a whole new look to Doctor Who, that vastly contrasted with everything that had come before. They reigned in the humour and the almost fourth-wall breaking comedy of the Graham Williams era, they put a renewed emphasis on legitimate (or even 'hard') science, and, whether by accident or design, they brought to Doctor Who a level of thematic resonance that, I would argue, we never had before, and, maybe, we've never had since. In this mini-essay, I am going to take a look at the themes that this series was working with, and how a number of these have gone on to have resonance in the show since.

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward as the Doctor and
Romana, in a promotional photo for "State of
Decay".

The major themes of Season 18 revolve around change and decay. Somehow fitting, considering that this turned out to be Tom Baker's final season as the Doctor, that this is the main thing that links all of the stories together. Each story revolves around societies that, in one way or another, are decaying or have decayed, or features characters who go through different states of being through evolution or manipulation from an outside force. In "Full Circle", for example, the principle monsters of the story, the Marshmen, are revealed to be the same race as the Alzarian colonists, who wiped out the original colonists of the Starliner, and a sub-species evolved to almost an almost human-like form to replace them. Through evolution, a strain of Marshmen became the very thing they sort to destroy, and evolved to adapt to the more high-technology environment of the Starliner. The story that follows this, however, "State of Decay" looks at a civilisation going through the reverse. Whereas the citizens of Alzarius were adapting to their environment, the citizens of the unnamed planet we visit are trapped in stagnation and collapse, their development suppressed artificially by the Three Who Rule and the Great Vampire. Through a lack of access to technology, knowledge and independent thought, together with the artificially created threat of 'the Wasting', and the very real threat of the Culling's and the kidnapping of the citizens to the Tower, the population are kept trapped in a feudalistic society for hundreds of years, its people working to feed rulers who have no interest in them, and who desire only to free their lord, who, in turn, shows little interest in them. "Meglos" and "The Keeper of Traken", meanwhile, show societies wrestling with the very issues of change and decay, through the age-old argument about science and religion. In "Meglos", the Deons and the Savants of Tigella are locked in a decades-old feud about the source of their people's power, the Dodecahedron. The Deons believe it to be a god, and wish to leave it alone, in fear of its wrath, while the Savants wish to understand more about it, believe it to simply be a source of energy. The story features the two sides attempting to resolve their argument through various means, even as the exterior force of Meglos takes advantage of the situation for his own ends. "Keeper of Traken", meanwhile, sees a society seemingly in harmony with both, having lived in peace and union for thousands of years. However, every time a Keeper dies, the old spectres of barbarism and tribalism rear their head, which the Master exploits for his own ends (cloaked, like Meglos, in the guise of another). "The Leisure Hive" and "Warriors' Gate", on the other hand, depict societies that have already crumbled, or are incredibly close to crumbling, and are finding ways to evolve and survive, despite the odds. The Argolins have turned to technology, building the Tachyon Recreation Generator in a despite hope to survive, while the Tharils are using their time sensitivity to seek out those, like the Doctor and Romana, who will help them escape enslavement on the Privateer. And finally, in "Logopolis" that decay becomes a physical event, with the collapse of the universe instigated by the Master's actions on Logopolis. The Logopolitans have attempted to hold back the collapse of the universe, but, despite their best efforts, it all unravels, like all things do, due to greed and corruption, in this case in the form of the Master. Of course, this story also features change in the form of the Watcher and the Doctor's imminent regeneration, which are seeded throughout the episode until we reach the inevitable conclusion. Each story taps into different forms of change and decay, and shows it through the worlds the Doctor visits, the people he meets and even, in the end, in the foes he faces. 

Tom Baker as the Doctor, together with the K9
prop, in a promotional photo for "The Leisure
Hive".

To examine these themes more closely, I am going to look at "State of Decay", the fourth story of Season 18, in detail. In this four-part adventure, the Doctor, Romana, K9 and Adric arrive on a planet in E-Space that shows signs of once being advanced, but has now fallen back into a feudal society, with peasants working the land and serving the lords in the Tower. The Doctor at one point muses how its possible that the citizens have made a conscious choice to live like that: sick of the pollution and corruption that comes with technology, they have regressed back into a pre-technology state that better suits them. However, as soon as the Doctor and Romana speak to Ivo and Guard Captain Habris, it becomes clear to them that something is very wrong: the townsfolk live in fear, obeying the Lords through threats, persecution and propaganda. If the citizens don't work in the fields, if they don't allow their young and fit to be taken to the tower, they will die, or, worse, be left to 'the Wasting'. When the Doctor asks both Ivo and, later, the rebel leader Kalmar what 'the Wasting' actually is, neither man is able to provide an answer. 'The Wasting' is simply a slight-of-hand trick on the part of the Three Who Rule: it doesn't exist. It is simply being used by the vampires to keep the people in line, and, in fact, keep them grateful for being suppressed. In actual fact, the Lords simply require the peasants as livestock: to harvest their blood, in order to feed the Great Vampire, sleeping beneath the Tower. In order to achieve this, they have destroyed all technology, all learning, and are keeping the town barely two steps up from savagery. This is a society that, to all intents and purposes, is trapped in a state of decay (hence the story's name, one supposes). No one even visits the town from outside, in order to further set the status quo, and ensure this is a society that remains frozen in one state, never progressing beyond feudalism. However, despite the best efforts of the Three Who Rule, even this freezing of the natural progression of a society has produced an unforeseen issue. Aukon describes how, when talking about the selection for the Chosen Ones, thanks to their efforts of suppression, they have bred out all the traits of vitality they need in order to create a new army. As such, they have to turn to the TARDIS crew to help, who, of course, are more interested in taking down the Lords and their corrupt society, and setting the peasants free. But the peasants don't know what to do to overthrow the Lords. Having no history, they have no understanding of the past. The lack of change is something that cripples this society, to the point where it is driving it to extinction, no matter what the Lords do. The Three Who Rule have fallen into lethargy and are drunk on their own power: they don't care about advancing anything, just ruling, even against the will of the Great Vampire, desperate to return to its own universe. The only future it can possibly have is one free from the ruling influence of the Lords; one where the people have their own say about their own future.

From left to right: Janet Fielding, Tom Baker &
Sarah Sutton in a promotional photo for
"Logopolis".

Change and decay (or its absence) are not the only themes present throughout Season 18. In the middle three stories of the season, or the so-called 'E-Space trilogy', each story features a setting that involves a spaceship that has become trapped by accident, and its crew (or its decedents) are working to set themselves free. In "Full Circle", a Starliner crashed on the planet many years ago, and the descendants of the original inhabitants have lost the ability to work out how to leave Alazarius. They have maintained the ship, kept it in full working order, and these traits have been passed down through the generations, till they have become little more than arcane rituals. However, the one thing they cannot do is make it fly, to the point where the Deciders suppress any knowledge about the Starliner's function, in order to preserve the fact that the society they have built simply cannot function. "State of Decay", meanwhile, features the Hydrax, an Earth spacecraft pulled into E-Space by the Great Vampire, and marooned on an unnamed planet. The three crewmembers have been turned into vampires themselves, and have lived through the centuries trying to revive the Great Vampire, and return to N-Space to destroy the Time Lords. However, they have forgotten so much of their own lives, much like the descendants of the Starliner crew, that even their names are distortions of what they once were (as summed up very nicely by a discussion between the Doctor and Romana in part 2 about the corruption of language over time). And in the final story, "Warriors' Gate", the crew of the Privateer have found themselves stranded in the void, unable to return to E-Space, or even properly enter N-Space. Even with the time sensitive Tharils as navigators, the ship is simply unable to escape, and so the crew try ever more reckless methods to escape, egged on by the brutal Captain Rorvik. One thing that connects all these stranded craft in that the reason why they are trapped is that their crews simply cannot think outside the box about their problem. It takes the presence of the Doctor in order to provide the solution: in "Full Circle", it is the Doctor who finds the flight controls for the Starliner, and gives Login the knowledge to fly it, while in "State of Decay" the Doctor is the one to launch the Hydrax's scout ship, destroying the Great Vampire and freeing the peasants from servitude. In "Warriors' Gate", meanwhile, it is the Doctor who finds the connection between the mirrors and the Tharils' time sensitivity, but, unlike Rorvik, he takes the time to realise the sensitive nature of the Gateway, and is shown the way out, whereas Rorvik blows himself and his crew to kingdom come in pursuit of his goal. The theme of family loss runs throughout the stories as well: all three of the new companions (Adric, Nyssa and Tegan) all lose family members in their introductory stories (Varsh, Tremas and Aunt Vanessa). Another involves the Doctor and Romana both facing the ghosts of their past: in Romana's case, she is recalled to Gallifrey at the end of "Meglos", despite wanting to stay with the Doctor, while the presence of the Master, and the devastation he causes in "Logopolis", acts as a reminder to the Doctor of all the times he let the Master live in the past. The whole of the season is replete with little themes like that, which, whether by accident or design, sets up the future template of the show to come, especially when the show was revived in 2005 under Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall.

Tom Baker as the Doctor, looking pensive in a
promotional photo for "Logopolis".

The themes that run throughout Season 18 are complicated, and interweave from story to story. And, while I'm sure quite a few of the ones listed above are purely coincidental, it does show a degree of in-line thinking, especially from script editor Christopher H Bidmead. And, in the process, he and producer John Nathan-Turner may have just inadvertently created the template that the show has used ever since 2005. While Doctor Who in the 1980's may have had its issues, in many ways the show was pushing the boundaries of what it could do, and this ground-breaking season is definitely one of its finest examples.

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