Tom’s final season is a necessary transition
Whether one follows on from ‘The Horns of Nimon’ or from Douglas Adams’ paean to his Cambridge days, ‘Shada’, there is a jarring change in tone for Season Eighteen. This is, of course, driven by the new producer, John Nathan-Turner. The Seventies’ diamond logo, which had done such good service, is out. An eighties’ neon logo is in. The theme tune has been revamped, and Dudley Simpson has been sent packing in favour of composers of electronic musical scores. Tom’s flamboyant costume is constrained within a deep burgundy palette. It’s feeling like a show that is radically changing direction. Yet it quite clearly isn’t taking its lead actor along for that transition. No actor aged as much as Tom whilst playing the role, but he looks much, much older in his final season than he did even a year earlier. John Nathan-Turner soon found a fresh face to play the Doctor, choosing the (very fresh-faced) youngest actor to play the part, Peter Davison, who was but 29 when he was cast. Tom’s final season was a necessary half-way house to prepare the groundwork for the Davison era. Imagine if viewers had gone straight from ‘The Horns of Nimon’ to ‘Castrovalva’. Tom turns in some weighty, sombre performances in his final season. It looks expensive, too. Perhaps Nathan-Turner’s greatest gift was making every penny of the budget count and end up on screen. The detail in the spaceship on an indifferent story like ‘Meglos’ is notably more impressive than anything we have seen since 1976. Viewers leave the Tom Baker era with one huge regret hanging over them, though…
