Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Out of the seven seasons featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’, ‘The Key to Time’ season (Season 16) is undeniably my favourite. I always enjoy coming back to this season, especially when it’s creative and inventive in its storytelling and how the quest romp theme ties the season together.
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Mary Tamm as Romana are definitely a highlight in ‘The Key to Time’ season, especially when their character relationship is explored. They start off being antagonistic towards each other, but by the end of the season, they’ve clearly become good friends.
This is also the first time where a member of the Doctor’s people, the Time Lords, gets to join him on a quest in searching for the six segments of the Key to Time. The quest romp theme throughout the season is very enjoyable, especially when there’s variety featured in all of the six stories to enjoy.
There’s also K-9, voiced by John Leeson, who is a joy to watch when watching him help the Doctor and Romana out in their quest for the Key to Time. My three favourite stories from ‘The Key to Time’ season are ‘The Pirate Planet’, ‘The Stones of Blood’ and ‘The Androids of Tara’. All three are very exciting stories.
‘The Pirate Planet’ is notable for being the first ‘Doctor Who’ story by Douglas Adams, well-known for being the author of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. ‘The Stones of Blood’ and ‘The Androids of Tara’ are also the first couple of stories by David Fisher. All three stories have elements of humour as well as being creative and inventive.
‘The Key to Time’ season is undeniably the best out of the three seasons produced by Graham Williams. ‘The Ribos Operation’, ‘The Power of Kroll’ and ‘The Armageddon Factor’ are decent entries in the season and they don’t stop me from enjoying ‘The Key to Time’ season from beginning to end. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Romana as a moralized and intellectual match for the Doctor, and certainly Tom Baker’s Doctor, is much easier for me to appreciate in retrospect. I always liked Mary Tamm in the role, Lalla Ward too, and it was more challenging to go back to the non-Gallifreyan companions after and particularly starting with Adric. As flexible as the companion format could be in Dr. Who with non-Earthling roles like Adric, Nyssa and Turlough, fans are most indebted in that regard to Romana.
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Hi scifimike,
Many thanks for your thoughts on Romana and other non-human ‘Doctor Who’ companions like Adric, Nyssa and Turlough. I enjoy their characters whenever I watch and hear them in the series. I think the new series should try doing a non-human companion in ‘Doctor Who’ for a change. Yes, I know Nardole counts as a non-human companion, but it’s not like he was a regular travelling companion from the beginning when Bill was introduced (and mostly wanted to keep the Doctor on Earth). I know audiences relate more to human companions compared to non-human ones, but it would be interesting to see how the new series can tackle the approach of a non-human companion compared to how the classic series did it with Romana, Adric, Nyssa and Turlough.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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I thought that Nardole having invisible hair was an interesting alien characteristic. I’m not sure though how I felt about the glass nipples.
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Hi scifimike,
I forgot about the glass nipples (that was more for Nardole’s glass avatar in ‘Twice Upon a Time’ than the actual Nardole), but thinking about it – ugh, I can’t help think about the nipples on Batman and Robin’s suits in ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘Batman & Robin’. 😀
Tim 🙂
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