Season 18

28 EPISODES • 1980

The season featured a story arc involving E-Space and the return of the Master who had stolen a new body rather than regenerate. The stories were darker and more adult in tone than those during the Graham Williams era. They also attempted to emphasise science, much to the satisfaction of both script editor Christopher H. Bidmead and executive producer Barry Letts. Notably, this season revolves around the theme of entropy, linking together all of its stories in a rare phenomenon for the show (while other story arcs would be linked together via people, objects, etc, the use of an overarching theme for a season was unprecedented). This theme would eventually foreshadow and culminate in the Doctor's regeneration at the end of the season.

Season 17

Episodes

1: The Leisure Hive (1)

Aug 30, 1980

The planet Argolis, around the year 2290. The Argolins live in a huge shielded city, protected from the irradiated wasteland outside. The planet's survival depends on the tourists their Leisure Hive attracts. But a series of horrific deaths seems to jeopardise that future - can the Doctor and Romana find a solution?

2: The Leisure Hive (2)

Sep 6, 1980

Another man is found dead, strangled by the Doctor's scarf, so the Doctor is put on trial. By some of the archaic rules of law, he's made to "prove" his innocence by becoming a test subject in a new tachyon experiment with time. The result will prove his innocence or guilt, so they say.

3: The Leisure Hive (3)

Sep 13, 1980

With the Doctor suffering from the time experiment, the clandestine schemes of others start coming to light, along with the secreted purposes to which the tachyonic generator has been used.

4: The Leisure Hive (4)

Sep 20, 1980

With the saboteur and murderer revealed and arrested, peace should now be restored, but a new threat emerges - a war-monger who's both ready and eager to aggress upon other worlds with a newly manufactured warrior army.

5: Meglos (1)

Sep 27, 1980

The desert planet Zolpha-Thura, the 1980s. Giant intelligent megalomaniac cactus Meglos is planning to conquer the galaxy but first it needs the dodecahedron, a powerful energy source currently on the planet Tigella. To get it back Meglos recruits a band of galactic mercenaries and hatches a cunning scheme requiring it to impersonate the Doctor...

6: Meglos (2)

Oct 4, 1980

With the TARDIS occupants trapped in a chronic histeratic loop (forever reliving the same moment in time), the devious Meglos - disguised as the Doctor - gains the trust of the Tigellans along with full and private access to their power chamber.

7: Meglos (3)

Oct 11, 1980

Can Romana escape the Gaztaks ? What has become of the Dodecahedron ? What pressing appointment awaits the Doctor ?

8: Meglos (4)

Oct 18, 1980

With the Doctor about to be ritualistically sacrificed to appease the god Ti for stealing the dodecahedron, Meglos and the pirates return to Zolfa-Thura with the dodecahedron to fire up an ancient weapon and blast Tigella out of existence.

9: Full Circle (1)

Oct 25, 1980

Deep space, an unknown time - on course for Gallifrey, the TARDIS passes through a strange disruption. When they materialise, the scanner shows the Time Lord homeworld... but the travellers have passed into the negative pocket universe of E-Space and are in fact on the planet Alzarius, where evolution works very differently...

10: Full Circle (2)

Nov 1, 1980

As the humanoid community takes refuge in their crashed spaceship, venomous marsh spiders begin to hatch from the local fruit while bestial marshmen emerge from the waters to walk the land. It is quite apparent that the marshmen desire entry into the spaceship. Meanwhile, as a curious marshchild shadows the Doctor, a group of teen rebels decides to take over the TARDIS.

11: Full Circle (3)

Nov 8, 1980

Infection from a spider bite causes Romana's personality to change. Meanwhile the Doctor, after discovering that the spaceship society is in a perpetual state of repair and upgrade, has morality issues with the ship's leading scientist who readies himself to perform gruesome experiments on the live marshchild while it's fully conscious.

12: Full Circle (4)

Nov 15, 1980

Marshmen invade the Terradonian ship thanks to Romana, who seems to be in communion with them. While the ship's inhabitants flee for their lives, the Doctor discovers a crucial fact why these humanoids can never return to the planet Terradon.

13: State of Decay (1)

Nov 22, 1980

Still trapped in negative E-Space, the TARDIS lands on an unnamed world to find a society sliding back into feudalism. What is the secret of the Three Who Rule? And what ancient enemy of the Time Lords is stirring again on this world...?

14: State of Decay (2)

Nov 29, 1980

The Doctor and Romana are escorted to the tower to meet the royal leaders, hoping they can find answers to why this society evolves backwards. The Doctor recognizes the tower as an old Earth spaceship, and further finds that the old fuel tanks, far from empty, are full - but with blood. Meanwhile, Councilor Aukon senses intelligence in Adric and selects him to be the their first "Chosen One."

15: State of Decay (3)

Dec 6, 1980

The Doctor finds archive material in the TARDIS that tells him he's dealing with an ancient enemy of the Time Lords, a nearly indestructible king vampire who's ready to revive and reenter normal space, spreading death, once again, across the universe.

16: State of Decay (4)

Dec 13, 1980

The Doctor joins the villagers' revolt against their vampire rulers, unsure how to kill the king vampire. Meanwhile Adric is first in line to join the new vampire order while Romana is laid out as a sacrificial Time Lord for the awakening king vampire and his swarm of bats.

17: Warriors' Gate (1)

Jan 3, 1981

The TARDIS is drawn into an empty white void, somewhere between universes. But they are not the only ones trapped there.

18: Warriors' Gate (2)

Jan 10, 1981

When Rorvik learns that Romana is a time sensitive, he takes her prisoner, forcing her to find a way out of the void. The Doctor attempts to discover what lies beyond the mirror.

19: Warriors' Gate (3)

Jan 17, 1981

While Biroc leads the Doctor to a view of the Tharil's lordly past, Romana learns more about the damaged freighter and the coldheartedness of its crew. Meanwhile Commander Rorvik, confounded by the time mirror inside the universal center gateway, ignores evidence that it's no simple mirror and decides to blast it, imperiling the lives of everyone.

20: Warriors' Gate (4)

Jan 24, 1981

The Doctor deduces that the freighter is a slave ship loaded up with Tharils to be sold as time machine components, but the immense weight of Rorvik's damaged ship, designed to contain the Tharils, is now collapsing the fragile void of the micro-universe in which they're all stuck, pulling everything inside ever closer.

21: The Keeper of Traken (1)

Jan 31, 1981

The planet Traken. The Traken union is a society living in perfect harmony, watched over by the powerful but benign Keeper. But now the Keeper is dying, and he senses a great evil within his protectorate. Can the Doctor help him discover the secret of the Melkur?

22: The Keeper of Traken (2)

Feb 7, 1981

Tremas claims consular privilege to protect the Doctor and Adric from execution, though it binds his fate to theirs if they're found guilty of murder. Melkur strengthens his hold over Kassia while Seron decides to have rapport with The Keeper to learn truth, and Adric finds evidence of another TARDIS in the area.

23: The Keeper of Traken (3)

Feb 14, 1981

With Tremas falling under suspicion, due to his association with the Doctor, a new Keeper Nominate is named. Now, with everything in place, Melkur has only a short wait before his full malevolence can unfold.

24: The Keeper of Traken (4)

Feb 21, 1981

With the merciless Melkur in control of The Source, the Doctor and his allies have only a slim chance of deposing him, which also puts the peace of the Traken Union in severe jeopardy.

25: Logopolis (1)

Feb 28, 1981

Deciding to repair the TARDIS' chameleon circuit, the Doctor goes to Earth to find a real police box. But an old enemy is one step ahead of him.

26: Logopolis (2)

Mar 7, 1981

The Doctor, aware that his time may soon be ending, travels to the Logopolis where a series of fateful events are set in motion.

27: Logopolis (3)

Mar 14, 1981

With Nyssa from Traken unexpectedly rejoining the group, Adric aids the Monitor of Logopolis in trying to save the Doctor before time runs out. The Master, at liberty to prepare, is finally ready to reveal his true target, which unknowingly sets off the biggest catastrophe of all time.

28: Logopolis (4)

Mar 21, 1981

With the universe collapsing, the Doctor forms an uneasy alliance with the Master to save it. In case all does not go well, the Watcher takes the Doctor's companions to a safe place, but his plans for them don't stop there. The one hope for all lies back on Earth.

Season 19

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