Doctor Who - Season 18

Doctor Who - Season 18

Season 18

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.
Network
DatesAug 30, 1980 - Mar 21, 1981
Previous SeasonNext Season

Episodes

The Leisure Hive, Part One
Season 18Episode 125 min

The Leisure Hive, Part One

Finding out-of-season Brighton beach somewhat lacking, the Doctor and Romana travel to the leisure planet Argolis - but there strange experiments are taking place.

Aug 30, 1980
The Leisure Hive, Part Two
Season 18Episode 225 min

The Leisure Hive, Part Two

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.

Sep 6, 1980
The Leisure Hive, Part Three
Season 18Episode 325 min

The Leisure Hive, Part Three

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.

Sep 13, 1980
The Leisure Hive, Part Four
Season 18Episode 425 min

The Leisure Hive, Part Four

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.

Sep 20, 1980
Meglos, Part One
Season 18Episode 525 min

Meglos, Part One

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 arrive on the forest planet Tygella, where the native Tygellans now live in a underground city, due to the carnivorous plants. Where the Doctor finds he has been wrongly accused of stealing the Dodechedron, the city's power source. Only to discover the culprit is Meglos, the cactus-like last survivor of the desert planet Zolfa-Thura and he bids to return the Dodechedron to Zolfa-Thura for his own evil purpose and plans to use it as a powerful weapon and he plans to wipe out Tigella.

Sep 27, 1980
Meglos, Part Two
Season 18Episode 625 min

Meglos, Part Two

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.

Oct 4, 1980
Meglos, Part Three
Season 18Episode 725 min

Meglos, Part Three

With the dodecahedron gone, the city goes power critical. Its death, imminent. With Romana seeking escape from Meglos' pirates, and Meglos seeking escape from the sealed-up city, and the Doctor himself seeking to understand what's been going on (and why everybody wants him arrested), religious factions move in to take over the city.

Oct 11, 1980
Meglos, Part Four
Season 18Episode 825 min

Meglos, Part Four

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.

Oct 18, 1980
Full Circle, Part One
Season 18Episode 925 min

Full Circle, Part One

In answer to a summons from the Time Lords, the Doctor heads the TARDIS for Gallifrey where he must return Romana, but having tasted adventure and seen foreign worlds, she's none too happy about the return. Their journey, however, is interrupted by a rare space/time phenomena that lands them - not on Gallifrey - but on Alzarius. There, humanoid inhabitants begin to encounter an infrequent but regular cycle of perilous weather, called Mistfall, that coincides with the emergence of dangerous creatures.

Oct 25, 1980
Full Circle, Part Two
Season 18Episode 1025 min

Full Circle, Part Two

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.

Nov 1, 1980
Full Circle, Part Three
Season 18Episode 1125 min

Full Circle, Part Three

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.

Nov 8, 1980
Full Circle, Part Four
Season 18Episode 1225 min

Full Circle, Part Four

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.

Nov 15, 1980
State of Decay, Part One
Season 18Episode 1325 min

State of Decay, Part One

The Doctor and Romana find an isolated planet. K9 scans the planet, finding it has a village. The Doctor and Romana find high technology readings with the TARDIS sensors even though the village appears to have an absence of technology. The TARDIS lands near the village. The Doctor and Romana set off, leaving K9 behind to guard the TARDIS. Adric, from the previous story, has stowed away on the TARDIS. K9 finds him, but Adric tells him that as he is a stowaway. The Doctor and Romana find two men arguing. The Doctor asks to speak to a scientist. One of the men mistakes them for lords. After the Doctor, Romana and one of the men leave, The other man, using a radio, calls to others and tells them of the two strangers who just arrived. Travelling through the forest, Romana and the Doctor are surrounded by men. They surrender and are taken to a hidden cave, where they meet the rebels. One man is trying to get a computer up and running. The Doctor helps him and Romana identifies the computer system as coming from Earth, Adric tries to steal some food in the village. Adric is caught and those who caught him take on pity him and offer him a place to sleep because of the evil things that happen at night. The Doctor and Romana appear to be attacked by a swarm of bats at the end.

Nov 22, 1980
State of Decay, Part Two
Season 18Episode 1425 min

State of Decay, Part Two

The Doctor and Romana are taken to the tower where they meet The Lords and come to the realization that the tower is actually a disused spaceship. A Lord named Aukon arrives at the village and takes Adric with him back to the tower.

Nov 29, 1980
State of Decay, Part Three
Season 18Episode 1525 min

State of Decay, Part Three

Tarak arrives to free the Doctor and Romana from their imprisonment. Believing The Lords to be vampires from Gallifreyan legend, the Doctor returns to the Tardis to consult the Record of Rassilon while Tarak and Romana search for Adric.

Dec 6, 1980
State of Decay, Part Four
Season 18Episode 1625 min

State of Decay, Part Four

The Lords prepare to sacrifice Romana and induct Adric into their ranks as part of their plan to awaken the "Great One" and escape E-Space. Meanwhile the Doctor and K9 assist Kalmar's men in attacking the tower.

Dec 13, 1980
Warriors' Gate, Part One
Season 18Episode 1725 min

Warriors' Gate, Part One

While the Doctor and Romana desperately rack their brains over how to escape E-Space, Time Winds strike the TARDIS, damaging it and K-9. Strangest of all, it allows Biroc, a hurt and hunted lion-man, to enter, phased in time, and set the control coordinates at zero-zero, sending the TARDIS into a milk-white void. Before running off, he warns of others who will be soon following.

Jan 3, 1981
Warriors' Gate, Part Two
Season 18Episode 1825 min

Warriors' Gate, Part Two

Three humorless men from a damaged bulk freighter find the TARDIS. Wearily, Romana returns with them to appraise the situation of their damaged ship but, because she's a time sensitive, winds up as a living navigational component to replace their time-sensitive Tharil (lion-man) who escaped. Meanwhile the Doctor, having found a gateway, is having a time with Gundans, robot soldiers programmed to kill.

Jan 10, 1981
Warriors' Gate, Part Three
Season 18Episode 1925 min

Warriors' Gate, Part Three

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.

Jan 17, 1981
Warriors' Gate, Part Four
Season 18Episode 2025 min

Warriors' Gate, Part Four

After the Doctor and Romana save the Tharil race, Romana agrees to leave the Doctor to become the Tharils' "Queen of Time."

Jan 24, 1981
The Keeper of Traken, Part One
Season 18Episode 2125 min

The Keeper of Traken, Part One

Returning to N-Space, The Doctor and Adric are summoned to Traken, a planet of peace and harmony. The Keeper of Traken is nearing the end of his 1000-year-old reign and one of the Traken consuls is to become the next Keeper. The Doctor, Adric, Tremas (the Keeper Nominate) and Nyssa (his daughter) set about to stop the Melkur, a calcified figure believed to be a "Source of Evil" trying to destroy the Traken Union, only to later discover it is the guise of a old enemy of the Doctor - The Master - who plans to take control of The Source (the keystone of Union) so he can regenerate into a new body.

Jan 31, 1981
The Keeper of Traken, Part Two
Season 18Episode 2225 min

The Keeper of Traken, Part Two

Tremas claims counselor 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.

Feb 7, 1981
The Keeper of Traken, Part Three
Season 18Episode 2325 min

The Keeper of Traken, Part Three

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.

Feb 14, 1981
The Keeper of Traken, Part Four
Season 18Episode 2425 min

The Keeper of Traken, Part Four

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.

Feb 21, 1981
Logopolis, Part One
Season 18Episode 2525 min

Logopolis, Part One

Preparing to overhaul his TARDIS, the Doctor goes to Earth to take fresh measurements of a police box. A figure in white observes, as the Master lies in wait with a puzzling predicament for his rival Time Lord.

Feb 28, 1981
Logopolis, Part Two
Season 18Episode 2625 min

Logopolis, Part Two

With the threat of doom ever-present, the Doctor and Adric press on for Logopolis, where the muttered mathematical incantations of its people can completely overhaul the TARDIS. En route they discover an accidental yet demanding passenger on board while, all the while, the Master secretively journeys with them to ensnare the Doctor in a diabolical trap.

Mar 7, 1981
Logopolis, Part Three
Season 18Episode 2725 min

Logopolis, Part Three

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.

Mar 14, 1981
Logopolis, Part Four
Season 18Episode 2825 min

Logopolis, Part Four

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.

Mar 21, 1981

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