N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Season Seventeen (and consequently Douglas Adams and Graham Williams) didn’t get its end-of-season finale. Shada was famously cancelled due to industrial action and so we were left with The Horns of Nimon as the slightly unsatisfactory conclusion to 70’s Doctor Who.
“Well, I have made the odd mistake.”
The Doctor, Destiny of the Daleks: Part Four
As with Graham Williams’ first season at the helm, it was something of a mixed bag. It had the good (much of Nightmare of Eden) and the great (City of Death) as well as the not-so-good (parts of The Creature from the Pit and The Horns of Nimon).
Its budgetary constraints – especially the cuddly lumbering monsters – were often a little too plain to see (although a sojourn in Paris did help to offset this impression. Despite the show’s tightened belts, it still seemed to be a successful one with ratings high – albeit at times with the aid of ITV going on strike.
Overall, even in its truncated form I think I preferred Williams’ last in charge to his first (although I could never quite get shake the impression that David Brierley as K-9 was like ‘wrong-sounding Muppets‘.)
Halfway through The Horns of Nimon, my son and I took a trip to the cinema to see Genesis of the Daleks. The difference in tone of performance is startling. Even so, as my son pointed out the wit was always there: ‘Excuse me can you help me I’m a spy’ is a line that wouldn’t have been out of place in a season seventeen script. Nevertheless, the contrast between this season and Tom Baker’s first is stark.
“I like doing the impossible.”
The Doctor, Nightmare of Eden: Part One
I’ve harped on long enough about how much Graham Williams’s time as producer has often felt like the major influence on the 21st century incarnation of the show. The end-of-season finale, the season-spanning arc, the increased use of humour to offset the horror: these are all things we expect in modern Doctor Who.
We even saw a female Time Lord for the first time.
Perhaps Graham Williams was a Doctor Who visionary after all?
"My favourite Fourth Doctor stories so far are Genesis of the Daleks, The Seeds of Doom, The Deadly Assassin, The Androids of Tara and City of Death."
"My least favourite Fourth Doctor story so far is Revenge of the Cybermen."
