TARDIS Eruditorum: An Unofficial Critical History of Doctor Who Volume 5: Tom Baker and the Williams Years

by Elizabeth Sandifer

It’s pretty much the third best story in the weakest season of the ‘70s, and that’s about what there is to say.

This story is yet another example of his fascination with disfigured or misshapen villains – a common enough trope in which villainy is externally represented, but one that ends up creating an uncomfortable equivalence between disability and malfeasance.

Robert Holmes

the Copyright Act of 1976 took effect in the United States, changing American copyright law to be based on the life of the author instead of the date of publication.

But Sonny Bono changed it back.

Fridays, as the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras takes place.

How can you have a Mardi Gras on a day other than Tuesday?

It’s Christmas Adam, 1978.

What is Christmas Adam? I think this is a play on the word Eve, but it doesn't work.

Pluto nips inside Neptune’s orbit to let Neptune become the outermost planet. This remains so until 1999, at which point Pluto becomes the outermost planet again. Neptune, of course, is horribly jealous about this and plots political moves (including a scheme to strip Pluto of its planetary status) to retake the position more permanently,

when he taunts the Dalek about following him up the shaft,

Note that this is different from the usual "they can't go up stairs" cliché. Daleks cannot climb a rope because they lack opposable thumbs.

And, of course, in City of Death the Doctor manages the exact same thing, slipping a copy of the Mona Lisa with “THIS IS A FAKE” written on it into the Louvre itself.

Shouldn't they also notice that the painting is now on canvas not wood? Is this maybe an attack on Bernard Berenson, who could not remember what surface a supposed Leonardo was painted on when he pronounced on its authenticity (a matter in which he had a financial interest)?

He really is an arch-Thatcherite.)

His wife has never seen his actual body and wonders what he gets up to with the professor in the cellar. Does having a wife as a "beard" for closeted homosexuality support or oppose Thatcher's views on homosexuality?

That lasts for a week before Pink Floyd takes the top slot with “Another Brick in the Wall.” Kool

Part 2!

“More frocks, less guns.”

Fewer!

I think stuff like Larry Grace’s Generation Game, which was right next to Doctor Who at the time,

Grayson

an incredibly boring ninety-second shot that finally pays off with Baker’s appearance –

But it's obviously not Baker, who was not well enough to be there on the first day of the shoot.

Dicks is the ultimate “lock himself in his flat for a weekend and bang the fucking thing out” writer, and there’s not a set of circumstances on the planet that is going to get him to turn out half-assed work.

Moore, Adams, and Moffat are all popular for roughly the same reason – they’re very clever in ways that make the audience feel clever for keeping up with or appreciating them.

Is this true of Pratchett?

One week later John Lennon takes number one with the posthumous rerelease of “Imagine,” one of three number one hits he had that week

How can you have 3 number ones in a week?

future Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant (from whom David John McDonald would eventually take a stage name)