Doctor Who: 8 Tom Baker Stories To Celebrate In January

1. Warrior's Gate (1981)

€œHey,€ you're (probably) bellowing. "You missed a year!€ Actually, that's not true, and it was a case of dodging something of a bullet in deciding to cover only those stories that started in January. In January 1980, the show was airing a story that had begun the previous month in the form of The Horns of Nimon. Now, if you really want it to be, that one can be included. No? Didn€™t think so. Besides, most fans would much rather say €œWarrior€™s Gate be praised!€ than €œThe Nimon be praised!€ any day of the week. While a lot of Tom Baker€™s final season in the role tries to be different and clever and somehow fails on one or both scores, this one nails it. It still tends to confuse fans who are looking for a more straightforward story, though, but it repays the effort of sticking with it. The minimalist set pieces, combined with some unusual camera angles (including shots into the rafters of the set that helped in part to get the director fired), make this story look very different than anything else around it. While Lalla Ward reportedly didn€™t care for the dialogue much, probably thinking of that line €œThe backblast backlash€™ll bounce back and destroy everything", she really couldn€™t have asked for a better send-off for Romana. Even Adric seems less annoying as a consequence. If there€™s anything to complain about in this story, it€™s that poor K-9 gets badly abused by events in the plot and in his last story, too. Still, it€™s better by far than his next appearance. What did you think of this list? Will you be celebrating any of these Fourth Doctor serials this month? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.