Season 18 poster
28 episodes

Doctor Who - Season 18

First aired Aug 30, 1980Season 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.

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Reviews

Community reviews for Doctor Who, shown here with its season details.

c

cloister56

10.0

How do you review a show like Doctor Who that has been running for so long, enjoying dizzying highs and terrible lows (I'm looking at you The Twin Dilemma). The concept is the most open there can be. With the TARDIS the show can go anywhere and any when. This lead to a huge range in the stories, from historical with no alien involvement like The Aztecs (1964), to full on sci-fi like The Daleks (1963) and that was just the first series. The show created some of the most memorable monsters with the Daleks and Cybermen being the most famous. Even outside the recurring creatures there were fantastic adversaries like an Egyptian god bent on destruction to an alien splintered through time. Doctor Who also embraced change in the form of the regeneration. The actor playing the Doctor could change and play the part differently but it still was the Doctor. This led to changes in approach to problems and in the attitude of the central character while keeping core values the same. The Doctor is one of the few heroes who rarely resorts to violence to solve problems, usually relying on his intelligence and wits. The show also truly innovated. Many special effects were tried out for the first time on screen. It didn't always work but working with what they had they created some truly memorable television like creating a convincing lunar surface 2 years before the moon landings (The Moonbase 1967). This is my favourite of all television shows, it wasn't always perfect but I love it all the same.

Episodes

The Leisure Hive (1) still

Episode 1

The Leisure Hive (1)

6.5
Aug 30, 198024 min6 votes

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?

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Episode 2

The Leisure Hive (2)

6.2
Sep 6, 198021 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 3

The Leisure Hive (3)

6.2
Sep 13, 198022 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 4

The Leisure Hive (4)

6.6
Sep 20, 198022 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 5

Meglos (1)

6.0
Sep 27, 198025 min6 votes

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...

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Episode 6

Meglos (2)

6.2
Oct 4, 198022 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 7

Meglos (3)

6.2
Oct 11, 198022 min6 votes

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

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Episode 8

Meglos (4)

6.2
Oct 18, 198020 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 9

Full Circle (1)

6.7
Oct 25, 198025 min6 votes

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...

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Episode 10

Full Circle (2)

6.6
Nov 1, 198023 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 11

Full Circle (3)

6.4
Nov 8, 198022 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 12

Full Circle (4)

6.8
Nov 15, 198025 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 13

State of Decay (1)

7.1
Nov 22, 198023 min7 votes

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...?

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Episode 14

State of Decay (2)

7.0
Nov 29, 198024 min5 votes

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."

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Episode 15

State of Decay (3)

7.0
Dec 6, 198025 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 16

State of Decay (4)

7.0
Dec 13, 198025 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 17

Warriors' Gate (1)

6.3
Jan 3, 198123 min6 votes

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

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Episode 18

Warriors' Gate (2)

6.6
Jan 10, 198124 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 19

Warriors' Gate (3)

6.6
Jan 17, 198123 min5 votes

While Biroc leads the Doctor to a view of the Tharil's lordly past, Romana learns more about the damaged freighter and the cold-heartedness 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.

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Episode 20

Warriors' Gate (4)

6.6
Jan 24, 198125 min5 votes

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.

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Episode 21

The Keeper of Traken (1)

7.4
Jan 31, 198125 min7 votes

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?

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Episode 22

The Keeper of Traken (2)

7.3
Feb 7, 198125 min6 votes

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.

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Episode 23

The Keeper of Traken (3)

7.5
Feb 14, 198124 min6 votes

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.

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Episode 24

The Keeper of Traken (4)

7.5
Feb 21, 198126 min6 votes

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.

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Episode 25

Logopolis (1)

7.6
Feb 28, 198125 min7 votes

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.

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Episode 26

Logopolis (2)

7.5
Mar 7, 198125 min6 votes

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

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Episode 27

Logopolis (3)

7.5
Mar 14, 198125 min6 votes

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.

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Episode 28

Logopolis (4)

8.3
Mar 21, 198126 min6 votes

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.