Season 21 poster
24 episodes

Doctor Who - Season 21

First aired Jan 5, 1984Season 21

The Twin Dilemma, the first story with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, aired last in the season. This season saw the departure of companions Tegan, Turlough and Kamelion and introduced Peri. Most episodes were the traditional twenty-five minute length. However, due to coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics, Resurrection of the Daleks was re-edited before airing and shown as two forty-five minute episodes.

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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

Warriors of the Deep (1) still

Episode 1

Warriors of the Deep (1)

5.1
Jan 5, 198425 min7 votes

Earth's ocean floor, 2084. With two superpowers poised on the brink of a devastating photonic war, a missile base comes under attack from the reptilian Sea Devils and Silurians, intent on eradicating the upstart human race and reclaiming the planet…

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Episode 2

Warriors of the Deep (2)

5.3
Jan 6, 198425 min6 votes

Just as the Doctor gains a tentative trust from the humans, a Silurian battle cruiser approaches. The Doctor warns Commander Vorsha to hold his fire and find out what they want, but is the level-headed commander one who'll listen?

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Episode 3

Warriors of the Deep (3)

5.5
Jan 12, 198425 min6 votes

As Vorshak's crew are cut down by Sauvix's Sea Devil Warriors, the Doctor is running out of ways to broker a peace between the opposing species.

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Episode 4

Warriors of the Deep (4)

5.3
Jan 13, 198425 min6 votes

With Silurians in control of the base, Icthar reveals his plan for a final solution to Earth's human problem, which presents the Doctor a great moral dilemma.

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Episode 5

The Awakening (1)

6.6
Jan 19, 198426 min7 votes

The sleepy English village of Little Hodcombe, 1984. The village re-enactment of the English Civil War is in full swing, but a malign alien presence intends the mock-battles to be rather more realistic than planned...

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Episode 6

The Awakening (2)

5.8
Jan 20, 198425 min6 votes

The Malus, an alien that's purely evil, needs the civil war re-enactments to become authentic so it can feed off the psychic energy of dying and embattled men and fully revive. Not if the Doctor can derail things, of course.

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Episode 7

Frontios (1)

6.8
Jan 26, 198425 min8 votes

The planet Frontios, in the distant future. Following Earth's destruction, a tiny colony struggles to eke out a life on this desolate world. But where do the bombardments that threaten them originate from? Little does the Doctor suspect that somewhere nearby lurks a power capable of ripping even the TARDIS apart…

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Episode 8

Frontios (2)

7.1
Jan 27, 198425 min7 votes

Following the destruction of the TARDIS, the only part of it left is the hat stand. So Turlough uses it as a weapon! Plantagenet gets swallowed by the earth, and Norna and Turlough discover the Tractators.

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Episode 9

Frontios (3)

7.1
Feb 2, 198425 min7 votes

Trying to rescue the Doctor from the Tractator's trap, Tegan lands them both in even more trouble. Turlough goes a bit mad, and reckons he knows the evil of the Tractators from old.

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Episode 10

Frontios (4)

7.1
Feb 3, 198425 min7 votes

The Doctor tries to deal with the Tractator's cunning plan, despite Turlough's best intervention. They discover the splintered TARDIS in the tunnels beneath the planet's surface, but how will they put it together again?

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Episode 11

Resurrection of the Daleks (1)

8.3
Feb 8, 198446 min9 votes

London's Docklands, 1984. Why are uniformed policemen gunning down strangely-dressed vagrants in broad daylight? A prison ship in the far future - who is the sole prisoner aboard the craft? And why are these two locations linked by the time corridor the TARDIS has been sucked into?

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Episode 12

Resurrection of the Daleks (2)

8.0
Feb 15, 198446 min7 votes

As the surviving station crew work to destroy the space station, Davros consolidates his power and the Daleks launch a fiendish scheme to use the Doctor against the Time Lords.

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Episode 13

Planet of Fire (1)

6.6
Feb 23, 198425 min7 votes

Lanzarote, 1985. Archaeologist Howard Foster raises a strange metal artefact from the sea floor. But how is it linked to the signal the TARDIS received? Why is Turlough suddenly so worried? And why is Kamelion acting so erratically?

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Episode 14

Planet of Fire (2)

6.8
Feb 24, 198425 min6 votes

While the Master, victim of his own attempt to improve his TCE weapon, seeks restoration through Sarn's numismaton gas, the truth of Turlough's past comes out at last, though to guarantee the safety of his brother and the Sarn people, Turlough must consider a great personal sacrifice.

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Episode 15

Planet of Fire (3)

6.7
Mar 1, 198424 min6 votes

Sarn prophesy foretells of an outsider who will come to aid the people. It's a role the Master is more than delighted to fill, which finally presents Timanov, the Sarn religious leader, the unbridled support he's sought in his campaign to cull the faithless from among his people. Turlough's secret past, however, is somehow intricately involved in all this, and the reluctance of its disclosure is enough to threaten all friendly ties with the Doctor.

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Episode 16

Planet of Fire (4)

6.5
Mar 2, 198425 min6 votes

While the Master, victim of his own attempt to improve his TCE weapon, seeks restoration through Sarn's numismaton gas, the truth of Turlough's past comes out at last, though to guarantee the safety of his brother and the Sarn people, Turlough must consider a great personal sacrifice.

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Episode 17

The Caves of Androzani (1)

8.5
Mar 8, 198425 min13 votes

The planet Androzani Minor, the distant future. In the planet's caves war rages between government troops and the android warriors of the mysterious Sharaz Jek. But what makes spectrox, the substance they battle to control, so valuable? And how far will the Doctor go to protect his companion?

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Episode 18

The Caves of Androzani (2)

8.6
Mar 9, 198426 min12 votes

The Doctor and Peri have been rescued from the firing squad by the mysterious Sharaz Jek. But he has his own plans for them. And why are they suddenly feeling ill?

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Episode 19

The Caves of Androzani (3)

8.6
Mar 15, 198425 min13 votes

The situation on Androzani Minor is building toward a violent confrontation, and the Doctor and Peri are slowly succumbing to spectrox toxemia.

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Episode 20

The Caves of Androzani (4)

8.8
Mar 16, 198426 min13 votes

Events on Androzani reach a bloody climax. Will the Doctor and Peri survive the carnage? And at what cost?

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Episode 21

The Twin Dilemma (1)

4.9
Mar 22, 198425 min14 votes

Earth, the future. The genius Sylvest twins, child prodigies, are kidnapped by the mysterious Professor Edgeworth and taken to the planet Jaconda. But who is Edgeworth? Why does he serve the giant slug Mestor? And what is Mestor's plan?

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Episode 22

The Twin Dilemma (2)

5.7
Mar 23, 198426 min12 votes

The Doctor takes Peri to Titan 3, a desolate hunk of rock in space where he hopes to find some solitude for a while. Instead he finds the lone but unconscious survivor of a recent spaceship crash in sight of a mound-shaped complex where no formalised structure should exist.

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Episode 23

The Twin Dilemma (3)

5.2
Mar 29, 198425 min11 votes

The Doctor arrives on Jaconda, once lush and green, to find it completely devastated by giant gastropods. Old legends about the planet's half-human/half-slugs weren't just myths after all. With or without help from the Doctor and his unpredictable mood swings, Lt. Lang is up for rescuing the twins, who are finally informed of the grand purpose they've been brought to Jaconda to accomplish.

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Episode 24

The Twin Dilemma (4)

5.1
Mar 30, 198426 min11 votes

The Doctor and Edgeworth deduce that the real plan of Mestor, the gastropod ruler of Jaconda, will not only destroy Jaconda but lead to the devastation of other planets. Together they hope to thwart him despite his formidable ability at slipping into people's minds and controlling them.

Doctor Who Season 21 Episodes | recipemoon