Every Fifth Doctor Story Ranked (1982-1984) 

Great video as always. Apparently Mawdryn Undead was supposed to feature Ian Chesterton originally rather than the Brigadier. Hence the fact he randomly became a teacher. I wonder what the original concept would have looked like. 🤔

26:56 For info, the "very iconic hats" are actually helmets, specifically pith-helmets :)

Good list - agree for most part. Resurrection of the Daleks have fond memories for just how big they were going with all the sets and action pieces. Have fond memories of it and I'd love to see a redone effects version. CofA is classic. Didn't like it as a kid however...boring politics and such :P

Let’s face it. Planet of Fire is all about the bikini

Nice breakdown of the stories. Mawdryn Undead would be higher for me and Kinda lower but no arguments really. I love this era of the show and would have paid good money for a fourth year of the Fifth doctor. Shame it never happened.👍

Peter Davison was one actor that I actually preferred in roles other than that of the Doctor. He was definitely a shift from the flamboyance of Tom Baker, but I always felt that Davison seemed very uncomfortable in the role. True, he got better over time, but the biggest problem was that I don't think anyone had a clue what this Doctor should be. Is he an old man in a young man's body, or is he an unstable incarnation who manifests personality traits of his predecessors? They tried both for far too long, but nothing ever really took hold, and I question if Davison himself knew how to play his Doctor. Perhaps it was a case of having a predecessor who was so overpowering and omnipresent -- even today when non-fans think of Doctor Who, the first image that comes to mind is Baker and that scarf -- that anyone would be trapped in Baker's shadow no matter how they played the Doctor. You can identify most other Doctors since each had their own style, and they all had a recognizable persona. Hartnell was the crotchety old man; Troughton, the happy hobo; Pertwee, the scientific adventurer (a Quatermass/Bond figure); Tom Baker, the Bohemian wanderer with the endless scarf). But not Davison. How DO you define his Doctor? Brotherly companion? Crazy uncle? The curious outsider? There really wasn't anything definitive about the Fifth Doctor -- and that's just a shame. In the end, I just enjoyed Davison more in Campion and The Last Detective.

Another solid entry, my friend. Well done.

20. The King's Demons 19. Time Flight 18. Arc Of Infinity 17. Warriors From The Deep 16. Four To Doomsday 15. The Awakening 14. Frontios 13. Planet Of Fire 12. Terminus 11. The Visitation 10. Castrovalva 9. Enlightenment 8. Snakedance 7. Kinda 6. Ressurection Of The Daleks 5. Black Orchid 4. Mawydryn Undead 3. The Five Doctors 2. The Caves Of Androzani 1. Earthshock

Funny I've been watching your older ranking videos - top 5 stories of each Doctor, this week and now I have a brand new one to enjoy! Thanks 👍

I still like it better than I did the last 2 doctors of the classic series

Hard to believe anything came after Castrovalva, but n fairness that Russian doing karate against the Myrker does say it all for why that’s number 20z

One other thing that Planet of Fire had to click off the very obvious checklist: Give everyone a good look at the new companion's cleavage! Peter Davison later jokingly remarked that, as he lay on the floor of the TARDIS set filming the regeneration sequence, he was staring up at Nicola Bryant's chest throughout and trying to keep doing his lines and pretend to not notice. He said that that was probably the best acting of his entire career! 🤣

I am torn about Peter Davison's run as I enjoy his portrayal of the character yet I feel that, for the most part, he was let down by crap scripts. There are only a handful of his stories I can sit down to rewatch as, for the most part, I just would rather skip ahead and watch Colin or Sylvester even if they both also had their share of crap stories as well. Having said all the previous, I am pretty much in agreement with your list of bad to good here with a few exceptions.

Peter Davidson was, like Jon Pertwee, a good actor beset by poor writing. In Pertwee's case, this dark cloud of mediocrity was absent at the dawn of his era, for Davidson, it was at the very end. 1. The Awakening 2. Mawdryn Undead 3. Caves of Androzani 4. Snakedance 5. Black Orchid

How much of this era is killed by poor and out of date production? Out of date serial format, out of dating filming techniques, too little money and strikes. Leave aside whether you think there are too many Companions or a too human Doctor, there are often decent story concepts and themes that with better production, more dynamic direction and a producer who gave a crap about character development would have been FAR better. In a lot of ways Five's era is writ large why JNT wasn't the right choice for the job in the long-run. He was happy to deal with the BBC higher-ups when he could talk them round - until he met Michael Grade who he couldn't schmooze, engage in stunt casting and publicity stunts that only work once, but he didn't give a crap about actually looking long and hard about whether or not the show could be made on the money that was on offer and whether it was actually actually creatively viable for the age and audience it was being made for and what measures beyond purely aesthetic ones like title sequence and incidental music he could bring in to improve things. He wasn't going to go out and make the argument for changes to the financial situation, moving onto film only production, changing the format away from the dated serial approach onto a more modern style on TV, preferred directing and lighting styles and reducing the more theatrical approach to shot blocking and construction that Janet Fielding moans about so much in DVD commentaries. JNT only did half is job because he wasn't saying to the writers, "lets try to find as many good opportunities to show off our characters whenever we can in amongst the action" or "let's have moments of drama that tell us something about each of our characters in every serial." We only knew what the hell was going on with Turlough in 'Planet of Fire', his last serial when we FINALLY found out about why he was on Earth at all. Being a political exile on the losing side in a civil war should have been front and centre in his characterisation from the start. Hell, they could have even used Tegan and Nyssa to model healthy relationships with male role-models and healthy female friendships for all the girls watching if they'd wanted to be a bit literal about it. At least there would have been thought and purpose put into it instead of just having two women there to scream at things, be sent back into the TARDIS or occasionally shoot things when they were allowed to show agency and competence at all. 'The Awakening' is a good example, why was there no moment where Tegan considers that it wasn't long until her grandfather made the decision to leave, travel most of the way across the world to start a new life in Australia and whether he's where she got her desire to see something of the world and universe from. They could have actually said something about her character and explained her continued presence in the TARDIS there and then. Maybe even wonder whether these events are why he left and whether she accidentally helped ensure her own conception? It only needs a few lines, and they didn't have the opportunity to do that? It's just so wasteful, she really is a first draft of Donna Noble but without the merest pretense of a character arc, isn't she? Actually, given the story makes little sense, tells us nothing about any of the characters and wastes the Tegan connection, I'd have been fine with them cutting 'The Awakening' and trimming 'Warriors' down to 3 parts with a BIG story restructure to get an extra serial at the end of the season where you introduce Peri so they don't have to include her debut into an already overstuffed 'Planet of Fire'. I even think there are ways to rescue 'Warriors' - cut out the Mirka altogether and change the plot into a 3 part straight up attack story. Part 1 - the base captures the crew of a small spy ship from the other bloc and integrating them whilst also discovering the Doctor. Part 2 - they begin to interrograte the Doctor and Companions but are prevented from completing the process as the Sea Devils and Silurians attack and occupy the base. Part 3 - the base crew, the spy ship crew and the TARDIS crew agree to gang together and break up into teams to retake the base. The two sides have to cooperate, the beginnings of understanding is formed, the non-humans are pushed back with the message that violence doesn't solve problems. Turlough and Tegan both get chances to be useful and brave. The Doctor offers to be a go-between should they ever wish to negotiate a solution in the future. People survive and the TARDIS team leave. Done! Yeah, it doesn't play into the Tegan trauma arc thing that if you squint your head sideways you can fanwank into existence given all the crappy things that have happened starting with the death of her Auntie Vanessa and ending with her encounter with the Daleks, but other-wise, its MUCH better than what we actually got. If its relatively straightforward to broadly fix the problem by cutting out the crap to get to the essentials, basically two competitions for the same territory between two different sets of protagonists and that maybe the two political blocs don't have as many differences as they think they have, then you've got a wasted budget rather than a non-entertaining budget and the fault lies with JNT for allowing the serial to be mounted and permitting the production to be so stagey, overlit and poorly visualised and Eric Saward for signing off on the script in that condition because conceptually, classic baddies + political opponents on a base under siege should have come up trumps. This era just is just one missed opportunity after another which has the good fortune of being capped off by an absolute classic and succeeded by a disaster of a debut which makes it look more impressive than it should be considered really.

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Earthshock is Number 1, and Adric was made annoying by bad writers Worst 5 Warrior of the Deep 4 to Doomsday Snake Dance Kinda Kings Deamons