I'm afraid for me, this is where a lot of the rot in DW was confirmed. Yes, Four to Doomsday was mindless space opera, Earthshock was bombastic and derivative, and Time-Fight and Arc were appallingly directed and poorly script-edited, but when I realised that Mawdryn was supposed to be the big story of the season, yet it was so emotionally uninvolving (and so dull!), I knew that Doctor Who had begun to lose its way - for me, it's the equivalent of that dumb kid who tries to emulate his smarter brother and just proves an embarrassment - it's the current production team's attempt to do another clever story, but it comes across so badly when compared to season 18 - no wonder that the show soon found itself resorting to Earthshock mkII next season - that was all that the production team could do!
Why don't I like it more? (and believe me I've tried to like it...) Well, as someone pointed out when Planet of Fire was aired the following year, it's not a story, it's a shopping list - the Black Guardian (groan - badly plotted, unconvincing baddie returns, weeeee...), Turlough (yes, he's a lovely bloke, but god, he's OTT in this story - at school we all went round cuppping our hands, rolling our eyes and whining 'what do you want me to dooooooooooo?' And didn't anyone at that school spot he was in his 20s?), the Brigadier (err, why? Yet another Saward moan here - we can't get William Russell, I know let's make the Brigadier a maths teacher instead, d'ohhhhh - how many top ranking military personnel end up becoming teachers?!!? - perhaps they found about Yates, Benton and the armadillo, though...). Oh, and yes, let's have a nice location (I've been there, it is a lovely location - I too have stood on the only part of UK soil outside of BBC TV centre where a certain young actress wore a certain costume - sad or what?....). What and you want a story as well? OK let's put some stuff in about warp ellipse and time distortion and mutants with spaghetti heads. What, that still doesn't fill 100 minutes? - OK let's have lots and lots of padding - a scene with Nyssa and Tegan mistaking a completely different, near-naked man for the Doctor (it could happen, no, really), a long discussion about whether he is the Doctor, lots of Mawdryn crawling about on the floor, tedious school cliche characters (a Matron, a Bunteresque schoolboy, masters with gowns for gawd's sake? Is this Merrie Old Engerland or what?), a mutation that's also infectious (plot device-city!!!) and even a flash-back scene. The excitement never...starts.
Poor old Peter Moffat (the director, I mean. Though on the other hand...) he can direct location work beautifully, but the last two episodes are very dull indeed. Grimwade can write dialogue, but his plots stink (with Saward taking his customary bow here). David Collings is given a poor role, which as per usual he makes into a masterpiece. Courtney is lovely as always, but I do think his character is demeaned by all this. As for Davison, Sutton and Fielding? Most of the time they're given nothing to do, but they're still the most watchable things in the show (and let's be honest here, Sarah is very, very watchable - suddenly fandom noticed this). But it's just such a struggle to watch the show again. Nothing much happens and it happens very slowly... When DWAS put this at the top of their poll and not Snakedance, I knew I didn't really belong. I'd honestly rather watch Meglos than this - at least it's great fun and the music is 1,000,000 times better, and it's not so drearily po-faced as this and so stagnantly revisiting the show's past. Remember - nothing ages quite like nostalgia.
