Doctor Who: Seventh Series Summary
This series started so well. Between Spearhead From Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians, I was really enjoying this new era of the show. Like I mentioned in Spearhead From Space, this series felt like a soft reboot of the franchise with the increased production values and budget, refreshed mythology, slightly altered format and premise, and the shift from monochrome to color. The changes to the show helped rejuvenate the excitement that got dampened with reconstructions.
But that crashed with The Ambassadors of Death and Inferno and the stories that either lacked an overall direction or felt padded with open-ended resolutions. Don’t get me wrong, they were still entertaining and decent enough presentations, but they felt lacking after strong start in the front half of the series.
It feels like growing pains have affected the show at this point. They’re trying so hard as this point in history to regenerate the franchise to accompany the Doctor’s new face that they stumbled under their own weight. And that actually parallels the Third Doctor in a lot of ways. He’s had to re-invent himself to survive, and while he seems cheerful at first, he has a frustrated bitterness that often derails him in the end. The final moments of Inferno encapsulate it nicely.
This series was still one of the highest rated in the Timestamps Project behind the Fifth Series, so I don’t fear a complete demise of the show at this point, but I certainly hope that the downward trend doesn’t hold.
Spearhead From Space – 5
Doctor Who and the Silurians – 4
The Ambassadors of Death – 3
Inferno – 3
Series Seven Average Rating: 3.8/5
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Creative Criticality 
I think that the real damper here if there is one is that to offset the cost increases for color and the enhanced effects that they only did four stories, three of which were 7-parters. That saves money by reusing sets and costumes, but it does drag things out. Otherwise, I feel that this is a really solid season and it really shows what Sherwin had in mind when he planned on exiling the Doctor to Earth for good. From here on, Barry Letts takes control and he immediately wants to start laying the groundwork for the Doctor to get back into time and space.
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