Season 32 - 1995

 

Season 31 saw Doctor Who’s success grow more and more with it competing against Star Trek and Garwood and Brake not focusing too much on Earth, however Season 32 would be the end of the TARDIS team and Garwood and Brake would have to search for a new companion and a new Doctor for 1996.

Before the season started, Richard Griffiths, Lisa Bowerman and Samuel West all decided to leave as they all felt there time was up and all good things must come to end.

This season would continue to focus more on alien worlds as Doctor Who continued to compete with Star Trek, Garwood and Brake decided this as they thought it’d be good for Doctor Who to be more like Sci-Fi instead mostly focusing on Earth.

This season writers included Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, Nicholas Briggs, Kate Orman, Marc Platt, Russell T Davies and former script editor Ben Aaronovitch.

The Lupum Ruins

By Paul Cornell

Aired: 22nd July - 5th August

This story would see the Doctor, Bernice and David land outside the Ruins of Lupum and they join an expedition team to go explore the ruins, however we see Bernice see a mysterious being

that only she can see and she starts to believe she’s going mad, that is until members of the expedition team start to die mysteriously, eventually the Doctor discovers the being is using a cloaking device which on Bernice can see past and defeats it.

The Survival Fights

By Nicholas Briggs

Aired: 12th August - 26th August

This story would see the TARDIS land on the Planet Vinov and discovering a gladiator tournament where soldiers from Earth’s past are being pitted against each other, we see soldiers from the Roman times, Ancient Greece, the Napoleonic wars, the Boer Wars, WW1, WW2, WW3

and the Cyber Wars fighting against each other, the story would’ve seen the Doctor work with the fighters to stop the games and bring down the Emperor of Vinov Bellum, played by Brian Blessed, which they are eventually able to do.

Return of The Living Dad

By Kate Orman

Aired: 2nd September - 16th September

This story would see Bernice be reunited with her father Isaac Summerfield, we find out when Bernice was younger she and her family thought Isaac and his crew were traitors in the war

against the Daleks but they actually ended up in Little Caldwell in 1983 due to a space-time rift and they established their own agency to help aliens who’d fallen through the rift, this story acts as a character piece for Bernice as she gets to know her father.

This story has two threats with a company named C19 who capture aliens and extract their powers for themselves and the second threat is a Navarino named Albbinex who tries to get his race to invade Earth by the rift but they are both stopped by the Doctor, Bernice, David, Isaac and his team and Bernice decides to stay with her father on Earth.

Saint Anthony’s Fire

By Mark Gatiss

Aired: 23rd September - 7th October

This story would see the TARDIS team land on Betrushia during a war between the natives and they try and save it from a religious organisation known as the chapter of St. Anthony we discover when they tried to convert Betrushia, they destroyed the rings surrounding the planet. This caused the Keth to be unleashed from its confinement. The Doctor convinced the Magna to help him destroy Betrushia and the Keth so it would not endanger other planets. Unknown to the Doctor, Bernice Summerfield convinced one of the Chaptermen to disable the mothership's navigation. Unable to break orbit, it was vaporised along with the planet. 

The Steel Revolution

By Marc Platt

Aired: 14th October - 28th October

This story would see the Doctor and David land in France during the time of the French Revolution and they discover that villagers are going missing and there is a legend called the Metal Men who turn out to be the Cybermen, we find out they are converting the villagers to “save

them” from poverty and disease but in the end the Doctor stops them by using a bacteria which can eat away metal which kills the Cybermen.

This story would be quite dark as we would’ve seen the horrors of the revolution and the horrors of conversion, overall this would’ve been one of the best Cybermen stories of all time.

Future Lost

By Russell T Davies

Aired: 4th November - 11th November

This story would see the Doctor and David land in 2098 where they see London has been devastated by a nuclear war and they try and help survivors get to safety away from the mutants and try and help the ones who have radiation poisoning, this would’ve been a very dark story as we would’ve seen the horrors of a nuclear war and what effect the aftermath can have on people including the Doctor and David.

The Fatal Rebellion

By Ben Aaronovitch

Aired: 18th November - 2nd December

This would’ve the final story for Richard Griffiths as the Doctor and Samuel West as David Lyons.

The story would be set on an Earth colony planet named Zetov where it’s ruled by a fascist government led by General Oliver (Played by Jacqueline Pearce), the planet is ruled with an iron fist and if anyone steps out of line they are put on a show trial which is broadcasted live and found guilty automatically and executed on live TV. Horrified by this the Doctor and David join a secret resistance team where they vow to take down the government, the resistance also want to find out whats inside the closed labs and they send the Doctor and David to break in but they are captured at the end of Part one.

Part two sees them being brutally interrogated by being physically and psychologically tortured and it’s eventually decided that David will be taken to the labs and the Doctor will be put on trial, we see David in the labs being injected with toxins and being tortured and over this part of the story we see him slowly transform into a mutant. We see the Doctor break out of prison with the help of the resistance and they eventually find the labs where the Doctor finds David in an incubator tank almost fully transformed into a mutant.

Part three sees the resistance take action and David pleading to the Doctor to end his life by pulling the lever and the Doctor, devastated by David’s pain, pulls the lever which floods the tank with a gas cloud which melts David. We would then see the Doctor and the resistance find their way to General Oliver’s HQ but she’s nowhere to be found and they see her making her way into a room where they keep the mutants and the Doctor confronts her, during the Doctor shuts Oliver inside the room and activates a code to release the mutants who kill Oliver, the remaining fascist troops kill the resistance members and the Doctor makes his way to the TARDIS, however the Doctor is gunned down as he reaches the TARDIS, he uses the last of his strength to make it inside and de-materialises before collapsing to the floor as his eyes close and he drifts into death, then his face becomes covered in a swirling spiral of a blurry bright light. In the following moment, the features of the Doctor fade along with the light, as a new and younger face comes into view, that of the Ninth Doctor - Nick Berry.

And that concludes Season 32 of Doctor Who, a very popular season a good end to the Griffiths years. Overall Griffiths would go down as one of the most popular doctors next to Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, the next season is Season 33 of Doctor Who until then thank you for reading and goodbye.

Thank You To:

Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy

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