Full Circle is the third serial of the 18th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by seventeen-year-old Andrew Smith and directed by Peter Grimwade, the serial was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 25 October to 15 November 1980. The serial sees the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his companions Romana and K9 inadvertently enter the smaller universe of E-Space, where they land on the lush forest planet Alzarius, during which an event called Mistfall causes amphibious Marshmen to rise from the water and threaten the humanoid Alzarians. The serial is the first regular appearance of the companion Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), a young orphan and mathematical prodigy among the Alzarians, as well as the first in the season's so-called "E-Space Trilogy."
The outline for Full Circle was devised by Smith, a fan of the show who had previously submitted spec scripts to it. Upon becoming the show's script editor and discovering virtually no material for the upcoming season, Christopher H. Bidmead met with Smith and commissioned a script based on his outline. Peter Grimwade, who had experience with the show as a writer and production assistant, was chosen to direct the serial. Multiple effects were designed for the story, including spider props and aquatic costumes for the Marshmen. After three days of location filming at Black Park in Buckinghamshire, the rest of the serial was filmed in studio at the BBC Television Centre, which was complicated by Tom Baker's on-set behavior. Paddy Kingsland provided the incidental music for the serial, composing leitmotifs for several characters.
The news of Tom Baker's departure from the series led to heightened media attention to the show at the time the serial aired. Despite this, Full Circle aired to relatively low ratings, never exceeding 5.9 million viewers, partially due to competing with Buck Rogers in the 25th Century on ITV, but received a decent Appreciation Index score. The serial received mostly positive reviews from contemporary fans. Retrospective reviews have also been positive, with many praising Grimwade's direction and Baker's performance, as well as the design of the Marshmen. Critics have noted the serial's approach to the theory of evolution, the role of science and ritual in the story, and its themes of authority and colonization. The serial was novelised in 1982, and received an audio sequel from Big Finish Productions titled Mistfall.
Plot After the TARDIS passes through an anomaly, the Doctor and Romana step outside onto the lush forest planet of Alzarius, home to a small civilisation of humanoids who live around a grounded spaceship from the planet Terradon, the Starliner, ruled by a triumvirate known as the Deciders. Meanwhile, a group of outcasts called the Outlers dare Adric, brother of their leader Varsh, to steal a riverfruit. Head Decider Draith and scientist Dexeter notice the presence of eggs in the riverfruit, believing it to be a sign of Mistfall, which occurs every fifty years due to the planet's orbit. As the lake water bubbles and emits mist, the Alzarians evacuate to the Starliner. Draith spots Adric stealing a riverfruit but is dragged underwater.
After Adric enters the TARDIS, the Doctor and K9 observe the amphibious Marshmen emerge from the water. The Doctor sends K9 after the Marshmen, who knock off his head. Deciders Nefred and Garif seal the Starliner and appoint citizen Login to replace Draith. The Doctor, followed by a young Marshchild, sneaks onto the Starliner. Meanwhile, Adric brings the Outlers to the TARDIS, which is carried to a cave by Marshmen. The Outlers accidentally leave Romana behind at the mercy of spiders hatching from riverfruit.
The Outlers materialize onto the Starliner. The Doctor and Adric rescue Romana, who becomes possessed after being bitten. Back on the Starliner, the Doctor is appalled when chief scientist Dexeter performs vivisection experiments on the Marshchild, who escapes and kills both Dexeter and itself. The Doctor reveals that the Starliner no longer needs repairs and is ready to depart, to which Nefred responds that nobody knows how to fly it. Meanwhile, Romana begins letting hordes of Marshmen through the Starliner's lower decks.
Nefred is fatally injured, and reveals that they do not descend from Terradonians. The Doctor cures Romana and sends Adric and Varsh to force the Marshmen off the ship with cylinders of oxygen, leading to Varsh's death. The Doctor and the cured Romana examine the cells of the spiders, Marshmen, and Alzarians, and notice their similarity. The Doctor realizes that the Alzarians are descendants of Marshmen who quickly evolved to resemble the Terradonians. The Marshmen are forced off the ship. The Doctor shows the two remaining Deciders how to pilot the ship. As the Starliner takes off, the Doctor explains to Romana that they are now trapped in the smaller universe of E-Space.
Production
Conception The first outline of Full Circle was devised by Andrew Smith, a seventeen-year-old law student and fan of the show. Smith had learned script formatting from the book The Making of Doctor Who, which featured paperwork from the production of Robot (1974–75). His only prior success was in contributing sketches to television and radio programs., "Chapter 1: Squaring the Circle" He submitted his first spec script to the show in 1978, at the age of fifteen. The script, entitled The Secret of Cassius and centring on a spaceship discovering an atmosphere on Pluto, was rejected that August by Anthony Read, then the show's script editor. Read, however, encouraged Smith to continue submitting scripts. The following April, Read's successor, Douglas Adams, invited Smith to a day of studio recording for The Creature from the Pit (1979), which inspired him to outline a story under the working title The Planet That Slept, which he submitted to the show later that year.
The Planet That Slept centres around a non-aggressive, ostracised Marshchild (nicknamed "Fem" by the regulars) who becomes attached to the Doctor and Romana. At the end of the story, the female Marshchild sacrifices itself to save the Doctor. In the outline, the Marshmen are characterised as "disfigured savages and psychopaths" who worship K9 as a god and attempt to sacrifice Romana to him. The role of the Starliner also differed from the final serial. In Smith's outline, the ship is a freighter that crashes on Alzarius and is boarded by giant spiders as its crew searches for minerals.
In December 1979, Christopher H. Bidmead became Doctor Who's script editor, aiming to recentre the show around a policy of "education, education, education" and discovered that Adams had left almost no material that could be used for the show's eighteenth season, the sole available script being The Leisure Hive by David Fisher. Bidmead noticed Smith's outline for The Planet That Slept and met with him in February, not knowing prior that he was a teenager. Smith assumed that Bidmead would simply offer him guidance and was shocked when Bidmead began discussing a script, which he officially commissioned from Smith on 25 February 1980, to be due on 1 April.
Writing
Bidmead and producer John Nathan-Turner each hoped to use the serial to introduce new elements to the season. In January, Nathan-Turner, wishing to change the line-up of regulars and replace K9, devised a younger, male companion for the Doctor modeled on the literary character Artful Dodger. Bidmead named the character Adric, an anagram of the last name of Paul Dirac, the physicist who originated the theory of antimatter. Adric's original backstory as a runaway from a bureaucratic society closely paralleled that of the Doctor. In Nathan-Turner's outline for the character, Adric was from a planet called Yerfillag, the Doctor's home planet "Gallifrey" spelled backwards, and would begin traveling with the Doctor after the death of his troublemaker older brother Afrus. The idea was retained by having Alzarius' negative coordinates match those of Gallifrey's in the finished serial. With Adric to be written into the next story, eventually titled State of Decay (1980), Bidmead had Smith incorporate Adric and Afrus into The Planet that Slept, and had him given the new writer's guide for the series. The Marschild's role in the original outline was mostly replaced by that of Adric, while Afrus was renamed "Varsh." Bidmead was also interested in connecting a number of serials under a common story arc. Due to production issues on season 16, which also made use of an overarching plot, Nathan-Turner was initially hesitant. Eventually, he approved a trilogy of serials in which the Doctor and Romana would be trapped in E-Space (short for 'exo-space"), a universe with negative coordinates. A 12 June memo by Bidmead, titled The Doctor's Adventures in E-Space, provided a detailed scientific explanation of how E-Space and the Charged Vacuum Emboitement would function, as well as their effects on the Doctor's travels.
Smith submitted his script for the serial's first episode on 22 March. Happy with the script, Bidmead commissioned the script for the next three episodes three days later, which Smith turned in on his deadline of 25 April. The first draft of the serial differed in many ways from Smith's original outline. Besides adding the elements of Adric and E-Space, Bidmead and Smith developed the serial's focus on evolution, devising the origin of the Alzarians as Marshmen who had evolved to resemble the long-dead Terradonians. The first draft also added the elements of the Deciders and the hierarchy of Alzarian society. Smith imagined Adric as a runaway whose family had been killed in an accident engineered by Decider Draith, solidifying his anti-authority attitude. He also devised the character's badge for mathematical excellence. The production team removed the giant spiders from the script, prompted by the failure of an effect on an episode of Blake's 7. Smith replaced them with smaller crab spiders.
Smith's scripts went through four drafts in all. Although initially surprised at Bidmead's changes, Smith characterised the development process as collaborative. He described Bidmead's contribution as growing throughout the serial, with Part One being mostly his own. Nathan-Turner asked Smith to revise his first draft of the final episode, which he felt did not sufficiently involve the Doctor as an active character. The treatment of the Marshchild was also changed from the first draft, in which a character named Omril tortures it. Smith also inserted a continuity reference to 1980's Meglos upon reading its script. Bidmead and Nathan-Turner encouraged other continuity references to season 15's The Invasion of Time and the season 16's The Key To Time arc to develop the Doctor and Romana's approach to their situation. The production team issued rehearsal scripts on 30 May. Nathan-Turner did not like Smith's title for the serial, leading Bidmead to reissue the scripts with the new title Full Circle on 19 June, displeasing Smith. The new title was worked into Decider Draith's last words in Part One to clue the audience in on Alzarius' process of evolution. The serial's ending gained a new scene in which the Doctor shows the Deciders how to activate the Starliner, replacing an ending in which Adric is explicitly shown stowing on board the TARDIS as its scanner shows the Marshmen returning to the swamp. On 2 June, Peter Grimwade was chosen to direct the serial. Grimwade was a friend of Nathan-Turner's, and had worked as a production assistant on six prior serials. More recently, he had been hired as a writer for the show on a planned serial called Xeraphin, later produced as Time-Flight.
Design and effects