Episode Hive Logo
Show cover for Doctor Who

The Best Episodes of Doctor Who Season 18

Every episode of Doctor Who Season 18 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Doctor Who Season 18!

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

Genres:DramaAction & AdventureSci-Fi & Fantasy

Season 18 Ratings Summary

The best episode of "Doctor Who" season 18 is "The Leisure Hive (1)", rated 6.6/10 from 556 user votes. It was directed by N/A and written by David Fisher. "The Leisure Hive (1)" aired on 8/30/1980 and is rated 0.1 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "The Leisure Hive (2)".

  • The Leisure Hive (1)
    6.6/10 556 votes

    #1 - The Leisure Hive (1)

    Season 18 Episode 1 - Aired 8/30/1980

    The planet Argolis, around the year 2290. The Argolins live in a huge shielded city, protected from the irradiated wasteland outside. The planet's survival depends on the tourists their Leisure Hive attracts. But a series of horrific deaths seems to jeopardise that future - can the Doctor and Romana find a solution?

    Director: N/A

    Writer: David Fisher

  • The Leisure Hive (2)
    6.5/10 500 votes

    #2 - The Leisure Hive (2)

    Season 18 Episode 2 - Aired 9/6/1980

    Another man is found dead, strangled by the Doctor's scarf, so the Doctor is put on trial. By some of the archaic rules of law, he's made to "prove" his innocence by becoming a test subject in a new tachyon experiment with time. The result will prove his innocence or guilt, so they say.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: David Fisher

  • The Leisure Hive (3)
    6.5/10 496 votes

    #3 - The Leisure Hive (3)

    Season 18 Episode 3 - Aired 9/13/1980

    With the Doctor suffering from the time experiment, the clandestine schemes of others start coming to light, along with the secreted purposes to which the tachyonic generator has been used.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: David Fisher

  • The Leisure Hive (4)
    6.4/10 503 votes

    #4 - The Leisure Hive (4)

    Season 18 Episode 4 - Aired 9/20/1980

    With the saboteur and murderer revealed and arrested, peace should now be restored, but a new threat emerges - a war-monger who's both ready and eager to aggress upon other worlds with a newly manufactured warrior army.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: David Fisher

  • Meglos (1)
    6.5/10 486 votes

    #5 - Meglos (1)

    Season 18 Episode 5 - Aired 9/27/1980

    The desert planet Zolpha-Thura, the 1980s. Giant intelligent megalomaniac cactus Meglos is planning to conquer the galaxy but first it needs the dodecahedron, a powerful energy source currently on the planet Tigella. To get it back Meglos recruits a band of galactic mercenaries and hatches a cunning scheme requiring it to impersonate the Doctor...

    Director: Terence Dudley

    Writer: N/A

  • Meglos (2)
    6.5/10 448 votes

    #6 - Meglos (2)

    Season 18 Episode 6 - Aired 10/4/1980

    With the TARDIS occupants trapped in a chronic histeratic loop (forever reliving the same moment in time), the devious Meglos - disguised as the Doctor - gains the trust of the Tigellans along with full and private access to their power chamber.

    Director: Terence Dudley

    Writer: N/A

  • Meglos (3)
    6.4/10 438 votes

    #7 - Meglos (3)

    Season 18 Episode 7 - Aired 10/11/1980

    Can Romana escape the Gaztaks ? What has become of the Dodecahedron ? What pressing appointment awaits the Doctor ?

    Director: Terence Dudley

    Writer: N/A

  • Meglos (4)
    6.3/10 442 votes

    #8 - Meglos (4)

    Season 18 Episode 8 - Aired 10/18/1980

    With the Doctor about to be ritualistically sacrificed to appease the god Ti for stealing the dodecahedron, Meglos and the pirates return to Zolfa-Thura with the dodecahedron to fire up an ancient weapon and blast Tigella out of existence.

    Director: Terence Dudley

    Writer: N/A

  • Full Circle (1)
    7.2/10 512 votes

    #9 - Full Circle (1)

    Season 18 Episode 9 - Aired 10/25/1980

    Deep space, an unknown time - on course for Gallifrey, the TARDIS passes through a strange disruption. When they materialise, the scanner shows the Time Lord homeworld... but the travellers have passed into the negative pocket universe of E-Space and are in fact on the planet Alzarius, where evolution works very differently...

    Director: Peter Grimwade

    Writer: N/A

  • Full Circle (2)
    7.1/10 474 votes

    #10 - Full Circle (2)

    Season 18 Episode 10 - Aired 11/1/1980

    As the humanoid community takes refuge in their crashed spaceship, venomous marsh spiders begin to hatch from the local fruit while bestial marshmen emerge from the waters to walk the land. It is quite apparent that the marshmen desire entry into the spaceship. Meanwhile, as a curious marshchild shadows the Doctor, a group of teen rebels decides to take over the TARDIS.

    Director: Peter Grimwade

    Writer: N/A

  • Full Circle (3)
    7.2/10 471 votes

    #11 - Full Circle (3)

    Season 18 Episode 11 - Aired 11/8/1980

    Infection from a spider bite causes Romana's personality to change. Meanwhile the Doctor, after discovering that the spaceship society is in a perpetual state of repair and upgrade, has morality issues with the ship's leading scientist who readies himself to perform gruesome experiments on the live marshchild while it's fully conscious.

    Director: Peter Grimwade

    Writer: N/A

  • Full Circle (4)
    7.2/10 478 votes

    #12 - Full Circle (4)

    Season 18 Episode 12 - Aired 11/15/1980

    Marshmen invade the Terradonian ship thanks to Romana, who seems to be in communion with them. While the ship's inhabitants flee for their lives, the Doctor discovers a crucial fact why these humanoids can never return to the planet Terradon.

    Director: Peter Grimwade

    Writer: N/A

  • State of Decay (1)
    7.5/10 524 votes

    #13 - State of Decay (1)

    Season 18 Episode 13 - Aired 11/22/1980

    Still trapped in negative E-Space, the TARDIS lands on an unnamed world to find a society sliding back into feudalism. What is the secret of the Three Who Rule? And what ancient enemy of the Time Lords is stirring again on this world...?

    Director: Peter Moffatt

    Writer: Terrance Dicks

  • State of Decay (2)
    7.5/10 476 votes

    #14 - State of Decay (2)

    Season 18 Episode 14 - Aired 11/29/1980

    The Doctor and Romana are escorted to the tower to meet the royal leaders, hoping they can find answers to why this society evolves backwards. The Doctor recognizes the tower as an old Earth spaceship, and further finds that the old fuel tanks, far from empty, are full - but with blood. Meanwhile, Councilor Aukon senses intelligence in Adric and selects him to be the their first "Chosen One."

    Director: Peter Moffatt

    Writer: Terrance Dicks

  • State of Decay (3)
    7.5/10 474 votes

    #15 - State of Decay (3)

    Season 18 Episode 15 - Aired 12/6/1980

    The Doctor finds archive material in the TARDIS that tells him he's dealing with an ancient enemy of the Time Lords, a nearly indestructible king vampire who's ready to revive and reenter normal space, spreading death, once again, across the universe.

    Director: Peter Moffatt

    Writer: Terrance Dicks

  • State of Decay (4)
    7.5/10 477 votes

    #16 - State of Decay (4)

    Season 18 Episode 16 - Aired 12/13/1980

    The Doctor joins the villagers' revolt against their vampire rulers, unsure how to kill the king vampire. Meanwhile Adric is first in line to join the new vampire order while Romana is laid out as a sacrificial Time Lord for the awakening king vampire and his swarm of bats.

    Director: Peter Moffatt

    Writer: Terrance Dicks

  • Warriors' Gate (1)
    7.3/10 500 votes

    #17 - Warriors' Gate (1)

    Season 18 Episode 17 - Aired 1/3/1981

    The TARDIS is drawn into an empty white void, somewhere between universes. But they are not the only ones trapped there.

    Director: Graeme Harper

    Writer: Stephen Gallagher

  • Warriors' Gate (2)
    7.2/10 453 votes

    #18 - Warriors' Gate (2)

    Season 18 Episode 18 - Aired 1/10/1981

    When Rorvik learns that Romana is a time sensitive, he takes her prisoner, forcing her to find a way out of the void. The Doctor attempts to discover what lies beyond the mirror.

    Director: Graeme Harper

    Writer: Stephen Gallagher

  • Warriors' Gate (3)
    7.2/10 456 votes

    #19 - Warriors' Gate (3)

    Season 18 Episode 19 - Aired 1/17/1981

    While Biroc leads the Doctor to a view of the Tharil's lordly past, Romana learns more about the damaged freighter and the coldheartedness of its crew. Meanwhile Commander Rorvik, confounded by the time mirror inside the universal center gateway, ignores evidence that it's no simple mirror and decides to blast it, imperiling the lives of everyone.

    Director: Graeme Harper

    Writer: Stephen Gallagher

  • Warriors' Gate (4)
    7.2/10 457 votes

    #20 - Warriors' Gate (4)

    Season 18 Episode 20 - Aired 1/24/1981

    The Doctor deduces that the freighter is a slave ship loaded up with Tharils to be sold as time machine components, but the immense weight of Rorvik's damaged ship, designed to contain the Tharils, is now collapsing the fragile void of the micro-universe in which they're all stuck, pulling everything inside ever closer.

    Director: Graeme Harper

    Writer: Stephen Gallagher

  • The Keeper of Traken (1)
    7.7/10 597 votes

    #21 - The Keeper of Traken (1)

    Season 18 Episode 21 - Aired 1/31/1981

    The planet Traken. The Traken union is a society living in perfect harmony, watched over by the powerful but benign Keeper. But now the Keeper is dying, and he senses a great evil within his protectorate. Can the Doctor help him discover the secret of the Melkur?

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Johnny Byrne

  • The Keeper of Traken (2)
    7.6/10 531 votes

    #22 - The Keeper of Traken (2)

    Season 18 Episode 22 - Aired 2/7/1981

    Tremas claims consular privilege to protect the Doctor and Adric from execution, though it binds his fate to theirs if they're found guilty of murder. Melkur strengthens his hold over Kassia while Seron decides to have rapport with The Keeper to learn truth, and Adric finds evidence of another TARDIS in the area.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Johnny Byrne

  • The Keeper of Traken (3)
    7.6/10 522 votes

    #23 - The Keeper of Traken (3)

    Season 18 Episode 23 - Aired 2/14/1981

    With Tremas falling under suspicion, due to his association with the Doctor, a new Keeper Nominate is named. Now, with everything in place, Melkur has only a short wait before his full malevolence can unfold.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Johnny Byrne

  • The Keeper of Traken (4)
    7.8/10 538 votes

    #24 - The Keeper of Traken (4)

    Season 18 Episode 24 - Aired 2/21/1981

    With the merciless Melkur in control of The Source, the Doctor and his allies have only a slim chance of deposing him, which also puts the peace of the Traken Union in severe jeopardy.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: Johnny Byrne

  • Logopolis (1)
    7.7/10 656 votes

    #25 - Logopolis (1)

    Season 18 Episode 25 - Aired 2/28/1981

    Deciding to repair the TARDIS' chameleon circuit, the Doctor goes to Earth to find a real police box. But an old enemy is one step ahead of him.

    Director: Peter Grimwade

    Writer: Christopher H. Bidmead