The Best Episodes of Doctor Who Season 18

Episode Rankings

1. #1 Fan Favorite
   

   6.6/10(611 votes)

   #1 - The Leisure Hive (1)

   S18:E18/30/1980

   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:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher

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   Director:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher
2. 

   6.5/10(549 votes)

   #2 - The Leisure Hive (2)

   S18:E29/6/1980

   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:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher

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   Director:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher
3. 

   6.5/10(546 votes)

   #3 - The Leisure Hive (3)

   S18:E39/13/1980

   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:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher

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   Director:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher
4. 

   6.4/10(553 votes)

   #4 - The Leisure Hive (4)

   S18:E49/20/1980

   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:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher

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   Director:Lovett Bickford

   Writer:David Fisher
5. 

   6.5/10(536 votes)

   #5 - Meglos (1)

   S18:E59/27/1980

   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

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch

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   Director:Terence Dudley

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch
6. 

   6.5/10(488 votes)

   #6 - Meglos (2)

   S18:E610/4/1980

   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

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch

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   Director:Terence Dudley

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch
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7. 

   6.4/10(482 votes)

   #7 - Meglos (3)

   S18:E710/11/1980

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

   Director:Terence Dudley

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch

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   Director:Terence Dudley

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch
8. 

   6.3/10(487 votes)

   #8 - Meglos (4)

   S18:E810/18/1980

   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

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch

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   Director:Terence Dudley

   Writers:John Flanagan, Andrew McCulloch
9. 

   7.1/10(564 votes)

   #9 - Full Circle (1)

   S18:E910/25/1980

   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:Andrew Smith

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   Director:Peter Grimwade

   Writer:Andrew Smith
10. 

    7.1/10(514 votes)

    #10 - Full Circle (2)

    S18:E1011/1/1980

    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:Andrew Smith

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    Director:Peter Grimwade

    Writer:Andrew Smith
11. 

    7.1/10(509 votes)

    #11 - Full Circle (3)

    S18:E1111/8/1980

    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:Andrew Smith

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    Director:Peter Grimwade

    Writer:Andrew Smith
12. 

    7.1/10(521 votes)

    #12 - Full Circle (4)

    S18:E1211/15/1980

    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:Andrew Smith

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    Director:Peter Grimwade

    Writer:Andrew Smith
13. 

    7.5/10(578 votes)

    #13 - State of Decay (1)

    S18:E1311/22/1980

    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

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    Director:Peter Moffatt

    Writer:Terrance Dicks
14. 

    7.5/10(521 votes)

    #14 - State of Decay (2)

    S18:E1411/29/1980

    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

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    Director:Peter Moffatt

    Writer:Terrance Dicks
15. 

    7.5/10(517 votes)

    #15 - State of Decay (3)

    S18:E1512/6/1980

    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

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    Director:Peter Moffatt

    Writer:Terrance Dicks
16. 

    7.5/10(520 votes)

    #16 - State of Decay (4)

    S18:E1612/13/1980

    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

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    Director:Peter Moffatt

    Writer:Terrance Dicks
17. 

    7.3/10(545 votes)

    #17 - Warriors' Gate (1)

    S18:E171/3/1981

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

    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher

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    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher
18. 

    7.3/10(494 votes)

    #18 - Warriors' Gate (2)

    S18:E181/10/1981

    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.

    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher

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    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher
19. 

    7.2/10(496 votes)

    #19 - Warriors' Gate (3)

    S18:E191/17/1981

    While Biroc leads the Doctor to a view of the Tharil's lordly past, Romana learns more about the damaged freighter and the cold-heartedness 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.

    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher

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    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher
20. 

    7.2/10(498 votes)

    #20 - Warriors' Gate (4)

    S18:E201/24/1981

    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.

    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher

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    Directors:Graeme Harper, Paul Joyce

    Writer:Stephen Gallagher
21. 

    7.7/10(636 votes)

    #21 - The Keeper of Traken (1)

    S18:E211/31/1981

    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:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne

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    Director:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne
22. 

    7.6/10(568 votes)

    #22 - The Keeper of Traken (2)

    S18:E222/7/1981

    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:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne

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    Director:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne
23. 

    7.6/10(561 votes)

    #23 - The Keeper of Traken (3)

    S18:E232/14/1981

    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:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne

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    Director:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne
24. 

    7.8/10(579 votes)

    #24 - The Keeper of Traken (4)

    S18:E242/21/1981

    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:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne

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    Director:John Black

    Writer:Johnny Byrne
25. 

    7.8/10(715 votes)

    #25 - Logopolis (1)

    S18:E252/28/1981

    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

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    Director:Peter Grimwade

    Writer:Christopher H. Bidmead