The show was never so popular and loved as it was during The Tom Baker years, mainly thanks to his first three years which were another true Golden Age of
Doctor Who.


Leela.


Everybody loved
K-9, Doctor Who's wonderful talking dog, to
the extent that
The Daily Star launched a Save K-9 campaign
when it was announced that the metal mutt was going to be
dropped from the show.
The Daily Star then claimed credit when
the BBC apparently 'relented' and launched the only ever official
televised Doctor Who spin-off show,
K-9 & Company. It was
absolute bollocks.
They may as well have revived
The Littlest Hobo and just stuck
him in that.
   The Tom Baker Years
           1975 - 1981
The mighty Tom Baker reign lasted for seven years, the longest serving Doctor Who ever, and arguably the most loved and best-remembered by the general public.
The ratings reached an all-time high (16 million at one point, although helpfully, ITV were on strike at the time.)
The
UNIT era was gradually phased out, and The Doctor once more became what he was originally intended to be, a maverick traveller in time and space.
Nothing could go wrong during the Tom Baker years. The long scarf, the jelly babies, a robot dog, companions dressed as Nympho savages, it was perfect and deserved a fucking medal. Honestly, it did.
Tom's Dolly Birds
Sarah-Jane Smith is regularly voted the best companion ever, but she was a bit too wholesome and motherly for me.
Enter
Leela. Now, this was a great idea for a companion, a savage killer dressed in rags, they should have done this right from the start, never mind all those middle-class schoolteachers, and Scotsmen in kilts, Leela really was one of the best companions ever. Thank our lucky stars that they didn't cast Bonnie Bloody Langford in the role.

Oh, and let's not forget
K-9 too, the Doctor's talking robot dog. He may have been made of metal but, by crikey, I would rather stick my knob in that than Bonnie Langford any day.
Monsters And Villains
Perhaps one of the many reasons that The Tom Baker era was so successful was that nearly every story was self-contained and featured a new and original adversary.
You didn't need a degree in Doctor Who to understand what was going on, you could easily pick up the story even if you missed an episode. So it was
that we ended up with terrific monsters such as
Morbius -
the giant Brain in a jar,
The Krynoid - big huge plants
walking around and being shot at by Boycie out of
Only Fools
And Horses
. And not forgetting The Hand of Eldrad - a
really big Hand.

During Tom Baker's tenure, we meet
Davros, the creator of
the Daleks, for the first time. His first story was great, showing
Davros as a crippled, brilliant genius, very subtlely played by
Michael Wisher. At the story's climax, Davros was, quite fittingly, killed by his own creation who he had to designed to destroy anything that was not alike. It would have been great if they'd just left it at that. But no. He was continually ressurrected and wheeled out throughout the 80's, to the detriment of the poor old Daleks who then became just henchman for an increasingly maniacal and silly Davros.
Tom Trivia


One of the original choices to play the Fourth Doctor was
Fulton Mackay, better known for his role as The Lighthouse Keeper in Fraggle Rock. Apparently, he was also in Porridge too.


Tom Baker was working on a building site when he got the call through to say he'd landed the role of Doctor Who. His workmates celebrated by holding him up in the air and then making him a nice cup of tea.


Mary Whitehouse got her soggy knickers in a twist throughout the Tom Baker era, complaining that the show was too violent and scary for children. As a result of her soggy-knickered meddling, the show was moved to a slightly later timeslot and one of the best producers that Doctor Who ever had was 'moved on' to other projects. Daft Cow.


Tom Baker co-wrote a movie script called
Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, and had asked Vincent Price to play the villain. Sadly though, he didn't have any funding for this project, so he asked Doctor Who fans all over the world to send in £5 each in order to get the movie made. Cue hundreds of little schoolkids saving up their pocket money and sending it in to Tom Baker at the BBC. Cue the BBC getting the arse on about this and ordering Tom Baker to send all the money back.
Tom Baker - The Good Things
Tom Baker - The Rubbish Things


After Mary Whitehouses's complaints, the show was ordered to become less scary and more light-hearted, resulting in some of the later years turning into The Tom Baker Comedy Show.


Douglas Adams, one of the greatest writers in the world, wrote Shada, which ended up as Doctor Who's great unfinished story, as strikes at the BBC halted it's production. It was eventually re-made as a Webcast about 20 years later with Paul McGann.
It's The End, But....
It had become an annual event for Tom Baker to hand in his
resignation at the end of each year. Not because he actually
wanted to leave, but because he wanted to make sure that the
producers still wanted him, as he had been in the role for
longer than anyone else.

Eventually, after seven years, his resignation was accepted, as
a new incoming producer felt it was time for a new Doctor. Poor
old Tom Baker now admits that he "was mad to give it up," as he
went off to pursue a career in advert voice-overs.
In tribute to the end of an era,
The Human League released an
instrumental track called simply
Tom Baker. It was rubbish.
Leela, before her hair went all funny and she joined the cast of EastEnders
K-9 - well, it's probably got a hole in it somewhere.
The Doctor has an unfair advantage in the arm-wrestling competition.
Quiet literally, the Brain of Morbius.
After seven long years, Tom Baker finally took the hint.
Tom Baker - he was also in that Sinbad film.