About a month ago I ran a poll on the blog where I listed the last few stories which I am yet to see and I promised that the winner will be reviewed and the winner was State of Decay. I have to say Season Eighteen is a weakness of mine, I have seen a couple of stories but not all. I have however seen Logopolis and this story firstly highlights how little the production team probably knew about the show. Logopolis is unlike any other Doctor Who story from the Tom Baker era. It is not celebration but a funeral. State of Decay on the other hand would have been the best choice to end the Fourth Doctor's tenure. It combines all the main elements of the three producers eras from gothic horror to cold hard science. What a shame!
One of the strongest features of this story is the script. Terrance Dicks knows how to write a good solid Doctor Who script and this is what the eighties seemed to lack. The script feels like a very traditional Doctor Who story, especially that first episode. This story could have very easily slotted in during season thirteen or fourteen. The first episode is excellent, I cannot fault the script there at all. Various interesting threads are set up whilst evoking a compelling atmosphere and tone. I am glad that the director got rid of Christopher H Bidmead's rewrite of State of Decay and kept Terrance Dick's original since I do not want to know what this story would have been like if Bidmead had given it an unnecessary scientific and mechanical edge to it.
The problems to me with the story are not from the script point of view but the way State of Decay has been brought from script to screen. Some of the performances are not great. The rebels are a bit dull, totally pathetic. The vampires become totally melodramatic by part three. Some of the effects are not well realised such as The Great Vampire and personally the direction is not great. If this had been produced in 1976 with Robert Holmes script editing the script, working with Dicks, alongside the direction of Douglas Camfield or David Maloney, I suspect we would have had a great story but unfortunately the production does seem to let it down here.
The primary cast are very good in this. The scenes and exchanges between The Fourth Doctor and Romana are particularly compelling in this story. K9 is sensational in every scene - as usual. Adric is not really given a chance, almost like the script had been written without him and he had to be added in later. This is a shame as having watched Logopolis I realise the potential that there was between The Fourth Doctor and Adric but this was not the case in State of Decay.
In summary, this is a story with bags of potential! It is such a shame that this script was produced for season eighteen not season thirteen as I suspect we would have had a much greater story back then. The production and direction do let this story down but it is such a relief to have such a traditional script after Season Seventeen and the seasons to come. This should have been Tom Bakers send off but alas not.
7/10 (Some very good bits but let down)