556 Logopolis: Part One

EPISODE: Logopolis: Part One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 556
STORY NUMBER: 116
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 28 February 1981
WRITER: Christopher H. Bidmead
DIRECTOR: Peter Grimwade
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 7.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - New Beginnings (The Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva)

"The more you put things together, the more they keep falling apart, and that's the essence of the second law of thermodynamics and I never heard a truer word spoken."

On Earth a policeman uses a police box to make a call but is cut off while it flutters visually and is pulled inside. Pacing the cloisters in the Tardis the Doctor decides to avoid going to Gallifrey, evading questions about what Romana has done, and instead suggests a trip to Earth. On Earth Australian air line hostess Tegan Jovanka is being driven to the first day of her new job by her Aunt Vanessa when the car breaks down. The Doctor decides to start the Tardis' long needed overhaul by fixing the chameleon circuit and travels to Earth to measure a real police box for use in Block Transfer Computations materialising round a Police Box on the Barnet Bypass next to the broken down car. Across the road from Vanessa & Tegan a white figure observes the events taking place, but vanishes when they try to summon him to help. The Doctor & Adric measure the police box, with the Doctor explaining about the Logopolitan Block Transfer Computations when the Doctor detects a gravity bubble. Popping out of the Tardis he sees the white figure in a field.

The Doctor & Adric open up the police box, finding a darkened Tardis control room and another police box within. Tegan goes to into the Tardis, believing it to be a real Police Box, just missing the Police Box within dematerialising. She quickly becomes lost in the Tardis' maze of corridors. The Doctor and Adric penetrate the second Police Box finding another yet darker Tardis within. Vanessa approaches the Police Box on the bypass and steps inside to be confronted by an unseen figure who laughs at her. The Doctor & Adric eventually break out of the nested Tardises with the Doctor meeting a police inspector on the road who shows him the shrunken bodies of Vanessa & the police man on the seat of Vanessa's sports car. The Doctor, observed by the white clad watcher, tells the police that this is the work of the Master.

And so the end for Tom Baker's Doctor begins. We pick up the themes of entropy & decay that have been there all season the Doctor decides to fix the Tardis Chameleon Circuit:

DOCTOR: Chameleon circuit.
ADRIC: What? Doctor.
DOCTOR: Look, whenever you see me in this part of the Tardis, pacing up and down like this, be a good chap and don't interrupt me, will you, unless it's terribly urgent. It's not terribly urgent, is it?
ADRIC: Well, no.
DOCTOR: Good, so now you'll know in fact there's no need for you to come barging in here at all, but if it is terribly urgent you can always ring the Cloister Bell.
ADRIC: The Cloister Bell?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ADRIC: What's that?
DOCTOR: Well, it's a sort of communications device reserved for wild catastrophes and sudden calls to man the battle stations.
ADRIC: But the Tardis doesn't have battle stations.
DOCTOR: No, no, no, nothing along those lines. I sometimes think I should be running a tighter ship.
ADRIC: A tighter ship?
DOCTOR: Yes. The second law of thermodynamics is taking its toll on the old thing. Entropy increases.
ADRIC: Entropy increases?
DOCTOR: Yes, daily. The more you put things together, the more they keep falling apart, and that's the essence of the second law of thermodynamics and I never heard a truer word spoken. Come on. Come on.
(They sit on a small stone bench.)
DOCTOR: Have you seen the state of the time column recently? Wheezing like a grampus.
ADRIC: But it will get us to Gallifrey, won't it?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey? Oh yes, yes. Are you really set on going to Gallifrey?
ADRIC: Yes.
DOCTOR: Oh.
ADRIC: That is where we're going, isn't it?
DOCTOR: That's one of the questions I was just pondering. There's bound to be an awful lot of fuss about Romana. Why she stayed in E-space, official investigations, that sort of thing.
ADRIC: The Time Lords won't approve?
DOCTOR: What? She has broken the cardinal rule of Gallifrey. She has become involved, and in a pretty permanent sort of way. I think that you and I should let a few oceans flow under a few bridges before we head back home.
ADRIC: So we don't get to go to Gallifrey.
DOCTOR: Yes. Let me put another question to you. I have a place in mind that's on the way, well, more or less, give or take a parsec or two. It's my home from home. It's called Earth.

We've not seen Earth since the opening moments of the season on Brighton Beach in The Leisure Hive, although the insinuation is there that The Doctor and Romana paid it a visit between Meglos and Full Circle to return the Earthling Meglos had possessed home.

ADRIC: Earth's the planet with all the oceans, isn't it?
DOCTOR: That's the chap.
ADRIC: Wet.
DOCTOR: Britain is. That's the one place where we can find these blue boxes.
ADRIC: Tardises?
DOCTOR: Yes, but they're not. No spacious accommodation, no viewer screens. They don't even time travel. Just elementary Earth communications devices, and more or less obsolete by the time we'll be arriving there. There's some in the North that are still in use.
ADRIC: But we've got communications devices.
DOCTOR: But not a police box.
ADRIC: A police box?
DOCTOR: Yes. What the mathematical model of a Tardis exterior is based upon.
ADRIC: I'd like to see Earth, but why go all that way just to look at something that looks like the Tardis?
DOCTOR: Because I want to measure it.
ADRIC: Whatever for?
DOCTOR: Block transfer computation.
ADRIC: I've never heard of that.
DOCTOR: I'm not surprised. Logopolis is a quiet little planet.
ADRIC: Logopolis? But I thought we were going to Earth?
DOCTOR: No, that's the other place. We go to Logopolis afterwards.
ADRIC: You mean we're going to measure Logopolis, too?
DOCTOR: No, no, no. It's all to do with the chameleon circuit problem. We measure the police box on Earth, then we take the measurements afterwards to Logopolis.

All this takes place in the lovely set for the Cloister room, all stone and plants in the centre of the Tardis

So they materialise round a real Police Box and in the process stumble into a trap set by The Master:

DOCTOR: Get back to the Tardis.
ADRIC: But this is the Tardis.
DOCTOR: A Tardis, perhaps.
ADRIC: It looks just like yours.
DOCTOR: Yes, down to the last detail. No, wait, wait. This could be terribly dangerous. You'd better stay with me.

ADRIC: How many more of these are there? It couldn't be an infinite regression, could it?
DOCTOR: I hope not, because if it is, we'll never get out of it.

You do have to wonder how The Master knew they'd materialise round that Police Box at that time!

But at the same time we've got someone stumbling into the Tardis believing it's a real Police Box just like Dodo at the end of the Massacre.

TEGAN: Police telephone, free for use of public. Advice and assistance obtainable immediately. Officers and cars respond to urgent calls. Pull to open..... That's funny. It's very peculiar indeed.

TEGAN: Hello? Anybody there? Well, there must be intelligent life at the end of this lot. Hello? Anybody receiving me? Hello? Come in, anybody. My name's Tegan Jovanka. I'd like to speak to the pilot. Is that the crew in there?

Playing airline hostess Tegan Jovanka is Australian born Janet Fielding. The character was probably designed to attract Australian money for a co-production that failed to materialise. It's not the last time that John Nathan-Turner would create a character with the intent of attracting money or audience from another country..... Tegan's character will give direction to the next year or so by wanting the Doctor to get her home in a manner similar to the original human companions Ian & Barbara.

Playing Tegan's Aunt Vanessa is Delore Whiteman. I've not seen anything else she's been in but her daughters, Tracey & Jodie Wilson appear in Delta & The Bannermen as the band's backing singers.

Playing the the ill fated Policeman with Bike is Ray Knight. He was the UNIT Soldier in the bunker in Robot, a Sorenson Monster in Planet of Evil, a Man in Image of the Fendahl, a Mentiad in Pirate Planet, one of the Pangol Army in The Leisure Hive, and one of Lexa's Deons in Meglos. He returns as a Trion in Planet of Fire, a Guard in Vengeance on Varos, and one of Glitz's Crew in Dragonfire. He appears in Blake's 7 as a Federation Trooper in Countdown, a Rebel in Rumours of Death and a Federation Trooper in Warlord.

The mysterious Watcher is played Adrian Gibbs who was Rysik in Full Circle and returns as a Cricketer in Black Orchid.

Tegan's house is Number 43, Ursula Street, Battersea, London which was at the time the home of Andrew McCulloch, where he and John Flanagan wrote Meglos.

Meanwhile the "Barnet Bypass" is actually the A413 with the initial views of the bridge looking north towards Amersham and the lay by being located on the south bound carriageway roughly where the M25 now crosses it, with the railway bridge visible in the story carrying the train line between Deneham Gold Club & Gerards Cross stations.

I've driven this road many times due to at one point having a girlfriend in Aylesbury (Hello Barbara!) but never realised it was a Doctor Who location until years later when I bought Richard Bignell's Doctor Who on Location.

This location is a very short distance from the field used in Reign of Terror for the very first Doctor Who location filming.

555 The Keeper of Traken: Part Four

EPISODE: The Keeper of Traken: Part Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 555
STORY NUMBER: 115
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 21 February 1981
WRITER: Johnny Byrne
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 6.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - New Beginnings (The Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva)

"So, a new body at last.... A new body at last!"

While Melkur completes his control over the source he orders that the three remaining Consuls, and the Doctor, be confined to their quarters. The Doctor thinks he recognises something about Melkur and Adric, sheltering in the Tardis with Nyssa, realises that Melkur has behaved just like a Tardis. They start creating a device to destroy the source manipulator. Melkur makes Proctor Neman a Consul and dispatches him to Tremas' quarters where he destroys the plans for the source manipulator. He is overcome by the Doctor who steals his Consular ring and with it he & Tremas gain access to the Keeper's chamber and start to override the source. Melkur takes control of Tremas and has him kill Neman who has failed him. The Doctor is summoned into the Keeper's presence and disappears, just as Adric arrives telling Tremas the device to destroy the source has been installed. The Doctor finds himself in the control room of his foe's new vessel and confronted by the decrepit and decayed form of his old enemy The Master!

The Master intends to drain the Doctor's knowledge and then take the Doctor's body to replace his which has exhausted it's regenerations. His hold over the Doctor is broken when Adric & Nyssa's device disrupts the source, causing explosions and a fire to break out. The Doctor dives through a panel window and finds himself back in the Keeper's chamber where Adric completes the sequence expelling Melkur from the source. Consul Luvic reluctantly takes up the post of Keeper, Tremas arriving just too late to take up the post which was meant for him. The Doctor & Adric take their leave as Nyssa goes to tidy the mess the Fosters made of their quarters.

Tremas intends to follow but his eye is caught by a Grandfather clock, out of place in the Traken corridors. He goes to examine it and finds himself immobilised.

Out of the clock, his real Tardis disguised, steps the Master who takes over Tremas' form, turning it into a younger version of himself before leaving in his Tardis as a bewildered Nyssa seeks her missing Father.....

Oh that's fab.

I had no idea who The Master was wtching this for the first time. The first episodes I'd seen were in 1978 and it had been two years earlier that the Master had last appeared in The Deadly Assassin and it was four & half years before that, before I was even born, that the original Master Roger Delgado was last seen.

But the story doesn't rely on you knowing who the Master is, it's obvious from what you've seen in the previous episodes that he's a nasty piece of work all of which is confirmed in the closing minutes as he seizes Tremas' body as his own, having failed to take possession of The Doctor's earlier in the episode.

So where was Tremas in the closing moments of the struggle that prevented him from becoming Keeper? Is he was in the room bellow disconnecting Adric & Nyssa's device and ensuring the continued survival of the source? It's not 100% clear what's going on there.

What is clear is that Melkur *ISN'T* the Master's Tardis. It certainly is *A* Tardis, the noises it makes on dematerialisation and rematerialisation are a bit of a give away there as are the roundelled walls.

The Master refers to it as his new vessel at one point:

MASTER: Well, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Of course, the Master.
MASTER: Welcome to my new ship.
DOCTOR: I used to know an ancient remedy for mad dogs. I must look it up some time. Good library here, have you?
MASTER: Unfortunately for you, you will not be using it. This whole domain is now keyed to my biological rhythms. If you move a muscle, you will be destroyed.

My guess is that Melkur is the Tardis belonging to Chancellor Goth, the Master's Time Lord ally in Deadly Assassin, that the Master has purloined.

The Master's Tardis is the Grandfather Clock we see at the end, which was the form it occupied at the end of The Deadly Assassin and can also be seen in towards the rear of Melkur's control room.

There's a very nice little touch with the Master's grandfather clock at the end: it's four minutes to midnight. Initially I saw that and thought of The Doomsday Clock (prominently featured in Watchmen), which would make this a joke at the season 19 story Four to Doomsday. But what I believe it's referring to is that there's four episodes to go before the end for Tom Baker's Doctor. Very nice & subtle touch.

Keeper of Traken obviously sands out in the memory as "The one that brought the Master back". But up until that it's been a decent and very solid piece of Doctor Who with the sets & the costumes setting it aside from the usual fare in the same way the video effects did for Warriors' Gate. Two very different stories but each in their own way set new high standards for the series.

Keeper of Traken was repeated from 10th to 13th August 1981, the week following Full Circle's repeat completing the now traditional two story repeat season. However, as we shall see in a few days time, these weren't the only stories from this season repeated.... Keeper of Traken was novelised by Terrance Dicks in 1982. It was released on video in June 1993 and as part of the Doctor Who - New Beginnings Boxset on 29th January 2007 with the two following stories Logopolis & Castrovalva.

Doctor Who Season 18, including Keeper of Traken, was released on Blu-Ray on 18th March 2019.

As hinted at above there's just four more Fourth Doctor episodes to go. Join us next week as we start Logopolis!

554 The Keeper of Traken: Part Three

EPISODE: The Keeper of Traken: Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 554
STORY NUMBER: 115
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 14 February 1981
WRITER: Johnny Byrne
DIRECTOR: John Black
SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 5.2 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - New Beginnings (The Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva)

"It's too late, Doctor. The Source is mine! And soon, very soon, you will feel its power. Now this Traken web of harmony is broken. I am free!"

Kassia has the Doctor, Tremas & Adric locked up. Melkur commands her to engineer her own succession as Keeper. Nyssa helps her father & his friends escape and they return to Tremas' quarters seeking the plans for the source manipulator, suspecting Kassia will attempt to gain control of it and seeking a way to stop her. The old Keeper dies and Kassia is summoned to the chamber as chaos breaks out over Traken. The Doctor and his friends attempt to return to the Tardis but are once again confronted by Melkur who dematerialises from the Grove. As Kassia ascends to the Keeper's throne the Doctor & Tremas attempt to stop her but Katura completes the transition granting her mastery of the source. But Kassia starts to scream as her body vanishes and then a familiar noise is heard as Melkur materialises on the throne.......

Seven year old me watching this: uggh, who is that inside of Melkur, he doesn't look that nice does he? What I didn't spot then was, in the same pull back shot, the roundeled walls behind the figure. Or notice the significance of the noise as Melkur vanished and reappeared again. I didn't know who it was in control of the Melkur. But elsewhere across the land fanboys everywhere were going wild at the return of one of their favourite villains....

Credited as Melkur through the first three episodes is Geoffrey Beevers, bbut actually he's only providing Melkur's voice and it's only now we see him for the first time as the villain within the statue whose identity remains unrevealed and we shall not spoil for those who have not seen the story who should be buying it right now. He previously appeared in Doctor Who as Private Johnson in Ambassadors of Death and is the husband of Caroline John, companion Liz Shaw. Away from Doctor Who you can see him in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as Number Three in episode 6, A Very Peculiar Practice as Sodd in Catastrophe Theory, Yes Prime Minister as the Arts Minister in The Patron of the Arts, Inspector Morse as Peter Foster in Deceived by Flight, Jonathan Creek as Neville Spivey in Jack in the Box and Red Dwarf as the Doctor in Back in the Red: Part 2. You can hear him interviewed by Toby Hadoke in Who's Round 151.

Within the Melkur costume and, in my opinion, harshly uncredited is young actor Graham Cole who would later go on to find fame as PC Tony Stamp in The Bill. This isn't his first Doctor Who appearance, he was previously in The Leisure Hive as a Zero Gravity Squash Player, Full Circle as a Marshman and would have been in Shada as a young Think Tank Scientist He'll return in Kinda as a Kinda tribesman (there's two other Bill cast members in that one!), Earthshock as a Cyberman, Time-Flight as Melkur, The Five Doctors as a Cyberman, Resurrection of the Daleks as a Crewmember and The Twin Dilemma as a Jacondan. Over the years Doctor Who has credited actors inside Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Silurians, Yeti and Alpha Centauri who don't speak their lines. Melkur is a central part of the story and his performance is crucial so I think it's rather off that he's not credited here or, as it turns out, in any of his other roles! He was also in Blake's 7 as one of Gerren's Associates in Games and a Federation Trooper in Blake.

The episode has a bit of a slow start, with a legthy reprise, and it's 2:20 before we get anything new.

With Tremas disgraced and imprisoned the remaining consuls have a dilemna

KATURA: And the Keeper?
KASSIA: It is our duty to propose a new successor. Tremas has forfeited his right.
KATURA: Seron is dead.
LUVIC: Then it's got to be one of us.
KATURA: Well, we shall have to decide the issue formally.
KASSIA: But later.

Melkur however is very clear as to who he wants as Keeper:

KASSIA: All is as you predicted, Melkur. Seron is dead, Tremas is in disgrace. He cannot become Keeper now. You've saved him.
MELKUR: And he may continue to live if you continue to obey.
KASSIA: What? Can there be more to be done?
MELKUR: Oh yes, my servant. Much more. The Doctor, he is a great and cunning enemy. While he lives, the cause of Melkur is in doubt.
KASSIA: The Doctor and his young friend.
MELKUR: With them you must finish the job you have begun. And one more thing. You have interfered with the succession. Order must be restored.
KASSIA: A successor is to be chosen.
MELKUR: Will this successor serve us as you do?
KASSIA: I do not know.
MELKUR: But we must know, Kassia. These things must be ensured. I can think of no better Keeper than yourself.
KASSIA: No!

Kassia's primamry motivation has seemingly been to stay with her husband Tremas. She didn't wnt him separated from her as Keeper and now her ally wants her to assume the position of power, sundered from who she loves.

KASSIA: Consuls of Traken. Recent events have proved that a great evil threatens our Traken Union. It is our clear duty to unite and strive to defeat it. Are we agreed?
KATURA: Yes, Kassia. We're all proud of our liberal tradition, but this superstitious mania, this cult of Melkur, is growing.
KASSIA: Fostered by my husband and the strangers.
LUVIC: It must be stopped.
KASSIA: It will, Consuls, but only if we demonstrate our intention to oppose it. And to do that, we need a Keeper Nominate who will not shirk what must be done.
KATURA: That's certainly true, but I'm far too old and, Luvic.
LUVIC: Oh, I do not have such greatness in me.
KATURA: So there's no great dilemma about the choice.

KATURA: So be it. Consul Kassia, we appoint you Keeper Nominate. Do you accept or reject?
KASSIA: I accept.

Once again we question Melkur's plan in the previous episode. If the intention was to have Tremas enter rapport, then there must have been severe doubt as to if Kassia would have killed him, as she did Seron. As it is her first act as Keeper Nominate is too spare her husbnd's life!

LUVIC: First, the matter of Tremas and the strangers. Kassia?
KASSIA: The strangers must die. Tremas will be of use.
LUVIC: Yes, his contribution to the state has been outstanding.
KASSIA: Their deaths will serve to deter others.
KATURA: Yes. Sadly we must show that our intentions are firm.
LUVIC: Sadly.

But if Tremas had been disposed of in episode two, surely Seron would have been the best of the remaining candidates for the Keepership? So actually that bump in the plan may have worked out better for Melkur!

Of course having thrown the Doctor in the cell he now escapes, with a little help from Nyssa, throwing more spanners into the works for Melkur. This appears to be the moment where he completely breaks Kassia using the collar device he gave her last episode:

MELKUR: I'm disappointed, Kassia. You have failed me.
KASSIA: We will find them. The court is sealed. They cannot escape.
MELKUR: I warned you about the Doctor but you chose to ignore me. Now you suffer!

MELKUR: Rise, Consul. Were you not necessary to our purpose, you would die. KASSIA: Tell me what I should do, Melkur.
MELKUR: First, the Doctor. It is clear now he must be destroyed.
KASSIA: I shall not rest till it is done.
MELKUR: Time presses, Consul. The power of the Keeper is almost ours. Only the Doctor can destroy all that we have planned. He must be found. Must, you hear?

However the Doctor remains free and despite making it to the Keeper's Sanctum in the nick of time he is unable to prevent the tragedy that unfolds:

KATURA: By this act, Kassia, you are physically confirmed as Keeper. Prepare for access to the Source. May you bring peace and blessing for all your time, Keeper.
DOCTOR: Consul, don't do it!
KATURA: You again!
LUVIC: Fosters, these traitors have no business here.
DOCTOR: Consul Kassia has betrayed you all. Don't complete the transition.
KASSIA: Do your duty, Katura. Complete transition!
DOCTOR: Don't listen to her, Consul.
KASSIA: Complete transition!
TREMAS: No, Katura!
KATURA: Transition complete. You now have access to the Source, Keeper.

LUVIC: The Keeper!
TREMAS: We warned you, Consuls.

DOCTOR: It's too late, Tremas. Far too late.

The Doctor is a bit trigger happy with the ion bonder he takes off Nyssa isn't he? He's stunning Fosters with it left, right and centre almost as if this story was written for K-9 being there doing the job. It's Nyssa who gives him the Ion bonder, having taken a couple of pot shots first herself, and between Nyssa & the Ion Bonder that's K-9's plot functions covered!

The writer of this story, Johnny Byrne, was new to Doctor Who but had made a large contribution to the first year or so of Space 1999. He'd script edited All Creatures Great & Small, a series which new Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner had been a Production Unit Manager on (several other Who personnel have connections with the series as we'll see shortly). Nathan-Turner had offered him the Doctor Who script editor's position only for Byrne to turn it down but indicate he would like to write for the series.

The director of this series, John Black, is someone I know very little about. He has one more Doctor Who tale to his name and bar a few IMDB credits there doesn't seem to be a lot known about him.