Review: Doctor Who Classic: Logopolis

Hang on in there, Tom!

Doctor Who, Season 18, Story Seven - 
Logopolis

Tom Baker, in his record seven years on the program, came to become the audience favourite and define the series around the world. With 42 serials, 9 companions and 3 producers, Baker's long reign as The Doctor put his image and noteworthy voice into the hearts and minds of the British people and culture. It should be expected, then, that the final serial in his long tenure would act as a fantastic send-off and a tribute to his seven years. Well. Not if Christopher Hamilton Bidmead was on the scene.
     Chris H Bidmead, hereafter CHB, was the head writer during Season 18. A writer of of scientific journals, it was his decision to transform the show into something he deemed more serious. Logopolis is an example of this, unfortunately, and while it suffers from many other problems (of which I will get to) the main fault, in my eyes, is the staunch and often quite frankly dull tone this story takes. Hard science shouldn't have to be boring, but the way that CHB takes it and tries to mix it with the lightheaded scifi-fantasy of Who makes this story a bit of a let down. Not that I don't like Bidmead, of course - I think he's a nice guy with a penchent for science, but I'm disappointed by what he did here.

      Another reason why the serial has some issues is JNT’s masterplan for the end of Tom’s tenure. To offset the public despair at the loss of “their” Doctor, and to help viewers of the program who’d grown up watching him, JNT created a team of new characters (Adric, Nyssa and Tegan) and really foreshadowed the Doctor’s death. This leaves little room for everything else, as well as striking the episode in much the wrong direction. For example – a lot of the first episode is taken up with a very clumsy introduction for Tegan, who simply wanders into the TARDIS, which happened to materialise on the same spot as a real Police Box. Even Chris Bidmead himself says on the commentary that her scenes don’t really go anywhere or contribute anything to the bigger story. Furthermore, there's little actual reason for Tegan to want to travel with The Doctor at all - despite being effectively (albeit accidentally) kidnapped, she seems to get used to the ordeal in an unrealistic amount of time.

"In some ways have the same mind."

     Into the story. The Doctor and Adric are sat in a more rundown part of the TARDIS, discussing such topics as Entropy, why they can’t return to Gallifrey and, principally, The Doctor’s desire to fix the chameleon circuit. We introduce Tegan, an Australian flight attendant being driven to her first day at the airport by her aunt. They end up with a flat tire on a motorway lay-by, where the police box has been copied-over by the Master’s TARDIS. The Doctor is planning to do the same and take the measurements of a police box to a planet named Logopolis. They arrive, and discover a series of recursive TARDISes inside The Doctor’s. Meanwhile, Tegan wanders in and gets lost in the more rundown room, and The Doctor is arrested as we see that Tegan’s aunt has been shrunk, a la The Master’s method of killing, and The Doctor identifies it as such.
     The first episode is mainly composed of slow-moving segments of Tegan fixing her car, which really slow down the episode, and Adric and The Doctor talking in thick scientific jargon (courtesy of CHB). The soundtrack is carried over from the last episode, and is still as chilling and potent as it was there. Not at all chilling or potent is the cliffhanger, especially for the so called “new fans” that they were trying to attract.

     Adric creates a diversion to help The Doctor escape the police by doing what he does best - moaning. They get away and inside the Tardis notice that The Master's Tardis has gone. They try to escape but don't have enough power, so they burn up Romana's room as fuel using one of the Tardis' functions. The police here are pretty much dull, apart from their closing line upon discovering an empty, normal-sized policebox. Tegan finds herself in the run-down room, where The Master's Tardis lands. The Doctor receives a message from Traken, explaining that The Master had taken Tremas' body. They come up with a rather infamous idea to flood the Tardis by materialising underwater, "flushing out" the Master. 

Tegan and her Aunt

     Pardon? The Tardis, which has a more or less infinite interior mass, would not be "flushed out" by the River Thames as The Doctor attempts. Even if the water could have filled the Tardis interior, what then? The Master is safe and sound in his Tardis, there'd be no way of getting the water out as neither The Doctor nor Adric have gills. Even Bidmead admits that it was a silly idea, as before. Anyway, the plan doesn't work, mainly because The Doctor materialises on a boat rather than on the riverbed. Tegan goes wandering around, looking for "the pilot," and ends up in the same room again.
     Eventually she stumbles upon the Console Room just as they materialise on Logopolis, a planet where the people value mathematical computations and don't use computers - until recently. They've installed a large telescope like the Pharos Telescope on Earth and also have a shiny new computer. Logopolis is run entirely by lots of old men calculating things with abacusses and passing numbers along. The Moniter, a Noel Edmonds lookalike, assists The Doctor in his needs. Tegan recovers from the shock of landing on another planet ridiculously quickly.
     The Master, however, is keen on ballsing everything up. He kills one of the little old men. This buggers up the Doctor's plans royally, and his TARDIS shrinks with him inside in another limp cliffhanger. Also, Nyssa appears out of nowwhere with a handwave explanation. Oh joy.

The Moniter

     Like a scene out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the tiny TARDIS is taken through the streets. The Master appears and cackles randomly. Inside, Four is having a drugs-trip. The Moniter tells Adric to check all the computations. Along the way, he explains that computers can't be used because Logopolis' mathematics somehow change the real world and thus need living people. They track the errors down to a section of the street where the old men have been turned into dolls by The Master. Nyssa and Adric head off to look for The Master on the streets of Logopolis. The Doctor rambles.
     Adric thinks The Watcher is The Master. Nyssa is pulled aside by the real Master, who of course looks identical to her father Tremas (apart from the evil laugh and the penchent for black). He gives Nyssa a brainwash-brooch. The Doctor is shocked to hear about The Master as he escapes (now fully sized). Nyssa is brainwashed. Surprise surprise. The Master brainwashes all of the Logopolitians and outside the world becomes silent. The Master threatens the Moniter with the destruction of the Universe. He and The Doctor banter. Brainwashed!Nyssa strangles Adric to demonstrate The Master's power. 
     The Master attempts to restart Logopolis using Brainwashing but he's now started "Entropy". The world begins to collapse and a "wave" of Entropy spreads across the Universe. This includes destroying the brainwash brooch. It turns out that they've been "channelling Entropy into other universes." I'm sorry, but that's not how Entropy works. It's not a thing, it's a process of energy. Regardless, The Master and The Doctor band together to save the universe as a cliffhanger. 

Tegan wanders the TARDIS

     Tegan stays on Logopolis as The Doctor and The Master look for The Moniter. They look at some information about something or other. The two "The"s talk technobabble while The Moniter dies... "of entropy". The Master is knocked out by falling rocks as The Doctor talks inpenetrable technobabble. They get to the Master and free him, and they head towards the Pharos project. The Watcher is flying the TARDIS outside of space and time and they arrive at the Pharos project as well. 
     The Watcher chats to Adric out of scene as the Thes babble more. From the TARDIS they can see the entire universe, with Earth visible at scale (The Physics Proffessor is Crying Again!!) Traken has been entropy'd, which Nyssa finds upseting for five seconds. Escaping some guards, the Thes climb up the Pharos telescope (an obvious Jodrell Bank photofit). The Doctor has to connect a cable together to make sure that the "Entropy" escapes our Universe but The Master uses the Project to hold the remaining Universe to ransom. To stop The Master, Four must crawl out across a walkway and connect a cable. He does so, but at the cost of having to hang onto the telescope for dear life. He falls. The audience cries. We get a quick montage of his enemies and friends as Tom Baker is replaced by the white-faced Peter Davison.
     The review took a month to complete. Not to write, but to gather the willpower necessary to sit down and watch more of this serial when I could be doing better things. The number of definite articles alone is enough to irritate me. Unlike Traken, where our setting and main characters are introduced within the first ten minutes or so, the themes are clear early on and the plot has some oomph, here we bugger about for the first half before rushed running through heaps of technobabble. The first time I watched this I had absolutely no clue what was going on.

The Thes run to the Pharos telescope.

     Nyssa's appearance feels incredibly forced and contrived, while Tegan's less-than-endearing entrance and ridiculously quick acceptance of the matter made things all the more ridiculous. The Master, despite being the story's driving force, felt like he didn't deserve to be there at all. The entire concept of leaking Entropy as if it were a liquid is so against anything scientific that it's a wonder that it didn't blacken Bidmead's career in scientific journalism. For once Adric is the only character in this story (besides Four) whose presence feels at all warranted. 
     Tom Baker isn't my favourite Doctor, I'll say it now. I much prefer the camp satire of the later 80s and the ultra-serious Season 18 doesn't feel right. But he is excellent when he needs to be, and is perhaps one of the most varied and well characterised of the Doctors - not hard to understand, considering the length of his tenure. Tom, for those seven years, was the Doctor - their personalities were identical, and this incarnation grew along with him. He didn't deserve such a badly-written story to end on, and it's a damn shame that he didn't get the send off that he, the most prolific Doctor in the show's history, deserved.


Thanks.


P.S. This is very, very late, I know. This story was so dull and so longwinded that I kept postponing it for other things. Also, this is my 300th post! Hurrah.