The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: Logopolis
Logopolis: Part One (28/02/21)
The final story of the season (and Tom's last story!) and it seems we have a new companion (just like in the 60s with Steven and Polly and Ben and Victoria and Zoe). She's an Australian whose Aunt was taking her to start her job as an Air Stewardess, but the battered old sports car they were in got a flat tyre and they pulled into a layby.
It just so happens that it's the same layby with a Police Box that the Doctor chose to land the TARDIS in - he's going to measure one so he can give the measurements to some mathematicians on a planet called Logopolis so they can fix the Chameleon Circuit...somehow. It's also the same layby where the Master landed his TARDIS over the Police Box, so the Doctor landed his TARDIS over the Master's TARDIS and created a 'Gravity Bubble'. Somehow, this all seems very contrived.
The cliffhanger was a bit rubbish, too. Leaving the Gravity Bubble by the TARDIS's back door (it appeared) the Doctor was met for a VERY wooden conversation with a Police Inspector who showed him the shrunken corpses of Aunt Vanessa and a policeman, both killed by the Master. This was all very well, but a bit confusing (I imagine) if you'd never seen 'Terror Of The Autons', and very stupid as it asked us to believe a couple of policemen would think a couple of doll-like figures on the front seat of a car were shrunken corpses and not just dolls.
On the plus side, the episode was very atmospheric. We saw a new area of the TARDIS - all pillars and ivy - and when Tegan wandered in she spent quite a while running down TARDIS corridors. She seemed to take wandering into the TARDIS in her stride, though. I guess we'll see how she turns out.
Romana and K9 were mentioned again (we also saw Romana's room) and the Doctor definitely isn't going back to Gallifrey yet (sadly). And continuing on from the last story, there were an awful lots of scenes full of people (well, the Doctor and Adric) standing around spouting technobabble which, whilst they bounce off each other rather well, was also incredibly boring.
I liked the Gravity Bubble nonsense - stuck on the same TARDIS set progressively lit darker and darker was very 'Sapphire & Steel' - and it's all being watched by a mysterious white figure in a field. But on the whole, this felt like more style over substance but with atmosphere instead of style. Overall, not very much happened, which isn't a particularly promising start!
Logopolis: Part Two (07/03/21)
So, this series is ending as it began - on a desert planet inhabited by robed aliens with funny-shaped heads! I don't think there's been a story or an episode so mixed in a very long time. There was much to like about it; the Doctor and Adric work incredibly well together, especially in their TARDIS-bound scenes. The model shots of Logopolis and the sets for the planet are really very good, and Tegan is okay so far, even if she did spend most of the episode on her own in the Cloisters. Her meeting with the Doctor and Adric was a genuine laugh-out-loud moment, but there was more about the episode which was laughable in a less positive sense.
To say this episode (even story, so far) was immensely padded is an understatement. The opening scenes with the Doctor being arrested for putting dolls in a sports car were, frankly, fucking awful. Stilted acting from all involved and dire scripting. Then there was the random plan to materialise the TARDIS in the Thames and flush the Master out. This filled up five minutes while the Doctor went for a chat with the figure that had been watching Tegan and her aunt, but all amounted to nothing.
By this point, with the Doctor and Adric heading to Logopolis, more than half the episode was over and, frankly, nothing interesting had happened. Tom seemed to be enjoying his scenes with John Fraser's Monitor (leader of Logopolis), but they just spouted more technobabble in the hope of making everything sound very clever. Bidmead seems obsessed with appearing clever and, ultimately, ends up proving the opposite if this episode is anything to go by. I assume his script editing is what made 'The Keeper Of Traken' such a chore!
I have to admit Tegan's well written, though; a character who, like me, just wishes everyone would just get on with it. The Master's shape-changing TARDIS seems as useless as the Doctor's - first disguised as a bush, none of which grow on Logopolis, then as a Doric column which the planet is equally devoid of! Then, just before the jeopardy-free cliffhanger (the TARDIS shrank), Nyssa arrived in a scene seemingly stolen from a Pantomime script. She just walked on SL and mentioned the Doctor's friend brought her there. I assume it was the white figure as I doubt she'd fail to recognise her father, rejuvenated body or not.
I honestly don't know what I've just watched! It really did feel like a load of old rubbish desperately scrabbling to be clever and entertaining. Poor Tom!
Logopolis: Part Three (14/03/21)
I can see what they're trying to do with this story, what with the Master's actions leading to the entire universe being threatened - I mean, what's more dramatic than that? - but this episode was, in all honesty, really rather boring, and I do wish they'd follow the rule of show don't tell. I know that's not easy on a tight budget, but having the cast endlessly waffle about computers and entropy is far from gripping stuff. Regardless of the fate of the universe being at stake, unlike the swan songs of Troughton and Pertwee, this feels startlingly jeopardy-free.
Okay, let's focus on the positives. Whilst Nyssa turning up felt immensely contrived last week, I liked the way the Master used her, and the fact that he's basically walking around in a rejuvenated corpse is quite grotesque. Her reaction when the Doctor told her this could have been better, but she's an alien and part of her planet's elite so I guess it's the whole 'stiff upper lip' thing. In comparison, Tegan learning that the Master killed her aunt was well played and she's turning into quite a nice, forthright character.
It looked like Adric might get something interesting to do what with all the maths flying around, but instead he just ended up reading numbers and letters off a sheet (in English, because the Doctor taught him - er, when???).
Oh, who am I kidding? This was all very drab. The music is nicely funerary, but the 'science' doesn't make sense. How were the Logopolitans able to carry the TARDIS? What is all this rubbish about altering reality with maths? How am I meant to care about any of this when it's all so dry and dusty? The Doctor and Master teaming up at the cliffhanger was meant to be a 'Big Thing' but they've done it loads of times in the past. With only one episode left of Tom's era there'd better be a big, heroic gesture at the end and not just a bunch of dull waffle about computers and maths!
Logopolis: Part Four (21/03/21)
So, that's it then. Tom has finally left the show. He was actually very good this week, clearly giving it his all for his final episode, even if the script does feel to be inferior to what he deserved. Don't get me wrong; I've never really liked his take on the Doctor. He was often very good in the role, making the Time Lord occasionally very alien and strange, but more of the time he came across as not actually inhabiting the role and just being himself, and if he didn't like a script of a production then it became all too obvious as he phoned it in. The changes behind the scenes this season clearly didn't sit well with him (I assume leading to his departure), especially after (his now wife) Lalla Ward left. And he's clearly been ill. But this wasn't really the grand finale he should have had. On paper it sounds great - penultimate story brings back Arch Nemesis, final story sees him save the entire universe from Arch Nemesis. However, in realisation it was all a bit, well... underwhelming.
All except Tom's performance. That and the music. I think Paddy Kingsland's heavy, funereal score was perfect for the story. It's just a shame that the script was so bad. Given that Barry Letts was Executive Producer, and that he made Jon Pertwee's swan song so powerful and appropriate, I'm surprised incumbent Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead was given the task of penning Tom's last adventure. Does he have a background in scriptwriting? It certainly didn't feel like it! Far too much technobabble and rather silly and illogical set pieces replaced any heart to this story. Even the destruction of Nyssa's home planet and constellation (seems like she's going to be a companion) felt more an observation than an horrific catastrophe. I don't entirely follow why she's been brought back, either, as she and Adric did absolutely fuck all apart from watch the Entropy Field destroy parts of the universe and distract the guards at the Pharos Project.
And whilst I'm on that subject, what terrible directing on those scenes! Are we meant to believe that the security guards travel around in threes, just standing around in the hope that something will happen? I guess they got lucky today, but it would have made much more sense if we'd only seen one to begin with then the other two had turned up when the one with the line had called the alarm!
And then there was Tom's very stagey final scene. It would have looked a lot better on location, but even then it just felt a bit Panto. I rather liked the montage of past enemies and companions, but come on, this is TV not Theatre! If you're going to film Tom laying on some Astroturf at least make it dramatic! And that leads me to his actual demise - I feel we were left on a cliffhanger here (which is one of the few good things about Bidmead's script) since it really wasn't clear what was going on. Logopolis was keeping Entropy at bay. Entropy destroys the universe. Logopolis was destroyed by the Master, so Entropy began destroying the universe. The only way to stop it was to open a CVE as the Monitor had using his programme. So far, so good. So the Doctor and the Master join forces, go to the Pharos Project and do this. But then the Master decides to hold the universe to ransom? There was talk of repeat pulses fucking everything up, but had the programme worked or was it still working when the Doctor pulled the plug? And if it had worked, what could the Master do to change that? No explanation was given and the events we witnessed as viewers were vague at best.
I've already written twice as much as I usually do, but it's Tom's last story and he frankly deserves the extra time and deserved much better than this twaddle! This story has been, frankly, depressing, and not because of Tom leaving the show. I'm sure Bidmead had the best intentions but this story was piss-poor, and Tom Baker deserved a much better story to go out on. I know I've been wishing he'd leave for a while now, but I actually think if he'd left at the end of Season 17 Douglas Adams would have given him a much better exit.
The series has changed. A couple of months ago I believed for the better, but now I'm not so sure.
I agree that this is a letdown of a story, not only as an end to an era, but simply as a story in itself and as an end to the season, which has some otherwise well seeded ideas running through it. The plot is as dry and as thin as a wafer and, like you say, full of holes at that - maybe entropy was nibbling away at it as C. Hamilton Bidmead was penning it? The music and the atmosphere work in its favour, and like The Keeper of Traken, this story shows that Adric and the Fourth Doctor worked well together on their own. But everything else is much more miss than hit. Anthony Ainley and John Fraser (in particular) put in good turns, but I'm not as enamoured of Tegan/Janet Fielding at this point as you were.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, a very frustrating story for having so much potential and mostly squandering it.
I very much agree with you. Incidentally, I think Tegan has much potential in this story but found her quite stupid and annoying in the final episode, and Janet Fielding's performance isn't exactly world class - I'd rate both Sarah and Matthew above her in the final episode (apart from Matthew's inability to pronounce the word 'want'). However, she actually did so little (not as little as Adric and Nyssa, mind) that I didn't even mention her in my summary! It's not a great start for Tegan, not a great return for Nyssa and not a great departure for the Doctor but, as you say, Anthony Ainley performs rather well as the Master. It's a shame it would be 8 more years before he was given anything remotely worthwhile to work with!
DeleteWatching tonight's episode, regardless of the fact that I haven't exactly enjoyed Tom Baker's time as the Doctor, has left me rather depressed, and having to copy four entries in my journal which are so very negative has been incredibly draining. I don't like being negative, especially about Doctor Who, but the last few weeks have been something of a joyless chore. In the morning I intend to post links to the above on other FB pages but I do fear that many won't like my take on Baker's swan song. I'm aware that many love the story (though I can't see why). Nevertheless, I can't be dishonest about what I think of the story, especially having now watched it in context with the rest of the series. I'd hoped that my opinion would improve, as it has over many, many previous stories. Unfortunately, this is one of the few occasions when my opinion has gone down.