Okay,
I’m trying this again. Doing actual recaps of Doctor
Who was making me miserable and
nobody was reading them anyway. Let’s see if I can find another,
more Troublemaker way to do this. This is the same old intro, though
because I like it.
Welcome to Phantom
Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who
podcast, which I co-host. There I am known as “Dave” because
“Phantom Troublemaker” takes up too much room on the stationary.
Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things
Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.
For the first year
we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An Unearthly
Child and wrapping up the current regenerations with The
Eleventh Hour, we’ll be covering the first and last stories of
each of the first eleven Doctors.
A freshly
regenerated Doctor helped the Brigadier and UNIT stop a bunch of
science loonies from blowing up the world. Also, a robot that was
being used by the evil organization became a giant, King Kong-like
menace when the Brigadier shot it with a disintegrator gun. It then
kidnapped Sarah Jane Smith and stomped a town apart. Only the
Doctor’s bucket of pink glop could stop it’s mechanical rampage
of betrayal.
Since then the
Doctor has had many more adventures and companions, among them a
savage warrior woman, a robot dog, and a female Time Lord. Er, Lady.
Whatever.
He now travels
with a young mathematical genius named Adric. The Doctor took him on
as a protégé of sorts during a brief side trip to E-Space. Upon
their return to Normal Space, the Doctor was summoned to the planet
Traken by the Keeper (of Traken). There he and Adric foiled a
villainous plot to take over the universe with the help of a young
girl named Nyssa. Over the course of events it was revealed that the
Doctor’s long time nemesis, the Master, was behind the nefarious
scheme. Unbeknownst to any, after he was defeated the Master
possessed the body of Nyssa’s father, Tremas – a kind scientist
who had helped the Doctor during his Traken adventure…
This one opens up
with some British cop checking out a phone box. Not the Doctor’s
phone box, as is evidenced when a mysterious evil laugh yanks the
police officer inside and makes him disappear. Now that I think about
it, the cop might have been Australian. Tegan Jovanka – owner of
the worst companion name ever, even over Peptobismolterrygilliam
Brown - is from Australia. I’m not totally clear on where the
Earth portions of this one take place, and that’s just the
beginning of things that Logopolis isn’t clear about. But
hang in there because we’ve got a lot of stupid
story to cover.
Next we cut to the
TARDIS control room where the Doctor and Adric are quite frankly
being giant asses to one another. I don’t hate Adric like everybody
else does, but he does seem to have his whine turned up to nine. Is
it just me or does Adric look like a human Playmobil figure?:
The Doctor isn’t
helping matters any, as everything he says comes out as yelling.
Well, yelling or muttering. He seems to have no in between. But to be
fair, the Time Lord is totally irritated that his faithful
time-and-space traveling vehicle is stuck as a blue police box when
if its Chameleon Circuit were functional it could also be awesome
things like a Vector graphics pyramid. Oh, how the Doctor longs to be
flitting about space and time in a giant pyramid like his favorite
band, the KLF. He decides he’s had enough of this police box
garbage and tells Adric they’re going to the only place where the
Chameleon Circuit can be fixed.
“Gallifrey?”
says the young lad hopefully, not realizing that the Doctor is going
to receive severe spankings if he returns to his home planet.
The Doctor informs
him that Gallifrey is not their destination. Instead they’ll be
going to the math planet, Logopolis. If that doesn’t set your
adventure pants on fire, I don’t know what will. Can you imagine
the pitch for this one?
“Right, guvna –
if you’ll just hand me that plate of tea and crumpets I’ll tell
you about the Doctor’s exciting visit to… the planet of
mathematics!”
“Um, well – can
the inhabitants have hideous, off-putting heads? You know how the
Beeb likes that. Also, we’re killing Tom Baker.”
“Ooh – he’s
awfully popular. You think people might notice he’s gone?”
“What? No – his
character! The Doctor! We’re getting a new Doctor.”
“Oh. Well.
Of course. Ha, ha. Why would anybody want to kill Tom Baker! He’s
not a complete prat or anything. Ha!”
“Bob’s your
uncle!”
“Bumbershoot!”
Anyway, only the
Logopolitans can use block transfer computation and only block
transfer computation can fix the Chameleon Circuit. Thrilling.
But before the
Doctor and Adric can go to Logopolis, they have to acquire accurate
measurements for a real police box. In twenty-seven dimensions. Then
the TARDIS Cloister Bell begins to ring. The Doctor explains to Adric
that the Cloister Bell alarms when catastrophe is imminent and then
says something about entropy. He seems more irritated than alarmed by
the Cloister Bell and sets the TARDIS on a course for Earth.
Meanwhile, in
Australia or England or whatever, Flight Attendant Tegan Jovanka is
at her Aunt Vanessa’s home getting ready for her first flight. The
two load into Aunt Vanessa’ car, which won’t start. Tegan
demonstrates her spunky, 80’s girl independence by getting the car
to start and the two go on their way. Unfortunately, spunky, 80’s
girl independence only gets you so far and the car breaks down beside
that same police box from before. The evil, laughing one; not the one
with the math enthusiasts inside.
Except that it is
the Doctor’s TARDIS because he materialized it around the other
police box so he and Adric could get those measurements. The two are
using this really neat ladder thing and crawling all over the other
police box when one of them realizes something is amiss. See, they
haven’t materialized around a regular police box, this is the evil,
laughing police box. Only it isn’t really an evil, laughing
police box – it’s another TARDIS! Which they discover when they
enter the evil, laughing police box. The Doctor explains that they
are some kind of time loop and as they keep entering TARDIS after
TARDIS – which I found to be a terrible idea – they just fine
more TARDISes; each more poorly lit than the last.
While all of this
is going on, Tegan has somehow wandered into the regular TARDIS. It’s
one of those things that you kind of have to attribute to the TARDIS’
quirky sentience, because obviously folks shouldn’t just be able to
wander in through the front door whenever they want. She’s amazed
by what she finds inside and rather than going out to fetch her aunt
walks further into the TARDIS interior.
At which time the
evil, laughing TARDIS dematerializes and then rematerializes outside.
Aunt Vanessa goes to investigate and evil laughter signifies she’s
pretty much screwed.
And then the Doctor
just sort of pops out of the back of his TARDIS. I did not know the
TARDIS had a back door. He peeks around the corner and sees a bunch
of cops around a broken-down car. The cops see him and strongly
recommend that he steps over to have a word.
This next part was
the first part where I really had to pause and think about what was
going on. See, the cops show the Doctor these two shrunken people
sitting in the car. One is Aunt Vanessa and the other one is that cop
from earlier. Now, you and I know that these used to be actual people
and we probably even have a good idea that they are tiny as a result
of the Master using his Tissue Compressor on them. But I have no idea
why the cops know that these two little dolls were actual people or
how they could even arrive at this conclusion. How long would it take
for any cop in the real world to go from finding an abandoned vehicle
with two dolls in the driver’s seat to deciding the two dolls are
shrunken people who died in the process?
But that’s what
happened and for some reason they decide the Doctor must have done
it. But while they’re trying to take the Time Lord into custody, he
sees a white figure across the highway. The Doctor is clearly
disconcerted – much more by this than by the Master’s latest
victims – and then Adric falls off of a bicycle. The cops are
distracted and he and the Doctor escape back into the TARDIS.
The Doctor decides
to rematerialize under the Thames to flush the Master out of the
TARDIS. This is completely insane, but goes right along with the rest
of what’s going on. Unaware of Tegan – who is still wandering
around the back of the TARDIS – the Doctor and Adric prepare to
open the craft’s doors and let millions of liters of water in. This
whole segment is absolutely loony. You know there has to be some
high-tech, outer space SCUBA gear somewhere in that thing, but rather
than put that on or change into alien wetsuits or anything, our two
heroes just brace themselves in front of the doors. Fortunately, when
the doors do open nothing happens. It turns out there was a boat in
the way of the TARDIS’ descent and they landed on the deck. It’s
a good thing, because otherwise they wouldn’t have seen the Thin
White Dupe standing up on a bridge. The Doctor tells Adric to wait on
the boat and then somehow ends up on the bridge talking to the
watcher. You don’t hear what is said, but there is a lot of
expansive gesturing on the part of the Doctor.
When he returns, he
seems very unnerved and informs Adric that they must go straight to
Logopolis.
On the way, Tegan
pops out into the control room, only mildly surprising the Doctor and
Adric. She asks what the heck is going on and wants to know where her
aunt is, who she left with the car. The Doctor sort of winces – he
knows darn well where her aunt is – and then points out that
they’ve materialized on Logopolis.
Side
Note: I wonder just how many people are wandering around the TARDIS.
Surely Tegan isn’t the first person to have gotten in unnoticed. In
a ship of nigh-infinite size, there could well be a whole
civilization just sort of squatting in one of the coat rooms.
Ah, scenic
Logopolis. Try to picture it – a world of pure math where the
inhabitants are so attuned to the geometry of the universe that every
structure is perfectly aligned with its environment. Long, graceful,
silver lines as far as the eye can see. Precisely designed buildings
of such architectural accuracy that they soar miles into the heavens.
Roads angled to achieve the most harmonious combination of commuting
and habitation that has ever been seen. Truly, Logopolis is a shining
monument to logic and indisputable, mathematical planning.
That or it’s a
bunch of mud huts squatting around a giant satellite dish.
Yeah –it’s the
latter.
The Monitor – the
representative of the Logopolitans and the least creepy of them –
meets the Doctor and his companions. Clearly the Time Lord and the
ugly-headed man are previously acquainted. They catch up and then
everybody goes to an actual building – not one of the mud huts –
under the giant satellite dish. There they find an exact replica of
some Earth science station. The Monitor almost completely fails to
explain why that is and then he and the Doctor start to work on the
whole Block Computation thing.
They set up the
gear to fix the TARDIS and the Doctor goes inside to operate the
Chameleon Circuits while the Logopolitans operate as a single mind to
process the necessary computations. This makes them about ten times
creepier than they already were, which would be about 596 creepy.
But then,
thankfully, something goes horribly wrong. The TARDIS begins to
shrink with the Doctor trapped inside. Tegan and Adric panic and the
Logopolitans seem largely unconcerned except for the Monitor, who
orders some of his people to take the TARDIS back to the building.
This sight of the Logopolitans carrying the small TARDIS is pretty
hilarious. I’m fairly certain this whole story was based around
somebody at the BBC going, “Hey – we should just stick one of
those model TARDISes we have into a story. Like it got shrunk or
something!”
“Ooh, yeah –
then we can kill Tom Baker!”
And then all of a
sudden Nyssa is just on Logopolis for no good reason. Check out the
intro if you don’t know who Nyssa is. She tells Adric that a friend
of the Doctor’s brought her there. Not why or how, just that he
did. Adric starts walking around the mud huts, trying to help the
Monitor figure out what went wrong with the Block Transfer
Computation. They discover a number of shrunken Logopolitans, but
don’t recognize the significance. They are able to figure out some
new computations though and give them to Tegan to show the Doctor
because she doesn’t have anything better to do.
Meanwhile, Nyssa is
wandering around the mud huts – lots of wandering in this story –
when an immensely creepy voice starts calling her name. She peeks
into one of the huts and sees her father, Tremas, just sitting in
there. Hanging out. He tells her he is on a very important mission
and she mentions that he looks about twenty years younger, but fails
to notice that he is also evil and kind of a jerk (she has no idea
that the Master stole her father’s body). Then he tells her not to
mention his presence to anybody and claps this hideously ugly
bracelet on her.
Back in the science
building the TARDIS is full size and the Doctor hops and out and
thanks Tegan for her help by telling her that Aunt Vanessa is dead.
She naturally breaks down and the Doctor comforts the young lady by
shoving her into a corner so her sobs won’t drown out his
conversation with the Monitor. He’s looking to get into mud hut
real estate.
While the Monitor
and the Doctor are out looking at some nice duplex mud huts, the
Master sneaks into the science building and shrinks some more
Logopolitans. I don’t think he even has a plan. He’s just happy
to be able to use his Tissue Compressor again. Except he does have a
plan. He sets up a bunch of equipment to silence Logopolis so the
Logopolitans can’t communicate. The Monitor returns and wants to
know just what the heck is going on and the Master is all like, “No,
you tell me what’s going on,” because he wants to
know what the deal is with Logopolis and them having a reproduction
of an Earth Science station. Because that is just a bit weird.
Just as the Master
is about to turn the Monitor into a kewpie doll the Doctor, Adric,
and Nyssa burst into the room. Adric surprises everybody by doing
something useful and disabling the Master’s machine. Nyssa
surprises nobody by walking across the room and strangling Adric. You
can tell by the Doctor’s expression he’s been wanting to do that
for months. It turns out the bracelet that the Master gave Nyssa
allows him to control her hand (just her hand?) and he tells them to
put his stuff back the way they found it or he’ll have her kill
Adric.
The Doctor decides
to give in and pushes Tegan forward to comply.
“You can kill the
boy, but I can’t allow you to turn this innocent girl into a
murderer. Damn your nefarious plan, villain!”
But after the
Master’s device is restarted the Monitor explains that he has
unintentionally doomed the universe. By silencing Logopolis the
Master has disrupted some kind of something that was keeping the
universe either from exploding or collapsing. I can’t remember and
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter. Either would be bad because
that’s where I keep all my stuff. The Master feels pretty silly at
that point and turns off his device, but it’s too late – the
signal has already been disrupted. The universe is DOOMED. Just to
prove his point, the Monitor dissolves.
Except… the
Doctor sees one final, slim chance for all of existence – a
TEAM
UP.
He sends his crew
off to the TARDIS because you can’t leave a bunch of easily
tissue-compressible kids hanging around with the Master about and
then shakes hands with his greatest nemesis.
The pair head off
to the Earth research station that the one on Logopolis was modeled
after because that satellite dish is the only one the BBC
could afford big enough to send a universe-wide signal. The
Master immediately starts trying to betray the Doctor, and finally
does by beating him to the control room and programming a signal to
the tell the universe it had better make him king or he’d blow it
up. Or collapse it. Whatever.
The Doctor can’t
allow this to happen, so he crawls out onto a walkway under the
satellite dish to unplug it. Yes – seriously. As he is crawling,
the Master hits a switch that starts the walkway rotating about a
half a degree a minute. The Doctor valiantly struggles across the
slooooowly rotating walkway, finally making it to the other side and
disconnecting the plug. Just as he does the walkway becomes vertical
and he falls off, dropping like two hundred feet to the ground below.
This whole scene
was not as exciting as I make it sound.
As the Doctor lies
prone and dying on the ground under the massive satellite dish, his
companions gather around him and the watcher in white pops up nearby.
In one of the weirdest regenerations ever, the watcher walks over to
the Doctor and disappears into him; transforming the Time Lord into a
young veterinarian.
Notes:
-This
isn’t so much a note as a recollection. I didn’t know this was
Tom Baker’s final episode when I saw it as a kid. I didn’t
realize at the time how bad it was, I was just creeped out by the
Logopolitans. When the Doctor fell off the walkway at the end and
turned into somebody else I was horrified. I don’t know how I knew
about regeneration at that point, but I did. I couldn’t believe
that this guy – one of my heroes – was going to be gone. This was
before the days of DVDs or even readily available VHS. As far as I
knew I might never see my Doctor again.
-My
PBS channel went straight into the Peter Davison stories at this
point. As a matter of fact, I feel like they maintained the show’s
broadcast order right up through Survival.
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue saying it – if anybody
out there knows how to get a hold of a PBS broadcast schedule from
the 80’s I’d love to see it. I remember certain things about some
stories, but I’d like to have a time frame for how I saw these
originally.
-A
funny trick my mind played on me – Anthony Ainley and Tom Baker had
such a good chemistry in this episode that up until a few years ago I
would have sworn that they had faced off many times over Tom Baker’s
run as the Doctor, despite the fact that this was Ainley’s first
full story as the Master. For some reason I was positive that
Ainley’s Master was a frequent nemesis to Baker’s Doctor. Not so.
Ainley did square off many times against Doctors Five, Six, and Seven
though, and I suppose that’s where I got the idea because I have
seen many of their stories.
-Okay,
so this was still pretty much a recap. But I didn’t worry so much
about getting every detail right and had a lot more fun because of
that. I guess it doesn’t matter if nobody’s reading these.
Come back next time
for Castrovalva, which is the first story for Peter Davison,
the fifth Doctor! If you long for another regeneration story where
the Doctor naps a lot, then this one is for you!
-Phantom
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