I keep muttering "block transfer computation" to myself.
Sarah -
Just watch out for that column behind you while you're muttering.
Harry -
Do you think you could ever work "block transfer computation" into a conversation?
Sarah -
Now I really want to find a way.
Harry -
It might help distract from the cold realization that the Doctor -- our Doctor! -- is no more.
Sarah -
I can't hear you. *fingers in ears* LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA
Wait! Is that the cloister bell I hear?
Harry -
There's a veritable cacophony of sounds that kick off Tom Baker's farewell story. We've got the cloister bell, we've got the chuckling Master, we've got the New Companion Klaxon -- it's all happening at once!
It begins in the TARDIS cloisters. The Doctor stalks around, preoccupied with something. Adric trails behind, trying to figure out what's on his mind. Turns out, it's the chameleon circuit. After all this time, the Doctor wants to finally repair it, using [dramatic pause] "block transfer computation." And what is that, we wonder. Why, it's creating solid objects through pure mathematics, something they do for kicks at a place called Logopolis. So! First it's nip down to Earth to measure an old police box, then a quick dash to Logopolis where something something something, and the chameleon circuit will be good as new.
Sarah -
I've been thinking perhaps we should add cloisters to the Sofa -- you know, give us a place for reflection between stories.
Harry -
Could have used it after this one.
Sarah -
There's a lot going on in the opening TARDIS scenes. In addition to something something "block transfer computation," we learn that the TARDIS was on Gallifrey for repairs when he "borrowed" her ("There were rather pressing reasons at the time.") and the chameleon circuit has been stuck ever since. To distract himself, the Doctor decides to repair the circuit, but first needs to get accurate measurements -- in twenty-seven dimensions -- of a police box, which requires materializing around a working police box.
Harry -
Lost? So was I. But in the meantime, here's Tegan Jovanka!
Sarah -
TEGAN! Her arrival takes away some of the sting of so much loss in this story.
Harry -
I love the leisurely pace of Part One. It takes five minutes just to get into Auntie Vanessa's car. Then she and Tegan spend the rest of the episode trying to fix a flat tyre.
Sarah -
It takes five minutes just to lock the front door! I love the scenes of Tegan and Auntie Vanessa bickering over the tyre. It's a nice was to establish the character's sense of adventure: automobiles aren't good enough for Ms. Tegan Jovanka -- it's air travel or nothing. I also have to say that I've always positively adored Vanessa's ensemble. I don't think I could pull it off, but she rocks that look.
Harry -
A whirlwind of fur and feathers, it's quite the style.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is conducting what could be construed as a very symbolic "one last look around the TARDIS", strolling through the corridors we haven't seen for some time, peeking in on Romana's old room, and finally landing around an actual police box. Only, the Master got there first, and he hurls the Doctor and Adric into a maze of TARDISes within TARDISes. I liked how each time they entered one TARDIS, the lights got dimmer and eerier.
Sarah -
The last look at Romana's room is touching, but sentiment can't be considered when it's time to jettison her room, French schoolgirl costume and all!
I love the "TARDIS inside a TARDIS inside a TARDIS" scenes. Each TARDIS manages to be more menacing than the last. As we end Adric's brief tenure as a solo companion, I found myself really enjoying his scenes with the Doctor. We know now how intimidated Matthew Waterhouse was while working with Tom Baker, but he pulls off some great work in these scenes. I imagine his frustration having been put to good use during the scene when the tension gets to be too much and they start shouting at each other. That felt quite genuine.
Harry -
Some very crabby exchanges there. I still think the brief Doctor-Adric combination worked more often than not.
Sarah -
I agree. Their timing in the measuring the TARDIS scene is perfect and I love the image of Adric atop the TARDIS.
Harry -
Frustrated by the discovery of a flat spare tyre ("Hell's teeth, Auntie Vanessa!"), Tegan sets off for a garage, but can't resist peeking into the police box standing by the roadside. Her exploration of the TARDIS -- layered with curiosity, bafflement and apprehension -- was a nice sequence.
Sarah -
If I can't manage to work "block transfer computation" into a conversation, I'm totally going to devote myself to making "Hell's teeth" a thing. Here's Our Tegan, taking the tyre off to the garage and then fearlessly exploring the TARDIS. She's got spunk!
Harry -
Alas, while Tegan was off exploring, Auntie Vanessa fell victim to the Master and his tissue compression eliminator (I'm not even going to IMAGINE trying to work that one into a conversation).
Sarah -
Poor Auntie Vanessa. The shot of her and the police constable shrunken on the car seat is heartbreaking.
Harry -
I have to admit, the flow of the story was a bit clunky. Part One was slow paced, but then things started jumping all over the place. The Doctor got this bizarre idea to flood the TARDIS, presumably to flush out the Master. They end up on the deck of a barge in the Thames. The Doctor then spots the Watcher and they have a chat on the Albert Bridge! as Adric looks on with the Battersea Power Station! in the background.
(I am inordinately excited about these places because this is one of the rare times that I have been to a Doctor Who filming location. I visited London back in 2001 and one day took a stroll around Chelsea and Battersea, where this filming took place. Permission to Squee?)
Sarah -
Squee away! I thought of you during these scenes and could almost hear the squeeing from Toronto to Chicago. The Doctor's plan to flood the TARDIS is perhaps the oddest part of the story. Other than holding back the doors, we don't find out much about his plan not to have himself and Adric drowned in the process.
Harry -
Following his chat with the Watcher, in which he glimpsed his future, the Doctor sets course for Logopolis immediately, just as Tegan returns to the console room. What an arrival!
Sarah -
The looks on the Doctor's and Adric's faces when Tegan bursts into the console room are priceless! It makes me laugh every time, but the humor ends when Tegan asks about her aunt and the Doctor realizes that she's been the Master's victim. Fortunately for him, the TARDIS has arrived on Logopolis and he is able to sidestep the question.
Logopolis is unlike any place we've visited before. Its inhabitants are able to model reality by pure mathematics and whatever they calculate can take physical form. They seem to spend their days sitting in little monk holes, muttering and working their abaci, but Logopolis turns out to be a more exciting place than it appears.
Harry -
The scale replica of the Pharos Project, for example. I didn't catch the purpose behind it, but I'm sure it was very sciency and Christopher H. Bidmead was immensely pleased by his having come up with it.
Sarah -
That whole part of the story was like, "science, science, Pharos Project, science, science, blah, blah, blah," but somehow still managed to be absolutely compelling.
Harry -
Anyway, the Master upsets one too many apple carts on Logopolis, triggering a series of missed calculations by the Logopolitans, with the effect that they can no longer stave off the entropy that threatens to engulf the entire universe. The battle against entropy -- one might imagine the showrunners seeing themselves battling a kind of entropy that had set in at the end of the Tom Baker era. This story is packed with symbolism.
Sarah -
The script practically writes itself! (Christopher Bidmead would love to read that, wouldn't he?)
Harry -
With Logopolis crumbling around them, it's up to the Doctor and Master to team up and prevent the end of the universe, while Tegan, Adric and Nyssa wait safely inside the TARDIS.
Nyssa's return. Bit of a surprise, but they gave it a decent explanation don't you think?
Sarah -
The Watcher brought her there to look for her father, it seems. She finds him, not immediately realizing that his body is now inhabited by the Master, but she's certainly suspicious when he forces her to wear a bracelet that can control her actions. It's not long before he turns her on Adric -- strangling him to force Tegan to comply with the Master's wishes. Oh, what tangled webs he weaves!
This is our first full story featuring Anthony Ainley as the Master. What do you make of him? Ainley was my first Master, so I can't help but having a fondness for him. I'm looking forward to revisiting his episodes in light of Roger Delgado having become my definitive Master.
Harry -
For sentimental reasons I can't not love this Master, but I remember having a negative reaction to Ainley at first. He seemed to be too much of a Snidely Whiplash character. Where the dapper Delgado presented himself with cool reserve, Ainley's Master came off more cartoonish, twirling his moustache and chuckling at his nefarious schemes. However, Ainley's interpretation has come to fit right in with the evolution of the character. Haunted by the task of four beats that pounds ceaselessly in his head, the Master has become further unhinged over time. Each time we meet him anew, he is more and more insane. By the time we get to John Simm, the Master is utterly manic, and the Missy-Master doesn't hesitate to describe herself as "bananas!". So Ainley has come to represent a middle ground between cool early Master and bananas contemporary Master.
Sarah -
The Master is on a one-way train to crazyville -- and we get to go along for the ride!
Harry -
The one constant, however, is that the Doctor always outsmarts his lifelong adversary -- even, as here, at the cost of his own life. His plans foiled, the Master jumps into his TARDIS and flees as the Doctor lies near death, having plummeted from the aerial dish tower after saving the whole damn universe.
As the Doctor's friends gather around his broken body, he announces that "It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for."
We've watched this scene a zillion times, perhaps two zillion, but it still retains its power. The longest era of Doctor Who comes to a quiet, unforgettable end.
Sarah -
This was my first regeneration and I didn't know it was coming at the time, so it hit me really hard. Every time I watch it, I will the Doctor to not fall. Every time is as dramatic and heart-wrenching as the first time I watched it and I'm reduced to tears despite myself.
Tom Baker is the reason I became a Doctor Who fan 30+ years ago and he will always be my Doctor. I often wonder if I would have fallen in love with the show if I had started watching during another Doctor's era and am grateful that I don't have to answer that question.
Harry -
The final scene is by far the best moment of the entire story. There's no better way for Tom to have gone out than by saving the entire universe from the grip of the Master. And it turns out the Watcher was him all along, in an advanced mid-regenerative state. He slips away knowing that everything will be alright...
Sarah -
If there's one thing viewers believe they can count on in Doctor Who, it's that the Doctor will survive his adventure to fight another day. In Logopolis, perhaps for the first time, it feels as though he could fail and the story leads us to the inevitable conclusion. The moment has been prepared for us and it doesn't feel forced or unnatural. We are (mostly) ready.
Harry -
...and along comes Peter Davison! Surrounded by his newly-assembled trio of companions, a new era of Doctor Who is ready to take off! Shall we dash along to the next adventure?
Sarah -
Peter Davison, looking so young and handsome. I'm looking forward to our first post-regeneration story in a while. Castrovalva awaits!
Harry -
Best Line: Rather than a best line, there were so many memorable and endlessly repeatable phrases, like "Block transfer computation," "Hell's teeth, Auntie Vanessa!" and "It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for."
Favourite Moment: the Doctor chats with the Watcher on Albert Bridge.
Lasting Image: the dying Doctor lays surrounded by his friends.
7/10
Sarah -
Best Line: "Never guess. Unless you have to. There's enough uncertainty in the universe as it is." This line is so representative of the Fourth Doctor and his need to keep all options open.
Favorite Moment: The Doctor and Adric reacting to Tegan bursting into the console room.
Lasting Image: Adric atop the TARDIS taking measurements.
8/10
Our marathon continues with Story #116: Castrovalva...
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