THE PLOT
The Doctor is troubled. The columns of the TARDIS are overgrown with vines, and are crumbling. Since leaving Traken, he has felt an increasing sense of entropy. and he has a sudden desire to stay under the radar, to avoid detection.
To this end, he decides it is time to repair the TARDIS' chameleon circuit. He wants to avoid Gallifrey, so his only other option is Logopolis. This is a world that is home to the most advanced mathematicians in the universe - a monk-like order that keeps entropy at bay through their ceaseless calculations.
But the Doctor has unwittingly brought a passenger with him. The Master, renewed and in possession of Tremas' body, is determined to gain universal domination. But even he may not be prepared for the consequences of meddling with the powers in Logopolis.
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Tom Baker's final regular performance is an excellent one. The previous story saw him in control, dominant and flippant. This story sees him taken out of control. Even in his opening moments, he feels something wrong, in his ship and in himself. When he first sees the Watcher, gazing at him from the fence across the motorway, you can read the fear etched on his face.
From this point, the Doctor is acting out of desperation. He makes mistakes - materializing around the Master's TARDIS, then not recognizing the Master's TARDIS for what it is for the longest time. The very materialization is driven by fear, by his sudden feeling that he shouldn't be "too distinctive" right now. Throughout the first half, the Doctor is reacting: to the Master, to the Watcher, to the general fact of entropy. In this light, his half-baked plan to wash the Master out (a plot hole, whatever Chris Bidmead may think) almost makes sense. The Doctor's so desperate to escape what he fears will be the worst, he just isn't thinking rationally. Only after his conversation with the Watcher does he calm, moving onto Logopolis not because his fears have been put to rest, but because he knows that what will happen is as inevitable as entropy itself.
I have always felt Tom was at his best when playing the angrier side of the Doctor. This serial gives one blisteringly good example. At the close of Episode Three, when his companions protest his reluctant deal with the Master, he lashes out. "I have never chosen my company, never!" he shouts, furiously angry as he runs through the way each of his three companions foisted themselves upon him. The monologue is itself a fine piece of writing, and Tom delivers it with ferocity.
At the end, having seemingly exhausted, and perhaps surprised, himself with the force of his own anger, the Doctor is left with no choice but to shake the Master's hand to cement their partnership. The disgust on his face as he refuses to even make eye contact with his enemy-turned-partner is palpable. Tom may not have liked his final season, and he may be on record as hating his departure... but he sure did act it well.
Adric: Christopher Bidmead's script has Adric constantly interjecting in scenes that are otherwise flowing very nicely to ask a series of questions - sometimes to clarify plot points, but a lot of the time unnecessarily, making him quickly irritating. That said, he's still much better here than he would be in patches of the following season. If Waterhouse had only played opposite Tom's Doctor, I suspect he wouldn't be quite so badly regarded in fandom.
Nyssa: This story officially introduces her as a companion. She gets a bit lost in the shuffle, but she still teams well with Matthew Waterhouse. There is something chilling about the Master, in Tremas' guise, using a bracelet to turn Tremas' daughter into a weapon against her own will.
Tegan: This story is Janet Fielding's debut as Tegan. She would go on to become the Fifth Doctor's signature television companion, appearing in all but one of his televised stories. Unfortunately, this serial's characterization of her is far from its strongest element. The story seriously oversells Tegan's introduction. The first episode gives us far too many scenes of her being driven to her new job, then cuts away from (largely excellent) Doctor/Adric scenes to Tegan and her aunt changing a tire at least two more times than is actually needed. The second and third episodes overdo her aggressiveness. By the end of Episode Two, both the Doctor and Adric have been put in the position of apologizing for her rudeness, and I was firmly with the both of them in feeling a bit exasperated by her. The character would settle down later. But in this story, I frankly found her far more annoying than Adric.
The Master: The Master is wisely kept off-screen for the first two episodes. He is a presence, one that we are always aware of. We see through his eyes the killing of Tegan's aunt. We hear him cacklin gas he pulls a policeman through the open door of his TARDIS to an agonizing death. Because we can't see him, because we only hear the Doctor talk about him and see the consequences of his deeds, he looms larger, as some kind of ultimate threat.
It is only in Episode Three that Ainley's Master emerges in the flesh. While Ainley is far from restrained in the role, he is extremely good. He may look a lot like Roger Delgado, but there are strong differences in the characterization. He's far more vicious than Delgado, for one. This Master doesn't just kill as a necessity, a convenience to advance his plans. He enjoys killing. While Delgado's Master was always clearly in control of his faculties, Ainley's Master appears to be... well, insane. I guess years (centuries?) as a burned-out husk, including several years of immobility, might do that to you. The shock on the Doctor's face as he realizes that this isn't the Master that he remembers, as he realizes that this Master is "mad, utterly mad," is wonderful.
There's a strong element of real horror. Because The Keeper of Traken is still fresh in our minds, we see Tremas walking around as clearly as Nyssa does. The theme of entropy applies even here. The good man who was Tremas has been decayed and corrupted by the Master's influence. All the good that Tremas did in his life is as nothing to the evil the Master will do in his guise. One can only hope that Tremas is as purely and simply "dead" as indicated. Imagine if Tremas' consciousness still exists somewhere in there, watching helplessly as his own form is used to perpetrate murder after murder, evil after evil.
THOUGHTS
"It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for."
Logopolis is a season finale in the modern sense of the word. It is not simply the story of the season that aired last. It is the culmination of the themes, stories, and character arcs of Season 18. The season referenced entropy and decay many times in its run, more and more explicitly as it went along. At the end comes a story that is literally about entropy, with the collapse of the universe itself as the stakes. The Doctor has said goodbye to two cherished companions, in Romana and K-9. This story sees him visiting Romana's room, and acknowledging to Adric that Romana will be missed. We even get an explanation of how the Doctor travelled into (and out of) E-Space. In this way, the entire season is transformed into a larger story, about the death and rebirth of both universe and Doctor. Structurally and thematically, it may be one of the most "modern" seasons of the classic series.
The serial is wonderfully directed by Peter Grimwade, who builds a grandly funereal atmosphere. It is the atmosphere that really sucked me into this story. The plot is largely a bunch of nonsense, but the feeling of impending doom is impossible to shake, growing steadily stronger throughout. One of the series' best incidental scores gives things a further boost, making this one of the most richly textured Who stories ever filmed... and I do include the New Series in that assessment.
Though many in fandom have decried Logopolis itself as a cheap-looking model, I rather enjoyed the scenes on Logopolis. The vision of this labyrinthine city of ancient monks whose chanting holds the universe together appeals to my love of the vaguely surreal and askew. Bidmead's commentary may talk about "real science," but what strikes me is how beautifully fantastic it all is. This isn't hard science fiction. It's fantasy, which uses scientific concepts to dress up its magic. That's what Bidmead consistently writes: here, in the following story, even in his limited Big Finish work. To me, this is not a weakness. It plays directly into my own tastes.
I also love the way the regeneration is handled. I could have done without the flashbacks. But once Tom has fallen to the hard, unyielding Earth, and lays dying, it's beautiful. The Fourth Doctor's poetic last lines, followed by him beckoning to the Watcher. The slow dissolve from Tom to Watcher, from Watcher to Peter Davison, capped by Davison's grin... It's quite a breathtaking scene, marred only by the decision to cut to credits on Davison sitting up (an unfortunately comical effect) rather than on his grin, as should have been done.
SUMMATION
A part of me really wants to give Logopolis full marks. There may be a bit of a fan backlash against it (and Season 18 in general) at the moment, and Logopolis as a story may be a triumph of style over substance. But the style works, and there's enough substance to at least carry the central characters and the season themes. On the other hand, there certainly are plot-holes. It's often more a series of set pieces than a story: the Doctor and Adric moving through a regressive series of TARDIS doors, into ever-darkening TARDIS console rooms. Tegan, wandering around the TARDIS interior, always being brought back to the same spot no matter which path she chooses. The shrinking of the TARDIS... All of these are memorable, executed with imagination and - for classic Who - a surprising sense of visual flair. But they all exist very much in the moment, sustaining the overall atmosphere of the piece but not actually advancing the plot very much, if at all.
The set piece issue wouldn't actually cause me to lower my score, as all of the set pieces I referenced work. But then there are the moments that don't work. Do we really need a full quarter of the first episode to be devoted to the Tegan and Auntie Vanessa Show? And in what parallel universe does the "flush the Master" out plan make even the tiniest bit of sense? Most glaringly, by the very rules the story sets up, it seems to me that the Doctor's heroic unplugging of the Pharos cable should have doomed the universe.
These issues don't actually detract from my enjoyment of the story, its atmosphere, and the performances of Baker and Ainley. It helps that the story just happens to play heavily toward a style of entertainment I've always been partial to (the weird, the surreal, the Gilliam or Lynch-esque). Still, there are enough issues that I have to dock the serial a bit, if only in the interests of remaining honest.
My Rating: 8/10.
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