The Return of the Master Trilogy |
BBC Logopolis The Return of the Master Trilogy Part Two |
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| Episodes | 4 |  |
| Story No# | 116 | |
| Production Code | 5V | |
| Season | 16 | |
| Dates | Feb. 28, 1981 - Mar. 21, 1981 |
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With Tom Baker, Peter Davision,
Matthew Waterhouse, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton. Written and script-edited by Christopher H. Bidmead. Directed by Peter Grimwade. Produced by John Nathan-Turner. |
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Synopsis: In the last adventure of the fourth
Doctor, the Master is close on the Doctor's trail,
and so is a
strange figure from the Doctor's future.
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A Review by Paul Roach 14/4/21
I watched this story recently and a few things struck me.
Tegan's Story: On the way to start her dream job, her car breaks down. She is then (accidently) kidnapped and taken to another planet... where she meets five different species of alien who all look human! [Doctor - Unknown (thanks Chibbers), Master - Gallifreyan, Monitor - Logopolitan, Adric - from Alzarius, and Nyssa from Traken.] She is then informed that the universe is about to end! And her Aunty has been murdered by the person who is now helping to save the Universe. She is taken back to Earth... and instead of instantly running away to find out what happened to her Aunty and try to save her job... she sticks around to see a(n almost) complete stranger fall to their death and morph into another complete stranger.
Nothing Tegan does makes any sense. I was trying to get a sense of how much time passes between her meeting the Doctor and Adric and the end of the story. It could be a couple of days, but it's more likely 12 hours-ish. There is no reason for her to hang around with these strangers after she gets back to Earth.
The final scene: It would've been way more impactful to morph straight from Tom to Peter. The intermediate stage lessons the impact immensely (maybe that was the point).
Only Adric knows the Doctor - the regeneration should affect him the most. He should be the only one that runs over to him. Tegan and to a slightly lesser extent Nyssa, don't know him; they should be at the back of the scene looking on and then moving in after/as he regenerates. [Yeh, yeh the reason is to establish them as a team I know, and it's sort of implied in Castrovalva that the Watcher told the Doctor he needs the three of them to help him recover.]
And I haven't even mentioned Nyssa's story, which is even worse!
Instead of all the running about in episode 4, which achieves nothing, how about instead addressing Nyssa's loss and having Tegan try to leave to find out what happened to her Aunty and have the Doctor (or Adric, who spoke to the Watcher and presumably knows what's coming) persuade her to stay?
After the re-watch, Logoplis is no longer my all-time favourite story. Still good, one of the best, but not THE best.