Category: Doctor Who
Doctor Who episode 549: The Keeper of Traken – Part Four (21/2/1981)
‘Of course, the Master.’ It’s not just the Master who’s back: weak endings were a hallmark of the Hinchcliffe years, and make an unwelcome return here. The Doctor’s underwhelmed reaction to coming face to face with his greatest frenemy is par for the course in an episode that fizzles out.
Doctor Who episode 548: The Keeper of Traken – Part Three (14/2/1981)
‘Now this Traken web of harmony is broken, I am free!’ An episode of killing time before all hell breaks loose at the climax: if this really were a Shakespeare play, this is the bit of the text that would be abridged for performance. The best moments are Melkur turning Kassia’s betrayal back on her: her motive was to prevent Tremas from becoming Keeper so she could keep him for herself (a nice secondary meaning to the title there). But, in a cruel twist, Melkur’s plan now relies on her becoming Keeper in her husband’s place. Hoist with her own petard.
Doctor Who episode 547: The Keeper of Traken – Part Two (7/2/1981)
Another strong episode, with come very obvious Biblical overtones as the Melkur lurks in the garden of this paradise tempting Kassia. It’s unusual for a story like this to play out as family drama, with wife turned against husband and daughter, and the resulting mix of science fantasy and domestic drama is compelling and very Star Wars. Sarah Sutton is impressive as an imperious, precocious Nyssa – although there’s no hint that she’s companion material (the Doctor barely acknowledges her existence when they meet). Elsewhere, Neman’s love of money is a curious touch for an idyllic alien planet.
Doctor Who episode 546: The Keeper of Traken – Part One (31/1/1981)
‘No Keeper lasts forever, and the period of transition is always difficult.’ As the show hurtles towards the departure of its leading man, this could almost be a metaphor for the uncertainty surrounding its future. I’m sure this must have partly inspired some of The Keeper of Traken: lines like the defiant, ‘Trakens have survived times like this in the past. We shall do so now’ put a brave face on what must have been a deeply unsettling time behind the scenes.
Doctor Who episode 545: Warriors’ Gate – Part Four (24/1/1981)
‘You were right, we abused our power. But judge whether we’ve not suffered enough.’ Romana’s dedication to freeing the enslaved Tharils provides the momentum that carries this through to the end – and beyond, as she leaves to become the Daenerys Targaryen of E-Space and free enslaved Tharils across the pocket universe. It’s a departure done without much ceremony or emotion, but works, I think, because Romana leaves with a mission in a way only Steven and Jo have before. You couldn’t really marry her off, and the excuse of not taking her to Gallifrey doesn’t apply so it had to be something like this.
Doctor Who episode 544: Warriors’ Gate – Part Three (17/1/1981)
‘They’re only people.’ The reveal of the Tharils’ true nature – after we’ve already been encouraged to sympathise with their plight through Rorvik’s treatment of Biroc and Lazlo, the imagery of Tharils packed below decks like slaves, and offhand references to ‘Tharil hunts’ – is a brilliant, rug-pulling moment. Biroc sits in his great hall declaring, ‘we are kings’ as the Doctor grimly guesses that they are the enslavers the Gundan Robots were built to defeat. Two time zones – the fall of the Tharil Empire and its ancient ruins – converge, the blade of a Gundan axe slices into the same axe embedded into a cobwebbed table. The show hasn’t bettered the poetry and visual storytelling in this sequence. It’s astonishing.
Doctor Who episode 543: Warriors’ Gate – Part Two (10/1/1981)
‘There are three physical gateways and the three are one.’ After the mystery of the first episode, this is much more down to earth. It provides some answers which, of course, only prompt more questions, but the overall sense is progress in unpicking the plot. The Gundan Robots are revealed to be the creations of a slave rebellion against an empire that once ruled all of known space, whose masters ‘descended out of the air riding the winds and took men as their prize, growing powerful on their stolen labours and their looted skills.’ There’s poetry in the script, which, combined with the fairytale setting of a long-abandoned feast, makes for a striking and compelling episode.
Doctor Who episode 542: Warriors’ Gate – Part One (3/1/1981)
For the most part, Doctor Who isn’t the kind of cerebral, “grown up” SF that the BBC occasionally dabbled in during the Sixties and Seventies – earlier Out of the Unknown, A for Andromeda, occasional Play for Todays kind of thing. But it can be. Warriors’ Gate is the convergence of Bidmead’s push to get “proper” high concept SF scripts and JNT’s push to bring in new production talent. Apparently it was a nightmare to make, but the result is a long way from the unsatisfactory clash of styles in The Leisure Hive.
Doctor Who episode 541: State of Decay – Part Four (13/12/1980)
‘What goes up must come down’ could almost be the tagline for the season. This model script ends with the perfectly-seeded idea of a makeshift bowship dispatching the Great Vampire, as the Doctor has learned the truth about the enemy, and worked out how to improvise the solution from the materials to hand. Something very similar happens in Horror of Fang Rock with Palmerdale’s diamonds. The final result is a story that unfolds steadily, layering its revelations effectively, giving all the regulars something memorable to do, and takes the audience with it rather than baffling them with undercooked surprises (I’m look at you, The Leisure Hive).
Doctor Who episode 540: State of Decay – Part Three (6/12/1980)
It’s possibly a mark of Terrance Dicks’ feelings on the matter that the Doctor doesn’t even know he’s got a new companion until more than halfway through the serial, and Adric spends pretty much the whole episode in a deep sleep. Instead, the focus is on the Doctor and Romana’s ongoing investigations, which, in true Dicks style, now include a chunk of Time Lord myth.
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