worp@ih1ap.UUCP (Roger Espinosa) (08/09/84)
[Is that why you win so often, Doctor? Because you make mistakes?] As this is my first time posting on this net, please don't flame me to total oblivion. Passing through here, I read some personal reviews of Keeper of Traken and Logopolis, so I thought I'd add my two cents here too. Keeper of Traken was an ultimate. As Dr. Who comes on late here, and I had to wake up early the next day for school, I only watched it when I didn't have school. Luckily, I was around for KOT, and it was great. The suspense as to what was in that solidified robot (name escapes me) was great, and the passing of tradition from Nyssa's future mother to her was also a nice touch. It was a marvelous tale, and even made one feel bad in the end, when the Master took over Nyssa's father's body. As for Logopolis, it was confusing at times, but that (I think) was the way it was supposed to be, wasn't it? The Doctor Baker couldn't figure out who the Man in White was (the Watcher?) and I just loved the concept of all those mathematicians on Logopolis keeping the balance of the cosmos together like that. I did think the ending was a bit contrived, having Baker fall off the antennae that way, and not revealing WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED with the SAVE THE UNIVERSE PROGRAM, eh? I'm still not sure what happened. Could someone clarify what did? I have the feeling that they were about to implement the program...and then Baker died...and the Master left...hm... As for other questions, how did the Master get scarred up from the Pertwee espisodes to Baker's "The Deadly Assassin" episode? And does anyone out there in netville know if I can lay my hands on a copy of the Christmas special in which the Doctor (Baker, I'd presume, but have no idea of) gives Sarah Jane Smith (the GREATEST of the companions!) K9 model III??? I'm dying to see it!
myers@uwvax.ARPA (08/12/84)
I too was completely unimpressed with Logopolis the first time I saw it. It
was terribly confusing, so I figured there must have been thousands of logical
inconsistencies.
However, I recently had the chance to see it again; I was favourably
impressed this time because I caught alot of the stuff that I had simply
missed before.
(1) The Doctor KNEW who the Watcher was (but no one else did). As somebody
else has pointed out in this newsgroup, difficult regenerations require one
of these helpers. They seem to be sent out by the powers that be on
Gallifry.
(2) As I recall, the Doctor could not dispense with the Master because he
needed his help to get things going at the Talos Project. The
"Material Universe Maintenance" program
seems to have been successfully beamed somewhere, but the Master had
apparently manipulated the program so that he could halt it. Hence the
power play by the Master near the end which the Doctor foiled by
stopping the Master from being able to send the 'undo' command.
(3) The episode certainly wasn't extremely predictable! In that respect
it was infinitely preferable to episodes like the "Black Orchid", whose
only saving graces were the costumes and the choreography in the party
scenes.
May your TARDIS always make those tricky short hops.
--
Jeff Myers
ARPA: myers@uwisc.ARPA
uucp: ..{seismo, ihnp4}!uwisc!myers