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From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Why "Logopolis" sucked
Message-ID: <238@looking.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Feb-85 00:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.238
Posted: Sun Feb 17 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Feb-85 06:05:25 EST
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 72

(Some SPOILERs follow)

Ok, let's talk some real Doctor Who.  I am often surprised to see people
voting for Logopolis as one of their favourite episodes.  In my mind it
was one of the ones I like least.  (Unlike Keeper of Traken, which was great)

It may just have been the loss of Tom Baker, my favourite doctor, but here
are some other reasons:

1) The Doctor's character changed

Suddenly the doctor is no longer his whimsical self, he's very serious and
very fatalistic.  He's melodramatic and this time he's not kidding.
He knows the end is coming (which he should not, see later) and it clouds
the episode.

2) The Companions

In this episode he is accompanied for the first time by three of his worst
ever companions, Nyssa, Tegan and the ever-hated Adric.  Nyssa has been
thrown in as an afterthought, unlike other companions who usually enter under
more interesting circumstances.   What's worse is that none of these companions
*care* about the doctor.  During the regeneration, they are confused and
harried.  In other regenerations, the doctor has had caring companions at his
side.  Even Peri, with the doctor for only one episode, showed more concern.

3) The regeneration.

This was super strange.  Why did they change the whole sequence?  This watcher
deal has not shown up in any other regeneration, nor the idea the doctor knew
what was coming.  "He was the doctor all along" - I'm glad they say this
because it still doesn't clear up what's going on.  There's nothing leading
up to this at all.  And if the watcher was the doctor, then how was it done?
What about the first law of time?  I know this was an "unusal regeneration",
but this is a bit much.

And then there is the injury.  Regeneration is supposed to take place in
massive cell damage.  For example, from old age for Doctor #1, Forced by the
time lords for #2, radiation poisoning for #3 and Spectrox poisoning for #5.
But what's this for, a long fall???  I thought the whole idea was that
regeneration did not deal with damaged organs, for example a gun wound as
seen in the Deadly Assassin.   But how sad to see the doctor, who has faced
Daleks, Cybermen, the Master and the Black Guardian, "die" from a fall.
And he isn't even pushed, he lets go in this strange fatalistic ending.
(Here I go again.  Fatalism is so contrary to the doctor's philosophy as
a renegade time-lord.  This doesn't wash.)
[On the positive note, at least it is at the hand of an old foe like the
Master.   The doctor should never go down to a minor foe, I feel.]

4) Logopolis.

This is really silly, even for a Doctor Who setting.  A human computer
maintaining the universe?  And they plan to duplicate it with an earth
radio telescope computer?  And measuring a Police Box with a tape measure
to fix the Tardis?

5) The end of Logopolis

Talk about loose ends.  Half the universe wiped out and not a mention of
it anywhere?  I think in this example, even the Time Lords would send
somebody back to interfere.  But no mention of this anywhere in later
episodes except for one brief note from Nyssa a long time later?
For this crime the Master would be hunted down by thousands of Time Lords
with Tardis detectors and shot on sight.  But they brush it all off.


And there's more.  So tell me folks, why do you LIKE this episode?

Is it because you are Baker haters and you like this very unBakerlike
episode?  Or What?
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473