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From: nyssa@abnji.UUCP (nyssa of traken)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: Why "Logopolis" sucked
Message-ID: <345@abnji.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 13:04:53 EST
Article-I.D.: abnji.345
Posted: Wed Feb 20 13:04:53 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 20:12:56 EST
References: <238@looking.UUCP>
Organization: Terminus Hospital, Incorporated
Lines: 114

>(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)

I didn't vote for it, but I did like it.

>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.

He became fatalistic only after noticing the Watcher.  He knew what the
threat was and it was enough to frighten him.

>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.

The sight of Nyssa strangling Adric brings great joy to me.

Seriously, In the Troughton-Pertwee regeneration the Doctor was not surrounded
by caring companions.  (I have seen both the "War Games" and "Spearhead from
Space")  Jamie and Zoe had been returned to their own times before the
regeneration (not shown) took place.  In Spearhead, the Doctor was in a
hospital through the crisis.  The Brig saw what he looked like and seemed
not to care.

>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.

Consider the following hypothesis:  The Time Lords recognized that the
Doctor and the universe would be threatened and allowed a temporary duplication
of a future incarnation.  (Why not:  Three Doctors, Five Doctors)  This
duplication is allowed to aide the Doctor, but only once allowed to meet him
before the regeneration.

The next regeneration was even more unusual in that it is the first unnatural
regeneration not to be helped along by another Time Lord.

>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.]

Who is to say that his cells weren't damaged in the fall.  (He was at least
pretty shaken up!)  Any form of death could be considered cell damage.
Re: Deadly Assassin.  I submit that that got it wrong, I haven't seen it for
years, though.

>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?

Agreed.  Notice that in Twin Dilemma Peri takes block transfer computations
for granted?  Perhaps she saw "Logopolis" :-)

>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.

See the above explaination of the Watcher.

>
>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?

I am not a Baker hater.  I like Colin very much :-)

>-- 
>Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
-- 
James C Armstrong, Jnr.  { ihnp4 || allegra || mcnc || cbosgb } !abnji!jca

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