Doctor Who: Logopolis (Story 116)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Tom BakerBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E4011
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- The Doctor and Andric head to Earth to fix the TARDIS's chameleon circuit. Once there they face danger involving a newly regenerated Master and a feisty young air hostess named Tegan Jovanka. How can the people of the distant and mysterious planet Logopolis help? And just who is the strange, ghostly figure watching the Doctor's every move? (Episodes 1-4, 98 mins)Running Time: 98 min. Format: DV
Movie Reviews of Doctor Who: Logopolis (Story 116)
Movie Review: "Never guess. Unless you have to. There's enough uncertainty in the universe as it is."
Summary: 5 Stars
"Logopolis" must've been a challenge of almost cosmic proportions for the creative staff of "Doctor Who" at the time. For the audience already pretty much knows how this one's going to end. No uncertainty or guesswork on that score. It had already been announced on the news well before the first episode of "Logopolis" originally aired in Britain, and any "Doctor Who" fan of even rudimentary background knowledge is well aware of the fact. The Doctor's gonna go down for the count in this one. We'll never get to enjoy the fourth Doctor's wacky eccentricity, oddball humor, and iconic scarf ever again. This is an end for which we've all been prepared, though, so it must've been quite the task making the story suspenseful and interesting despite the foregone conclusion AND giving Tom Baker a proper farewell from the role to which he brought so much. And in many ways, "Logopolis" succeeds admirably.
It succeeds in part by aptly combining two levels of complexity into a single well-paced adventure. First of all, there's the simple story of good vs. evil, with the Doctor up against his rejuvenated arch-nemesis, the Master--another individualistic renegade Time Lord like himself and so in many ways an interesting foil, a sort of personification of the Doctor's good qualities inverted through a mirror darkly. A fundamental clash of almost mythical proportions, but quite simple and basic despite the intriguing twist of a temporary uneasy alliance between the two of them. But this simplicity serves as a perfect counterpoint for the many conceptually sophisticated and cerebral aspects of the story, really far-out stuff in the best and most speculative traditions of science fiction. The infinitely regressing Tardis within a Tardis within a Tardis scene is part and parcel of this latter register, but we find it principally in what turns out to be the story's eponymous plot premise: on Logopolis, a race of higher mathematicians whose calculations can alter time and space, a benevolent bunch who've been using this enormous power to keep the cosmos running well past its entropy deadline according to the second law of thermodynamics. Of course the Master screws this up (to his horror) and it's up to the Doctor to save the universe--literally this time. For all of its esoteric depth, though, the theme of entropy, of all good things coming to an inevitable end, is hardly extraneous to the underlying nature of this storyline, helping instead to set its bittersweet melancholy tone perfectly.
The story also works well because it keeps us guessing. The Master's, er, masterplan is revealed only slowly. He lurks around ominously in the shadows at first, and even up until the final moment we know he's trying to manipulate events to his advantage and the Doctor's downfall, we just aren't sure how. Until the final fall. Likewise, the important mission of the Logopolitans is unveiled gradually with little hints and clues and the enormity of the Master's sociopathic meddling there clarified right when it packs the most punch. Meanwhile, the anomalous presence of the wraith-like Watcher gives the whole thing an eerie and wistful sense of foreboding as well as mystery. Thus, we are kept in suspense not as to the foregone conclusion but as to how events are going to play out to get there--and then all the loose ends wind together into that fateful moment at the end, and you're like, oh no, this is it. And it is.
An excellent tale of suspenseful adventure and thoughtful science fiction masterfully told, then, "Logopolis" is indeed a fine and fond farewell to the fourth Doctor and to Tom Baker, whose seven year tenure in the role is without doubt a high point in the long history of this wonderful series. Of course, "Logopolis" is also the pivot point in a loosely-integrated trilogy, with the events of "The Keeper of Traken" leading up to it and the faltering start of the fifth Doctor's adventures featured next in "Castrovalva"--luckily for the fervent "Doctor Who" fans out there (guilty as charged), all three of these can be conveniently and economically obtained as a box set: Doctor Who - New Beginnings (The Keeper of Traken / Logopolis / Castrovalva).
Summary of Doctor Who: Logopolis (Story 116)
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