Doctor Who: Classic 18x7: "Logopolis" Parts 1-4 | FINALE REACTION!!

[@kemmdog4444]

If you remember,Alex,in The Doctor Falls, Missy asked the Doctor “How many times have you died? I know you’ve fallen.”

[@StarDream_]

And the Master asks Thirteen if he ever apologized for the fall

[@garybryant5946]

This story was shown on BBC TV twice in 1981 because it has a extra strong nostalgic factor for being Tom's final adventure and being part of The Five Faces Of Doctor Who which cemented Alot of viewers of a certain age into full blown fans 👍

[@josefschiltz2192]

That was the first time that I had seen An Unearthly Child. I just missed it, coming into Doctor Who at a very young age in 1964. That was the year we got our first television set. Two channels BBC1 and ITV. Didn't see BBC2 until much later when we got a different aerial!

[@BadWisdom523]

I watched this regeneration on a tiny tv at a friends house - we were all gathered round - it was a really weird vibe - like Tom Baker actually died. He didn’t. Still going in fact

[@myphone4590]

The master's tissue compression eliminator is basically just a relative dimensional stabilizer without the life support functions. Kinda hard to get the same amount of oxygen through pinhole sized nostrils and 1% as much lung surface area. Plus given the difference in skin surface area you might as well be in hard vacuum, with 1% as many molecules of atmosphere pressing in on you each second. And if you're radiating the same amount of body heat focused through 1% as much surface area you'll heat your immediate surroundings up to boiling... Really a question of what kills you first.

[@me1735]

Since Tom Baker had been The Doctor for so long JNT thought to bring back some familiar faces to help ease the transition. He asked Elisabeth Sladen and Louise Jameson to return and both declined so he asked Sarah Sutton to return instead, hence why we have Nyssa here. Anthony Ainley wanted to play The Master differently but was told to play it this way instead, he does get the chance to play it the way he wanted to later on in his final appearance.

[@pete_wood]

I like Dad's reading of Tegan's character - in this she absolutely set up as someone longing to travel and have adventures calling out injustice where ahe sees it.

[@Tyrconnell]

John Fraser, the Monitor, died in November 2020. He was, as a young man, incredibly handsome, and had a shot at Hollywood, staring in 'El Cid' with Charlton Heston, and Polanski's 'Replusion', amongst many others. The Logopolitans hair and pale skin remind me of the women who run the Shadow Proclamation in NuWho, I'm sure a retcon link can be made...

[@2006bbbb1]

As per your suggestion that the season wasn't planned ahead of time, actual production order was The Leisure Hive, then State of Decay, meaning that the E-space trilogy was already in place before at least Meglos was recorded. It also gave time for Matthew Waterhouse to grow out his hair, as it was a wig he wore in State of Decay. Waterhouse had played a schoolboy in To Serve Them All My Days, just before he was cast in Doctor Who and his hair was short. Also, in Full Circle, Tom Baker was back to his brown boots instead of the shoes he wore for the first three recorded stories, The Leisure Hive, State of Decay and Meglos. And once he changed to the boots he kept them right through Logopolis.

[@jcortese3300]

At the time when it aired, it would have been more than acceptable to overfill the story only because it was SUCH a huge deal when Tom Baker left the show. This was a huge, huge event when it came out. And if you go back and think of all of this season's stories, you'll note that they all have something to do with decay, entropy, and things winding down.

[@josefschiltz2192]

There has already been a Time Lord regeneration of this kind. K'anpo Rimpoche, the Time Lord head of the Buddhist meditation retreat in Planet Of The Spiders whose future incarnation was already incarnated as Cho Je. When K'anpo collapsed, Cho Je disappeared with a "Do not be alarmed" and reappeared, replacing the old K'anpo who was slumped in his chair, stating that he was "merely regenerating!" When myself and a friend of mine went to interview John Nathan Turner back in Peter Davison's first year - I don't recall if it was post-broadcast Castravalva or not. I asked him as to whether this change over to Davison was based on that. He said that he had absolutely no idea of this having taken place. "It was news to him!" If the two weren't connected, then it was a staggering coincidence! Forgot to say that the character of Cho Je was played by Kevin Lindsay who, a few stories earlier, played Lynx the first on screen Sontaran in The Time Warrior.

[@myphone4590]

One theory is a second leisure hive clone survived, became The Curator who met the 11th doctor, but couldn't regenerate and at the end of his life was The Watcher.

[@kemmdog4444]

“It’s the end,but the moment has been prepared for.”😥

[@bjgandalf69]

Richard tries to explain the elegance of mathematics thru history then Alex refers to a bad Transformers ripoff to do the same thing and Dad grabs his forehead and shakes his head...lol Gotta love it!

[@richardlemin7840]

CGC: 🤣 ~Dad

[@woodhouse122]

The master used his shrink weapon in his first story,Terror of the autons, he shrunk Goodge and stuck him in his lunchbox 😀

[@madran7731]

In 'The Deadly Assassin' (possibly the novelisation) the process is given a name - Matter Condensation. The JNT era gives the weapon a name - the Tissue Compression Eliminator (TCE).

[@alexthehunted]

You might have missed it but this episode is the first use of the tardis clouster bell. I love how in it's first use the doctor just ignores it

[@paulrichards4452]

I agree with you that William Hartnell established the Doctors character. He explored all the elements. Troughton went with the jolly side of the Doctor which we see in stories like The Web Planet where the Doctor is very playful . I remember this story when I was around 7 years old and I found it engaging and sad seeing the fourth Doctor leave. I think Anthony Ainley is superb as The Master especially when he’s given the opportunity to play it deadly serious. The Watcher character is I think the ghost of the Doctors future. If the entropy hadn’t been stopped. The regeneration is beautifully done here and does something very different. Classic regenerations are more interesting whereas modern Who always uses the same effect. Really enjoyed your reactions to the most successful era of Doctor Who. The first and fourth Doctors are my favourites and I remember Verity Lambert saying that she loved Tom Baker her second favourite but for her Hartnell will always be The Doctor.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

7:00 - stop right there! Doc2 never “let things happen”, he always manipulated his enemies into overreaching themselves by making them think he was dumb. Doc2 manipulated his enemies to defeat them. He always used brains to defeat enemies. Doc7 was very similar in this respect. The others were more forthright in taking action against enemies. Doc2 liked to knowingly defeat enemies with as little direct confrontation as possible.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

19:00 - That’s “Terror Of The Autons”, which was The Master’s very first serial. Which had been broadcast just over 10 years earlier (that was January 1971, this is March 81).

[@gus4u2c]

Season 18, the season of entropy. The theme of things getting old and renewed. The motif of bodies merging together and symbiotic relationships are in most stories

[@Concreteowl]

The Master has been shrinking people to death since his first appearance in Terror of the Autons.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

"It's The End But The Moment Has Been Prepared for...." one of the greatest and iconic last lines of a Doctor plain and simple. 41 stories and 172 episodes of the Tom Baker run of any other Doctor and still to thia day wins the longest running. Goodbye Tom 😢 Hello Peter 😊. I believe this is not only Tom Baker's last and Tegan's first appearance but it's also the final Doctor Who story until 2005 to have the character credited as "Doctor Who" starting from Davison's run he's credited as "The Doctor". You probaly also noticed at the closing sequence Tom's face desolves. This is the first time since 1967 we have 3 companions. Beginning with the next season is where Classic Who is at it's peak your in for some strange times the 80's.

[@josefschiltz2192]

The Logopolitan streets remind me of some of the paintings of the Surrealist Remedios Varo, with characters half-emerging from little enclaves within walls of alleys. The Master used a sound cancelling device. I suspect this was already in use as he went about his destructive purpose.

[@jonathanmurphy3141]

The TARDIS lands, along the Thames, on Cadogan Pier, side of Chelsea, across from Battersea. The Clash had filmed video for "London Calling" on the same pier, about a year year before, in the rain. The final radio tower, Jodrell Bank, up by Manchester, the production could not go to film at -hence the model. When the Blu-ray set of Season 18 was released, they had some budget to go to Jodrell Bank, and use drones to film new film, to edit.

[@ZoomerUnion]

Technically speaking, the story does not end here. You'll see where Castrovalva picks up.

[@matthewjh138]

how did you not tell Tegan was Australian by her accent lol it was pretty obvious. still very good reaction

[@richardlemin7840]

Brovien: As midwestern Americans, we’re not attuned to “subtler” variations of the Ozzie accent. We’ve been bombarded with Paul Hogan. Mel Gibson and Hugh Jackman were toned down for us. ~ Dad

[@matthewjh138]

Oh ok since I’m an Australian I can just tell but I suppose it makes sense. It’s hard for me to tell American accents apart so I get it. Lol

[@richardlemin7840]

@@matthewjh138: We have people in Oklahoma who can’t tell a Louisiana accent from a Texas drawl… ~Dad

[@joshuajoshua2732]

As an Australian myself we can't tell american and canadian accents apart because to us they sound similar so there's that.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

8:45 - each of the first four doctors added something to the basic formula of the show and I think this is because each actor to play the part after Doc4 watched the show when they were younger so mimicked “their” Doctors or took bits of other Doctor’s personalities (see my point about Doc7 being like Doc2 or Doc12 being like Doc3, Doc10 being like Doc5). There hasn’t been a totally original portrayal of the Doctor since Doc4. Maybe Doc9. The first four Doctors laid the foundation blocks for how the character - and by extension, the show - should be.

[@alexthehunted]

I'd like to imagine when the doctor does go back to gallifrey the time lords will be "greetings doctor you've returned at last.....wheres romarna?"

[@7thHourFilms]

"Which one?" "What do you mean 'which one'?"

[@bananasaregood8655]

11:09 now we know where the 10th doctor got his ‘well..’ mannerism 😂

[@benjaminwilson2945]

I wonder if that was intentional as Tom Baker was Tennant’s doctor growing up?

[@bananasaregood8655]

@@benjaminwilson2945 very possible. Tom baker does go ‘well..’ quite a lot

[@thevirgologychannel6215]

Also, the “What!” Which people seem to forget. Tom did a lot of that before the tenth

[@robvanriot]

Theres a bit in Spyfall Part 2 where The Doctor and The Master are at the top of Eiffel Tower. The Doctor mentions having hated heights "since Jodrell Bank," and the Master has a good old gloat about it. That's a direct callback to this.

[@benjaminwilson2945]

I like how your reaction to Tom Baker’s first story came out almost exactly one year ago. It seems fitting.

[@7thHourFilms]

It's crazy because that only happened due to the break in December while we had covid.

[@benjaminwilson2945]

@@7thHourFilms Did you release your reaction to Castrovalva early by accident?

[@Darren79]

This story was written by the script editor Christopher H. Bidmead. He was a journalist and wrote articles for new scientist - bit of a geek. He only did this one season as editor as he found it frustrating. They didn't start the season knowing Tom Baker was leaving until events sort of encouraged him to leave.

[@Blue_Cas]

Get ready for all the Tegan and Nyssa shipping.

[@Jaketherobonrd]

Well, the end of Tom Baker’s era as 4th Doctor. I remember I borrowed this story from my library as well . Despite being quite convoluted story, it’s a fitting end for the 4th Doctor and he’s last scene just makes weep my eyes out😢 as he’s my favourite doctor of all.

[@scottredding7357]

It’s the reaction … but the moment has been prepared for.

[@stickytapenrust6869]

33:50 - I think the fall was just the “cherry on top”, the Doctor’s cells may have been battered by the entropy on Logopolis. The Master was unaffected as his body was freshly regenerated.

[@julianblake3140]

You are right there isn’t a planned arc to the season. Tom Baker decided to leave after the season started shooting and Nyssa was a last minute addition because the producers decided she would make a good companion while Traken was being made.

[@gus4u2c]

Season 18, the season of entropy. The theme of things getting old and renewed. The motif of bodies merging together and symbiotic relationships is in most stories

[@RoundTheArchives]

'Logopolis' notes : Part One: Viewing figures = 7,1 million. Chart position = 84. Part Two: Viewing figures = 7.7 million. Chart position = 57. Part Three: Viewing figures = 5.8 million. Chart position = 102. Part Four: Viewing figures = 6.1 million. Chart position = 97. Transmission dates : 28 February, 7, 14, 21 March 1981. Studio sessions : January 1981. Studios : TC3 & TC6. Tom Baker's decision to leave the series was announced to the press in October 1980 with Peter Davison being named as his successor in early November (around the time of 'Full Circle'). John Nathan-Turner had worked with Davison on 'All Creatures Great And Small'. During planning of Season 18, some though had been given to increasing the show's profile in Australia and although initial ideas of filming there came to nothing, this was a factor in the introduction of Tegan after plans for the return of Sarah or Leela came to nothing. Auntie Vanessa's house was actually where 'Meglos' writer Andrew McCulloch lived, so the cactus that inspired the prickly villain was probably still inside the kitchen at the time. The Barnet bypass scenes were meant to include the real police box that had been there for many years, but it had been demolished by the time filming took place. Barry Letts begins to step away from his Executive Producer role, though he will remain for the early planning stages of Season 19. To bridge the long gap until Season 19, repeats of 'Full Circle and 'The Keeper Of Traken' were shown in August followed by BBC2 repeats of 'An Unearthly Child', 'The Krotons', 'Carnival Of Monsters', 'The Three Doctors' and 'Logopolis' in November. And let us not overlook the Christmas present of 'K9 & Company'...

[@majkus]

The music cue at about 16:00 where the Doctor gets the idea of materializing the TARDIS underwater is the 'Rhein River' theme from Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'. It's a funny moment if you recognize it.

[@ftumschk]

There's another Wagner reference in the costume-trying scene in _Robot,_ where the Doctor emerges as a viking to a snippet from the _Flying Dutchman_ overture. Coincidentally or not, it's quite neat that we have Wagnerian quotes flanking Tom's entire tenure as the Doctor :)

[@whobp8]

Great call on guessing that the Watcher is the potential future Doctor! As for the bit about the Doctor disconnecting the cable, as I understand it, the Logopolitans were keeping the CVE's open but were working on a program to open them permanently, after the Master interfered and entropy started to destroy Logopolis, the Monitor started working frantically to complete that program, following the Monitor's demise, the Doctor and the Master finished the program, so that new CVE they opened should stay open on it's own. The Master thought he could hold the universe to ransom by threatening to destroy the CVE, but was thwarted by the Doctor pulling the plug (literally). Arguably, this story has the highest body count of any Doctor Who story, since entire star systems are wiped out by the entropy field, including the Traken Union, implying a death count of billions or more. John Fraser (the Monitor) appeared in several movies, including The Dam Busters, El Cid, A Study in Terror and at least three Roman Polanski films, which may be why he seems familiar, he also appears on an episode of Columbo, Dagger of the Mind, in which Fraser and Bernard Fox play Scotland Yard detectives hosting Columbo on a visit to England. For the record, I'll point out that the first ever Doctor Who spinoff, K-9: and Company, came out between this story and Castrovalva.

[@kyletaylor3255]

It really is true that Americans can't distinguish between British and Australian accents! I knew that of course, but it seems odd to me as an Englishman. Tegan has a clear Australian accent, and when she was first seen on the show back in Australia, there was some reaction that her accent was too strong. Janet Fielding, who is Australian, responded to these comments by asking "What's wrong with an Australian accent?"

[@kierenevans2521]

I remember Richard thinking the aussie chef in Enemy of the World was cockney.

[@ftumschk]

@@kierenevans2521 That may go some way to explaining why, when Americans try an "English" accent, it often emerges as a cross between Cockney and Australian. To my ears anyway :)

[@AdamPurcell]

A few years ago a few of my fellow English friends and I were at a Doctor Who convention in Chicago. We were chatting in a lift (sorry, elevator!) that we were sharing with a couple of Americans. One of them heard us and asked if we'd come all the way from Australia! We were a little shocked and pointed out we were really British.

[@MrPaulMorris]

An interesting story made much more important by the departure of the Fourth Doctor. I'll do out on something of a limb and say that, for me, the end of Tom Baker's run was a relief. His was the Doctor that almost managed to push me away from the show having been a regular since '63. I just never liked his interpretation and the performance goy broader and more intrusive with each season. It became clear (to me) that Baker was more important than the character or the stories. I know this view runs counter to the view held by much of the fandom. My favourite Doctor? Troughton. He manages effortlessly what the writers tried much more explicitly to do with McCoy; make the Doctor a 'puller of strings'--controlling events and people indirectly, in Troughton's case by misdirection, appearing the fool, in McCoy's case by simply being 'mysterious' and dropping unsubtle hints about greater powers at work. I'm looking forward to the Fifth Doctor, not only because he's not Tom Baker but because there are a lot of stories I've not seen. While I'd like to blame that on the Fourth Doctor's shadow it is also the case that I was by then a young man in the Royal Air Force and Saturday evenings often held other attractions...

[@GideonTyree]

The reason Ainley seemed like he was "trying too hard" is because the BBC told him to ham up his performance since they deemed his version of the Master too frightening for younger viewers. If you want to see him finally allowed to play the Master as he wanted to, you'll have to wait for a certain episode in Sylvester McCoy's run, though I won't spoil which one.

[@richardlemin7840]

Gideon: As a director myself, I find that decision to be appalling. ~Dad

[@FarazIFM]

First time we get cameos of previous companions during the regeneration episode

[@kyletaylor3255]

Both Victoria and Zoe were also introduced in the final serial of seasons 5 and 6 respectively. But those were longer serials, and it wasn't such a long wait for DW to return then, as Doctor Who was broadcast most of the year, then a short break - they didn't actually have the concept of 'seasons' in 1960s BBC programming. I believe it was a deliberate choice to get the new Doctor's team of companions together before the regeneration so the new Doctor could get started straight away with no new character introductions bogging things down at the start of the next season. It was a VERY big deal when Tom Baker left the show. The audience for DW had grown a lot during his time, and Baker was so associated with the role that it was a real worry that audiences might not come to terms with a very different actor in the role. Younger audiences will not have been able to remember anyone else doing it, and even older people had forgotten what earlier Doctor Who was like, because this was before repeats of programmes happened or video recorders were widely available. Peter Davison was by some way the youngest to have taken on the role at that point, and there were worries it just wouldn't work. So the reason there was an unusually long break between this story and the start of the next one is that the BBC felt the need to rerun old stories featuring the earlier Doctors (as well as the fourth), to get people used to the idea that Doctor Who didn't need to be Tom Baker. Even so, when I watched DW at my grandparents house, toward the end of the Peter Davison era, my grandad's reaction on seeing him was "that isn't Doctor Who!" This regeneration story has such a lot of things put into it (too much for a four-parter really) because it was deliberately trying to reference past episodes so much, and build up a suitably dramatic exit for a big TV moment.

[@kierenevans2521]

Re: Victoria and Zoe, you mean seasons 4 and 5 respectively. They left in the seasons you state.

[@josefschiltz2192]

Do you honestly think that the TARDIS would allow a materialization under water and then be flooded through with dirty river water? You've got to be joking.

[@josefschiltz2192]

Third: "Yes, well, the problem is that an improperly steered TARDIS scratches the event containment dams. That's why when you land it sounds like the TARDIS is scratching it's way through the chest cavity of a crow!" Second: "DO YOU MIND? I'll have you know . . Third: "Look! I would advise . . . Second: "What a nerve!!! . . . Third: " . . . . Only trying to point out . . . Look! If only you'd listen! Second: " . . . . Oh . . . . Piffle! I shall complain you know . . . to a higher authority! First: "What's all this, eh? A mass meeting? Third: "Well . . erm, erm, erm, it's like this! Richard . . . well, hm, it's a bit like this, Richard said that he . . erm . . . well, out of all of us, he prefer . . First: "Yes, yes, I heard." Second: "Well?" Third: "Yes, well?" First: "Well, I think that the young man has, quite frankly, remarkably good taste." Second and Third: "WHAT?"

[@moreau1755]

Re: The Watcher. Remember the third Doctor's story and K'anpo? The elderly Time Lord who had mentally projected his next incarnation as a physical and separate being? It seems that some Time Lords can do that. It might be argued that was what Romana was doing when she had that parade of forms when she regenerated. And it seems that the Doctor, having seen at least K'anpo do it, subconsciously tried to do the same. But being the undisciplined mind he is, his projection was half-formed and looked like he was made of melted marshmallows. Tegan and Aunt Vanessa: If you recall Power of the Doctor, when the Master sees Tegan again he taunts her by asking her about her aunt. Adding Tegan here and having three companions: JNT knew it had been a long time since the Doctor had been switched, and figured that younger viewers in particular might not even remember there'd been prior Doctors. So he did various things he felt (rightly or wrongly) might ease the transition, including having multiple companions. Ben and Polly had served a similar purpose - they could both voice the audiences' questions querying how the change in Doctors had come about, and if people were unsure whether or not they liked and wanted to continue to watch the new incumbent then hopefully they'd stick around because they already liked and wanted to continue to watch the companions. Of course introducing two of the three new companions the same story you got the regeneration somewhat negated the idea that the audience would already care about them, but I said it was the plan, not that it was a good one or well executed. Another, much more successful action that JNT arranged in terms of helping ease the transition was The Five Faces of Doctor Who. When the BBC decided to delay broadcasting Peter Davison's first season, JNT convinced them to do a run of repeats of old Doctor Who stories on BBC 2 in the two months leading into the new season. Since commercial video tape releases were still to come, and the BBC almost never repeated Doctor Who (I think the only times they'd done so was a repeat of very first episode a week after original airing, because original viewership had been impacted by news of the Kennedy assassination, and then Evil of the Daleks back in 1968), this was the first time many viewers, especially younger ones, got to see that there had been prior Doctors. They repeated An Unearthly Child, The Krotons (not much choice for Troughton as they needed a four parter that didn't have any missing episodes), Carnival of Monsters, The Three Doctors and Logopolis (the last mandated simply to make the "Five Faces" part of the title make sense).

[@conscienceaginBlackadder]

At xmas 74, leading into Tom's start, there was a reduced repeat of Planet of the Spiders as "a complete adventure in one programme". I remember it age 6 + found it adequate in its completeness, for a really liked story. xmas 75 they did the same for Genesis of the Daleks

[@moreau1755]

@@conscienceaginBlackadder Fair comment - I'd overlooked those. Nevertheless the general point stands - it was extremely rare for the BBC to repeat old Doctor Who, especially anything from more than a year or two prior.

[@madran7731]

Actually, although repeats weren't common generally one Pertwee story would be repeated each year. I think it went 'Spearhead from Space', 'The Daemons', ''The Day of the Daleks', 'The Sea Devils' (bonus story that year!), 'The Green Death' and 'Planet of the Spiders'. For Baker there were generally 2 a year, those being 'The Ark in Space', 'Genesis of the Daleks', 'Planet of Evil', 'The Sontaran Experiment' (The last 2 being shown across one week Monday - Thursday one episode of Planet and Friday an omnibus of Sontaran Experiment), 'Pyramids of Mars' & 'The Brain of Morbius' shown as one hour omnibus editions over the Christmas period, 'The Deadly Assassin', 'Robots of Death' (shown as 2 50 minute episodes around New Years Eve), 'The Invisible Enemy', 'The Sunmakers', 'The Pirate Planet', 'The Androids of Tara', 'Destiny of the Daleks', 'City of Death', 'Full Circle' and 'The Keeper of Traken'. Then there was the Five Faces repeats. There were repeats of Davison episodes but I can't remember which/when. Later there was a repeat season 'Doctor Who and the Monsters' featuring 'The Curse of Peladon', 'Genesis of the Daleks' and 'Earthshock' all in 50 minute episodes, Genesis cut into only 2 parts. Then after Doctor Who's original run ended there were various repeats.

[@beverleygray4219]

Yeah William Hartnell is my favourite n jon Pertwee is second

[@kierenevans2521]

29:00 The addition of Nyssa means that Johnny Byrne, the writer of Keeper of Traken, got a fee for every time she appeared. 31:20 Which for me proves you don't need the companion to be from modern day earth. 36:10 I find the modern who approach sickly. 37:15 The writer was the script editor for the season, Christopher H. Bidmead, who is an interesting writer. I quite like his last story but a bit of wait to that. 39:30 Ben and Polly joined in The War Machines (last of season 3 and two before The Tenth Planet, with The Smugglers in between), Victoria joined in The Evil of the Daleks and left in Fury from the Deep (last of season 4 and second to last of season 5 respectively), and Zoe joined in The Wheel in Space (the last of season 5). 54:35 You always seem to ignore the Script Editor in these discussions. Bidmead definitely adds a tone to the season. 56:20 Incorrect, Romana receives the recall to Gallifrey at the end of Meglos.

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

(1) “It’s the end. But the moment has been prepared for.” Wow, what a final line, maybe the best final line for any Doctor. The fourth Doctor flashing that familiar beaming smile one last time never fails to simultaneously break my heart and make me feel happy. Logopolis as a whole perhaps doesn’t quite match that level of quality, but it’s still an epic climax for the fourth Doctor with a very enjoyable and suitably funereal tone pervading the whole story. Tom Baker is a huge part of establishing that tone and gives a brilliantly broody performance, one of his very best across his tenure. The moment the Doctor first sees the Watcher is a superlative bit of acting by Tom, one of the best moments of the story. From that point onward, the fourth Doctor is fully aware his time is up and Tom Baker conveys that very well through his performance. He seems genuinely scared and disturbed throughout this story. I love how this makes every action he takes after that point so brave and noble because he knows everything he does takes him one step closer to his death. I also really like how this story ties back to the E-space trilogy with the revelation that the Logopolitans use the CVEs to control the entropy of the universe. It adds a really nice sense of continuity and cohesion to the season, like it has been building up to this. In fact, the biggest strength of season 18 is its thematic cohesion and how it threads themes of entropy and decay of systems/civilisations/people through each of its stories. You’ve got the Argolins being doomed to die because of a destructive war in The Leisure Hive. In Meglos, we find the Tigellans’ city in rapid decline because they’re over reliant on a power source they don’t understand and the dispute between the scientists and religious fanatics is stifling any chance for progress. In Full Circle there’s the Alzarians, who are destined to never leave Alzarius and their society has no chance to progress because they’ve remained ignorant due to the Deciders dogmatic adherence to the manuals left by their forefathers. State of Decay shows us a planet where the people have regressed to the point of possessing no knowledge of technology or science because of the oppression by the “three who rule”. In Warriors’ Gate, we see how the Tharils’ empire crumbled and they became enslaved by the humans due to their own mistakes. Finally, in The Keeper of Traken, we encounter the tranquil and peaceful Traken civilisation, which is torn apart brick by brick by the Master because the Trakens were ill prepared to deal with threats of evil due to their beliefs and customs, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation. Their wise old keeper recognised this, but was too old to protect his people and was on his deathbed and dies soon after, clear parallels to the Doctor right before the regeneration story. This all leads to Logopolis, with the entire universe now crumbling because of entropy and it feels earned because this entire season has built up to it. Logopolis simply feels like an escalation and natural culmination of themes explored through the rest of S18. These themes also play into the Doctor’s character and his increasingly sombre and world-weary demeanour in S18. The fourth Doctor in this season feels old and tired, like he’s past his best and near his end and needs to renew himself, which is a parallel to the worlds/civilisations he visits in this season. The Doctor being aged hundreds of years in The Leisure Hive can be seen as symbolism for what he feels like at this point and foreshadowing for the Doctor’s eventual regeneration and the kickstart to his character arc for the season. The whole season preaches the importance of change and how it’s the only path to progress in every story, and it’s because of all this build up why that final line is perfect and hits so hard. The entirety of S18 builds up to and prepares the viewers for the Doctor’s regeneration. I also love the concept of the Watcher and think it adds a great sense of doom and mystery to the story. I really like how the reveal that the Watcher is a manifestation of the Doctor’s future self ties back to the Abbot regenerating into Cho-Je in Planet of the Spiders, the previous regeneration story. The Watchers presence makes the Doctor’s regeneration feel like an inevitability, an unavoidable consequence of the universe being saved and he’s there making sure everything goes right and to guide the Doctor to his demise. He’s there to remind the Doctor to stay on track and not procrastinate (linking back to a story like Full Circle from earlier in the season) and to do what’s necessary to fix the mess that was caused by him failing to adequately deal with Master back on Traken and allowing him to escape. We see the Doctor slowly grow to accept his impending regeneration over the course of the story and a pivotal moment is when he decides to jettison Romana’s room. It’s very underplayed and subtle, but he’s symbolically letting go of his past in order to move forward to his future.

[@EvHervey]

10,000 subs by July 4 = 2 beards gone.

[@7thHourFilms]

Good luck with that! The sub count hasn't far past 7k in years.

[@richardlemin7840]

Ev: Get it done and I will comply! ~Dad

[@EvHervey]

@@richardlemin7840 28 Days... seems appropriate. Alright then.

[@EvHervey]

@@richardlemin7840 I'll be monitoring the sub count on socialblade :)

[@stephencoppins9467]

Couple of points and thoughts. Considering this story is essentially about a bunch of blokes working out maths problems, it is still interesting and enjoyable. Terror of the Autons, which introduced the Master (as we know them), also had a space radio telescope, where the Master used the Tissue Compression Eliminator to shrink one of the telescope operators. The Master’s TARDIS chameleon circuit is a bit like the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver - it works, except when it doesn’t. There might have been two Romanas in the Doctor’s mind-flashback of companions, but only one K-9. 🙁 Speaking of K-9, no plans to watch K-9 and Company, which came out between Logopolis and the next story? Some spoilers for The Day of the Doctor... Obviously not the intention of the writer or production team back in 1981, but in my head canon, the Watcher is the the penultimate Doctor (or at least a mid-way point in a regeneration) before becoming the Curator. The Doctor lands his TARDIS around a real police box to get the measurements to fix the chameleon circuit and the Watcher lands inside their fourth incarnation (one of the old favourites) to become the Curator. Though considering the Watcher required the death of an incarnation and destruction of part of the universe for a vanity project, this theory does get a bit dark when you think of it. 😳

[@EquinoxJones]

There's an argument to be had that Leela is human.

[@MuchWhittering]

10:00 Not that I disagree, but I saw a convertible like an hour ago. But yes, they're very rare here. 22:40 Did you not realise Tegan was Australian? Although there is that old stereotype of Americans mixing up Brit/Aussie accents. They use it many times in an episode of Only Fools and Horses where they go to Miami. 28:30 I've just checked, this is John Fraser's only Doctor Who role. You probably didn't notice, because why would you, but the Doctor's shoes change when he regenerates. That's apparently because the shoes were Tom Baker's own, so naturally he took them with him. It's funny in Castrovalva watching Davison basically drowning in Tom Baker's costume. Yeah, don't expect an explanation of The Watcher in the show. I know the EU has gone into it a few times (just yesterday I was listening to an audio which explores the 5-6 regeneration in an interesting way), but the show? Nope, never again. So after this aired there was a fairly long gap between seasons. This finished on the 21st of March 1981, and Castrovalva didn't begin until the 4th of January 1982. During this gap, not only did they have K9 and Company, they also had something known as the "Five Faces of Doctor Who". Basically, because it had been so long since Pertwee, a significant amount of the audience would ONLY know Tom Baker as the Doctor. So they decided to air some repeats of old Doctors in November/December 1981, to show the so-called "five faces". They chose An Unearthly Child, The Krotons (because it was the only surviving Troughton 4-parter, as Tomb of the Cybermen was missing until 1991), The Three Doctors, and Logopolis. This marathon is infamous among that generation of Doctor Who fans, because in the days before VHS (The first DW VHS was in 1983), you had basically 0 opportunity to watch old episodes. So fans at the time loved this, and many of them taped copies on their early VHS machines to watch again. This is also responsible for Troughton being associated with "Oh my giddy aunt", as he says that in The Krotons, the only time it came up in his whole run.

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

The Watcher is a callback to the Abbot regenerating into Cho-Je in Planet of the Spiders. There is a precedent.

[@julianblake3140]

There is a convertible mini parked down the road where I live, but yeah you don’t see them often in the UK.

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

(2) All of this is why I love the moment when the Doctor’s hanging off the tower and how the camera lingers on his face, the fear and conflict etched across it with his life flashing before his eyes. He weighs up all his options and, I believe, we see the fourth Doctor willingly let go and fall to his death. He’s content because he knows he needs to change to move forward and that the universe needs a new, younger man to protect it. The fourth Doctor’s old, worn-out face fading into the fifth Doctor’s youthful, smiling face is a perfect bit of subtle visual storytelling. I think it’s quite beautiful to link the Doctor’s regeneration to the universe being renewed and saved from entropy. No other regeneration is as uplifting and feels more like a rebirth than the fourth Doctor’s and it serves as an effective contrast to the generally bleak tone of the rest of the story and the season as a whole, it’s actually quite wonderful. Anthony Ainley also makes a very promising debut as the Master, adding a gleeful, manic edge to the character. It’s really disturbing that he’s using Nyssa’s father’s corpse to walk around and how he uses this fact to manipulate her, and then destroys her entire world! The Master has never felt nastier and more evil than he does here. I like how the Master miscalculates his plan and causes entropy to spread through the universe because it makes whatever he had planned seem so insignificant and the fact he actually seems to regret what he did adds extra weight to the threat entropy poses to the universe. I really like how this forces the Doctor and the Master into the position of working with one another to try and save the universe because it highlights how desperate the situation is and I love how this decision directly leads to the Doctor’s death, because of course, despite monumentally screwing up earlier, true to form the Master improvises and tries to turn the situation in his favour. I think the Master is used in a very interesting way in Logopolis, I really like it. I don’t think Logopolis ranks amongst the very best stories of the fourth Doctor’s tenure or anything, but it’s a very good story that serves as a satisfying conclusion to all the themes and concepts explored in S18 and is an appropriately grand farewell to the fourth Doctor. The most popular and iconic (alongside Tennant’s tenth Doctor) Doctor. S18 as a whole is really good and I really enjoy it. With the exception of Meglos, every story is (to varying degrees) at least good and interesting. Yes, even The Leisure Hive and Warriors' Gate guys!😅I honestly think S18 is fairly underrated in the fandom and doesn't get the credit it deserves. It's generally well regarded and is seen as a marked improvement over S17, but I still think it deserves more love. I actually think S17 is very underrated in itself tbh, with only Destiny of the Daleks and The Horns of Nimon being bad stories. The rest were all good, again to varying degrees (City of Death being the clear standout), but I digress. It’’s still definitely weaker than S18, which is in my personal top 10 classic Who seasons. The fourth Doctor’s tenure as a whole was remarkably consistent, especially considering how long it is. By my count, there are only eight stories I’d consider bad or just average. The rest I like or love. Having said that, there’s no doubt those first three and half seasons with Phillip Hinchcliffe as producer and Robert Holmes as script editor is undoubtedly the peak of the fourth Doctor’s tenure and arguably the peak of classic Who. There’s definitely a noticeable dip in quality once they both left, but the stories are still good for the most part even after they leave. Anyway, Looking forward to season 19 and the beginning of the fifth Doctor's era. Before that though, there’s the matter of putting this entire era into a tier list to deal with next week…. I wonder what surprises y’all have in store for us! As I said to Alex on twitter, I have a feeling y’all will rank well liked stories like The Masque of Mandragora in the top tier and all-time classics like The Seeds of Doom lower, but I don’t mind as long as they’re still ranked as at least good and not just okay or bad. I really don’t know what to expect, but I’m anxiously looking forward to see what you guys came up with….

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

Troughton's my favourite classic Who Doctor and I think he has the highest % of classic stories out of any Doctor (9/21, so 43%), if that makes sense. This wasn't always the case though, so I kind of understand why you guys feel the way you do. Troughton's a fan favourite Doctor and people generally put him behind Tom Baker as the best of the classic Doctors, but I never got the hype. I always enjoyed him and, like you guys, thought he was good, but I also felt that he was too laidback and didn't have enough of a presence as the Doctor. That's until I rewatched his era around three years ago and I realised that the understated and subtle nature of his performances was why he was so great. Most of the time Troughton's a very fun and charming Doctor, but there are moments when you see there's more to him than meets the eye. He'll often intentionally play the fool to lull his enemies into a false sense of security and is willing to lie if it means winning the day. I love how manipulative and cold he can be despite looking the total opposite of that. It might not seem like it, but often times he's the one in control. Manipulating events to go his way from the background. I love the way his voice falls to a foreboding whisper, when speaking of the dangers he and his companions are faced with. Out of all the Doctors, he's one of the best at really selling and getting across the danger of the situations he and his companions end up in. His sense of fun and adventure is wonderful, and he truly feels like just an adventurer and Troughton wasn't afraid to make his Doctor look vulnerable, which makes the times he turns cold and manipulative and defeats his enemies that much more impactful. There are so many layers to the 2nd Doctor and Troughton is one of the three best actors to play the Doctor along with Tennant and Capaldi imo. If you ever went back and rewatched some of his stories for yourselves, I'm sure you'll also notice these things more. It was also interesting to hear Alex talk about Pertwee's era and imply that he loves his Doctor and era in spite of the quality of the stories. That Pertwee's era, similar to Capaldi's, is carried by his performance and his chemistry with his co-stars. That's interesting because I remember y'all being overwhelmingly positive towards Pertwee's era. If you went back and watched the recap you did of his era, you would find that y'all liked/loved all but three stories from his era. Just three. By the same token, if you guys went back and watched your recaps of Hartnell and Troughton's era, y'all would find out that you disliked exactly the same number of stories from each of their eras. Six for both Hartnell and Troughton. So y'all enjoyed Troughton's era more than you remember.

[@7thHourFilms]

It's true we don't remember everything but we don't mean to put any era or Doctor down too hard. I liked a number of Pertwee stories like you mentioned but the performance is what sticks in my head all these months later and the same is true for Dad about the 1st Doctor. We tried to emphasize that we've enjoyed all 4 of them up to this point and even if we put Troughton at the bottom, he's still a fantastic Doctor. Heck, we may have our favorite Doctors and my favorite season is still S8 but we would both agree that The War Games is the best episode of Classic Who so far. So, honestly choosing Doctors is kinda splitting hairs!

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

@@7thHourFilms The War Games is my favourite classic Who story too. I can watch all 10 eps in one sitting and never get bored. I can see what you're saying about how hard it is choosing Doctors. On one hand, you have to consider the quality and consistency of the stories, and on the other hand there's the performances. I think the first four Doctors are all brilliant in terms of their performances (personally though, Troughton and Tom Baker standout for me with Troughton having the slight edge.) and all four eras are good, to varying degrees, overall. Doctor Who was incredibly lucky to start off with such consistently great Doctors one after the other. With that being said, I do think Hartnell easily has the most inconsistent era out of the first four Doctors (it's still very good overall) and Pertwee has the most consistent in terms of having the least number of bad/average episodes. However, as I mentioned, Troughton has the highest % of classic stories and Tom Baker has the most number of classic stories because of the simple fact that his era is by far the longest. It's a lot!😅At the end of the day, it's kinda pointless to choose between the first four Doctors. They're all great. I'm interested to get into the fifth Doctor's era. I've only seen about half of it and most of it was at least 4 years ago. I remember liking most of what I saw, but I've only seen most of those stories once each, so I don't have very strong opinions on them and I'm interested to see if they hold up on rewatch. The fifth Doctor and his era are odd because most of the fandom seems to forget about it a lot of the time and seems very lukewarm towards it overall.

[@joshuaverran9443]

Troughton is awesome having him down at the bottom is a crime.

[@Mrazmatmahmood]

@@joshuaverran9443 Yeah, of course everyone respects Hartnell for starting the show and setting in place the core fundamentals of the part, but Troughton redefined the role and created the blueprint that every Doctor after him followed. The fun, adventurous and whimsical side of the Doctor combined with a ruthless, cold and manipulative streak in order to heroically protect the universe is something Troughton brought to the forefront of the character. Davison, Colin, McCoy, McGann, Eccleston and Smith all say Troughton's their favourite Doctor and cite him as their biggest influence on their own performances. Troughton's a Doctor's Doctor. Even Tennant has said in a documentary that were it not for Troughton, the character of the Doctor would be very different today and that "we're all playing variations of what he did". It's disappointing for Alex and Richard to not see all this, but it is what is. I didn't for a long time either.🤷‍♂

[@Darren79]

There was a big fear about Tom Baker leaving - would the audience stay with the show - JNT wanted a way to transition to Peter Davison that brought the audience along. Initially he wanted Sarah Jane or Leela back as a familiar aspect to help the audience. When neither actress wanted to return, JNT instead went for increasing the companion number. Nyssa was considered workable as a companion despite not being created as one (she's young and female she'll do basically). Tegan was the producers idea - he wanted an Australian who loved air travel. There's no depth to these decisions.

[@joshuaverran9443]

It wasnt The Tenth Planet after The War Machines there was The Smugglers then The Tenth Planet.

[@melvyncollins7305]

I'm not sure if you realise but K9 and Company aired between the final Tom Baker and first Peter Davison stories. Will you be reacting to that?

[@7thHourFilms]

I thought about it but I didn't want to space out this and 19x1 too much since we're doing the tier list next week. Perhaps we might get around to it again.

[@melvyncollins7305]

@@7thHourFilms I actually have it placed after Castrovalva in my collection, I look on Castrovalva as the end of a trilogy alongside Traken and Logopolis.

[@alexthehunted]

​@7th Hour Films not sure if your dad could handle that intro

[@itscrossbow7637]

This is my favourite master tbh and sad to see Tom doctor end by falling to his death but welcome Peter Davidson aka David tennant father in law

[@bananasaregood8655]

It is exactly one day shy of a solid year since you uploaded tom baker’s first story ‘robot’ on the channel, thats freaky since its logopolis today. Unfortunately i really dont like this story and find it such a disappointing way to end the 4th doctor’s era. Excited for the fifth doctor’s era reactions tho 😄

[@stickytapenrust6869]

Yeah, Tom Baker deserved much more than just a 1hr40min maths lesson…

[@Concreteowl]

I'm not a fan of RTD1 so I'm glad Capaldi was Doctor under Moffat. Like Capaldi Tom is the Doctor. Pertwee is a fine actor playing the Doctor. Tom is the Doctor pretending to be Tom Baker.

[@AmyWarriorPrincess]

There was one other time the Master shrunk someone. It was Terror of the Autons in the 3rd Doctor's era.

[@7thHourFilms]

Didn't he also shrink someone in Deadly Assassin? Like the person investigating the gun that shot the president? I think that was the clue that it was The Master.

[@kierenevans2521]

@@7thHourFilms Correct, he shrunk Hilred (the guard commander) and the camera operator.

[@Sigurd-r5]

The DVDs are great for BTS stuff guys

[@flaggerify]

The second Romana is still the better-remembered incarnation. Perhaps because of City of the Dead.

[@tokublwhovian]

City of Death*

[@joshuaverran9443]

Why even do a ranking they are all great in their own right your entitled to your opinion of course but i disagree that Patrick Troughton wasn't consistent he was no more less consistent than the rest of them and you got to remember he was the first "new" Doctor and they didn't know whether the idea of a new Doctor would work or not and Troughton was worried about killing the show but it turned out to be a success right from the get-go from his first season to his last. He was more of a fun whimsical Doctor just like Tom Baker what i love about Troughton's Doctor is he's a funny man but also he hides his intelligence to let his enemies think that he's just a buffoon and that recorder i want that recorder.

[@thevirgologychannel6215]

Actually doesn’t the tenth Doctor refer to this incident to in the idiots lantern

[@BadWisdom523]

Maths is funny