User Reviews

Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor is beloved by fans (Rightly so!) and this serial is his penultimate appearance. He manages to give an incredible performance (Does he ever not?) and even manages to work well with Matthew Waterhouse as the much maligned companion Adric. The plot sees The Doctor and Adric arrive on the planet Traken where the leader of the planet, The Keeper, is dying and has fears about what will happen.

The serial is one that fans of NuWho (as it's sometimes called) might initially dismiss as it doesn't focus on being a big showcase for special effects, has no location filming and has very little by way of action instead focusing on the characters standing and talking or walking and talking. That's a shame because that's missing the point entirely: These four episodes are setting up a new era for Doctor Who ahead of Baker's departure in the next serial such as reintroducing N-Space, introducing Nyssa (who will become a companion from the next serial onwards but sadly has very little to do here) and - most importantly - the first appearance of Anthony Ainley as The Master. It does all that but still makes none of that it's main focus either. It's just trying to tell a great story and it manages this with great success. This all makes it a landmark for the series.

Ainley only plays The Master in the final scene though. Until then the character is portrayed by Geoffrey Beevers in a performance that is mostly vocal. He spends the majority of the serial aboard his TARDIS, which is disguised as The Melkur in a wonderful twist, and we don't get to see him until very late on. He is revealed as a decayed monstrosity and the makeup and costume work well together with Beevers' performance to create a memorable version of The Master that is prepared to do what he has to do to get his new body and survive -- And to hell with the consequences! (Fun Fact: Beevers' wife Caroline John played The 3rd Doctor's companion Liz Shaw.)

Ainley is playing Tremas (go crazy, anagram fans... subtle piece of foreshadowing there!), one of Traken's consuls, who suspects that all is not well and teams up with The Doctor and Adric to figure out what and fix it. His acting is excellent and the final scene is thus able to make you sad when he becomes possessed by The Master at the end. This form will be permanent for the character until 1996 replaced him with Eric Roberts, for some reason.

Fans were treated to an excellent serial here that set up for Tom Baker's successor Peter Davison in many ways (that are easy to miss if you don't know/think to look for them) and at the same time tells an engaging and exciting story. Not perfect but still worthy of being regarded as a classic. Not to be missed!

Review of all four parts:

As another reviewer alluded, the aforementioned as Kassia and The Keeper provide great performances. I confess a partiality towards Sheila Ruskin from loving her brief but effective Vipsania in "I, Claudius", and from the guilty pleasure of adoring her interesting visage again as Alta One in "Blakes 7". Carey seems appropriately cryptic as the Keeper. As I had checked out at Season 17 after City of Death, having read the reviews of The Creature From the Pit on through my "Fangoria" subscription in the states, this was my first viewing, after decades of 4th Doctor abstinence, of Adric as a companion. He works well here in my opinion. Nyssa plays a minor role thus far, but that birthday party crown is a strange touch indeed.

After City of Death the season before, Tom Baker infamously seemed to go camp in his portrayal of the Doctor. This serial reverses that trend from its beginning, with the Doctor humorously chastising Adric and referring to the Second Law of Thermodynamics therein. It seems we have the old Doctor back, and all seems to hold up well until Part Four when the Doctor channels Moe Howard in "thunking" two Fosters' heads together. Deus ex machina, a la Stooges. After Kassia's demise in Part Three the story became less involving for me, but the transferring of the Master to Tremas and the grandfather clock, hearkening back to The Deadly Assassin, are clever plot twists.

Review of all 4 parts:

The Keeper of Traken

I have strong memories of seeing this on its original broadcast. I found the Master and the Melkur creepy and thoroughly enjoyed the story. Many years later this was the first classic story that successfully thrilled my young son. So I have very positive experiences of this story.

Some fans understandably are less keen on season 18 as it is a bit less 'fun' than preceding seasons but I like dark and gritty Doctor Who and I really like most of this season. Stories occasionally show JNT's tendencies to have too many arguments between characters and aggressive scenes but Chris Bidmead (and perhaps Terrance Dicks overseeing/advising) seem to help JNT to create a serious science fiction series and this story is one of the best of the season. I also think it is actually really fun.

The story involves the elderly Keeper of Traken asking the Doctor for help as he senses his imminent successor is going to be threatened by evil. Sure enough a calcified statue - Melkur - is secretly hiding the Master who manages to take control of the incoming Keeper's body.

This new leader, Tremas, is played by Anthony Ainley as a pleasant character and father of new companion Nyssa. He then becomes the new Master and is deliciously evil. Ainley plays his differing dual roles superbly and the Master was returned in style after a long absence.

Tom Baker is great as ever and Nyssa is introduced pretty well as an intelligent companion although why JNT thought 2 highly intelligent young companions were required at the same time, with Adric having joined not long before, is a bit of a headscratcher. An early sign of JNT's poor decision making I think.

Anyway, there is sinister drama, enjoyable characterisation and nicely written dialogue. An excellent serial.

My ratings: All 4 episodes 9.5/10.

Ever since I first started to take a serious interest in "Doctor Who", which would have been around the time that Jon Pertwee took over the role, it seemed to be an iron rule that the Doctor should be accompanied on his adventures by a companion who was young, female and attractive, whether her name be Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Leela, Romana I or Romana II. During the whole of the seventies, in fact, the Doctor only had one male companion, Harry Sullivan, who only appeared during the twelfth season and in one serial in the thirteenth.

In the sixties, however, the first two Doctors had had several male companions, and during the eighties the series began to revert to this pattern. Lalla Ward's Romana II had dropped out earlier in the 18th season and the Doctor had acquired Adric, his first male companion since Harry. "The Keeper of Traken" is therefore one of the few "Doctor Who" adventures in which the TARDIS does not have a single female occupant. Sarah Sutton makes her debut as Nyssa, but at this stage the decision had not yet been taken to introduce her as a regular companion, and she does not leave with the Doctor and Adric at the end of the serial. (She reappears in the next serial, "Logopolis").

The Doctor and Adric arrive on the planet Traken, the centre of an empire known as the Traken Union. The Union is noted as a peaceful, tranquil place, but this does not mean that local politics cannot get quite dirty. The elderly Keeper, the ruler of Traken, does not have long to live, and disputes about the succession have already started among the Consuls, the group of powerful officials from whom the new Keeper will be chosen. The Keeper suspects that this dissension may be connected to a strange statue known as the Melkur; legend has it that this statue was originally an evil being that arrived on the planet many years ago but was turned to stone. The truth, however, is rather different.

This story re-introduces the Doctor's old enemy, the Master. He was a regular character during the time of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor but was largely written out of the series following the tragic death of Roger Delgado, the actor who played him, in a car crash, although he did briefly reappear in "The Deadly Assassin" from 1976. The decision to re- introduce the Master was apparently taken because Tom Baker was coming towards the end of his run as the Doctor- this was his penultimate serial- and the producers wanted to revive a link with the programme's past as a symbol of continuity. The Master is here played by Anthony Ainley who would continue in the role throughout the eighties.

I am well aware that Adric is not the most popular companion among "Doctor Who" fans, although in this particular serial he does not display the petulance and arrogance which made him so unpopular; indeed, he even gets the chance to display intelligence and resourcefulness. The return of the Master was a welcome development, the script generates considerable excitement and the designers were able, within the confines of the series' notoriously low budget, to create a convincing sense of an alien culture that is both scientifically advanced and yet also highly conservative. (The architecture of Traken seems to be influenced by the Art Nouveau style and the costumes are a mixture of the mediaeval and the Victorian). "The Keeper of Traken", in fact, is one of the better serials from this period.