Tom Baker deserved a much better exit
Tom’s final two stories capture everything that would go wrong with the show in the 1980s. Sometimes, various components of the production were fantastic, while others fell short. Rarely did all of the stars align to produce a bona fide classic. Baker’s penultimate story ‘The Keeper of Traken’ boasts some of the best design work in the show’s history. Tony Burrough would also design other stories such as ‘Four to Doomsday’ and ‘Warriors of the Deep’ where his work was the best thing about the adventure. ‘The Keeper of Traken’ is fairly dull, and its pseudo-Shakespearean script rather leaden. Imagine its production values were switched with the cheap but cheerful ‘Nightmare of Eden’ – the earlier story would probably be considered a classic if it didn’t look so threadbare. Then there’s Baker’s swansong ‘Logopolis’. In it, the Doctor spends the first two episodes wandering around the TARDIS with new companion Adric. He then picks up another two companions, neither of whom make much impression on the viewer, before an incomprehensible plot leads to a showdown with the Master. When regenerating, the Fourth Doctor has a flashback to some of his old enemies, but all of his old companions. The moment is telling (as well as prepared for) because he regenerates surrounded by three young companions he barely knows. No matter who the script writer was, it would have been very difficult to provide a denouement to Tom Baker’s extraordinary seven-year stint on the show that truly captured the spirit and the depth of his contribution. Fair enough, Bob Baker and Dave Martin would probably have done as bad a job as Christopher H. Bidmead. However, I’m willing to bet that Robert Holmes or Terrance Dicks would have provided something a little more fitting. Placed anywhere else in the season, ‘Logopolis’ would be considered a damp squib. It’s unforgivable that it was Tom Baker’s farewell, since it’s undramatic and incomprehensible, but it’s also the worst of the lot, bar only ‘The Invasion of Time’, ‘Underworld’ and ‘The Sun Makers’. What were they thinking?
