Once the format of 'Doctor Who' had been established, there had never been a more eagerly anticipated story than this - the last story of the most popular Doctor of them all. If the last scene in 'Keeper' unsettled me, I found 'Logopolis' positively disturbing. It wasn't any major plot developments - after all, it's just another threat to the Universe, with some fairly dodgy moments, such as the infamous Thames scene - it's the way the whole thing is played. Moments like when the watcher first appears across the road, when the cloister bell chimes for the first time and especially the look on Tom Baker's face when he says 'there's something not quite right about all of this' still make my spine tingle, even when I think about them (most of the praise must go to Peter Grimwade and Paddy Kingsland for that). How many stories have lines like 'a chain of circumstances that fragments the law that holds the universe together' and have a threat to the Universe that is frighteningly believable - the 'very nature of things' itself?
Baker's playing is magnificent - that of a doomed man who gradually realises that his fate is unimportant compared to the mission that he has - his own carelessness has caused the situation - he must give his life to correct it. Only Tom could portray this and still get away with lines like his response to the Master's 'Woolly thinking, Doctor' - 'Yes, but very comforting, when worn next to the skin'. Most of all, one has to forget any Master story after Castrovalva, and praise Antony Ainley's magnificent re-interpretation of the Master, a man who is, as the Doctor finally realises 'utterly mad'. Chris Bidmead says that, to avoid the Master being a pantomime villain (which JNT turned him into after Bidmead had left), he had to do 'really bad things' - this is not the debonair charmer that Delgado portrayed - he murders two unarmed characters in the first episode, several harmless Logopolitans, nearly destroys the Universe in his lust for power, and, in the most chilling scene of all, impersonates Tremas to the distraught Nyssa. If one scene sticks in the memory, it's this, the wind howling, Ainley's pale face, and Sarah Sutton's heartrending playing of the lines - 'You look younger, but... so cold.' (How many of you reading this can hear that line in your heads? That's what I call powerful acting). Of course, such is Bidmead's desire to make 'bad things' happen as a result of the Master's interference, that Sarah Sutton is called upon to act out the celebrated scene when Nyssa witnesses the death of her world - think about that as a challenge! Many idiots have scoffed at the character's calmness, but as she said herself, in an interview, this wasn't the 'Doctor and Nyssa show', and there was a regeneration scene due in 10 minutes, so sobbing hysterics might have slowed the action down a bit. Personally, I think she pulls the scene off magnificently - the camera's on her face in tight close up as she delivers that extraordinary (for 'Who'), almost Shakespearean soliloquy. Her voice cracks, ever so slightly, on the word 'father', the muscle in her jaw twitches, and her eyes fill up with tears - in other words she underplays the scene and makes it 1,000 times more effective, something that most Who fans don't understand after too much exposure to OTT acting (mostly from the lead actor).
To be honest, after all the oppressive atmosphere of the previous episodes, the deaths, and destruction of half the Universe, the regeneration is a bit of relief - lots of lovely flashbacks (very important in the days before wide availability of video), and then a wonderfully peaceful regeneration. I remember slumping back in my seat after the emotional rollercoaster of episode 4 and wondering - 'how on earth will they top that?' Perhaps they could electronically remove Matthew Waterhouse and give Janet Fielding a decent accent, but apart from that, I'm still wondering 19 years later.
