Logopolis

115 – Logopolis
Doctor Who serial
Cast
Companion Matthew Waterhouse (Adric)
Others Anthony Ainley — The Master Dolore Whiteman — Aunt Vanessa John Fraser — The Monitor Tom Georgeson — Detective Inspector Christopher Hurst — Security Guard Adrian Gibbs — The Watcher
Production
Directed by	Peter Grimwade
Written by	Christopher H. Bidmead
Script editor	Christopher H. Bidmead
Produced by	John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s)	Barry Letts
Production code	5V
Series	Season 18
Running time	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
First broadcast	28 February–21 March 1981
Chronology
← Preceded by The Keeper of Traken Followed by → Castrovalva

Logopolis is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 28 February to 21 March 1981. It was Tom Baker's last story as the Doctor and marks the first appearance of Peter Davison in the role. This serial also marks the first appearance of Janet Fielding as new companion Tegan Jovanka, whilst Nyssa, played by Sarah Sutton and seen in previous serial The Keeper of Traken, returns and also joins the Doctor as a companion.

Plot

Warned of upcoming danger by the TARDIS' Cloister Bell, the Doctor decides to stay out of trouble, and instead spends time fixing his broken chameleon circuit by extracting the measurements of a true police box on Earth in order to give to the mathematicians of the planet Logopolis. He is unaware that the Master is aware of his plan, and materialises his own TARDIS in a recursive loop with the Doctor's. The Doctor and Adric work out the recursion, and attempt to flush the Master out by materialising the TARDIS in the River Thames, but instead land on a boat on the river with no sign of the Master's TARDIS. Outside, the Doctor sees a glowing white figure, the Watcher, who directs him to hurry to Logopolis. In flight, they discover they have picked up a passenger, Tegan Jovanka, an airline stewardess who wandered in the TARDIS to call for help to fix her aunt's flat tyre; the Doctor informs her the Master has killed her aunt with his Tissue Compression Eliminator.

On Logopolis, where the mathematicians perform their block-transfer calculations by chant-like verbal communication, the Doctor gives the lead mathematician, the Monitor, the new dimensions for the TARDIS. Discovering the calculation result to be flawed, the Doctor discovers the Master's handiwork in the death of several mathematicians. Returning to the Monitor, the Doctor finds the Master, who through mind-control of Nyssa (who believes him to be her father) is holding the Monitor hostage. The Master demands to know the secret behind Logopolis' science and the purpose of an exact replica of a space telescope from the Pharos Project on Earth, using a device to temporarily silence the mathematicians. The Monitor is horrified to find that even when the Master disables the device, the mathematicians have gone

Production

The location scenes at the Pharos Project were filmed at a BBC receiving station in Crowsley Park, with a model standing in for the radio telescope and not the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank. The lay-by seen at the start was filmed on the southbound side of the A413 Amersham Road, Denham near Gerrards Cross. The lay-by is still there but the M25 now bridges the road where the scene was filmed.

Titles

• The closing titles sequence was recompiled with Tom Baker's face removed from the closing credits of Episode 4, and with Peter Davison's face added for the following story, Castrovalva.
• Episode 4 of this story was the last time, for the next 24 years, the lead character was listed in the credits as "Doctor Who" (thus making it the only time Peter Davison was credited as "Doctor Who"). Beginning with the next story, Castrovalva, until the series' cancellation in 1989, the character was credited simply as "The Doctor". The 1996 television film did not have an on-screen credit for the Eighth Doctor, but listed the Seventh as the "Old Doctor". The 2005 relaunch returned the credit to "Doctor Who", and then again to "The Doctor" in "The Christmas Invasion" (at the request of David Tennant).
• Also, Episode 4 was the first to credit two actors as "Doctor Who" or "The Doctor" when a regeneration scene was involved. It also happened at the end of Episode 4 of The Caves of Androzani. In both instances, Peter Davison was billed second.

Outside references

• According to Christopher Bidmead, the Logopolitans employ a hexadecimal, or base-16, numerical system, a real system commonly used in computer programming. When Adric and the Monitor read strings of numbers and letters, the letters are actually the numbers between 10 and 15, expressed as single digits.
• The Police Box that the Doctor materialises the TARDIS around in Part One was intended to be the one located at the Barnet bypass, which at the time was one of the last of police boxes in the Metropolitan Police District still in its original location, though it had ceased functioning in the 1970s. It was removed in 1981 prior to the filming of this story.

In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Christopher H. Bidmead, was published by Target Books in October 1982. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by Bidmead was released by BBC Audiobooks in February 2010. Template:Doctor Who book

Broadcast VHS and DVD releases

• The serial was repeated on BBC2 in November/December 1981, as part of "The Five Faces of Doctor Who".
• The story was released on VHS in March 1992.
• In January 2007, the serial was released on DVD as part of a trilogy, entitled New Beginnings, alongside The Keeper of Traken and Castrovalva.

External links

• Logopolis at BBC Online
• Template:Brief
• Template:Doctor Who RG

Reviews

• Template:OG review
• Template:DWRG

Target novelisation

• Template:DWRG
• On Target — Logopolis