Customer Reviews

Doctor Who-Logopolis

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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The Doctor materialises the TARDIS by one of the last police boxes in England. His intention is to obtain the measurements of the real one to assist in repairing the TARDIS' chameleon circuit. But little do he and Adric realise that someone had arrived earlier, and an elaborate trap is about to be sprung...

'Logopolis' is a very big story, featuring an enormous threat to the entire universe. The Doctor gains two companions (Nyssa, who first appeared in 'The Keeper of Traken', and Tegan), faces an old foe, and gives his life to save the universe.

The story is quite clever, tying in with many events of the seventeenth season, and setting in motion the first story of the next season.

The adaptation is by Christopher Bidmead, the author of the original script, and is quite worthwhile as well. Not everything makes perfect sense, but there is nothing which detracts from the enjoyment which the story should give you.

I first read the novelization of "Logopolis" when I was in the sixth grade. At that point, all I knew about "Doctor Who" was from the few 5th Doctor episodes I'd seen on PBS. I borrowed the book from a classmate who was trying to explain how the 5th Doctor came to be. Said classmate is now a life insurance agent in South Dakota and hasn't had any contact with "Doctor Who" in fifteen years. The book he loaned me, however, remains one of my enduring favorites.

The novelizations of the "Doctor Who" TV adventures were an unusual breed: for many fans, they served as (at worst) a replacement for, or (at best) an improvement on the series itself. The condensing of a TV script into 120 pages gave rise to a peculiar richness of language that laid the groundwork for a dozen years (and counting) of original "Doctor Who" novels.

Reading the back cover of the "Logopolis" novelization reveals a host of words you don't find any more in books aimed at 12 year-olds. "Precipitated", for instace. The opening paragraph of the story is unusually literate, presaging the Fourth Doctor's death: "Events cast shadows before them...".

The story's condensation is most keenly felt in author Bidmead's prose: a lot of on-screen dialogue is converted into plain text. This keeps the narrative moving without turning the novelization into a mere transcript, but also preserves the richness of the original script. In some instances, the story improves from the condensation: most of the shots of Tegan and Adric running up and down the TARDIS corridors have been omitted; instead, we're given a scene were Adric reads from "Paradise Lost". The Doctor introduces Adric to the TARDIS's "logic circuits", a visually striking piece of equipment never seen on-screen.

Best of all is the restaging of the death scenes. When the Monitor dies on-screen, it's done through a straight visual effect, and doesn't make all that much sense. In the novelization, Bidmead makes the demise more graphic, in a manner that couldn't have been realized on television.

The Doctor's death, too, is improved. On TV, he climbs along a tilting catwalk on a telescope high above the ground, and is knocked over the edge by an explosion of sparks from a cable he's unplugged. In the book, however, he falls from the catwalk first, and is left clinging to the cable for support. By unplugging the cable he effectively commits suicide; this adds dramatic heft to his final choice and turns the Doctor into, if possible, an even more heroic figure than he was on TV.

Much of the relevance of the "Doctor Who" novelization has faded with time: video and DVD have made the stories more accessible than they were in the 1970s and '80s; the fan base has grown up and no longer needs to read books that are 120 pages long. _Logopolis_, however, in spite of a few instances of purple prose and some clunky similes, retains a poetry distinct from the TV story from which it was adapted, and thus still bears reading today.

Talk your way to it.

A novel way to keep things going, and keep things together. Not your baic engineering, but a whole lot of chanting and stuff. Oh, and the Doctor has to face off with the Master, with the usual groovy companion, for the fate of that whole ball of wax cosmos sort of thingo.

Quite a good story. The Doctor is up against the Master again and this time pays quite a price for his victory. He manages to save the world, actually the whole universe, but the cost is great for him and the Logopolitans. Aldric is his companion in this one, although he picks up Nyssa from Traken again, and adds Tegan.

The Master shows up early on and right away starts killing people by shrinking the to the size of dolls. The Doctor and Aldric accidentally bump into him on their way to Logopolis to get the TARDIS's chameleon circuit fixed. From there it is all downhill for the Doctor and his allies as the Master stays a step ahead, right up until the end, when the Doctor finally wins out.

I loved the story and it moved along quickly. A short book as all these novelizations seem to be, and easily read in one sitting. Enjoy!