Doctor Who:
The Keeper of Traken
By Johnny Byrne
“A new body at last.”
The Doctor and Adric are
invited to Traken or diverted to Traken by the Keeper. The
Keeper needs The Doctor to help him to prevent evil to take over the source
when he dies. It appears that a
calcified statue called Melkur that had appeared on Traken many years ago hasn’t
desolved into the ground as most things that are evil do. The Keeper is worried that when he dies that
somehow Melkur would find a way to get possession of the source and threaten
all the tranquility of the Traken Union.
Things do not go as
planned when The Doctor and Adric arrive as they are surrounded by the Fosters
and taken to the council for questioning.
After not believing The Doctor’s and Adrics story and the TARDIS not
where it should be they call the Keeper to see if The Doctor’s story is correct
in him inviting them. But unfortunately Melkur is peeking through
the door and The Keeper sense great evil and the Councils believe the evil is
The Doctor and Adric.
Now with the suspicion
being planted on them and the council overreacing Tremus has decided to believe
them and decides to have The Doctor and Adric in his care. What they do not know is the Melkur is using
Tremus wife Kassia, who was once the one who took pity on Melkur and seems to
have a bit of a relationship with it, is in league with Melkur and is in fact
his agent. She has been manipulating
things so Tremus wouldn’t become Keeper and stay with her. But what The Doctor has discovered is that
she is the one being manipulated and it will cost Kassia her life and Traken it’s
Keeper as a familiar foe makes his triumphant return.
The Keeper of Traken is
the first part of what the fans have dubbed “The Master Triology” and rightly
so as this story and the next 2 deals with the return of The Master to human
form and The Keeper of Traken starts it all off. Anthony Ainley starts off playing Tremus whose
body The Master takes over in the closing seconds of the story. He plays him really well and you get a hint
of what he can do before he starts going over the top as The Master. He gives something to Tremus and when he gets
killed by The Master you feel sorry for him.
You knew when he touches the Clock TARDIS that he was a goner.
I loved the fact that they
brought The Master back to human form.
By using the power of the Keeper to allow The Master to enter a body was
a pretty good idea. In fact they hinted
at it in episode 4 before he takes over Tremus by having The Master attempt to
do it to The Doctor before the Source rejected him. When I first watched The Keeper of Traken you did not know that The Master was
Melkur so it was a really good reveal in episode 3 when he turned in his chair
and said I’m free. That was a really
good moment and even the moment he takes over Tremus as there were not any
spoilers over the internet in that day. So
seeing what happens was pretty cool and a good surprise.
What I found watching The
Keeper of Traken is that if Adric had some time being the companion without the
two girls later he might have been better than what we got. Yes he was an annoying and whiney companion
but when you see him in The Keeper of Traken he actually is not bad. There is some chemistry between him and Tom
Baker even though they did not get along but the chemistry with The Doctor was
pretty good. Too bad he didn’t have some
time to be the only companion before it went south for him.
The Keeper of Traken is
another great performance for Tom Baker.
With the clock winding down on him he gives us another wonderful
performance in his penultimate story.
During the E- Space trilogy he did not look like he was having fun at
all. The Keeper of Traken must have been
a different scenario for him or he just was relieved that he was leaving or JNT
wasn’t bothering him or something like that.
But he does up his performance from the previous three stories
especially Warriors’ Gate where he was ill during that.
The Keeper of Traken is a
classic story and one of the finest from the Tom Baker era. It has a lot of things going for it with the
surprise return of The Master to the dumbest head of security in Proctor Neeman
who fell for the same trick four times.
It also got us headed on the path to a new era as not only did we have a
new Master but Nyssa was introduced also leading up to her being a
companion. It is also a pretty strong
story where the use of making a gadget helps saves the day. An all-around great story to watch and it survives
the test of time. Well maybe not the
possessed Kassia eyes they don’t.
Grade A
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