4.41: The Keeper of Traken

In which a mysterious enemy's return marks the beginning of the end.

Broadcast: January-February 1981

Watched: November 2020

The Keeper of Traken, Part One

“A whole empire held together by... well, people being terribly nice to each other.” Not how empires generally work but okay.

Anyway. Season 18 continues to rule. I like the vaguely Roman feel of Traken (consuls, an emperor). Also that it has guards who are gardeners who are guardians of spiritual welfare. With the exception of Meglos, all the stories this season try to realise their alien planets as real places. It’s not just “this one is a forest run by women” or “sod it, Prisoner of Zelda” or something.

I think I like Tom most when he’s being a sort of mentor figure to Adric. He’s not really played this role before – it’s sort of meant to be there with Leela, I think, but he never takes her intellect seriously. It’s like watching someone who was an indifferent father become a jovial and loving grandfather. (“Anything I can do.” “Goes for me too.” “Sssh! We’ll see! We’ll see.”) Also – Adric can operate the TARDIS. That’s extremely unusual in the history of the show, isn’t it?

I like the way all the exposition is done by the keeper just popping up and explaining the story, it’s a neat device and it gives the plot weight to show Kassia as a child and then as an adult. But how long has the Master just been waiting in his TARDIS exactly? Decades?

Other things:

• It is not remotely clear why the mere presence of the TARDIS would show that the regulars are telling the truth about not being evil.

• “Unlike you, my time of dissolution is near.” More foreshadowing.

• Either Trakenites or the BBC are too wussy to kiss properly even at weddings.

• Luvic looks enough like Aukon from State of Decay, two stories earlier, for it to be weird.

• The Kassia/Melkur relationship is enough like Ginny Weasley in Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets that I wonder if it’s an influence. Rowling would have been 15, so not impossible but hmm.

The Keeper of Traken, Part Two

“You saw what happened! Your keeper was attacked.” Erm. Was he? That was not how it came across on screen, but okay, cool.

Anthony Ainley is very good here – so used to him chewing the furniture I’d sort of forgotten he could, y’know, act. Also it’s kind of nice the way the actor playing the new Master spends his first story being the Doctor’s best mate – feels like a sort of literalisation of subtext.

Kassia goes waaaay OTT, far too early in the story. No one seems to find it strange she starts speaking against her husband. The Tom years are a busy time for people having fake eyes painted on top of their eyelids.

Actually, the consults are all idiots. Luvic’s role appears to be to stand around saying, “What’s going on?”

“My father and other consults determine what is lawful” bloody hell Nyssa is an authoritarian little shit isn’t she? Also no one can pronounce her name yet, she’s currently Nee-sa. She doesn’t impress as either a character or a performance. She gets less shit than either Adric or Tegan because there’s less about her that’s irritating and she’s closer to the generic companion ideal... but she’s kind of pointless, she’s definitely the one of the three I’d drop.

Weird, given how much effort Bidmead puts into making his planets real, that this season also has so many generic “sources of power”.

The Keeper of Traken, Part Three

“The keeper... is dead.” The storms when he dies are a sort of literalisation of succession problems. Also quite Roman.

I’d sort of not realised how far into this story we get before we know it’s the Master. We see his hand a few minutes into this one but still don’t know who it is – I’m assuming it’s the cliffhanger maybe?

[15 minutes later] Oh yes there he is. Funny how the Doctor doesn’t know it yet. Also, I wonder how many people watching remembered a story from over four years earlier well enough to know who they were looking at? Not many, I’d guess. So in some ways the identity of the villain is sort of not clear until part four. Huh.

The Doctor persuades Tremas to abandon his honour (e.g. the pledge to protect the secret of the source) to save Traken, and at the end of the story he turns into the Master. Hmmmm.

Given the vaguely Roman tone, the palace guards, the wife betraying her husband (Tremas really seems to feel no affection for Kassia whatsoever, mind)... I’m wondering if there’s an I, Claudius influence creeping in. Oooh! Also the flame is the sacred fire of vesta isn’t it?

Nyssa get surprisingly badass with the fosters. Luvic and Katura are bloody morons.

The Keeper of Traken, Part Four

“I know it’s not exactly what you had in mind but now you’re rather stuck with him.” The way Tom spits that line out is brilliant.

The fact it’s so late in the story that the characters learn it’s the Master – it’s 18 minutes into the last episode, just 7 minutes left in the story, before he’s named – is kind of odd. Although: “I have the oddest feeling we’ve met somewhere before.” Love the cut from this to Adric working out that Melkur moves around like the TARDIS.

Anyway, the Master as a character is sort of less present here than he is in Utopia... oooh, RTD is consciously riffing on this isn’t he? Surprise return of the Master for a big season finale.

Also, love that the Master seems to be motivated at least partly by his desire to make the Doctor kneel before him. I’d also entirely forgotten “the husk of your body will have its uses” – that the original plan was to steal the Doctor’s body. Is there a spin off about how the Master ended up looking like a burns victim?

I had also forgotten that Adric and Nyssa save the day using a maguffin. Or that the Doctor escapes the Master’s TARDIS by literally running through a wall.

The horror of becoming the keeper, infinite power set against a complete absence of human contact, is a bit under exploited. The horror of the Master stealing lovely Tremas’s body is more powerful in sequence, when you’re not already used to the Ainley Master running around the place.

Other things:

• Tom bashes three guards’ heads together. In his next scene he shoots a couple of people into unconsciousness. Never cruel or cowardly, you see.

• Neman is a traitorous little worm isn’t he. Cut from the same cloth as the Castellan in Invasion of Time. At least Tremas gets to kill him under the Master’s influence.

• There is an unidentified item on Tremas’s table that looks just like a giant earbud, which is weird.

• Huh, more collars that work as control devices.

• There is a lot of annoying technobable about fourier analysis and prime number encryption. Give me “it goes bing when there’s stuff” any day. Bidmead’s influence is not all positive.

This is definitely one of the weaker stories this season… which is a mark of quite how good the season is.