The Keeper of Traken has been released as part of the “New Beginnings†boxed set which also includes Logopolis and Castrovalva
Synopsis
The Doctor and Adric have escaped e-space, leaving Romana and K-9 behind. Before they can go anywhere, the Keeper of Traken materializes in the TARDIS and asks for the Doctor’s help.
The Traken Union, a collection of planets, is a place of permeating goodness. Evil creatures who arrive there are literally turned to stone and eventually erode away. The Keeper benevolently guides the Traken Union for a thousand years before he dies and a new Keeper must take his place. The time of the current Keeper is nearing and end and he fears something evil is happening.
Many years ago on Traken a creature, called Melkur arrived and was turned to stone. A young girl, Cassia, was assigned to care after it and she has since grown up and become a member of the council and is maried to Tremas, another council member. After all these years, the Melkur has yet to erode, and the duty to care for it is passed to Tremas’ daughter, Nyssa.
Cassia has been taken over by Melkur and has been working against the Doctor. She does not want her husband to become Keeper, but she does not know what Melku has in mind for her.
An unexplained death occurs just as the Doctor arrives and he is accused of the crime. Melkur, which no one knows is able to walk attacks the Keeper, but the council members mistake it as a sign that the Doctor is the invading evil (typical!) and sentence him and Adric to death. Tremas saves them, but in the process he is ultimately discredited and removed from consideration as the new Keeper.
Cassia becomes Keeper in his place, but as she ascends, Melkur destroys her and becomes Keeper.
The Doctor and Tremas devise a scheme to destroy the new Keeper but the plan seems doomed to fail when it becomes clear that Melkur is really a TARDIS and the occupant is the emaciated remains of the twelfth regeneration of the Master. Just as the Master is about to use his new-found powers to takes the Doctor’s body as his own, Adric and Nyssa implement one of the Doctor’s plans.
The Master’s TARDIS starts to go up in flames and the Doctor escapes, finishing his original plan and saving the day. As the Doctor and Adric leaves, the Master, who has escaped in a second TARDIS, uses his residual power to steal Tremas’ body. Whole again, the Master escapes into the Universe.
Analysis
It seems no coincidence that the New Beginnings box-set would be released around the same time as the Master’s return on the new series.
The late Roger Delgado had originated the role of the Master during the Pertwee era, but the planned grand finale involving the Master’s death and the Doctor’s regeneration had to be scrapped due to Delgado’s accidental death.
The character of the Master had been left alone for some time, and brought back once for the Fourth Doctor story, The Deadly Assassin. In it the Master (then played by Peter Pratt) is dying having exhausted all his lives. (As we currently are on the 10th Doctor (or the Ninth regeneration), this story infamously introduced the short-sighted concept of a Time Lord having a finite 12 regenerations.) The story revolved around his attempts to gain new lives, ultimate power and the destruction of the Time Lords.
The Keeper of Traken brought back the dying Master and marked the beginning of the trilogy of stories that brought a new Master back as a recurring foil for the Doctor.
The Keeper of Traken is an inoffensive little story, but like many inoffensive stories of the John Nathan-Turner era also has little to recommend it except the promise of the Master’s return. The early JNT era was also typified by the tendency to grab hold of one concept or allegory per story and slap the viewer about the head with it. In this case, the allegory of the garden and the foresters as the spiritual well-being of Traken is ever present and seems to serve no point in the story whatsoever.
The future companion, Nyssa, is first introduced in this story as a one-shot character.
DVD Extras
Like many of the DVD releases, this DVD contains audio commentary by the late Anthony Ainley, Sarrah Sutton, Matthrew Waterhouse and writer Johnny Byne. A new making-of documentaries entitled “Being Nice to Each Other†and “The Return of the Master.†There are other miscellaneous bits and pieces that aired around the time the show originally aired.
I’m not sure how much work the restoration team on this DVD, but the picture and audio quality are fine.
Doctor Who – Story # 115
Written by Johnny Byrne
Starring Tom Baker as the Doctor
Matthew Waterhouse as Adric
Geoffrey Beevers as the Master
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