'Doctor Who: The Keeper of Traken' (1981)

The plan, for last night, was to catch up on a little reading (well, a lot of reading; 'Wrath' is good but slow going at the moment...) and maybe finally write that review I'd been putting off since last week. That was the plan anyway, it turned out that the rest of yesterday had something to say about that... Nothing particularly bad, just really draining and I was probably running on half empty to start with... ;o) To cut a long story short, by the time I got round to switching off the work laptop, I was shattered and not in the mood for a book at all. What's a Graeme to do in this situation? Well, when he has a new 'Classic Doctor Who' box set to get started on, that question pretty much answers itself ;o)

So, a little bit earlier than normal then but last night was actually the best time to sit down and watch 'The Keeper of Traken'; a story where I remembered the ending but very little else. To be fair, I'd only been five for a few months and a lot of time has passed since then. 'The Keeper of Traken' felt like a first time viewing then...

Traken – a planet ruled by the all powerful Keeper, who rules for a thousand years and ensures that his subjects live a life of tranquility and harmony, free from the forces of evil and corruption. But the Keeper is dying... Summoned by the ailing Keeper, the Doctor and Adric discover that all is not well on Traken. An evil presence threatens the future of the planet. An evil that knows all about the Doctor...

I know it's an obvious thing to say but I watch these 'early' stories (I say 'early'... early in terms of when I started to watch 'Doctor Who' regularly) and have to laugh at how much of the story went straight over my head. To be fair, I was little but even so, watching something like 'The Keeper of Traken' now... (and this seems like a good spot to say, beware of spoilers... 'The Keeper of Traken' has been around for decades now so I'm not going to be too careful about what I say)

I love the fact that the planet 'Traken' is so inherently good that not only can Evil not stay away from the place but when it lands on the planet, Evil gets frozen in place and slowly dissolves into the soil. Which makes Traken a planet that makes it's own compost from Evil, now that I think of it. Which makes me wonder if the Master arrived by chance or on purpose... Not that it matters either way, but that's where my thoughts are at the moment.

I would say that the fabled 'lack of budget' clearly encouraged the writers to be more imaginative but 'The Keeper of Traken' is pretty well covered here. There's a lot of 'shots of the same place, from different angles' but it feels really atmospheric. A little bit of menace hidden in a slightly run down looking paradise.

It's a bit of a shame then that the plot doesn't quite live up to its setting. Don't get me wrong, the 'big reveal' of the Master is brilliant and seeing what happens to Tremas, at the end, was creepy when I was a kid and surprisingly, holds up now. The rest of it though, comes across like a fairly basic murder mystery where we already know who the killer is, we're just waiting for the cast to catch up with us.

What saved it for me, in the end, was what the actors brought to their roles. To be honest, all Tom Baker has to do is say, well... anything and he's automatically great. What I really enjoyed watching though was what looked to be the beginnings of a great partnership between the Doctor and Adric. The departure of Romana has forced a new dynamic in the Tardis and if I didn't already know what was round the corner, I'd be saying how much I was looking forward to seeing this develop. In the meantime then, it's nice to see the Doctor taking Adric's mind off leaving E-Space by opening him up to the wonderful chaos of travelling in the Tardis. I also loved the way that Anthony Ainsley's Tremas was just so helpful and keen to do the right thing by his people and his planet. All that build up of his character to see what happens in the end. That strand of the story makes for great TV all by itself. The standout performance for me though is Geoffrey Beever's Master who is just reveling in how evil he can get away with being. It's like pantomime acting but with real evil behind everything he says. You don't need to see what the Master looks like, just listen to that voice.

'The Keeper of Traken' ended up being a great example of what the show can do with it's characters when it has a mind to (which was great as the plot could only take things so far). 'Logopolis' is next and I might just leave that one for next weekend. I know what's coming with this one...