Review: The Keeper of Traken (1981)

This story was the 2nd to last of the 18th season of Doctor Who. The season had linking themes of dissolution, decay, and destruction - which tied in with the fact that Tom Baker, the iconic fourth Doctor was leaving the role after a record 7-year stint as the Doctor.

With The Keeper of Traken, these themes became more explicit, being mentioned several times. There was a sense that the series was building up to something, and with its other themes of power (seeking it, using it, holding it and losing it) and domination, it provided the most dramatic expression yet of the series.

As a program, it has a cracking good first episode. It starts very unusually for a Doctor Who story - we are introduced to many of the main plot elements right off the bat. The titular Keeper appears inside the TARDIS and, in a scene similar to the one in season 16 with the White Guardian, the Keeper explains to the Doctor about his homeworld, the Traken Union.

Traken is a benevolent Empire where peace, order and tranquility reign, and anything evil that is drawn into its influence immediately calcifies and becomes immobilised. Such is the all-pervading goodness that prevails there.

Once our introduction story is over, the Doctor and companion Adric agree to help the Keeper, who senses some great evil is about to invade Traken. We meet the natives who, in their sumptuous costumes and quaint dialogue, are as elegant and stylised as their homeworld. The direction is smooth and intelligent, as we get nice long shots of the main Traken hall wherein the five Consuls periodically summon their Keeper.

As the drama unfolds and the Melkur statue begins to walk, events rapidly close around our heroes and the first episode comes to a dramatic close. Unfortunately, the next two episodes are very much a run around, with nothing of note revealed save that the Melkur somehow knows the Doctor...

The pace picks up again in the final episode, where the Melkur assumes the Keepership and is then revealed as the Doctor's arch enemy - the Master. Chaos reigns as his link with the Source is broken and elemental forces are unleashed. A substitute Keeper is found and order is restored - but the Master escapes, and, stealing the body of Consul Tremas, discovers a new lease of life...

The most that can be said about The Keeper of Traken also applies to this era of Doctor Who as a whole - that style and glamour is favoured over substance. A great first episode gives way to a lack-lustre run around, with the usual imprisonments, escapes, and confrontations. This robs episode four of much of its climactic feel, although it is heart rending when the Master takes over the body of the kindly Consul Tremas (whose only daughter Nyssa, is then left behind).

So something of a disappointment, but in the context of early 80's Doctor Who, the re-birth of a series that had grown very tired indeed was well under way.


(The Keeper of Traken was written by Johnny Byrne and directed by John Black, (c) BBC 1981. The next and final story of season 18 -- and of Tom Baker -- was Logopolis. )