Death Comes To Tom

The One Hundred and Eighteenth Entry in the Charles Daniels 
Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Rasputin                           

Serial 5V - Death Comes To Tom -         

 A young policeman stops in astonishment as he discovers the last
remaining undefaced police box in England.  Shocked by the lack
of vandalism encountered by the Police Box, he decides to do his
civic duty - spray paint it and break a few of the windows.
But his spate of wondrous destruction is abruptly cut off as the
police box seems to shimmer with an odd vworping sound.  
Within seconds something chuckles as it drags the terrified
policeman inside.

 Adric has annoyed the Doctor by pacing about the TARDIS, thinking
dark thoughts about entropy, his lack of a love life, and why cute
girls always seem to hate him.  The Doctor however has spent most
his time babbling about entropy and hiding the fact that he misses
Romana.  The Doctor has decided not to return to Gallifrey, as
there are bound to be recriminations over his decision to dump his
wife all alone in parallel universe with only a robot dog and a
37 quid.  

 In order to pass the time, the Doctor has decided to get off
his ass after 493 years, and actually repair the chameleon circuit.
In theory he SHOULD be able to stop at any TARDIS Repair garage in
the Constellation of Kasterborous -- but his life on the run
means he'll have to use a book he found on console room floor
"TARDIS Repair 4 Dummies".

 At first the Doctor seems to believe that this repair will call
for "the blood of a human child", but it later turns out he was
remembering this from another book "Demonic Time Travel 4 Dummies".
In either case he now finds himself on Earth and decides to 
measure a police box.  Dark legends tell of a police box in
an unvandalised state on the Barnet bypass in the year 1981.
The Doctor is reluctant to believe such a strange tale, but
his only alternative is to land in a train station in 1978 and
choose to replicate a Police Box with only two broken windows
and "Dave is a Wanker" in white spray paint.

 The Doctor briefly considers modeling his new TARDIS on
the dimensions of Felicity Kendal, but that means taking
her measurements and then taking those measurements and Kendal
herself to the planet Logopolis.  In theory this should be
no problem, but the Doctor tells Adric that he doubts
Kendal will trust him. Apparently some years ago he
had promised her an exciting holiday on the planet Voilko VI,
but instead materialised at a popular teen make-out point
and promptly explained that the TARDIS had run out of petrol.
Kendal was not taken in by such an old and tired tactic -
much to the Doctor's disappointment.
 
 Soon after explaining all of this, the cloister bell rings
loudly through the TARDIS.  The cloister bell is a warning of
imminent disaster, and Universal catastrophe.  The Doctor
explains that whenever this happens, he simply assumes the
bell is malfunctioning and he removes the batteries.

 Meanwhile, in London, young Tegan Jovanka is setting off
for her first day at work in a strip club, she is incredibly
proud of her accurate flight attendant uniform.
Her aunt Vanessa has offered her a lift to the Latex Lair, but
unfortunately Vanessa's car is a Skoda, and Tegan is forced to
pull off the road due to problems with the motor, brakes, tires,
and steering.  Tegan sets about repairing the Skoda herself 
with a coat hanger and some chewing gum while Vanessa waits
hopefully for a passing motorist to pick her up for a quick trick.
Neither of them notice a translucent figure in white watching 
them intently from a distance, or the abandoned policeman's
bicycle which has been twisted beyond all recognition in
an horrific Lovecraftian fashion. 

 The cloister bell stops ringing as the Doctor removes the
batteries.  On the way back to the console room, he passes by 
Romana's old room, and bursts into insane fits of tears and
rage for 10 minutes - which he eventually explains away to Adric
by saying he was briefly worried by the idea that she might have
left a spare K9 by the bed. 

 Once back in the console room the Doctor demonstrates the 
chameleon circuit to Adric, by programming a BBC Micro built
into the TARDIS console.  Using the power of 64k of RAM to 
play with, the Doctor shows a line graphic of the TARDIS
changing shape into a pyramid.  Adric is awed and amazed, 
until the Doctor explains that it's just a cartoon, and 
the TARDIS still looks like a stupid blue box. 

 The TARDIS materializes around the police box on the Barnet 
bypass, and the Doctor and Adric begin to measure the box in
every aspect, ratio, dimension and particular.   Adric asks
the Doctor how this will help him fix the chameleon circuit and
why in the hell he chose the form of a big conspicious blue
box in the first place.  The Doctor considers Adric's questions
and explains his dark secret -- he's a Police Box Spotter.
Which, in the world of spotting, is about 15 times more anorak
than train spotting OR camel spotting.

 In order to justify this expenditure of their time, the Doctor
explains that these measurements will be taken to Logopolis,
where the natives have perfected the art of Block Transfer
Computation -- a means of modelling and generating real 
space/time events and structures through pure mathematical
calculation. Adric seems totally fascinated by this, but when
he asks what it actually all MEANS, the Doctor admits he
hasn't the slightest clue -- it's just something he once
read in "Block Transfer Computation for Fucking Morons".
Adric looks through the TARDIS library and finds this book
which informs him that the Logopolitans can generate a
duplicate of the TARDIS exterior and overlay it upon the real
thing -- but again is totally lost if this would be the sort
of thing they would want to do, or if this would cause two
objects to attempt to occupy the same space at the same time -
thus destroying the entire universe.  The Doctor shrugs away
the question and insists that it would prove fun either way.

  As the Doctor and Adric complete their measurements
Adric insists that they leave immediately and get this all
over with.  However the Doctor is desperate to stick around
the scene because, as far as he knows, no one has been 
murdered yet, they haven't been arrested and interrogated,
and he just HATES to leave a place without some torture 
and intrigue. 

  To the Doctor's extreme relief the TARDIS suffers an
instrument failure caused by a localised gravity bubble -
this means they will HAVE to investigate. The Doctor pops
his head out of the TARDIS and is disturbed by his sighting 
of the translucent white figure in the distance holding up
a sign reading "Hurry Up And Die You Old Bastard".

 When the Doctor returns he finds that Adric has begun 
to vandalise the Police Box in the console room.  The Doctor
briefly wonders what it is about Police Boxes that seem to FORCE
humaniods to deface and damage them -- but he only ponders this
briefly before he starts to smash the lock and kick the doors 
repeatedly.   When the Doctor kicks the door completely open
he and Adric enter and they find another TARDIS console room, with
another police box inside. Upon seeing this the Doctor grips
Adric's shoulder and promises never to drop acid and listen to 
Pink Floyd ever again.  Luckily when Adric confirms the sight
before them the Doctor calms down and starts a proper 
investigation.  The Doctor realizes that they're caught in a
dimensional anomaly -- and if it's an infinite regression 
they will be completely screwed...at least that's what he
read in "Dimensional Anomalies For Beginners".

 Meanwhile, Tegan has discovered that her aunt's Skoda is
completely beyond all hope of repair and reluctantly sets off
in search of a garage. But on the way, she spots the police box,
and decides sneak inside the Police Box to sit down and shoot
up heroin.  Instead, the doors open inwards and she stumbles
into the TARDIS console room just as the police box inside
dematerializes -- she too makes a solemn vow to herself against
drugs and psychedelic music. The doors shut behind her, trapping
her inside, and as she tries to make some sense of the console
the cloister bell begins to ring (note, when the cloister bell
starts to ring WITHOUT even having batteries - the universe is
probably completely up shit creek). Tegan ventures into the 
corridors, seeking the crew of this weird Police Box, and soon 
becomes hopelessly lost.

 Outside, her aunt Vanessa also finds and enters the TARDIS --
but this time the chuckling figure that turned the policeman
into a human pretzel is waiting inside.

 As Adric smashes open yet another police box, the Doctor
concludes that the anomaly was caused by another TARDIS
materializing around the police box before them; his heart
is elated to think that this means SOMEONE else out there
in the universe must ALSO be a police box spotter.  However
his heart crashes down when he realises the more likely
possibility that someone was just laying in wait to kill him.

 When the Doctor enters the badly damaged police box he emerges
outside, where he stumbles onto an abandoned Skoda.  As the 
translucent white figure watches in the distance, the Doctor 
peers into the car and sees the shrunken bodies of Vanessa and
the young policeman. Disgusted, and confused, the Doctor
returns to the TARDIS and begins to sulk again.  The Doctor
tells Adric that he will never forget Romana, but is still 
deeply worried that he might still have a K9 somewhere in
her old room.  To stop the Doctor's constant bitching 
Adric is forced to jettison Romana's room from reality.
Incidentally this provides thrust for take-off.  However
this does not stop the Doctor's constant whining as
now he seems deeply upset that he wasn't assaulted by
the local police on earth or even charged with a crime
he didn't commit.

 A few moments later the Doctor receives a space telegram 
on the TARDIS console which reads "Traken.  Tremas killed
by giant sea lion."  The Doctor realises then and there
that the Bastard is no longer a sea lion, and has taken
human form.  So he decides on a suitably ironic murder
tactic - now the Bastard is hidden somewhere within the
structure of the TARDIS, the Doctor decides to literally
flush him out by materializing underwater and opening the
doors.  Adric asks if this won't ALSO kill the both of
them AND what-if the Bastard actually STILL IS a sea lion.
But the Doctor dismisses these concerns as he has a respiratory
bypass system and he doesn't mind if Adric drowns.

 Tegan, still lost in the identical corridors of the TARDIS,
is shocked when a potted tree materializes in front of her.
In the console room, the Doctor materializes and drops into 
the Thames, but the Doctor seems very surprised and 
disappointed when no water rushes in through the open doors
killing his companion Adric instantly. This is explained
when they emerge to find that they've landed on top of
Mount Everest by error. The Doctor notices the figure in
white standing next to a yeti watching them closely; 
the figure beckons to him, and, unnerved, the Doctor
orders Adric to think up some other clever way to possibly
kill himself while the Doctor and the white figure speak.
Adric is convinced that the waiting figure is the 
Bastard in a lame mummy costume, but the Doctor refuses 
to discuss what happened; he seems unsettled, and claims
to have seen the future - so it's just a typical 
Sunday afternoon in the TARDIS. 

 The Doctor sets the co-ordinates for Logopolis, telling 
Adric that they will have to part company, mostly because
he hates him so very much but also making up a lame and
hardly believable story about how a chain of circumstances
is about to fragment the very law which holds the Universe
together.  The Doctor ALWAYS uses this excuse when he
wants a break from somebody, it's really pathetic.

 Tegan finally finds her way back to the console room, where
she furiously demands to speak to the Police Box's pilot.
The Doctor, already having a really shitty day and wanting
some time to himself, gleefully informs her that her beloved
aunt is now a Barbie doll.

 Tegan accompanies the Doctor and Adric outside into the 
city of Logopolis, where endless rows of balding programmers 
sit in cubicles chanting the dialog of Dilbert cartoons.
The leader of Logopolis, the Project Leader, leads the 
Doctor, Adric and Tegan to the Human Resources building, 
which the Doctor finds to be a hellish place of endless
damnation. There, the Project Leader converts the Doctor's
measurements of the police box exterior into XHTML Block
Transfer Computation.

 But the dreaded potted tree returns, materializing in one
of the Logopolitan's cubicles. The Logopolitan inside,
occupied entirely with burning a Rick James bootleg CD,
doesn't realize that anything is amiss until it's too late;
soon another shrunken doll has joined the list of the 
Bastard's victims.

 The Doctor takes the calculations back to the TARDIS
to complete his work, but privately asks the Project
Leader to offer Tegan and Adric some crappy temp jobs
as he sneaks away in the other direction.  The Doctor
shuts the door on Adric and Tegan, and the Project
Leader tries to reassure them that $8 an hour is 
perfectly good money for alien contractors. 
As they argue for their OWN cubicles, Nyssa of Traken
arrives, brought to Logopolis by Dave, a friend of the
Doctor's.  The figure in white watches from a distance
as the TARDIS begins to shimmer and shrink, with the
Doctor trapped inside.
 
 The Project Leader is appalled; the code they provided
the Doctor wasn't even Unit Tested by his developers.
Now their honour and the Doctor's life are both at stake.
The Logopolitans perform countless technobabble operations
to stablise the TARDIS and attempt to resize it.
To force an extra layer of mystery into the this scene 
the figure in white is standing at a nearby intersection, 
watching... 

 The Doctor is unable to correct the fault from inside the
TARDIS - he left his copy of "Dimensional Corrections 
for Absolute Wankers" directly outside of the Wine Peddler's
TARDIS for a laugh, centuries ago.  In order to improve
the Doctor's morale Tegan holds up the pornographic flash
cards that secured her job at the Latex Lair.  

 In an act of thoughtless bravado, Adric sets off into the
streets to find the Bastard.  But after realising the
danger this places him in, Adric asks Nyssa to go first.
Adric notices the white figure in the distance and sets off
in pursuit, but Nyssa is brought up short by the sound of a
familiar voice -- and sees the man she still believes to be
her father. He's changed, not merely younger but also he 
claims to be part jellyfish.  Nyssa wonders if her father
has lost her mind.  She is even more worried when he gives
her a bracelet which clamps tightly shut about her wrist, 
and tells her that he is a secret ice cream salesman.
He then bids Nyssa adieu.

 Later on, the Bastard enters the Central Registry, where
he goes through the web browser history of the Project Leader.
In the history file he discovers the smut that he requires
for total blackmail.  The Bastard threatens that he will
tell everyone about the websites the Project Leader has been
visiting unless the Project Leader reveals Logopolis' great
secret and the purpose of the long going IT project. 
The Project Manager can't bring himself to reveal the great
secret. Just then, The Doctor, Adric and Nyssa arrive, and 
Nyssa is the last person in the entire universe to finally
-GET- that the Bastard has murdered her father and taken his
body.

 The Bastard rushes out into the streets to find the city
crumbling to dust and the Logopolitans dead, hollow husks. 
The Project Leader is forced to admit the truth; the Universe
is just an incredibly bloated operating system which is
so buggy that it needs to be constantly patched and updated
or else it will fall into chaos.  The universe's fundamental
nature was changed when Bill Gates bought it out and reformed
it as MS-Universe.  For the last several centuries the universe
has only been sustained by automatic updates created by the
programmers of Logopolis.

 Now, due to the Bastard murdering programmers, the operating
system ran by itself for several seconds, without any patches
being applied, and the unravelling of MS-Universe has begun.
The Bastard doesn't believe a word of it until he finds even 
his own TARDIS malfunctiong, crashing and showing the blue
screen of death.

 The Doctor knows that only he and the Bastard can put things
right now. The TARDIS appears, transported from the Central
Registry by the still rather mysterious figure in white, and
the Doctor orders Tegan, Nyssa and Adric inside. To save the
Universe he now has no choice but to form an alliance with the 
Bastard. 
 
 Adric and Nyssa, waiting out events in the TARDIS cloisters,
see the Watcher beckoning to Adric. Adric speaks with the Watcher
but afterwards is unable to describe the conversation whatsoever; 
the Watcher only seems to speak Portuguese.
 
 The Bastard's TARDIS materializes in Microsoft Headquarters 
in 1981.  The Bastard starts to ransack Microsoft's main
computer room, but the night-shift technician is listening to
Devo on his Walkman and doesn't even notice. The Bastard 
prepares to shoot the technician but the Doctor flings him
out of the way, reminding the Bastard that they need to save
all their ammo to insure they can kill Bill Gates.

 The Doctor and Master wait for Bill Gates to arrive all
through the night.  To pass the long hours they speak
of their lives and interests.  In a moment of deep 
embarrassment the Bastard admits that he built his Tissue
Compression Eliminator device in order to expand his doll
collection.  The Bastard has been an avid doll collector
since his first encounter with the Autons. 

 In the morning, when Gates arrives, the Doctor is
ready to shoot to kill.  At the last moment though
the Bastard springs up, weapon in hand, and points
his silly black stick at the Doctor AND Bill Gates.
The Bastard explains that he will let Bill Gates live
if he turns over 100% of Microsoft to him -- thus
making the Bastard the most powerful man throughout
all time and eventually securing him the rights to
the entire MS-Universe.

 The Doctor rushes out to disarm the Bastard. In
a quick reflex the Bastard shoots enough holes
in the Doctor that he could pass for a reasonable
impression of swiss cheese.  As the Doctor looses
his last fingerholds on life, the faces of his past
girlfriends seem to come back to taunt him.

In the violence and the confusion, Bill Gates escapes.
The Bastard, thwarted, returns to his TARDIS and 
dematerializes. 

 Tegan, Nyssa and Adric rush to the Doctor's crumpled
body lying on the ground. The faces of the fourth Doctor?s
previous companions come to say "Wanker". 

The Doctor tells his current companions it's the end,
the contract has not been renewed.

 "The Watcher!" exclaims Adric, as the mysterious figure
has arrived. The Watcher enters the Doctor?s body.
"So he was the Doctor all the time!" remarks Nyssa, as
she now realises he is the Doctor?s future. The Watcher
and Doctor blur together until only the young, new body 
of the Fifth Doctor remains... 


And so ends the comissioned version of Death Comes
to Tom, and so ends the tenure of Tom Baker as
the Doctor.  However, this is not the only possible
plotline for the last Baker serial.  By special
request Satan-Turner and Bidmead allowed Tom Baker
submit a pen of his own final story.   Satan-Turner
and Bidmead compared the two possible scripts for
serial 5V and finally decided NOT to use the one
Tom wrote.  And the Tom Baker version has passed into
fanboy legend ever since.  Luckily I was able to
buy the script on eBay last year from UnixMonkey87.
The synopsis is as follows -

 The Doctor lands on the planet Gallifrey, at the
end of time.  The last of the Time Lords are escaping
into the mists of history, to live out their final 
days.  The Doctor has returned to take his place.
When the Doctor enters the Matrix, he is assigned
another life, in another time.

 The year is 1917, the place is Moscow.  The Doctor
finds himself magically transformed into Grigory
Rasputin.  As Rasputin he has all the memories of
the Time Lord race AND a kick ass beard.  But all
is not well.  The people riot in the streets and
the days of the Tzar are numbered.  

 The Tzar and his wife are fiercely loyal to
Rasputin, and beg him for his help.  In desperation
Rasputin calls upon mysterious allies known only
as, The Cybermen.  Rasputin builds a Cyberman army
to put down the Bolshevik revolt.

 However after securing Moscow the Cybermen betray
Rasputin and being a conquest of the planet Earth.
Rasputin hunts in the dark jungles of the Amazon
and finally comes across a mysterious crystal,
the Crystal of Time, the only force on earth which
can defeat the Cybermen.  However before Rasputin
can activate the crystal, his nemesis, the Bastard
enters the Matrix on Gallifrey and incarnates on
earth as Vladimir Lenin!

 Rasputin immediately returns to Russia and
duels with pistols against his adversary.
After winning the duel however, Lenin is
merely injured, and escapes into a time
corridor.  Rasputin uses the Time Crystal,
which unexpectedly forces the Brigadier
into his timeline.  Together Rasputin and
the Brigadier take over the planet earth.

 The End.



Book(s)/Other Related - Dr Who - The 4th Doctor Snuffs It
                        Doctor Who: Beyond The Scarf
                        Sci-Fi For 4 Dummies: Doctor Who
                       
Fluffs - Tom Baker seemed surly for most of this story
Tegan: My neem..my namen..me nume..I'm Tegan Jovanka...or
       my stage name is, Tegan Jackoffya.

Goofs - Tom Baker wasn't fired after season 15.

        Also the Bastard has a respiratory bypass system, so
        the only person who could have possibility died would
        have been Adric.  Was this the Doctor's real plan?        

Technobabble - 
"Quantum Zingers!  The gravity well has dragged us
into a warp embolism!  Isn't that wonderful Adric?"

Links and References - 
The Doctor drops constant and out of place references.
Some of which make sense "I haven't experienced an
evil like this since I last faced the Dustbins."
(Serial 5J), but then less than two minutes later -
"This is the most evil I have ever faced since I
singlehandedly destroyed the Quirks!" (Serial TT)

Untelevised Misadventures - 
The Doctor has been to Logopolis before, when the
Logopolitans told him they weren't going to do the 
chameleon conversion for him if he kept insisting
that he make the TARDIS look like Betty Page.

Groovy DVD Extras -
12 additional scenes of the Watcher, standing around..
watching.  These were eventually cut because the 
director and editor felt that they had already
established the watcher as someone who was watching
these events as they unfolded throughout the story.

Dialogue Disasters -

 Adric: Doctor, I really wish you would cheer up
        a bit.
Doctor: Cheer up a bit?!  Half the universe falling
        into an endless cycle of death and destruction?
        Countless worlds engaged in ruthless wars,
        raging through centuries!  What's the POINT?!
 Adric: I've got a few Kinder Eggs.
Doctor: Alright, I'll have three.


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: He must have known I was going to fix the 
        chameleon circuit.
 Adric: He read your mind? 
Doctor: He's a Bastard! In many ways we have the same mind.


Doctor: Never guess. Unless you have to..or the answer is 3. 

Doctor: It's the end...the contract has not been renewed. 
        Tell the Brigadier, I love him.


Dialogue Oddities -

(ORIGINAL SCRIPT)
The Doctor: I would gladly give my life in the defense of another.

(ON SCREEN)
Tom Baker: Right, this shotgun should take his head right off.

Viewer Quotes -

"I was shocked by this story.  They changed Doctor
Who into some weird blonde dude.  Where did they
come up with that idea?  That's stupid.  Am I
suppose to buy this new guy as like, the SECOND
Doctor or something?" - American Fan (1981)

"JUDGEMENT!  HELL!!! FIRE!!!!!  Oh, yes.
By the way.  I missed Doctor Who this weekend.
Did Tom bite the bullet or what?" 
                  - Father James O' Maley (1981)

"I had an overwhelming feeling of apprehension as the last seconds
of this story ticked relentlessly away, the end of the Doctor's
fourth incarnation drawing ever nearer, his past girlfriends
flashing before his weary eyes as he clung desperately to life.
Resolved to his destiny, the Bastard claimed his seemingly fragile
form...He did not scream as he died. Then he uttered his final
words... and I suddenly realised, wait a minute...I wrote that 
line in a script submission I'd sent them a year ago! 
The bastards had plagarised me!!!" - Andrew Stonebridge (1981)

"Looking back on it, in retrospect, in a way, this
really was the story where the 4th Doctor died.  It took
us all awhile realise that." - Charles Daniels (2003)


Psychotic Nostalgia -
"Doctor Who is dead.  Long live Doctor Who!  Tonight,
I will walk into my secret inner sanctum, and make
a burnt offering to my idol of Tom Baker, carved
completely from cheddar cheese, and adourned with
a scarf and the heads of my enemies."

Trivia - In the last scene, the TARDIS is seen
         with the words "Dave is still a Wanker"
         spray painted in small white letters.

Rumors & Facts -

  Satan-Turner and Bidmead were greatly concerned about the effect
that Baker's departure would have on Doctor Who's fan base.  Of
course Tom was a completely impossible to work with toss pot
of the first order -- but people LOVED him.  They snuck into
his hotel room at night, they kidnapped his pet dog, Whiskey,
just to get close to him.  

 In order to ease the pain of the Doctor's departure, Turner
and Bidmead arranged for the return of arch-nemesis the Bastard 
in the season's penultimate story, The Zoo Keeper Of Traken. 
Further, they hoped to reintroduce an old companion in 
Death Comes to Tom, who would accompany the Doctor for just 
three stories. However, both candidates -- Sarah Jane Smith 
and Leela -- said they would rather be shot in the head then
return to work with Tom. Consequently, the production team
decided to devise a new companion, envisaged as a brash,
smart but insecure stripper who dressed in a kinky air hostess
uniform (actually most people think this was Tom's idea, and
MAY have been based on an actual stripper he'd met in Paris).
It was decided to make her Australian in a lame attempt to
add ethnic diversity to Doctor Who. 

 At the same time, Satan-Turner was searching for a new Doctor 
to replace Baker. He was uncertain about what direction to take
with the next incarnation, except that the actor had to be someone
who he could easily blackmail and dress like a monkey.  
Satan-Turner also wanted the new Doctor to be as different
from Baker as possible.  He approached John Cleese, who told him 
thanks, but fuck off;  Satan-Turner tried to interest Stallone,
who fortunely rejected the idea because he believed moving to
England would mean he'd have to learn a foriegn language.
Finally, in desperation, Satan-Turner contacted Peter Davison,
with whom he had worked on All Creatures Great And Sexy -
an illegal Dutch porn film from the 70s.  Satan-Turner felt that
Davison's character in that film, Tristan Farout, would be a good
model for the new Doctor. Davison, however, was uncertain of
playing another character similar to Tristan Farout, because he
was was wary of becoming associated with characters of the type
usually found in illegal Dutch pornography.  Davison initially
rejected Satan-Turner's offer but later reversed his decision, as
Turner had told him he would make sure All Creatures Great and Sexy
would get an official VHS Video release if he did not comply.

 Taping of Death Comes to Tom occurred at the Barnet by-pass, where 
Satan-Turner and Bidmead believed there existed one of the few 
remaining genuine police boxes (indeed, this had been one of 
Bidmead's early inspirations for the story). However, it was
discovered that this had recently been torn down due to vandalism.

Logopolis part four aired on March 21st, bringing Season Eighteen
and the record-setting Tom Baker era to its conclusion. Baker
would experience a career lull akin the the stock market crash of 
1929 directly after leaving Doctor Who, but eventually found
himself once again in demand, at children's parties, in cheap
fanvids, and in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. 

 Season 18 was a milestone for Doctor Who.  Without season 18
we would have never known of the thrilling existence of E-Space,
we would have never met the plucky young lad Adric, and we
would have never lost Tom Baker as the Doctor -- so really,
season 18 bit the big one.  Just like Tom.

 It was the end of an era.


Tom Baker Speaks!
"And so closes my time as a children's hero.  A
golden age of my life.  A wonderful time, of
sitting in the grass, my youthful nude body
body exposed fully in the glory of sun, feeling
the warmth, the joy, drinking in the heady wine
of the summers of yesteryear.  The loves found
and lost, the pebbles on the beach.  The days
of my innocence, crashing against the rocky
shores of my future.  But at these moments I
was the happiest.  When I was the Doctor.
When I could look directly at everything in my
life and know that it was good, and rewarding.
Before the dark days of old age and self doubt.
When I could proudly drink 15 pints a day and
take a piss out of a slow moving van down the High 
street. When I did battle against Dustbins and
Bastards, when I had lovers like Sarah Jane and
Romana, and when I would sit and play chess with
K-9 while smoking lots of dope.  The glory years
of being the Doctor on BBC1.  If only I could
reach back, and find those times, I think I
would probably go to a small hotel, called the
Golden Ostrich, which I once stayed at in 1974,
while filming Return of the Cybermen.  I'd
walk up the that little tiny lonely hotel, and
sit down at a comfortable table, and talk to
that Japanese tourist who was eyeing me all night.
That night, I was too drunk to move or speak.
But this night, this time, I would glide gracefully
across the room, look deeply into her olive eyes,
introduce myself, and then, yes, I would have
her for three weeks straight in the ultimate
dirty weekend.  If I had the power of time, if
I could travel in the TARDIS with K-9, that's
what I'd do.  I'd bag all those fans I was too
drunk to screw -- even Ian Levine. 
Why the hell not?  Goodnight sweetheart."