Balm for 'Doctor Who' fans

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Publication: Roanoke Times and World News
Date: 1985-06-06
Author:
Page:
Language: English

THIS is the season of the cliffhanger when our hero actually falls off the cliff. This has been a hard spring for TV watchers: first the Coach on "Cheers," then the Chief on "Gimme a Break," then Selma Diamond from "Night Court," then Bobby Ewing — even if we all know he isn't really dead.

There's one more coming. If you've been watching "Doctor Who," and if you started somewhere in the middle, the way I did (on another channel from another state), you may have missed all the warnings that this is not a normal TV show. If so, a story called "Logopolis" could knock you for a loop.

By now you're used to the structure of "Doctor Who" stories: three half-hours that end in cliff-hangers, and then a happy ending. "Logopolis" is different. This time they drop our hero off the cliff. Literally. (Well, almost literally. It isn't a cliff. It's a giant radio antenna. But the dropping part is literal.)

In a normal, that is an American, TV show, when our hero drops off the cliff, he either gets killed or he doesn't, depending on what sort of contract he has negotiated, and you read all about it in TV Guide. But "Doctor Who" is a British show, and the rules are different over there, like cricket and baseball.

"Doctor Who" has been running for 22 years, and at last count, six actors have played the title role. Tom Baker, the one Roanoke has been watching, is number 4.

The important thing is that Tom Baker isn't dead or anything. He just got the Seven-Year-Itch, like Patrick (Bobby Ewing) Duffy. It may or may not seem like it, but if you've been watching "Doctor Who" since last September, you've seen seven years' worth of shows when we get to "Logopolis."

By my calculations, "Logopolis" should be coming up about the last of June, or about the time the Roanoke Times & World-News gets around to printing this letter, if it takes as long as the last one I wrote. The question is, what will Channel 15 do after that? They can either go on to the fifth doctor, or back to the third doctor, or even start at the beginning with the first doctor. Or they can show reruns of Tom.

Actually, it's better in reruns. After you have some inkling of where the plot is going, you catch all sorts of little jokes you missed the first time around.

JANE PILSON

Route 2, Ridgeway

Balm for 'Doctor Who' fans

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