Doctor Who Logo 'The Keeper of Traken'
(4 Parts)
Story Code '5T'

by Johnny Byrne
The Doctor

Materialising aboard the TARDIS, the aged Keeper of Traken asks the Doctor and Adric for their help. The Traken Union is a place of universal harmony and peace, powered by a bioelectric Source that is controlled by the Keeper, who is now nearing the end of his time, and fears that a great evil is about to befall his world. He believes the threat is connected to the Melkur, a calcified statue that fell from the sky years ago, and which now stands immobile in the gardens of the grove. On Traken, Kassia, who has been charged with tending to the Melkur ever since she was a child, marries Consul Tremas, only to discover that he is to be the next Keeper, meaning that she will have to leave him. She is further surprised when the apparently inanimate Melkur speaks to her - it promises to prevent Tremas's ascendance, by coercing Kassia into having her husband and the newly-arrived Doctor and Adric arrested under false charges. The Melkur possesses Kassia's body, and arranges for her to become the new Keeper, but as she takes her place in the scared throne, her body vanishes, only to be replaced by that of Melkur. The Doctor discovers that the Melkur is in fact a TARDIS, and he is brought inside it, where he is confronted by the emaciated figure of his old nemesis the Master. The renegade Time Lord has reached the end of his regeneration cycle, and plans to use the power of the Source to renew his lifecycle. But Adric and Nyssa, Tremas's daughter, sabotage the Source enabling the Doctor to escape from the Master's TARDIS. He uses a servo shut-off and sanctioning programs to expel the Melkur, and install Consul Luvic in his place. Believing the Master to be destroyed, the Doctor and Adric leave, but the Master has escaped in another TARDIS disguised as a grandfather clock, and he takes over the body of Tremas, renewing himself...

Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Anthony Ainley (Tremas), Sheila Ruskin (Kassia), Denis Carey (The Keeper), John Woodnutt (Seron), Margot van der Burgh (Katura), Robin Soans (Luvic), Roland Oliver (Neman), Geoffrey Beevers (Melkur); Liam Prendergast, Philip Bloomfield (Fosters)
Note:*Geoffrey Beevers played The Master but was credited as The Melkur to conceal the plot twist

Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by John Black


TX:
Part 1 - 31st January, 1981 @ 5.10pm - 5.35pm
Part 2 - 7th February, 1981 @ 5.10pm - 5.35pm
Part 3 - 14th February, 1981 @ 5.10pm - 5.35pm
Part 4 - 21st February, 1981 @ 5.10pm - 5.35pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Adric, and introducing Nyssa