With its historic place in Doctor Who legend as Tom Baker's last turn as the incumbent Doctor, Logopolis is almost guaranteed to have killer bonus features.

The main featurette, A New Body At Last (actually named after a quote from the previous story, The Keeper Of Traken), takes a surprisingly no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled look at Baker's exit from the TARDIS. Baker himself, writer Christopher Bidmead, co-stars Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Adrian Gibbs, and numerous others deliver a warts-and-all retelling of both the making of this particular adventure, and of Baker's decision to leave the show permanently. Now that there's a whole new generation of Doctor Who on the air and David Tennant has entrenched himself as firmly in the role of the Doctor in two years as Baker did in seven, it's safe to take a less-than-fawning look at this subject matter. As sad as everyone was to see Baker leave the show, there are also more than a few who admit to being relieved that he left, and even Baker himself admits that he may well have been a pain in the butt to work with by this point. If nothing else, I'm impressed with the sheer candor of this feature; I honestly didn't think they'd go there.

Writer/script editor Christopher Bidmead, Janet "Tegan" Fielding and Tom Baker himself provide the commentary through all four episodes. As anyone with a few Baker-era DVDs on their shelf will know, Baker's commentaries are...a bit eccentric at times. This one is no exception. With his trademark name-dropping and non-sequiturs, Baker would normally dominate the proceedings, but Janet Fielding gives him a run for his money here, repeatedly quizzing Bidmead on whether or not some concept or plot point has any grounding in real science or if it's "baffle gab" (think of it as a British term for technobabble). They all seem to be in good spirits, though toward the end Baker admits that he was being l'enfant terrible during shooting and stops just short of apologizing for it. As is common with more recent commentaries, a few comparisons to the new series are brought up as well.

Other extras include a series of BBC news clips, including the official announcement of Baker's departure and the unveiling of his successor, Peter Davison. One gets to see that, even in 1981, Baker leaving the role of the Doctor was huge news, in a TV news context that wasn't yet dominated by celebrity-driven "infotainment". The public was genuinely that interested.

I also have to once again give the music-only audio option a mention here, if only because Logopolis is graced with a fantastic, memorable musical score that has yet to be released on CD.

Overall, it's a nice selection of bonus features, and one that does a good job of pointing up the importance of Logopolis in Doctor Who's long history.

Logopolis is available as part of the Doctor Who: New Beginnings box set, or as an individual release (in North America only).

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief