7 - Logopolis

Composer: Paddy Kingsland
Director: Peter Grimwade

What's the score?
Paddy Kingsland plays out the Fourth Doctor in a story written by script editor Christopher H Bidmead; Kingsland would end up scoring all three of Bidmead's DW stories. The electric guitar is all over this one, alongside harpsichord and solemn synth tones. It's a sombre score for a sombre story.

Musical notes

• Tegan doesn't have a theme. There are a couple of strong contenders - the flighty cue that plays twice in Part One with Aunt Vanessa, the brittle music-box piece that plays twice in Part Two while Tegan explores the TARDIS - but none are taken up by any of the Radiophonic Workshop composers during the three years of Tegan's tenure as a regular character. Incidentally, this week's first "oo-wee-oo" moment comes at the end of the repeated cue in Part One, when we cut back from Tegan to the TARDIS. Our second "oo-wee-oo" comes later in Part One, when the Doctor first sees the Watcher.
• There's a little reprise from Full Circle when the Doctor stumbles across Romana's old room. It's the cue that played while Romana was sulking about being called back to Gallifrey, just before the TARDIS fell into E-Space.
• There's a peculiar bit of action music in Part Two when Adric falls over a bicycle in order to help the Doctor escape from a couple of police officers. It's got the same "wakka-wakka" guitar sound that you might hear on gritty cop shows like The Sweeney or The Professionals - Kingsland seems to be inviting us to laugh at these not-so-gritty cops.
• There's a theme for Logopolis that plays several times, with slight variations, throughout Parts Two and Three. It's a sombre, monastic piece, which makes it a good fit for the sombre, monastic Logopolitans. It's anticipated a couple of times in Part One when Logopolis is mentioned in conversation. A snare drum creeps in at the start of Part Three as the Logopolitans struggle with the effects of the Master's sabotage. The last variant plays near the end of Part Three with an unsettling key change in the middle, as Logopolis begins to die.
• Much of Part Four is taken up with a funky harpsichord/bass/woodwind chase theme, as various parties try to make their way across the grounds of the Pharos Project without being caught by the security guards. Like the escape theme in Part Two, it's got a bit of that cop show feel to it.
• In the moments before the Doctor's fall from the Pharos radio telescope, Kingsland builds up the tension in an ascending series of chords; there's what might best be described as an anguished cry over the fall itself. (Or perhaps it's that seagull from Bergerac again?)
• The final cue deserves a close listen. It follows the camera down with a descending scale of quiet chimes, landing on a low pulsing sound. The montage of former companions is accompanied by a pensive flute melody, followed by a brief pause for the Doctor's last line; there's then a more confident rising phrase in pipe and woodwind sounds as the Doctor regenerates. Naturally, there's one last "oo-wee-oo" to finish with. It's a gentle farewell to the Fourth Doctor and an optimistic welcome to the Fifth. In fact, it's the most sensitive musical send-off any Doctor has had, in your humble blogger's opinion. We won't hear its like again in a regeneration story - from here on out, the Doctors will be sent off in a blaze of sound and fury, to match the explosive visuals of future regenerations.

Vox pop
This score, and in particular the closing few minutes, is a thing of beauty. The one objection I might raise is that the chase music in Part Four gets awfully repetitive - an issue that will itself be repeated in subsequent Paddy Kingsland scores. But this really is a fine send-off for Tom Baker, and the icing on the cake is that Kingsland will be around to smooth the way for Peter Davison's first story too.

Availability

• The BBC DVD release includes the full isolated score as an audio option.