Fourth Doctor Revisited: The Deadly Assassin

I'm still working my way through the Fourth Doctor era, trying to catch up to TJ. I recently watched "The Deadly Assassin" which is pretty unique among Doctor Who stories, especially of the classic era. We get a return to Gallifrey, the Master's dying form, a murder mystery, and the establishment of plenty of Doctor Who lore.

Let's start with the return to Gallifrey and the murder mystery. Last we left the Doctor, he said goodbye to Sarah Jane Smith (in the wrong city) to follow a call to Gallifrey. Come to find out it was a premonition about an assassination. And naturally the Doctor is in the right place at the wrong time and gets accused of the murder. How many times has that been used as a means of pulling the Doctor further into the drama? Not complaining. It works. Though this time it was an accusation from people who knew him and it took nominating himself as a presidential candidate to stay alive. And that role as the president keeps coming back whenever he visits Gallifrey again.

After the passing of Roger Delgado, the Master and his plots basically faded into the past, like the Great Intelligence and the Toymaker. "Frontier in Space" could have easily been the Master's last story. Instead, they decided to bring him back during the Fourth Doctor era. They could have simply made him regenerate, but instead gave him a plot to avoid his final death. This meant adding the rule of the twelve regenerations (which we'll address in a second) but it brought back this beloved villain. The first of many times that the Master should have been deader than dead and still came back. But we'll come back to this decaying version of the Master soon enough.

This is one of those stories that established parts of Doctor Who lore that has endured for decades. In addition to the limit of twelve regenerations, this story brought us back to Gallifrey, its politics and culture, and the Matrix. In some ways, showing the inner workings of Gallifrey makes them less mysterious I suppose (which is why I'd be very okay if they never reveal the Doctor's real name) but it gave a new sense of urgency. Yes, the Time Lords are very advanced and often benevolent. But this story also showed their darker aspects, making them not much better than humans. In addition, the regeneration limit puts a little more emphasis on each death of a Time Lord, as they're not just reborn forever. With the Doctor possibly being the Timeless Child, he might be the exception... but that's a discussion for when we rewatch the Thirteenth Doctor.

I couldn't find a source for the story, but I read on the Doctor Who wiki that Tom Baker wanted an episode all to himself. A big feat for any actor, to only play off himself. This is as close as we got in the classic era, but we've this companion-less style repeated in modern Doctor Who, with some companion-lite stories (like "Midnight") and one-off companions (like "Voyage of the Damned" and "Joy to the World"). It's one of the few times we truly see the Doctor alone (unless you count Spandrell or Engin as his companions). Peter Capaldi finally got to realize Tom Baker's Doctor-only adventure in "Heaven Sent" but even that story had the monster of the Confession.

Alright, guys! Time to speed things up with my Doctor Who viewing. I need to catch up with TJ so that we have more Whovian content to record on the podcast.