Editor's Note: The Keeper of Traken is the first of three Doctor Who adventures included in the New Beginnings box set, the other two being Logopolis and Castrovalva.

1981 was a transitional year for the long running British Science Fiction/Fantasy program Doctor Who. Tom Baker, arguably the series' most popular Doctor, was leaving the series, and producer John Nathan-Turner was finally being given an opportunity to remake the show to his own designs. The Keeper of Traken was the next to last Tom Baker adventure and fans were understandably uneasy about the future of the program. If it hadn't been for significant creative differences with Nathan-Turner, Baker might have stayed with the program for a few more seasons, but it wasn't to be so.

The episode opens as an enigmatic old man in a fancy chair suddenly appears in the console room of the TARDIS. This is the Keeper of Traken and he's come to ask the Doctor for help. The Keeper's thousand year reign as the protector of the Traken civilization is coming to an end and the traditional hand off of power to a new Keeper is threatened by an evil alien known as Melkur. But Melkur seems to be little more than an inert statue, incapable of moving or speaking, let alone interfering with the powerful Keeper.

Compelled to travel to Traken, the Doctor begins to investigate. It becomes apparent almost immediately that Melkur isn't as helpless as it seems. The alien is in league with Kassia, a citizen of Traken who has taken pity on it. Kassia's interaction with Melkur begins innocently enough. She visits the paralyzed alien daily, bringing it flowers and speaking to it in sympathetic tones. But Melkur asserts a kind of psychic influence to take over Kassia and uses her as its agent among the Trakens. Eventually it's revealed that Melkur is not an alien at all. It's the TARDIS of the Doctor's arch rival, the Master, who's attempting to assume the Keepership in order to use the power of the Trakens to regenerate his emaciated, decaying body. Will the Doctor be able to thwart the Master's evil plans or will the Master claim the body he covets and again become the Doctor's most formidable opponent? 

The Keeper of Traken marks an important moment in the Doctor Who canon. Originally appearing on the show in 1971's Terror of the Autons, the Master was played by Roger Delgado, who would continue in the role until his death in 1973. After a brief reappearance of the Master in 1976's The Deadly Assassin, played by Peter Pratt in heavy makeup, the role of the Master was permanently recast with Anthony Ainley. Ainley would remain in the role until the series ended in 1989. Ainley based his version of the Master on Delgado's but added a more manic, mustache twirling spin to the character. Ainley's Master was more Snidley Whiplash than Moriarty, and while some fans adored his melodramatic approach, others loathed Ainley in the role. Love him or hate him, it's hard to discount Ainley's considerable skills, all of which are on display in The Keeper of Traken. 

The adventure is successful on a number of levels. The plot is very engaging and filled with several satisfying and unexpected twists and turns. The actors all successfully sell their characters and keep the action moving along at a breakneck pace. The sets, normally a weak point, are a standout in The Keeper of Traken where they're rendered in a very sophisticated take on Art Nouveau. Finally, the most compelling part of the episode is the Shakespearian inspired dialogue. Though it's far from iambic pentameter, the language has the ring of Tudor England that adds a satisfying feel of sophistication to the proceedings. 

The Keeper of Traken has a fresh and unique feel to it. It avoids running back over ground the series had tread before and gives us a tantalizing glimpse of a fully rendered alien civilization. It's classic Doctor Who and considered one of the best episodes in the program's history by many fans. Additionally, the adventure is part of a larger story arc involving the continued machinations of the newly revived Master, the death of Tom Baker's Doctor and his replacement by Peter Davison.

Video Presentation
Once again, the Doctor Who Restoration Team has provided fans with an amazing release. The video elements for The Keeper of Traken were digitally re-mastered and graded while removing instances of video drop out. Some jitter in the image was removed and noise reduction was applied to the image, resulting in an archival quality image that looks as good as the day it was broadcast in 1981.

Audio Presentation
The audio was also carefully restored to remove tape hiss, the sound of a loose boom mic in some scenes and poor mixing of music, dialogue and sound effects. The resulting audio track is actually much better than the original broadcast version due to the much more sophisticated audio processing hardware available today.

Extras
Even though The Keeper of Traken is a single disc release, the BBC has packed it with excellent extra content. 

Audio Commentary with actors Mathew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Anthony Ainley and writer Johnny Byrne.  - This commentary track is filled with all sorts of great on-set anecdotes from the actors, all of whom seem to be having a great time reminiscing about the adventure. It moves along at a brisk pace that keeps the listener engaged from beginning to end. Mathew Waterhouse is particularly entertaining and insightful. This track is also significant in that it's the last audio commentary recorded by Anthony Ainley before he died in May of 2004. It's a real treat to have Ainley's comments on his premier adventure as the Master. 

Feaurette: Being Nice to Each Other (30 minutes) - The title of this featurette comes from a line of dialogue in the show in which the Doctor describes Traken as an “empire held together by people being terribly nice to each other.” It's a 30 minute look at the making of the adventure that touches on the changes the series was going through, the difficulty of working with Tom Baker towards the end of his tenure as the Doctor and the execution of this classic episode from script to screen.  

The Return of the Master (8 minutes) - This is brief segment explaining how the idea to bring the Master back to the series was handled by the writing and production staff. 

Swap Shop with Sarah Sutton (11 minutes) - Swap Shop was a Saturday morning spin-off of Blue Peter that involved the trading of all sorts of weird merchandise between children who watched the program. From time to time celebrities would come on the show to be interviewed and to offer up some choice prizes to whoever answered a trivia question. This is a segment featuring Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) being interviewed and taking questions from young fans. 

Music Only Track - As the name implies, this is an option to watch the episodes with an isolated score. 

Popup Production Notes - These informative subtitle tracks have become a mainstay of Doctor Who releases. Like the others, this one is filled with an amazing amount of trivia about the show. 

Trailers and Continuity Announcements - This is a collection of the original BBC trailers and lead in announcements for the episodes. They're interesting to watch but probably have more value to British fans that saw the shows in first run. 

Photo Gallery - Another standard feature of the Doctor Who releases. These galleries contain both behind the scenes images and publicity stills. They're in a programmed slide show set to music. 

DVD-ROM Features - One of the nicest touches the BBC adds to the Doctor Who discs is PDF versions of the Doctor Who Annuals, the Radio Times and official BBC publicity material. This is the sort of deep content that shows how much the BBC respects the Doctor Who fan base.