Doctor Who: Going back to "The Last of the Time Lords..."

[fajrdrako]

auriaephiala came over this evening and we watched three Doctor Who episodes she'd never seen before: "The Sound of Drums", "The Last of the Time Lords" and "Tooth and Claw".

Which means I got up the nerve up to see "The Last of the Time Lords" again, and it was easier on the nerves, and easier to watch, and more coherent, than it seemed the first time round. It was fun both times, but the first time round was a bizarre combination of pleasure and horror. Maybe it was because I'd been feeling unwell when I'd first watched it, or because I hadn't expected it to be as bizarre as it was, or maybe it was improved by knowing exactly what to expect. Maybe it was that I now know that Martha Jones will come back after the Christmas special and I know her story isn't over. I was certainly able to relax and enjoy Captain Jack more.

But the substitution of ancient/gnomish creatures for beautiful David Tennant? Nothing makes that okay! Nothing!

A few quick thoughts:

1. One of the things that bothered me the first time round was that the fate of the Master seemed paradoxical/contradictory to me. Initially, I was under the impression - from what fragments I knew, or thought I knew, of Doctor Who continuity - that the Master's bad attitude came from the fact that he was at his final regeneration and didn't want to die, so he wanted someone else's less-used-up body. So theoretically the Master would be on a final regeneration, right?

And then, first the Doctor says he wouldn't kill himself - okay, that fits what I knew - and it seems to be true because the Master surrenders to him. Then Lucy shoots him and the Master refuses to regenerate and I'm thinking WTF because this looks like suicide - which the Doctor said the Master wouldn't do - but it seems he will do it just to spike the Doctor, and that seems nicely in character too. And the Doctor might just have been wrong. Then we see the bit with the ring at the end, and I conclude he has somehow managed to regenerate into the ring without the Doctor's knowledge. And that fits too, because he said the Time Lords resurrected him - a resurrection isn't the same as a regeneration, even with Time Lord technology (or magic). So maybe he starts over will a dozen lives now stretching ahead of him.

Or maybe this is a retcon to show us that the number of regenerations a Time Lord can have is open-ended.

Or maybe there's just scads of background there that I know nothing about.

2. From everything I'd heard, the Master used to be scary. Here... I didn't find him scary at all. I found the situation he created to be scary, but that's different. He still reminded me of some of the Batman antagonists, but I find the Joker, for example, much more terrifying.

3. Though there isn't enough of it, I liked the interplay between Jack and the Doctor.

4. I tried to get a good look at Lucy's hands through the episode, and it was tricky, but she does seem to have bright red fingernails, so I return to my first impression that she is the one who has the ring.

5. I liked seeing Francine and Clive get together again, I really did. They had to go to hell and back to do it but it was cool.

6. beccaelizabeth and others were wondering about the logistics of the TARDIS and the Paradox Machine - how the Doctor could fix it when the Master couldn't, and so on. This time that didn't bother me at all: I am perfectly capable of believing that where his TARDIS is concerned, the Doctor can sabotage the the mechanism with a wave of the sonic screwdriver and a bit of psychic power, and then convert it back to itself from being a shot-to-bits Paradox Machine, because he is just that good. Really. And all that psychic power has to count for something.

7. I conclude now that when the Doctor told Jack and Martha that he had a plan, he also told him that it involved Jack living in chains and eating much for a year (with TLC from Tish), and Martha teleporting all over the world while the people of the Earth were being killed wholesale. And that they were okay with that because the Doctor said it was the right thing to do. Myself, I'd probably have gone back to Jack's original plan of 'break the Master's neck'. It would have prevented a lot of suffering, even if that suffering was sort of re-imagined out of existence in the end.

8. So... after the Paradox Machine was destroyed, the Paradox couldn't happen, and that year never happened even though the Doctor and Jack and the Jones family can remember it, so that means... what? That nobody went to Utopia a hundred trillion years from now? Or they went to Utopia and there was no Master to greet them so they all lived happily ever after and recreated the universe? or found a new one? or just died?

9. What happened to Leo Jones?

10. Didn't Jack say he was from a place called Boe Sheng? Or was I mishearing because that's the only name I know offhand that begins with "Bo"? Bo Sheng is a character in Karin Lowachee's novel Cagebird.

11. Russell T. Davies has no sense of restraint at all. After we watched it, auriaephiala said to me, "Aren't the British supposed to be reserved?" They claim to be, but, really, it's totally a lie. Totally.

12. Watching "Tooth and Claw" right after "The Sound of Drums" and "The Last of the Time Lords", the Doctor seemed very different, but I was having trouble pinning down what the differences were. Hair? That he is less manic, less frenetic? The humanizing influence of Rose? I'm still not sure. Big different, however elusive.

Comments

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

I think the actor playing Leo Jones was double-booked and therefore the character kinda disappeared.

Jack is from the BoeXaeng peninsula.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think the actor playing Leo Jones was double-booked and therefore the character kinda disappeared.

I wouldn't mind, except they'd set him up as a free agent - I expected him to do something besides disappear! They could have mentioned him as a hero of the resistance, or something.

Do we know where the BoeXaeng peninsula is? Is it on Earth? (A quick look at Google Maps didn't help me....)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Do we know where the BoeXaeng peninsula is? Is it on Earth?

No…

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good. Not a big deal, but I prefer the idea that Jack is from another planet.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

According to the commentary, Leo was meant to meet Martha on the beach with Tom whatsisname. He'd been working in the labour camps and was involved with the resistance, but refused to travel on with Martha because of his wife and baby, so there was going to be a whole big scene.

And then the actor's agent doublebooked him so none of it happened. I think they just couldn't be bothered working out how to reference him in the script after that so they just ignored him instead. The production team were laughing at the end about how Leo must be really confused by how his family are suddenly behaving and sneaking off to phone the mental health doctors, because of course he can't remember the year.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Poor Leo - left out of all the fun!

[raissad.livejournal.com]

But the substitution of ancient/gnomish creatures for beautiful David Tennant? Nothing makes that okay! Nothing!

Thematically Gnome-Ten ties in with Jack as The Face of Boe -- Extreme age affects physical appearance. It was hokey, but hokey with a point.

So... after the Paradox Machine was destroyed, the Paradox couldn't happen, and that year never happened even though the Doctor and Jack and the Jones family can remember it, so that means...

The Doctor and the Master both say that the Paradox was activated at 8:02 am on the morning after our heroes got back from Utopia. Everything occurred just as we saw it in the finale up to and including the assassination of POTUS, because that happened prior to 8:02 am that morning. The final scene in SOD and all of TLotTL are what got rewritten when the Paradox was broken, because that stuff happened after 8:02 am on the morning they got back from Utopia.

Like you said, the Timey-Wimey stuff takes getting used to. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thematically Gnome-Ten ties in with Jack as The Face of Boe -- Extreme age affects physical appearance.

Yeah. I can see that. I just don't want to be shown it!

Like you said, the Timey-Wimey stuff takes getting used to. :)

And it seems right that the secrets of Time and Space should be beyond true understanding.

Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[kittyfisher.livejournal.com]

RTD is Welsh, not English.

*g*

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[slartibartfast.livejournal.com]

Ah but that's still British :)

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The only Welsh family I knew well were somewhat conservative Baptists. Nice people, but hardly wild'n'crazy. I'd say "reserved" would describe them rather well!

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It certainly is. Brythonic language, in fact.

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[kittyfisher.livejournal.com]

um... for me 'British' in that sort of context always actually meant 'English'. As in from England and with that 'stiff upper lip' mentality. It may have been the British Empire - but the Scots, Welsh and Irish were annexed peoples too!

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I am always confused by the question of what your country is named. Last time I had occasion to sit down and talk with a friend from Wantage, I asked her, and she said she didn't know. "UK" seems to be the preferred usage, at least for the Post Office, but nobody around here talks about the United Kingdom when they're talking about that part of the world. They are more likely to talk about the constituent parts - England, Scotland, Wales. The only person I can think of who calls himself "British" is from Northern Ireland. I noticed that in Doctor Who they talked about the President of Great Britain, as if that was the preferred name of the country.

In a way, it doesn't matter, a rose is a rose by any other name, but in another way, I find it preplexing, as if (historically speaking) the place doesn't want to be pinned down under one generally accepted name.

Re: Speaking as a fellow Celt...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So he is. I chuckle at the contrast.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I'm really disappointed that some of my old St As (ggreig and sharikkamur) just don't like the new series at all, and say that it's turned from science-fiction into "soap opera". I rather sense they don't like characters having any depth/inner lives. (To me, the big gain of the new series is that the characters have inner lives, thoughts, emotions; they seemed very 2-D in the old series.) Sad to say, but it confirms the stereotype about the sort of sf fans who work in computing, as emotionally frozen. They're not having anything that dilutes the (fantasy) science.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

say that it's turned from science-fiction into "soap opera".

And that's what I like about it!

I rather sense they don't like characters having any depth/inner lives.

If they didn't have inner lives, I'd be giving them inner lives in fanfic. Or, more acurately, I'd probably not be watching at all. I love having all this to speculate and ponder.

Sad to say, but it confirms the stereotype about the sort of sf fans who work in computing, as emotionally frozen.

That is sad to say! It explains why I'm not generally excited over classic SF, too. Seems dry to me. I felt a moment of revelation when I was part of an OSFS meeting once where we discussed 'why we like science fiction'. Most of the other fans loved the 'sense of wonder' they get from stories about the future, or outer space. My 'sense of wonder' comes much more from history - I like SF for other reasons. Often the characters and philosophical ideas, not so much the science or the settings.

Then there's also that people don't much like change, so if a program you like is changed, you may not like it so much.

Or you like it for reasons that are no longer valid. So what attracts me to the show could well be disincentive for old-time fans.

I sometimes find this reflected when reading various LJ commentaries.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I certainly wouldn't call it "soap opera". But I think the programme has 'grown up', to consider the emotional and psychological consequences on the characters of their time/space-crossing adventures. The old series was, with rare exceptions (such as Turlough's development), quite simplistic in its characterisations.

For me, "sense of wonder" is what I get from art.

I dislike the idea of genre fiction, with boundaries that are policed by fans. It seems to me that it's all about not going beyond comfort zones, and crying 'heresy' against anyone who violates the rules. It seems to me very adolescent. Indeed, I think some people who fixate on a particular genre (and don't read anything else, certainly not literary fiction) often are stuck at 14 or 15 inside: whether it's the romance fan who cannot face the possibility of tragedy, even in fiction, or the sf fan who can relate to androids and spaceships, but not the grown-up emotional stuff.

To me, fiction should not be about boundaries, categories, rules. The only caveat I place on that is if you are writing about real people/events (past or contemporary), where accuracy is a matter of ethics.

I think you're right about them not liking change. The changes in casting and writing-style have affected the relationship-dynamics, especially between the Doctor and his companions, and that seems to be what they resent, judging by comments such as these:

- "But I don't watch Doctor Who, a tale of infinite possibilities in time and space, to see overblown infatuation between a young woman and some bloke approximately a thousand years her senior.
Give us an old looking Doctor again, and see how plausible the emotions are then; but they won't do it."

- "I have no problem at all with Buffy, and have recently been acquiring it on DVD. :) That's a situation where you would expect a lot of emotional entanglements; it's an integral part of the setup.
I also have no problems with the interesting relationship between O'Neill and Carter in Stargate, nor those in Battlestar Galactica because they're not rammed down the viewers' throats the way it is in Dr. Who nowadays."

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I certainly wouldn't call it "soap opera".

No, for many reasons. This reminds me of my friend Lionel - who, ironically, was the first person to ever show me a Doctor Who episode, back in the 1980s. I don't know what he thinks of the current series, but he's very much a techie, and he has a horror of any show that contains what he calls 'drama' - by which he generally means 'any kind of personal interaction'. He loves space battles.

all about not going beyond comfort zones

Hmm. Interesting point.

It seems absured to me to say that Battlestar Galactica doesn't 'ram' relationships down viewer's throats but Doctor Who does. In fact, Battlestar Galactica is much more about relationships and characterization as both motivation and plot-drivers. Obviously this commentator doesn't even see that! Is it because the show has more hardware to focus on? Planes and guns and militarism?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of my friend Lionel - who, ironically, was the first person to ever show me a Doctor Who episode, back in the 1980s. I don't know what he thinks of the current series, but he's very much a techie, and he has a horror of any show that contains what he calls 'drama' - by which he generally means 'any kind of personal interaction'. He loves space battles.

Yes: these 2 friends of mine both work in computing, are both gamers, and are what I would call "techies".

It seems absurd to me to say that Battlestar Galactica doesn't 'ram' relationships down viewer's throats but Doctor Who does. In fact, Battlestar Galactica is much more about relationships and characterization as both motivation and plot-drivers. Obviously this commentator doesn't even see that! Is it because the show has more hardware to focus on? Planes and guns and militarism?

I haven't seen Battlestar Galactica, but from what I've read about it, it certainly sounds very much centred on some very tangled relationships, far more than Doctor Who, I'd say! Far more soap-opera-ish, in fact! But you're right, I suspect she's probably focusing more on the planes and military action.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

it certainly sounds very much centred on some very tangled relationships, far more than Doctor Who, I'd say! Far more soap-opera-ish, in fact!

Oh, absolutely - with plots devoted to these themes. And this is true of just about every one of the many characters - the President who is struggling with cancer and religious issues, the often-troubled relationship between Adama and his son Lee, heavy-drinking Commander Tigh and his drunken troublemaking wife whom he adores, Starbuck who has emotional problems and the most messed-up personal life I've ever seen on TV (including soap operas), the politically-tinged relationship between Helo and his wife and missing child... and so on and so on.

But there are shiny spaceships and battles to distract the more technically inclined.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That sounds like Dallas with spaceships!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! While though Doctor Who has some of the best character development I've seen on TV, and doesn't stint on the characters inner lives, each episode is very plot-and-situation oriented.
Looks to me like the best of all worlds.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Of course there are some people like that, but it's an oversimplification to say that sf fans who are in computing are like that. Most aren't.

And there's a lot of classic SF (Fred Pohl or Cordwainer Smith, for example) which is primarily about human relations.

Personally, I think the Doctor's defining need is loneliness. He needs a friend even more than a lover (tho those two roles could overlap if he'd let them.) It's not really an infatuation on either part (the Doctor, Rose, or Martha): it's a sense of shared adventure and a need to make things better (particularly for Martha).

But I think the programme has 'grown up', to consider the emotional and psychological consequences on the characters of their time/space-crossing adventures.

As it should. Not considering that made it unbelievable.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

it's an oversimplification to say that sf fans who are in computing are like that. Most aren't.

I've known some who were and some who weren't. Probably everyone has a different reason for liking any type of fiction or TV. My approach is to love literature in general, of which SF is a segment. I like the romantic (defining romance as 'high adventure and heroic accomplishment') and the imaginative, and SF often partakes of both - or doesn't.

I have certainly known SF fans - and I don't know if they were into computers or not - who didn't read other things, and who have specifically told me that they like science fiction becuase they can read about ideas without worrying about the humanistic element - my owrds not theirs, but that was what they meant. One such person said to me, "I hate romance. Why do they have to put romance into everything? I like SF because it can exist without love stories."

I looked at him as if he were from Alpha Centauri. As you might imagine.

I don't see any element of infatuation in Doctor Who - though I confess that I think 'infatuation' is a judgemental word and I avoid using it. ("Infatuation" is just a love that the person describing it doesn't approve of.) I agree about the "sense of shared adventure and a need to make things better (particularly for Martha)".

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

My assumption was that the Master had somehow taken over Lucy's body. I don't remember canon about regeneration, but I think that would be unprecedented. On the other hand, it's been my impression that RTD from time to time does wholesale lifting from the Buffyverse, and it would work there.

I don't remember the Master being scary - more like Snidely Whiplash, which is to say that he was a stereotypical bad guy but there was never any doubt that the good guys would prevail.

It was my impression that Leo was in the living room scene at the end. Some mention of what he'd been doing would have been done.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My assumption was that the Master had somehow taken over Lucy's body.

I like that. I considered it as a possibility, but at this point it's all sort of open-ended.

I don't remember canon about regeneration, but I think that would be unprecedented.

As far as I know. But not the only unprecedented thing in the new series. I like that: I have no problem with new ideas.

it's been my impression that RTD from time to time does wholesale lifting from the Buffyverse,

He certainly does.

and it would work there.

So it would!

Some mention of what he'd been doing would have been done.

Yes. I wanted some tossaway line about Leo as a hero of the resistance - something to explain or justify his pointed inclusion in "The Sound of Drums".

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It's possible he could have taken her over.
In The Keeper of Traken, the Master took over the body of Tremas (note anagram!), the father of Nyssa (who became one of the Doctor's companions). This was how he became Anthony Ainley's incarnation of the Master.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, then! This would explain what we see.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure if the hand was Lucy's: I had thought it was an older woman's, but, as you say, the nail-varnish matched. Also, she is very thin, so that may be why the hand looked 'older'.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

We hadn't seen a close-up of her hands previously, either.

Lucy was a rather interesting surprise.

[fruitbat813.livejournal.com]

The hand isn´t Lucy´s hand or at least it didn´t belong to the actress playing Lucy but to the production manager. It´s explained in the episode commentary that the scene was put in to give future production teams something they can use if they should want to bring the master back and also that it won´t be picked up on in season four. So for the time being, that scene can mean anything or nothing at all.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, if it was a production manager's hand, that would explain any discrepancy in how it looks. In terms of storytelling, I can't believe it's not Lucy's hand, though Lucy may now be the Master, if they decide that's the story they want to tell.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Was it a set-up, one wonders, that on the moment of his death, he transferred into her? Had he hypnotised her to shoot him?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

he hypnotised her to shoot him?

It's quite possible - and further explains why he says to the Doctor, "I win."

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Really? I must see that part again.

So is the ring the section that contains his Time Lord-ness, as the watch was before?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Though the story isn't entirely clear, my reading is that Lucy deliberately shot him - of her own will. Maybe because he abused her, maybe because she got tired of the game, maybe because she wanted him to subjugate mankind and here he was obliterating mankind instead, maybe because she didn't want to see him go off with the Doctor without her - I could probably come up with dozens more motives. Whatever the case, it suited the Master's purposes to die there, or to appear to die at that point.

I was assuming that the ring took the function of the watch and held the Time Lord essence of the Master, yes. I've heard it suggested that he transferred his essence to Lucy - also conceptually possible.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the Master being scary - more like Snidely Whiplash, which is to say that he was a stereotypical bad guy but there was never any doubt that the good guys would prevail.

Yes: he was pretty much stereotyped melodrama villain. What I liked about John Simm's Master was that he was a mirror-image of the Tennant Doctor: the same energy and quirkiness and humour, but gone bad. Sadly, one of my old Whovian friends thinks he was just a "sordid psycho".

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What I liked about John Simm's Master was that he was a mirror-image of the Tennant Doctor: the same energy and quirkiness and humour, but gone bad.

I liked that too. I confess I loved the scenes where he was dancing, which brought to mind "The Doctor Dances" - i.e., it was a sign of the Doctor's damaged psychological state that he had forgotten how to dance, while for the Master, it was a sign of his madness that he could and did dance. There's a cleverness and subtlety to that (yes, subtlety!) that I admire.


Sadly, one of my old Whovian friends thinks he was just a "sordid psycho".

I'm not sure the word 'just' belongs in that sentence. Yes, he was a sordid psycho. That was the whole point. A tragic, dangerous, sordid psycho.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the word 'just' belongs in that sentence. Yes, he was a sordid psycho. That was the whole point. A tragic, dangerous, sordid psycho.

I think ggreig was trying to imply that this was somehow a diminishment of the Master from what he had been in the past. But the old-time Master was "just" a stereotype baddie, without depth. John Simm's Master had far more substance.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think he worked very well, in context - largely thanks to John Simm's acting skills. What he shares with the Doctor is a sense of not conformining to any human norm - which gives both characters their oomph and their edge. It makes them unpredictable and alien. This can be either scary or endearing, depending how it's played.

[raissad.livejournal.com]

Re: The Master -- RTD and Co. retconned him some new regenerations, because of the Time War, which never existed in strict canon. RTD barrowed The Time War from the tie-in novels. As for the Master himself, you're right, imo. His plots were always more frightening then he was, but that's precisely why he was frightening; you never saw him coming. He used disguises and hypnosis. He allied himself with other alien races, and used them for the dirty work, so he had an alibi. In other words, the Master's M.O. in Utopia/SOD/TLotTL was updated vintage. RTD really is a fan. :)

Here's the Master's Wikipedia page, if you haven't had a chance to read it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_%28Doctor_Who%29

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Since the Time War is one of the plot features I particularly like - yay! Good for RTD for that.

I'm glad to hear the Master was in character!

Thanks for the link to the page.

Peter Pan

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

As I fell asleep last night I realized that RTD had borrowed from a much older canon:

The Doctor's resurrection is inspired/taken from Tinkerbell's resurrection in Peter Pan. She lives when children say they believe in fairies; the Doctor lives because people's belief in him in his proper state is amplified by the telepathic network.

Re: Peter Pan

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed!

Re: Peter Pan

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes - and I love the way RTD takes story points from any number of sources.

New DW Fic: Royal Blue: A Dark Fairytale

[raissad.livejournal.com]

After TLotTL, I got to thinking about Rose, Bad Wolf, and what certain S3 events would play out like in the Alt-Universe. So, I wrote Royal Blue (http://www.geocities.com/rdefc/misc/royal.html). I took elements from the Classic Who Ep., Planet of the Spiders, to beef up certain characterizations, as I had issues with how RTD wrote the Empress of the Racnoss and her backstory. Enjoy!

Re: New DW Fic: Royal Blue: A Dark Fairytale

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Of - good idea! I'll read this tonight.