Doctor Who "The Timeless Children"
Mar. 2nd, 2020 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakStill very crowded by rl. Now I've seen the last two DW episodes, and alas:
Look, I never liked what I heard about the Cartmel Masterplan - as far as I know, this involved the Doctor turning out to be "The Other", one of the three big mytho-historical figures of Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega - and was glad it didn't get put on screen. And while I could take or leave Chibnall using that bit form Brain of Moebius - the hint that there have been many pre-Hartnell regenerations - per se, and definitely appreciate the first few ones being female, along with the proto-Gallifreyan explorer who discovers the child - I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
Incidentally, I was going to add "no wonder the Master is pissed but I still don't buy this as his reason to go from Missy to CyberGallfrey", but then I saw on twitter people interpreting the entire thing as the Master as really burning the place down because of millennia long abuse of the Doctor (no one hurts the Doctor but me, etc.) and disguising it as something other because, well, he's him, which I could also buy.
None of which, however, made it feel a lot of the Doctor/Master stuff here less like a cheap replay of things we got more effectively elsewhere. I mean: the Doctor (not) killing the Master? Both the s8 finale and the mid s10 reveal flashback, hell, even the "get out of the way" in "End of Time" did it better. The Master using the Cybermen? Moffat did it twice so effectively that if I were Chibnall, I'd really have gone for another villain. Doctor broken/not broken, no, reaffirmed in identity after questioning "who am I?" Again, s8 finale says hello.
And yes, so diminishing returns about destroying/not destroying Gallifrey. Original RTD s1 reveal when Nine first tells the tale? Moving. Moffat "Day of the Doctor" retcon? Also moving and fitting completion of cycle. Doctor after subjective millenia of abuse arriving at Gallifrey half mad and realising it was his people who did this to him in the s9 finale? Awesome. This? I felt nothing at all. Don't get me started on the resistance fighter ex machina being the one to blow the place up with the ultimate evil weapon (again) so that the Doctor doesn't have to. I was hoping he'd at least turn out to be a future regeneration of the Master which would have fit thematically again, but no such luck.
On the positive side is just that neither Yaz nor Graham were killed. After that speech by Graham, I was seriously worried. Oh, and I liked the return of Jo Martin!Doctor. As I said, the basic idea that there were many pre-Hartnell regenerations which the Doctor has been made to forgot so that as Hartnell, they started anew from scratch is fine by me, and it also means no future writer has to justify more regenerations anymore. I just wish it had been done in a way that kept the "road not taken" ness with the Master (i.e. they both had been made to forget earlier lives but were still of the same age and origin), and without making the Doctor basically the biological origin of the Time Lord species as we know it.
What the whole thing reminds me of: Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files when every new one made it even more glaringly apparant he should have stuck to case by case episodes because he really wasn't good at big myth arcs.
Look, I never liked what I heard about the Cartmel Masterplan - as far as I know, this involved the Doctor turning out to be "The Other", one of the three big mytho-historical figures of Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega - and was glad it didn't get put on screen. And while I could take or leave Chibnall using that bit form Brain of Moebius - the hint that there have been many pre-Hartnell regenerations - per se, and definitely appreciate the first few ones being female, along with the proto-Gallifreyan explorer who discovers the child - I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
Incidentally, I was going to add "no wonder the Master is pissed but I still don't buy this as his reason to go from Missy to CyberGallfrey", but then I saw on twitter people interpreting the entire thing as the Master as really burning the place down because of millennia long abuse of the Doctor (no one hurts the Doctor but me, etc.) and disguising it as something other because, well, he's him, which I could also buy.
None of which, however, made it feel a lot of the Doctor/Master stuff here less like a cheap replay of things we got more effectively elsewhere. I mean: the Doctor (not) killing the Master? Both the s8 finale and the mid s10 reveal flashback, hell, even the "get out of the way" in "End of Time" did it better. The Master using the Cybermen? Moffat did it twice so effectively that if I were Chibnall, I'd really have gone for another villain. Doctor broken/not broken, no, reaffirmed in identity after questioning "who am I?" Again, s8 finale says hello.
And yes, so diminishing returns about destroying/not destroying Gallifrey. Original RTD s1 reveal when Nine first tells the tale? Moving. Moffat "Day of the Doctor" retcon? Also moving and fitting completion of cycle. Doctor after subjective millenia of abuse arriving at Gallifrey half mad and realising it was his people who did this to him in the s9 finale? Awesome. This? I felt nothing at all. Don't get me started on the resistance fighter ex machina being the one to blow the place up with the ultimate evil weapon (again) so that the Doctor doesn't have to. I was hoping he'd at least turn out to be a future regeneration of the Master which would have fit thematically again, but no such luck.
On the positive side is just that neither Yaz nor Graham were killed. After that speech by Graham, I was seriously worried. Oh, and I liked the return of Jo Martin!Doctor. As I said, the basic idea that there were many pre-Hartnell regenerations which the Doctor has been made to forgot so that as Hartnell, they started anew from scratch is fine by me, and it also means no future writer has to justify more regenerations anymore. I just wish it had been done in a way that kept the "road not taken" ness with the Master (i.e. they both had been made to forget earlier lives but were still of the same age and origin), and without making the Doctor basically the biological origin of the Time Lord species as we know it.
What the whole thing reminds me of: Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files when every new one made it even more glaringly apparant he should have stuck to case by case episodes because he really wasn't good at big myth arcs.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 11:16 am (UTC)Son of ETA: To be fair: the hint that the Master had wanted the Doctor to kill him (while destroying Gallifrey again), hence the leaving plastic Ashad for her to find - that could, I guess, work as a follow up on Missy if you assume he wanted to die for good, being unable to either continue as Missy or go back to being as he used to. But it still would have needed a flashback or more dialogue, if that was the intention.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 11:23 am (UTC)fancylike Sacha Dhawan, but his Master just lacks nuance.no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 04:00 pm (UTC)I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
Same! I don't care about how many regenerations or whatever, I care about the relationships that have been built up over a long time between main characters, and suddenly changing them this way typically doesn't work. I am inordinately relieved they didn't kill Yaz.
Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files when every new one made it even more glaringly apparant he should have stuck to case by case episodes because he really wasn't good at big myth arcs
Oh ghod, yeah. There are writers who can construct really intricate time travel scifi series plots, and then those who are better at character and limited plotting, and I don't think one is necessarily better than the other (I don't like the current obsession with "puzzle box narratives" because so few shows do them well). Or that people who are good at one thing should keep trying to do the other.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:15 pm (UTC)+∞. It seems to have become the expected default now for film and TV and it is just not the only way, or even the most fruitful way, that stories work.
(While we're discussing Chris Carter, however, Millennium forever, or at least the first two seasons of Millennium forever, the third was a bit rough.)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:20 pm (UTC)YES
(That ep that ended with "Horses"!)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:22 pm (UTC)I got "Dancing Barefoot" from that show. Oh, God, I fell for you . . .
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:36 pm (UTC)The ep where Frank Black showed up on X-Files to "finish" his storyline was pretty disappointing, tho.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:48 pm (UTC)Yes. This. You've summed up in a few sentences what I think it took me paragraphs of ranting to express.
but then I saw on twitter people interpreting the entire thing as the Master as really burning the place down because of millennia long abuse of the Doctor (no one hurts the Doctor but me, etc.)
This was my own first thought, after he explained things but before he said why he was so upset about it, and I could still absolutely buy that as part of it, just not part that he's ever going to talk about.
What the whole thing reminds me of: Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files
Now, that is a damning statement! And one I wish I could remotely disagree with.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 06:01 pm (UTC)Look, I never liked what I heard about the Cartmel Masterplan - as far as I know, this involved the Doctor turning out to be "The Other", one of the three big mytho-historical figures of Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega - and was glad it didn't get put on screen. And while I could take or leave Chibnall using that bit form Brain of Moebius - the hint that there have been many pre-Hartnell regenerations - per se, and definitely appreciate the first few ones being female, along with the proto-Gallifreyan explorer who discovers the child - I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
This is pretty much exactly how I felt when I first heard about it, and how I'm still feeling. I don't even want to watch the episode right now. Eventually, maybe? But I can't accept this as canon, and I've never been the kind of fan who just ignores canon. ARGH.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 08:32 am (UTC)But yes. This just does not work for me, on so many levels.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 06:16 pm (UTC)(I know, I know. I just ... need some time to get over this, I guess.)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 08:27 am (UTC)That would have been great, and turned a boring minor character who only exists to save the Doctor from making a hard decision into someone important for both the plot and the themes. Now I am somehow even more disappointed in what we actually got there!
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 11:06 am (UTC)Destroying Gallifrey again has just become boring. I would have loved some episodes that showed us a living Gallifrey and the complex society there.
Plus, it's all very well for them to get regeneration from the Timeless Child, but they must have also got the two hearts, the respiratory bypass system AND telepathy. In fact, pretty much the entirety of TimeLord DNA, which is just silly.
Blowing everything up at the end of the episode was silly as a solution. They're just going to regenerate and come back again.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-03 11:00 pm (UTC)