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Things Who
Aug. 12th, 2007 05:17 pmWhovian results from my England trip:
1) Claws of Axos. I've seen better Third Doctor adventures, though the Master is fun as always in the Delgado incarnation, and I find it somewhat amusing that everyone but Jo is entirely willing to believe the Doctor would run away with him. (I wonder why.) (Oh, and this bit of dialogue sounds eerily like Ten rather than Three: Jo: "So, the Master is trapped as well?" Doctor: "Absolutely. Well, with 90% certainty." (The Brig and Jo give him a look.) "Well, there is a chance he could have gotten away.")
2) The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Hands down the best of the First Doctor adventures I've watched so far. Good old Terry Nation and his dystopias. The Daleks themselves are still a work in progress, not yet the "classic" version, but closer to it than in their first appearance, but as Nation-written dystopias go, Earth under Dalek rule can compete with his later stuff on both DW and Blake's 7 quite nicely. (Speaking of B7, the moment when Barbara and Jenny meet the old and younger woman, I had an immediate deja vu to Duel, of course, and was half expecting ther older one to be called Sycorax.) The First Doctor is far more Doctor-ish than in An Unearthly Child or The Daleks, and there is a lot of meaty character stuff if one wants to tie this first incarnation to those written decades later; I'll get to that in a moment. Of course, early 60s sexism is quite obvious, what with Barbara being asked immediately whether she can cook when they join the rebels and Susan being put on cooking duty with her rebel branch as well, not to mention all that took about wanting to put down roots as a woman's destiny, BUT, and it's a big "but", Barbara gets such a lot of screentime and is so incredibly awesome throughout that I'm handwaving that right now. Barbara driving a truck through the Daleks is as awesome as Ace taking one on with a baseball bat. And her intelligence and having the good ideas ability is consistent.
Sidenote: the Doctor's interaction with Barbara and Susan throughout the story reminded me of my vague theory that the two spawned two models of future companions; Martha follows the Barbara model while Rose is the Susan model. Barbara of course was already an adult when she met the Doctor (as Martha will be), and he treats her like an adult. Susan he loves dearly, but he makes the big decisions for. (It often gets overlooked, but he did that twice to Rose, both as Nine and as Ten, sending her away against her own choice in the respective season finales; this being the early 21st century, of course, Rose is allowed to do something about it instead of being left stunned as poor Susan.)
I know the meta reason for Susan being left was that the actress wanted to leave, but from a Watsonian instead of a Doylist perspective, the fact that the Doctor locks her out of the TARDIS and leaves her "for her own good" because he knows she would never have left him is fascinating because it both ties with a conversation Susan has earlier with David in which he calls her travelling-with-the-TARDIS-lifestyle "running away all the time" and with Tenth Doctor's "oh, I ran... and I've never stopped" from Sound of Drums. So you have Susan falling in love with a human and feeling conflicted; still, is leaving her behind a selfless gesture (ignoring that post-Dalek invasion Earth isn't exactly the best place to start a new life, and that she hasn't even known David that long, not to mention that Gallifreyan biology will pose a problem in the long term), or does he do it because he's secretely afraid he either won't be able to do it later, or that she would leave him by her own choice later after all? In any case, his goodbye to her is going to set a pattern for that kind of thing: first he locks her out of the TARDIS (double-locks, the way the Master locks him out in Sound of Drums), then he gives her his goodbye message via broadcast. It's his choice, and he doesn't give her the chance to touch him or argue against it. And yes, he's running away.
3) One Doctor Who magazine, full of useful and/or funny quotes.
( Which are spoilery for season 3/29 )
And lastly, spotted today: one of David Tennant's endearing qualities is that he's such an unabashed Old Who fan. Behold more adorkable proof.
1) Claws of Axos. I've seen better Third Doctor adventures, though the Master is fun as always in the Delgado incarnation, and I find it somewhat amusing that everyone but Jo is entirely willing to believe the Doctor would run away with him. (I wonder why.) (Oh, and this bit of dialogue sounds eerily like Ten rather than Three: Jo: "So, the Master is trapped as well?" Doctor: "Absolutely. Well, with 90% certainty." (The Brig and Jo give him a look.) "Well, there is a chance he could have gotten away.")
2) The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Hands down the best of the First Doctor adventures I've watched so far. Good old Terry Nation and his dystopias. The Daleks themselves are still a work in progress, not yet the "classic" version, but closer to it than in their first appearance, but as Nation-written dystopias go, Earth under Dalek rule can compete with his later stuff on both DW and Blake's 7 quite nicely. (Speaking of B7, the moment when Barbara and Jenny meet the old and younger woman, I had an immediate deja vu to Duel, of course, and was half expecting ther older one to be called Sycorax.) The First Doctor is far more Doctor-ish than in An Unearthly Child or The Daleks, and there is a lot of meaty character stuff if one wants to tie this first incarnation to those written decades later; I'll get to that in a moment. Of course, early 60s sexism is quite obvious, what with Barbara being asked immediately whether she can cook when they join the rebels and Susan being put on cooking duty with her rebel branch as well, not to mention all that took about wanting to put down roots as a woman's destiny, BUT, and it's a big "but", Barbara gets such a lot of screentime and is so incredibly awesome throughout that I'm handwaving that right now. Barbara driving a truck through the Daleks is as awesome as Ace taking one on with a baseball bat. And her intelligence and having the good ideas ability is consistent.
Sidenote: the Doctor's interaction with Barbara and Susan throughout the story reminded me of my vague theory that the two spawned two models of future companions; Martha follows the Barbara model while Rose is the Susan model. Barbara of course was already an adult when she met the Doctor (as Martha will be), and he treats her like an adult. Susan he loves dearly, but he makes the big decisions for. (It often gets overlooked, but he did that twice to Rose, both as Nine and as Ten, sending her away against her own choice in the respective season finales; this being the early 21st century, of course, Rose is allowed to do something about it instead of being left stunned as poor Susan.)
I know the meta reason for Susan being left was that the actress wanted to leave, but from a Watsonian instead of a Doylist perspective, the fact that the Doctor locks her out of the TARDIS and leaves her "for her own good" because he knows she would never have left him is fascinating because it both ties with a conversation Susan has earlier with David in which he calls her travelling-with-the-TARDIS-lifestyle "running away all the time" and with Tenth Doctor's "oh, I ran... and I've never stopped" from Sound of Drums. So you have Susan falling in love with a human and feeling conflicted; still, is leaving her behind a selfless gesture (ignoring that post-Dalek invasion Earth isn't exactly the best place to start a new life, and that she hasn't even known David that long, not to mention that Gallifreyan biology will pose a problem in the long term), or does he do it because he's secretely afraid he either won't be able to do it later, or that she would leave him by her own choice later after all? In any case, his goodbye to her is going to set a pattern for that kind of thing: first he locks her out of the TARDIS (double-locks, the way the Master locks him out in Sound of Drums), then he gives her his goodbye message via broadcast. It's his choice, and he doesn't give her the chance to touch him or argue against it. And yes, he's running away.
3) One Doctor Who magazine, full of useful and/or funny quotes.
( Which are spoilery for season 3/29 )
And lastly, spotted today: one of David Tennant's endearing qualities is that he's such an unabashed Old Who fan. Behold more adorkable proof.
