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selenakThe latest serial I've watched: The Time Monster, which is another Third Doctor/Master extravaganza. It doesn't top The Sea Devils, which wins for sheer playfulness and narrative pace, but it's the good crack. I mean, how can you not love a story where...
....we get bickering and bitching at each other, tweir two TARDISes interlocking (this is not a euphemism!), the Doctor fondly reminscencing about their experiments back at school while sabotaging the Master, the Master annoying the Doctor by turning off the sound, predicting correctly the Doctor will go to radical measures to have the last word, and the Doctor begging Time herself for the Master's life in order to save him?
Early on I thought the Doctor was unusually condescending to Jo and the Brig in this story, but as it turns out the early condescension had thematic relevance (and was balanced by later moments of openness and sharing). There is an interesting red thread throughout where sexism and looking-down-at-the-natives is addressed and refuted. The Master, who is paralleled to the Doctor, of course (as in Sea Devils, there is a scene where they come to the same conclusion about a scientific problem at the same time, using nearly identical phrases, which is pointed out via cross cutting), condescends to and patronizes three women in this story, his feminist assistant, Jo, and the Queen of Atlantis, and in all three cases, the fact that he underestimates them comes back to bite him and ruin his plans. (Similarly, his automatic assumption that he can just use the primitive locals falls flat when Seargeant Benton doesn't fall for his imitation-of-the-Brig routine or the king of Atlantis sees through him and reacts with withering sarcasm.) I did love the feminist assistant, who was allowed to remain competent and crafty throughout the story, and annoyed by the Brig's old fashioned "females to the sidelines" attitude as much as by her fellow assistant's and the Master's.The Queen of Atlantis - played by that not so stellar actress, Ingrid Pitt - is in a way a predecessor to Lucy, both because of her first falling for the Master and for turning against him in the end. (And as with the First Doctor and Cameca, I wonder where the asexual Time Lords idea came from...) But the best woman-versus-Master exchange has to be handed to Jo, who when she and the Doctor show up after having eluded yet another trap quips to the Master: "How about a 'curses, foiled again'?"
Speaking of Jo, I notice this early we have a safety-of-universe-versus-sacrificing-Companion situation, and the Doctor can't bring himself to do the later, though this annoys me less than when Nine does it - or Four in "Genesis of the Daleks" - because the story lets Jo take the matter into her own hands and go for the switch while the Doctor and the Master are still busy glaring at each other.
The Minotaur - played by a pre-Darth-Vader David Prowse - is as ridiculous a monster as they come in DW, and Kronos the Chronovore isn't that much better as long as Kronos is a white birdlike shape and referred to as "he", but the pay-off is great, with Kronos being female when free (that thematic thing again), an avatar for Time rather than ye olde Titan of Greek myth who is the god of time but decidedly male and eating his children, and amusedly granting the Doctor the Master's life instead of tormenting the Master for eternity. (Though with the benefit of decades of hindsight and future canon, I have do wonder - Kronos, did you sneakily have it both ways, seeing that the Master would soon be in for a stint in a living corpse, then for bodysnatching, then for the Cheeta virus and then for the drums?)
A lot of interesting canon gets introduced here - this appears to be the first episode in which the TARDIS telepathically linking and translating is established, and her sentience is referred to in dialogue as Jo asks, and notices the Doctor consistently refers to the TARDIS as "she" . (BTW, as far as I recall Ten does this consistently, too, but Nine said "it" a few times.) Then we have the two scenes in which the Doctor tells something about his youth, first the fond reminscence about how the Master and he used to mess up each other's experiments at school while he whips up a device to mess up the Master's current experiment (and btw, it cracked me up that the ultimate ingredient for this is tea leaves - Doctor Who: advertising tea as essential for saving the world since the 1960s!), and later the more serious story about meeting the hermit, which is both a very tender moment between the Doctor and Jo - as he tells her this to cheer her up - and character gold, because it shows that the Doctor's eternal optimism is that doesn't come automatically but he has to work for. (It's also a neat use of a Buddhist story by the scriptwriter.)
Lastly: someone ought to make a screencap of the Brigadier's expression when the Doctor tells him he dreamt of the Master. I can't decide whether he's thinking "Too much information!" or "'and this is news why?".
YouTube is ever so useful. If you, dear reader of these ramblings, are a New Whovian without access to the old serials, or maybe without the patience to watch their more leisurely narration, allow me to link some examples of scenes that had an obvious influence on the current show.
Firstly, from Sea Devils: The Master watching The Clangers, which RTD paid homage to by letting him watch the Teletubbies in Sound of Drums:
Secondly, also from Sea Devils, the funnest sword fighting scene in the old show, which the creators also thought because they put it at the end of one episode and completely repeated it in the next. What kills me is the sandwich eating in between and the Doctor giving the Master his sword back for no other reason than he doesn't want the fight to end just yet. Also useful as an answer to the question "were they this slashy in the old days?":
Next we have a music vid using footage from the episode that inspired the, err, song of this vid, Mind of Evil. This is an earlier story in which the MacGuffin of the day is able to confront someone with his greatest fear. Enjoy.
And then, for everyone who like Gwen Cooper on Torchwood asks "which organization is UNIT again?", there is a tongue-in-cheek UNIT recruitment vid, summing up the history of that organization in Old Who.
Lastly, two links: the Brigadier, the only only Doctor Who character to appear in 11 different seasons, 9 consecutive seasons, 23 serials, and appear in all 3 decades of the classic series, of course has been vidded. Recently I found a documantary in which someone from the production team states that if the Master is the Doctor's Moriarty, the Brigadier is his Watson. I'm not entirely sure about that - Holmes never worked for Watson, after all - but there is some resemblance, yes. Here's hoping the Brig will show up one more time!
The Third Doctor had three Companions during his time on the show - Liz Shaw, Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith. Jo is the one often dismissed as a ditz, but really, the more I see of her, the more delightful I find her. Have a Jo vid portrait!
....we get bickering and bitching at each other, tweir two TARDISes interlocking (this is not a euphemism!), the Doctor fondly reminscencing about their experiments back at school while sabotaging the Master, the Master annoying the Doctor by turning off the sound, predicting correctly the Doctor will go to radical measures to have the last word, and the Doctor begging Time herself for the Master's life in order to save him?
Early on I thought the Doctor was unusually condescending to Jo and the Brig in this story, but as it turns out the early condescension had thematic relevance (and was balanced by later moments of openness and sharing). There is an interesting red thread throughout where sexism and looking-down-at-the-natives is addressed and refuted. The Master, who is paralleled to the Doctor, of course (as in Sea Devils, there is a scene where they come to the same conclusion about a scientific problem at the same time, using nearly identical phrases, which is pointed out via cross cutting), condescends to and patronizes three women in this story, his feminist assistant, Jo, and the Queen of Atlantis, and in all three cases, the fact that he underestimates them comes back to bite him and ruin his plans. (Similarly, his automatic assumption that he can just use the primitive locals falls flat when Seargeant Benton doesn't fall for his imitation-of-the-Brig routine or the king of Atlantis sees through him and reacts with withering sarcasm.) I did love the feminist assistant, who was allowed to remain competent and crafty throughout the story, and annoyed by the Brig's old fashioned "females to the sidelines" attitude as much as by her fellow assistant's and the Master's.The Queen of Atlantis - played by that not so stellar actress, Ingrid Pitt - is in a way a predecessor to Lucy, both because of her first falling for the Master and for turning against him in the end. (And as with the First Doctor and Cameca, I wonder where the asexual Time Lords idea came from...) But the best woman-versus-Master exchange has to be handed to Jo, who when she and the Doctor show up after having eluded yet another trap quips to the Master: "How about a 'curses, foiled again'?"
Speaking of Jo, I notice this early we have a safety-of-universe-versus-sacrificing-Companion situation, and the Doctor can't bring himself to do the later, though this annoys me less than when Nine does it - or Four in "Genesis of the Daleks" - because the story lets Jo take the matter into her own hands and go for the switch while the Doctor and the Master are still busy glaring at each other.
The Minotaur - played by a pre-Darth-Vader David Prowse - is as ridiculous a monster as they come in DW, and Kronos the Chronovore isn't that much better as long as Kronos is a white birdlike shape and referred to as "he", but the pay-off is great, with Kronos being female when free (that thematic thing again), an avatar for Time rather than ye olde Titan of Greek myth who is the god of time but decidedly male and eating his children, and amusedly granting the Doctor the Master's life instead of tormenting the Master for eternity. (Though with the benefit of decades of hindsight and future canon, I have do wonder - Kronos, did you sneakily have it both ways, seeing that the Master would soon be in for a stint in a living corpse, then for bodysnatching, then for the Cheeta virus and then for the drums?)
A lot of interesting canon gets introduced here - this appears to be the first episode in which the TARDIS telepathically linking and translating is established, and her sentience is referred to in dialogue as Jo asks, and notices the Doctor consistently refers to the TARDIS as "she" . (BTW, as far as I recall Ten does this consistently, too, but Nine said "it" a few times.) Then we have the two scenes in which the Doctor tells something about his youth, first the fond reminscence about how the Master and he used to mess up each other's experiments at school while he whips up a device to mess up the Master's current experiment (and btw, it cracked me up that the ultimate ingredient for this is tea leaves - Doctor Who: advertising tea as essential for saving the world since the 1960s!), and later the more serious story about meeting the hermit, which is both a very tender moment between the Doctor and Jo - as he tells her this to cheer her up - and character gold, because it shows that the Doctor's eternal optimism is that doesn't come automatically but he has to work for. (It's also a neat use of a Buddhist story by the scriptwriter.)
Lastly: someone ought to make a screencap of the Brigadier's expression when the Doctor tells him he dreamt of the Master. I can't decide whether he's thinking "Too much information!" or "'and this is news why?".
YouTube is ever so useful. If you, dear reader of these ramblings, are a New Whovian without access to the old serials, or maybe without the patience to watch their more leisurely narration, allow me to link some examples of scenes that had an obvious influence on the current show.
Firstly, from Sea Devils: The Master watching The Clangers, which RTD paid homage to by letting him watch the Teletubbies in Sound of Drums:
Secondly, also from Sea Devils, the funnest sword fighting scene in the old show, which the creators also thought because they put it at the end of one episode and completely repeated it in the next. What kills me is the sandwich eating in between and the Doctor giving the Master his sword back for no other reason than he doesn't want the fight to end just yet. Also useful as an answer to the question "were they this slashy in the old days?":
Next we have a music vid using footage from the episode that inspired the, err, song of this vid, Mind of Evil. This is an earlier story in which the MacGuffin of the day is able to confront someone with his greatest fear. Enjoy.
And then, for everyone who like Gwen Cooper on Torchwood asks "which organization is UNIT again?", there is a tongue-in-cheek UNIT recruitment vid, summing up the history of that organization in Old Who.
Lastly, two links: the Brigadier, the only only Doctor Who character to appear in 11 different seasons, 9 consecutive seasons, 23 serials, and appear in all 3 decades of the classic series, of course has been vidded. Recently I found a documantary in which someone from the production team states that if the Master is the Doctor's Moriarty, the Brigadier is his Watson. I'm not entirely sure about that - Holmes never worked for Watson, after all - but there is some resemblance, yes. Here's hoping the Brig will show up one more time!
The Third Doctor had three Companions during his time on the show - Liz Shaw, Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith. Jo is the one often dismissed as a ditz, but really, the more I see of her, the more delightful I find her. Have a Jo vid portrait!
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Date: 2008-03-18 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 10:54 am (UTC)Excellent review of The Time Monster.
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Date: 2008-03-18 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 01:12 pm (UTC)Have you watched
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Date: 2008-03-18 01:18 pm (UTC)Something else to amuse: wise minds have tried to come up with an answer to the question of what the Master is doing with this time when he's not escaping somewhere or planning to mess with the Doctor (http://community.livejournal.com/best_enemies/2100.html)...
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Date: 2008-03-18 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 01:24 pm (UTC)And part of the charm of of Classic Who was the "passable" special effects. Sometimes I think the new series is relying on the special effects too much. But that's what the present generation of Who watchers expect from their television. It needs to be "movie quality" effects.
I say just wrap something in bubble wrap and spray paint it green. Now "there's" a monster for you!
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Date: 2008-03-18 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 01:41 pm (UTC)She's one of my favourites, so I've recently elevated her to iconic status, and I've always been convinced that if any companion ever broke the Doctor's hearts it was her.
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Date: 2008-03-18 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 02:00 pm (UTC)And hey, I could see knitting!Master. Or, more seriously, the Master taking over a system or two and then getting bored after a while if no one shows up, and moving on.
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Date: 2008-03-18 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 02:11 pm (UTC)I'd be surprised if he didn't do that sort of thing at least occasionally, to be honest.
And knitting, maybe, but I'll tell ya, I can so easily imagine the Simm!Master doing evil cross-stitch it's kind of scary. Also, the bit about the Master doing breakfast in bed The Morning After has caused a rather cute little Three/Delgado!Master scene to write itself in my brain. ("No, Doctor, it's not poisoned. That would simply be bad manners.") Considering that Three/Delgado!Master was one of my other requests, said thread appears to be doing an excellent job for me. :)
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Date: 2008-03-18 02:12 pm (UTC)Still. Maybe a Three and Jo icon, if a good one can be found....
I've always been convinced that if any companion ever broke the Doctor's hearts it was her.
You do have a point, considering how he reacted in The Green Death. I'm currently looking for a story that has them meeting again years later (which regeneration doesn't matter) and touches somewhat on that, but haven't found it yet...
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Date: 2008-03-18 02:20 pm (UTC)It's good material for a vignette: the Doctor and Companion du jour arrive in a system where there was a devastating war between the people, followed by the tyranny of a third party.... centuries ago. And local tradition has it that the ruler in question one day simply disappeared.
(Or, more sinister version, there is no population left at all except for - waitaminute. Remember the B7 episode Duel? Sinofar and what's her name, the last two survivors embodying forces? Clearly, what happened to their people was the Master's fault!)
After has caused a rather cute little Three/Delgado!Master scene to write itself in my brain. ("No, Doctor, it's not poisoned. That would simply be bad manners.") Considering that Three/Delgado!Master was one of my other requests, said thread appears to be doing an excellent job for me. :)
Well, one of the contributors - x-los - has been writing splendid Three/Delgado!Master recently. *g*
Speaking of Delgado!Master and his impeccable manners, I have a very vague plot bunny about middle aged Jo encountering the Master during the Year That Wasn't, and my mind insists he'd call her Miss Grant because he always did that while being Delgado, but I am not sure whether or not memories of old times would be enough to stop him from killing her afterwards in front of the Doctor in order to get a reaction out of him, and that's not what I want to write.
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Date: 2008-03-18 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 03:54 pm (UTC)Yes, I think it would be.
Clearly, what happened to their people was the Master's fault!
*snerk*
Well, one of the contributors - x-los - has been writing splendid Three/Delgado!Master recently. *g*
Cool, I'll have to check her out, then. I went through a longish period recently where I wasn't reading a whole lot of fic, but I seem to have re-discovered my enthusiasm recently.
I have a very vague plot bunny about middle aged Jo encountering the Master during the Year That Wasn't, and my mind insists he'd call her Miss Grant because he always did that while being Delgado,
Oh, I like that idea. I suspect he probably would, and it would be highly interesting to see Jo reacting to him. You're right, though, it might be hard to keep that from ending in bloodshed. :)
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Date: 2008-03-18 04:02 pm (UTC)I think, in large part, that love is due to Delgado and how unbelievably brilliant he was as the Master Not to mention dead sexy.
Delgado is a big part of it, but I think much credit is also due to Pertwee. I've seen people describe him as the James Bond of Doctors in a deregatory way, but I don't think that's true side from the equipment/era trappings. Because he sells both the gleeful fun moments - at the end of Spearhead, for example, when he makes the Brigadier promise he can have his own car, or when watching Jo through the window in Sea Devils when she signals her liberation plan, or of course during the duel - and the more serious ones, like the genuine shock at the end of the Silurians when the Brigadier blows up the Silurians, both of which are very Doctor-essential elements. And of course the chip-on-his-shoulder, impatient exile issues thing which is particular to Three.
Lastly: in addition to Delgado and Pertwee having fabulous chemistry, I think they also rock because until Tennant and Simm, we don't get another Doctor/Master pairing again where the Doctor and the Master really function as mirror/dark parallels of each other. Perhaps with the arguable exception of McCoy and Ainley in Survivor, but I don't really see it for the others. Baker and Crispy!Master, and Baker and Ainley - no. Ditto for Davison and Ainley, and C. Baker and Ainley. Not that these Doctors and the Master don't have their moments, or chemistry (I think Davison and Ainley have it, and Baker and Ainley do not), but those incarnations of the Doctor aren't really similar to the Master, and vice versa. Whereas Delgado!Master and Three really are, and that element is not captured again until the Tennant/Simm combo.
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Date: 2008-03-18 04:07 pm (UTC)http://x-losfic.livejournal.com/3872.html
Oh, I like that idea. I suspect he probably would, and it would be highly interesting to see Jo reacting to him. You're right, though, it might be hard to keep that from ending in bloodshed. :)
There might be tea before the bloodshed, complete with Lucy as the hostess and Jo and the Doctor as guests, because that's the kind of thing he'd do. And the reunion between Jo and the Doctor would be very touching, plus Lucy might be very weirded out by the similarities between Jo and herself (in addition to the blonde companion thing, Jo has the same social background and was dismissed as dim by her environment). But at the end of the tea, I think there absolutely would be bloodshed.
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Date: 2008-03-18 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 04:16 pm (UTC)And I now really want to read this Jo story, bloodshed or no. :)
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Date: 2008-03-18 04:20 pm (UTC)Oh, HELL yes. I never meant to imply otherwise. I absolutely adore Pertwee. I love his elegance and his presence and even his arrogance. I think he is an absolutely delightful Doctor in every way. But a good portion of what makes his era stand out for me is the Master. And also UNIT and his companions. Pertwee had some of the strongest, most enjoyable supporting cast members of any Doctor, I think. I also think that Pertwee does an amazing job of maintaining the sense of joy and wonder that was (in my opinion) the hallmark of the Troughton-era, while also making it absolutely clear how painful his exile was to him. A very delicate balance and I think Pertwee pulled it off beautifully.
Lastly: in addition to Delgado and Pertwee having fabulous chemistry, I think they also rock because until Tennant and Simm, we don't get another Doctor/Master pairing again where the Doctor and the Master really function as mirror/dark parallels of each other.
Absolutely. I am not a particularly big fan of Ainley!Master because I think he lost a lot of what made Delgado!Master so brilliant. He never managed to capture the suave, calculating brilliance that Delgado had in spades. And I think that was the main reason he never managed to mirror the Doctor during those years. There was too much anger and unrestrained madness to him. And while Simm was able to take those traits and make them work, I don't think Ainley ever did. That might have a lot to do with how manic Tennant is in his performance, maybe? Simm was able to go OTT and still parallel the Doctor because Ten is OTT most of the time anyway?
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Date: 2008-03-18 05:01 pm (UTC)No question about it. In retrospect, it was incredibly daring of them to change the format of the show so radically - i.e. basically ground the Doctor for two seasons, when previously every story had had another location and the whole time travel was part of the very definition of DW - but it paid off in spades because that way, the supporting cast and their ties to the Doctor and each other could really be showcased.
I am not a particularly big fan of Ainley!Master because I think he lost a lot of what made Delgado!Master so brilliant. He never managed to capture the suave, calculating brilliance that Delgado had in spades.
No. Though in Survival both script and Ainley toned it down enough so the Master, until the later stages of the virus at least, came across as more ruthless than manic. And let us not speak of Roberts!Master at all.
And while Simm was able to take those traits and make them work, I don't think Ainley ever did. That might have a lot to do with how manic Tennant is in his performance, maybe? Simm was able to go OTT and still parallel the Doctor because Ten is OTT most of the time anyway?
Don't forget the scripts. Because one thing RTD really deserves credit for is that he writes very specific character voices. And Simm!Master's speech patterns are very deliberately modelled on Ten's; take his reply to Lucy's "but you said Archangel would be 100%, you promised!" - that "well, ninety-five - ninety-eight?" is pure Tenth Doctor. (And Simm even goes for a similar intonation.) And of course the immediate post-regeneration reaction is written as a mirror scene, with "new teeth" being echoed by "new voice".
Lastly, it doesn't hurt that these actors have great chemistry, either.*g*
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Date: 2008-03-18 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 09:42 pm (UTC)Do you remember when
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Date: 2008-03-18 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 01:37 am (UTC)I've been listening to "The web of fear" soundtrack (the BBC has released it on CD, though alas, most of the episodes have been lost) where the Brigadier - Colonel at that stage - first appears. I was very, very impressed at how he took the Doctor, the Yetis and disembodied intelligences all in his stride! In fact his first reaction, upon the Doctor telling him he had a "ship which can fly through time and space" was to think of a practical use for the TARDIS in the middle of a crisis. Meanwhile everyone else around him was pooh-poohing the Doctor.
He was a really remarkable character right from the beginning - no wonder he lasted through so many series!
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Date: 2008-03-19 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-19 03:03 pm (UTC)I so hope Nicholas Courtney is healthy enough for at least a short appearance. Not that "Battlefield" is a bad last one for the Brig so far, but it would be wonderful to see him again, and since he's not a Time Lord, they can't recast him!
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Date: 2008-03-19 03:10 pm (UTC)However, wondering about a irresponsible morally lazy etc. villain who isn't actively evil - so, he'd be Dark!Jack, i.e. Captain John Hart, a bit more passive perhaps?
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Date: 2008-03-19 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-27 09:53 am (UTC)(Seriously, the song is *perfect*!)
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Date: 2016-11-19 10:18 pm (UTC)