Take Three: A Love Declaration
Apr. 4th, 2008 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOr, why I fell for the Third Doctor Era And Never Looked Back.
Speaking of looking back – doing that several decades later, it’s amazing that what the show did then worked, because some of the changes went directly to the core of the show’s premise. To wit: the Doctor as a traveller who never stops. Time travel, being in a different place and era in each episode, as a central part of the allure of both show and man. Except for this era, where he spends the first two seasons being forcibly grounded and the next two, when he has his ability to travel back, still mostly hanging around the time and place of his exile until he regenerates. Then there is the premise of the Doctor as the one who chooses his companions (though, as opposed to what New Whovians might believe, they are usually the ones to decide to leave, not the other way around), who is the “leader” of team TARDIS, if anyone is. Except for this era, where he’s working for someone else and is a part of a team, definitely not its head. In theory, it shouldn’t have worked, and undoubtedly, for some fans, it didn’t. For me, it did, and here is why:
1) The ensembleness of it all. Because the Doctor was constantly with the same group of people – not just the Companion(s) du jour – this is the era with arguably the strongest supporting cast. (Pace, Five and packed TARDIS fans.) I find that the older I get, the more I like shows which offer more than just the two leads structure, and sometimes actively resent it when shows that have been introduced as an ensemble (say, Farscape, which had a clear lead in John Crichton but still in the first season offered much narrative room for the rest of the Moya crew) change to a point where the supporting characters do not get narrative attention anymore and it’s all about the two leads (Farscape season 4, mostly). The Third Doctor era never had you doubt the Doctor was the lead character, but the supporting characters – the Brigadier, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, Sgt. Benton, Mike Yates, and of course the Master as the so often recurring villain that he ended up in some of the promo pictures at the time – all get space to breathe, and relationships with each other.
2) UNIT. This original human organization to deal with aliens hails from an era where secret organizations (see also: The Man from U.N.C.L.E) were a big hit, and of course this was one of the heights of the Bond mania. You can see traces of this in the way UNIT (and the Doctor) are presented; there is a reason why Rheanna’s Alias crossover worked so well with this specific Doctor, because there is some resemblance in the “feel”. All the same, part of why Tosh’s flashback in Fragments is such a problem for Old Who viewers is that this kind of thing would be unthinkable for UNIT as it was. (We get an Old Who example of how UNIT treats a truly dangerous captive when the Master is temporarily imprisoned. The man gets pretty comfortable rooms, books and tv, not to mentionconjugal visits visitors such as the Doctor.) UNIT is not presented as perfect; I’ve seen a lot of posts saying how incompetent Torchwood looks in comparison, but I have to point out that UNIT when it serves the plot is just as prone to getting overwhelmed by villains and events. Just how often do important transports get captured, hm? So yes, they screw up, too. But they’re usually quite good in saving the day in the end, they work really well together, and, quite appealing for viewers, despite verbal sparring between the scientific advisor and, err, most people you never doubt these people really like each other. (Part of the problem with first season Torchwood was that the dysfunctionality of the team was so heavily emphasized that you never saw them as friends. Needless to say, this was rectified in s2.)
3) Their “scientific advisor” is, of course, the Doctor. Who, because the Time Lords have taken away his ability to travel through time and space, doesn’t have the option of coming in, saving the day and leaving anymore. He’s stuck on the slow path, to quote Reinette from a much later era. He’s also somewhat dependent on them, and this makes for a great and interesting dynamic. Because on the one hand, he never stops trying to figure out a way to regain time travel and leave, and there are various points where, if not for the other Time Lords and their TARDIS-disabling and mind-messing thing, he would have; but on the other hand, he grows so fond of these people that when he finally CAN leave, he keeps coming back to them. The Third Doctor has a massive chip on his shoulder, and a great talent for pissing off the authority figures he and UNIT encounter, which means the Brigadier has endless negotiating to do, but he also is very defensive and protective of his human friends, and not just in the saving the world sense. I’ve said it before in an episode review: while the relationships the Doctor forms with his assistants (as they were then called), Liz, Jo and Sarah, all have parallels before and after this era and are traditional Doctor-Companion relationships, the one with the Brigadier is arguably the deepest friendship the Doctor has with a human being. It starts in the Two era, but then the Doctor was coming and going as the Doctor otherwise always does; now, he doesn’t just live with the Brigadier (and Co.), the Brigadier is technically his boss, and we all know the Doctor isn’t that good with authority figures. They frequently disagree (and about serious matters, such as the Silurians, where the Brigadier’s method of dealing with them was angrily described as “murder” and genocide by the Doctor – bear in mind this is several regenerations before the Doctor will be in the position of committing genocide himself, which he will before Old Who ends, though); and as mentioned, the Brig has the not enviable task of having to defend his scientific advisor to various pissed off local authority figures while simultaneously making sure said scientific advisor does not stalk off in a huff. But with all those disagreements, there is always mutual respect, and as they adjust to each other and the fondness increases, they develop a wry humour in their interaction that makes it delightful to watch. The Brigadier has a high opinion of the Doctor’s abilities and generally of his character, too, but he doesn’t hero-worship or idolize him, is entirely aware of the Doctor’s flaws (including his thing for running away if he can) and that the Doctor is capable of lying to him (or other people from UNIT); he has a good grasp on the Doctor’s ego. Two of my favourite examples of the Brig teasing the Doctor in this regard are a scene from The Silurians, where the Doctor, feeling defensive because he hasn’t figured out the mystery yet, snarks that the Brig hasn’t been Sherlock Holmes, either, and the Brig just gives him A Look and says “well, come on then, Doctor Watson” (getting A Look from the Doctor in turn, who clearly thinks that if anyone is Watson, it’s the Brig), and a scene from Terror of the Autons where the Brig shoots down the Doctor’s complaint about Jo’s lack of scientific background with that “you don’t want a scientist, you want someone to hold your test tubes and tell you how brilliant you are” remark. If the Brigadier – who is the first human the newly regenerated Third Doctor speaks to, and who kneels beside him when Three dies and generates into Four, who saw him at his weakest and strongest during this era, turns out to be the human all Old Who regenerations of the Doctor sooner or later return to, it’s those years of the Third Doctor which cemented this relationship.
4) The three traditional Companions the Doctor has during this era all have their distinct personalities that make them different from each other, and are all very likeable. At the start, there is Liz Shaw, whose job as UNIT’s scientific advisor the newly regenerated Doctor more or less co-opts, a great scientist in her own right (in The Silurians, Liz’ ability to use the kidnapped Doctor’s discarded notes and figure out an antidote on her own basically saves humanity); in addition to befriending the Doctor, she has a prickly yet warm relationship (and interesting UST) with the Brigadier. After Liz goes back to Cambridge, there is Jo Grant, who is an enthusiastic human chatterbox and, contrary to certain media clichés, rescues the Doctor as often as he rescues her; she’s also the Companion who sees most of the Master and goes from being hypnotised in his first episode to becoming an expert at making sardonic comments (oh, and utterly resisting further attempts to use her) whenever he shows up (my favourite is probably her “how about a ‘curses, foiled again?’” from The Time Monster). Lastly, there is Sarah Jane, who starts her run as a Companion as a stowaway in the TARDIS, convinced the Doctor is up to no good but determined to investigate the mysterious events she thinks he’s responsible for; the scene where they meet for the first time, and the Doctor uses his alias as John Smith, is echoed in School Reunion, and it makes me smile just to think of it. His relationship with each of these three women was different. With Liz, it was the comraderie between scientists; they spoke a similar language, and if he stole her job, he at least made her laugh while doing it. With Jo, the Doctor went from appalled distance to eating out of her hands within a few episodes, and for the rest of her run they plainly adored each other. The Master called them “partners in crime” once (in Frontiers in Space), and they certainly came across as a double act at times, different as they were from each other. You can argue about the nature of the Doctor’s affection for Jo, but when she left him at the end (“a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, Brigadier,” as Jo put it), he definitely was heartbroken. With Sarah Jane, it was just the beginning of a relationship which would grow and expand in his next regeneration, feeling challenged by Miss Smith, reporter, making a new friend not coincidentally via an argument.
5) With little or no time travel, the show had, as the DVD commentaries point out, the problem of how to avoid an endless repetition of “invasion of the week” plots. Or at least of how to give each their own spin. This produced, in turn, the plot where humans are the aliens and it turns out another race was there first (The Silurians - this was not a new sci fi trope, but it was the first time DW used it), the show’s first canon AU, Mirrorverse or whatever you want to call it, in Inferno, where we get dastardly versions of our regulars, and naturally, said regulars had great fun playing those), and, of course a new recurring enemy, not whole race of beings a la the Daleks or the Cybermen, but an individual: the Master. The Master in his first screen incarnation via Roger Delgado was a suave supervillain with a flair for the operatic that matched the Third Doctor’s (this is the Doctor who dressed up as a Dandy with an opera cloak and indulged in “Venusian Aikido”) and a verbal wit that matched the Doctor’s snark as well. The actors had fabulous chemistry, great comic timing and brought their A-Game to the serious moments as well. If the Master became an icon in the Whoverse who was going to show up for several decades to come, it’s definitely because of this very strong introduction – and for the most part, continued strong use - in the Three era.
6) Did I mention the Alias thing? Because, yes, it helps to appreciate the era when, as yours truly, one is fond of the tropes of the genre with all its absurdities. The first two Doctors left the action stuff to the young male companions; doing physical heroics was a young male companion’s lot on this show. Jon Pertwee, by contrast, was really into sports. And this was the Bond era. As a consequence, we get the third Doctor fencing, doing karate, racing motorboats (and according to the Sea Devils commentary Pertwee wanted to do a waterski scene as well, but they had to draw the line somewhere), and all the while you had megalomaniac villains who plotted in mysterious retreats or used killer daffodils (Master, I’m looking at you). As with the better Bond films, there was a sense of irony about the whole thing going along with the action; the very first race the Third Doctor indulges is takes place with him in a wheelchair (he’s in a hospital, escaping from the Autons, i.e. life size plastic puppets for New Whovians who only watched them on Rose), the car he drives is an old timer (whose speed he constantly tinkers with, of course, but, as he assures Liz, “it’s a car of great character”) – he calls Bessie, yellow as a canary bird and very much unlike any Aston Martin Mr. Bond prefers, and of course, when the Doctor is doing a nude scene under the shower, he doesn’t have a girl with him, he has a very prominent shower cap on and sings.
Now, I ask you: how could I not love this era?
Speaking of looking back – doing that several decades later, it’s amazing that what the show did then worked, because some of the changes went directly to the core of the show’s premise. To wit: the Doctor as a traveller who never stops. Time travel, being in a different place and era in each episode, as a central part of the allure of both show and man. Except for this era, where he spends the first two seasons being forcibly grounded and the next two, when he has his ability to travel back, still mostly hanging around the time and place of his exile until he regenerates. Then there is the premise of the Doctor as the one who chooses his companions (though, as opposed to what New Whovians might believe, they are usually the ones to decide to leave, not the other way around), who is the “leader” of team TARDIS, if anyone is. Except for this era, where he’s working for someone else and is a part of a team, definitely not its head. In theory, it shouldn’t have worked, and undoubtedly, for some fans, it didn’t. For me, it did, and here is why:
1) The ensembleness of it all. Because the Doctor was constantly with the same group of people – not just the Companion(s) du jour – this is the era with arguably the strongest supporting cast. (Pace, Five and packed TARDIS fans.) I find that the older I get, the more I like shows which offer more than just the two leads structure, and sometimes actively resent it when shows that have been introduced as an ensemble (say, Farscape, which had a clear lead in John Crichton but still in the first season offered much narrative room for the rest of the Moya crew) change to a point where the supporting characters do not get narrative attention anymore and it’s all about the two leads (Farscape season 4, mostly). The Third Doctor era never had you doubt the Doctor was the lead character, but the supporting characters – the Brigadier, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, Sgt. Benton, Mike Yates, and of course the Master as the so often recurring villain that he ended up in some of the promo pictures at the time – all get space to breathe, and relationships with each other.
2) UNIT. This original human organization to deal with aliens hails from an era where secret organizations (see also: The Man from U.N.C.L.E) were a big hit, and of course this was one of the heights of the Bond mania. You can see traces of this in the way UNIT (and the Doctor) are presented; there is a reason why Rheanna’s Alias crossover worked so well with this specific Doctor, because there is some resemblance in the “feel”. All the same, part of why Tosh’s flashback in Fragments is such a problem for Old Who viewers is that this kind of thing would be unthinkable for UNIT as it was. (We get an Old Who example of how UNIT treats a truly dangerous captive when the Master is temporarily imprisoned. The man gets pretty comfortable rooms, books and tv, not to mention
3) Their “scientific advisor” is, of course, the Doctor. Who, because the Time Lords have taken away his ability to travel through time and space, doesn’t have the option of coming in, saving the day and leaving anymore. He’s stuck on the slow path, to quote Reinette from a much later era. He’s also somewhat dependent on them, and this makes for a great and interesting dynamic. Because on the one hand, he never stops trying to figure out a way to regain time travel and leave, and there are various points where, if not for the other Time Lords and their TARDIS-disabling and mind-messing thing, he would have; but on the other hand, he grows so fond of these people that when he finally CAN leave, he keeps coming back to them. The Third Doctor has a massive chip on his shoulder, and a great talent for pissing off the authority figures he and UNIT encounter, which means the Brigadier has endless negotiating to do, but he also is very defensive and protective of his human friends, and not just in the saving the world sense. I’ve said it before in an episode review: while the relationships the Doctor forms with his assistants (as they were then called), Liz, Jo and Sarah, all have parallels before and after this era and are traditional Doctor-Companion relationships, the one with the Brigadier is arguably the deepest friendship the Doctor has with a human being. It starts in the Two era, but then the Doctor was coming and going as the Doctor otherwise always does; now, he doesn’t just live with the Brigadier (and Co.), the Brigadier is technically his boss, and we all know the Doctor isn’t that good with authority figures. They frequently disagree (and about serious matters, such as the Silurians, where the Brigadier’s method of dealing with them was angrily described as “murder” and genocide by the Doctor – bear in mind this is several regenerations before the Doctor will be in the position of committing genocide himself, which he will before Old Who ends, though); and as mentioned, the Brig has the not enviable task of having to defend his scientific advisor to various pissed off local authority figures while simultaneously making sure said scientific advisor does not stalk off in a huff. But with all those disagreements, there is always mutual respect, and as they adjust to each other and the fondness increases, they develop a wry humour in their interaction that makes it delightful to watch. The Brigadier has a high opinion of the Doctor’s abilities and generally of his character, too, but he doesn’t hero-worship or idolize him, is entirely aware of the Doctor’s flaws (including his thing for running away if he can) and that the Doctor is capable of lying to him (or other people from UNIT); he has a good grasp on the Doctor’s ego. Two of my favourite examples of the Brig teasing the Doctor in this regard are a scene from The Silurians, where the Doctor, feeling defensive because he hasn’t figured out the mystery yet, snarks that the Brig hasn’t been Sherlock Holmes, either, and the Brig just gives him A Look and says “well, come on then, Doctor Watson” (getting A Look from the Doctor in turn, who clearly thinks that if anyone is Watson, it’s the Brig), and a scene from Terror of the Autons where the Brig shoots down the Doctor’s complaint about Jo’s lack of scientific background with that “you don’t want a scientist, you want someone to hold your test tubes and tell you how brilliant you are” remark. If the Brigadier – who is the first human the newly regenerated Third Doctor speaks to, and who kneels beside him when Three dies and generates into Four, who saw him at his weakest and strongest during this era, turns out to be the human all Old Who regenerations of the Doctor sooner or later return to, it’s those years of the Third Doctor which cemented this relationship.
4) The three traditional Companions the Doctor has during this era all have their distinct personalities that make them different from each other, and are all very likeable. At the start, there is Liz Shaw, whose job as UNIT’s scientific advisor the newly regenerated Doctor more or less co-opts, a great scientist in her own right (in The Silurians, Liz’ ability to use the kidnapped Doctor’s discarded notes and figure out an antidote on her own basically saves humanity); in addition to befriending the Doctor, she has a prickly yet warm relationship (and interesting UST) with the Brigadier. After Liz goes back to Cambridge, there is Jo Grant, who is an enthusiastic human chatterbox and, contrary to certain media clichés, rescues the Doctor as often as he rescues her; she’s also the Companion who sees most of the Master and goes from being hypnotised in his first episode to becoming an expert at making sardonic comments (oh, and utterly resisting further attempts to use her) whenever he shows up (my favourite is probably her “how about a ‘curses, foiled again?’” from The Time Monster). Lastly, there is Sarah Jane, who starts her run as a Companion as a stowaway in the TARDIS, convinced the Doctor is up to no good but determined to investigate the mysterious events she thinks he’s responsible for; the scene where they meet for the first time, and the Doctor uses his alias as John Smith, is echoed in School Reunion, and it makes me smile just to think of it. His relationship with each of these three women was different. With Liz, it was the comraderie between scientists; they spoke a similar language, and if he stole her job, he at least made her laugh while doing it. With Jo, the Doctor went from appalled distance to eating out of her hands within a few episodes, and for the rest of her run they plainly adored each other. The Master called them “partners in crime” once (in Frontiers in Space), and they certainly came across as a double act at times, different as they were from each other. You can argue about the nature of the Doctor’s affection for Jo, but when she left him at the end (“a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, Brigadier,” as Jo put it), he definitely was heartbroken. With Sarah Jane, it was just the beginning of a relationship which would grow and expand in his next regeneration, feeling challenged by Miss Smith, reporter, making a new friend not coincidentally via an argument.
5) With little or no time travel, the show had, as the DVD commentaries point out, the problem of how to avoid an endless repetition of “invasion of the week” plots. Or at least of how to give each their own spin. This produced, in turn, the plot where humans are the aliens and it turns out another race was there first (The Silurians - this was not a new sci fi trope, but it was the first time DW used it), the show’s first canon AU, Mirrorverse or whatever you want to call it, in Inferno, where we get dastardly versions of our regulars, and naturally, said regulars had great fun playing those), and, of course a new recurring enemy, not whole race of beings a la the Daleks or the Cybermen, but an individual: the Master. The Master in his first screen incarnation via Roger Delgado was a suave supervillain with a flair for the operatic that matched the Third Doctor’s (this is the Doctor who dressed up as a Dandy with an opera cloak and indulged in “Venusian Aikido”) and a verbal wit that matched the Doctor’s snark as well. The actors had fabulous chemistry, great comic timing and brought their A-Game to the serious moments as well. If the Master became an icon in the Whoverse who was going to show up for several decades to come, it’s definitely because of this very strong introduction – and for the most part, continued strong use - in the Three era.
6) Did I mention the Alias thing? Because, yes, it helps to appreciate the era when, as yours truly, one is fond of the tropes of the genre with all its absurdities. The first two Doctors left the action stuff to the young male companions; doing physical heroics was a young male companion’s lot on this show. Jon Pertwee, by contrast, was really into sports. And this was the Bond era. As a consequence, we get the third Doctor fencing, doing karate, racing motorboats (and according to the Sea Devils commentary Pertwee wanted to do a waterski scene as well, but they had to draw the line somewhere), and all the while you had megalomaniac villains who plotted in mysterious retreats or used killer daffodils (Master, I’m looking at you). As with the better Bond films, there was a sense of irony about the whole thing going along with the action; the very first race the Third Doctor indulges is takes place with him in a wheelchair (he’s in a hospital, escaping from the Autons, i.e. life size plastic puppets for New Whovians who only watched them on Rose), the car he drives is an old timer (whose speed he constantly tinkers with, of course, but, as he assures Liz, “it’s a car of great character”) – he calls Bessie, yellow as a canary bird and very much unlike any Aston Martin Mr. Bond prefers, and of course, when the Doctor is doing a nude scene under the shower, he doesn’t have a girl with him, he has a very prominent shower cap on and sings.
Now, I ask you: how could I not love this era?
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 06:47 pm (UTC)I will definitely go back for more of Three.
Thanx for the eye-opening...
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:29 pm (UTC)Oh, did they really? That would have been brilliant.
I'm fairly new to classic who, and I've seen little of Three compared to Four or Six, but I love him more each serial I watch. I just started watching Inferno, and he's singing! He's singing! I love him. I loved the ending of Ambassadors of Death(um, I'm not spoiling you, am I? can't recall you talking about this serial right now), when he gets the pilots back safely and gets the races to negotiate peacefully and he looks so satisfied.
Can I just say, I really like your brain. I enjoy reading your meta very much, and you make excellent points, and I just nod my head and go "Yes, exactly! That makes sense!"
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 04:12 am (UTC)Yes, it would, but poor Roger Delgado might have had an accident much sooner if there had been a Doctor/Master waterski race, since he couldn't swim!
I haven't written about Ambassadors of Death, no, but I have watched it, and I agree with you about the ending. (Especially coming directly after the ending of The Silurians). And Three's habit of singing (in the shower, in his car, under his car...) is just terribly endearing. And inspired fanfic (http://eponymous-rose.livejournal.com/160381.html)!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-04 07:39 pm (UTC)Really, though, the Pertwee-era does kick ass for all the reasons you named. And reading this:
If the Brigadier – who is the first human the newly regenerated Third Doctor speaks to, and who kneels beside him when Three dies and generates into Four, who saw him at his weakest and strongest during this era, turns out to be the human all Old Who regenerations of the Doctor sooner or later return to, it’s those years of the Third Doctor which cemented this relationship.
made me tear up. The relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier is one that I keep coming back to and reevaluating to the point where I almost think it's impossible for me to love it more. The depth of respect and affection that they have for each other is so gorgeous to me. The obvious joy in the later incarnations of the Doctor each time he runs into the Brig (Six meeting him in the Spectre of Lanyan Moor being one of my favorites) fills me with glee. And despite some attempts by later three-era writers to turn the Brig into a buffoon, Nicholas Courtney has such presence and such inherent dignity that the character deserves every bit of fan worship that he's gotten.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 04:07 am (UTC)Oh yes - my own favorite is probably Seven and "can't let you out of my sight, can I, Doctor?" and then Seven saying the Brig's name with such delight. And asks how the Brig guessed. And the Brigadier, bless him, just looks at the zombie knight from outer space and the other crazy circumstances and says something along the lines of "well, who else could it have been?". And next, of course, courtesy of the Brig, we get a Doctor/Bessie reunion! *adores*
(Storing your car for you and taking care of it despite the chance you might not show up again in one's lifetime: now that's the mark of a true friend.*g*)
Pic spams and sexual innuendo are also a thing of joy! I just tend to blab in writing as my natural form of expression, that's all.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 07:13 am (UTC)And frankly, I've never been able to understand why Jo Grant gets such a bad press in the fandom. She's courageous and compassionate, and while she's not the sharpest tool in the box, is certainly smarter than her reputation would make her out to be.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 07:22 am (UTC)The funny thing is that the major objection to Three I've been hearing is that he's arrogant and looks down on people whereas Four is Bohemian etc. Of course Three is arrogant (I think only Two and Five can claim not to be, of all the incarnations of the Doctor, otherwise it's pretty much an essential character trait), but as you say, Three, whether he's snarking, lecturing or bitching at does pay attention to whom he's talking to.
My strong suspicion re: Jo's reputation in fandom is that it hails mostly from that silly photo of Katy Manning and the Daleks and not from the character herself. That, and perhaps at the time people resented the replacement of Liz, but I have no idea how popular or not Liz was in Who fandom back then.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 04:07 pm (UTC)