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selenakOr, my New Beginnings dvds have arrived.
No question about it, The Keeper of Traken is awesome. They really put a lot of effort into world-building here - from the set design - especially Tremas' study and the seat of the Keeper - to the costumes and hair styles to individualizing the characters, making their society all the more believable. I especially appreciate that Kassia isn't presented as a villainess but as a tragic character. (Actually, she was my favourite character in this story.) Acting-wise, I must also apologize to Anthony Ainley, whom I had seen solely as the Master before (and there he's not bad but suffering by comparison); I had no trouble at all seeing him as Tremas here, and he showed quite a greater range than I had suspected. Tremas being a believable sympathetic character meant I felt genuinenly sad and horrified when the body-snatch twist at the end came, as I knew it would.
Speaking of acting: Geoffrey Beevers does some great voice acting here for the Master. Again, I was pleasantly surprised, because while he's good in the audio Master, he's not outstanding (and also suffers by comparison to Derek Jacobi, which really isn't his fault). And also, clever script for making the Master a voice through most of the story with only a view glimpses at the rotten corpse; this way, we don't get distracted by bad BBC make-up, and he's a far more impressive opponent. Though I must say, the script also has the Doctor being incredibly slow in figuring out he's dealing with the Master - I mean, a TARDIS plus the fact that "Melkor" wants to see him on his knees just because = who else? I'm going with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
londonkds' theory that the Fourth Doctor deliberately distanced himself from all emotional ties his previous regenerations formed/had for an explanation for that kind of obtuseness, methinks.
(Ah, for the Mind of Evil days when Three, utterly unsurprised, said "Yeeeees, I thought as much" and had a seat when the Master revealed himself.)
As for new emotional ties: Adric I had seen in Fifth Doctor episodes before, but I had the impression Four is actually being a bit paternal here in a way Five is not. Age factor, I guess. Also, the Doctor hitting it off with Tremas is suitably ironic, and that he's pilfering Nyssa's neat stunner is just typical. Otherwise, I still have my can't-emotionally-connect-to-Tom-Baker problem, but the episode is so good it doesn't matter.
Speaking of Nyssa: nice introduction. Given events here and in Logopolis, I'm surprised that the tv show didn't more with the incredible angst potential the Master having her father's body offers (that I know of; I might be wrong, of course, since I haven't watched that many Five era stories). Blaming the era doesn't work, because the simultanous Blake's 7 definitely did remember that Servalan killed Dayna's father and used it in s3 and s4 episodes when the Liberator and later Scorpius crew met Servalan again.
State of the Master's crazy: surprisingly enough, not as much as in the earlier Deadly Assassin, although he was stuck on Traken in his Melkor-shaped TARDIS for years. Wanting to use the power of the system the Keeper can access actually makes sense for a supervillain, except for the part where one wonders what he would have done if everything had gone according to plan; I can't help but suspect he'd have tired and become bored of the Keeper's power after a while.
Methinks they should have kept that Johnny Byrne fellow instead of hiring Christopher Bidmead, because Logopolis is something of a come-down after the heights of Keeper of Traken. Which isn't to say it doesn't have its plusses, but when with Keeper, every scene is interesting, here we get a lot of filler stuff, and unforgivably in one case using the new companion. Which you shouldn't do to a new companion. I'm referring to Tegan endlessly walking through the TARDIS. Mind you, there is a bit of a pay-off for it in the next one, both with Tegan using her lipstick and with the Doctor unravelling his scarf, but still. Also, as a world Logopolis isn't nearly as convincing as Traken. And really, you can't just use "oops, a quarter of the galaxy is gone!" as a plot point and then never have it any effect whatsoever (other than making Nyssa homeless) in future stories.
On the plus side: Tegan insisting on changing the wheel herself, on the other hand, worked as an introduction demonstrating her energy and stubbornness, and the way she started to bond with Nyssa later was also believable. On the other hand, it was hard to see why she insisted on going after the Doctor when the TARDIS was going to take her and Adric back to Earth; he wasn't her ride home, the blue box was, and she had had nearly no interaction with the Doctor before, thus making a personal attachment at this stage unlikely.
The Watcher: I wasn't spoiled but had guessed it had to be the Doctor in some form early on. I'm a bit baffled, though, as how this was supposed to work. Astral projection? But he was physical enough to steer the TARDIS and to talk. What's the fanon on this?
Ainley!Master, in action for the first time: uses a line that RTD lets Simm!Master reuse in Sound of Drums, slightly altered: "People of the universe, please attend carefully". Which is such a Master thing to say and made me smile. (In the Audio AU Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil, Alt!Master's way of parting the crowd is the line "Stand aside or I will lay your souls to waste! Thank you very much.") Also, we get a return to the "temporary alliance in between scheming and fighting" tradition between the Master and the Doctor, and these scenes are an interesting variation: while the Doctor relents enough to admit to TARDIs envy in lieu of a social conversation, I'd say even here, Four is unquestionably the Doctor with the most disdain and hostility towards the Master. (At least going by the Five episodes I know.) Six while entirely prepared to use that weapon on him slips into the mutual bickering and school reunion mode pretty much from the get go, Seven has the "certain attraction" admission (and goes out of his way not to kill the guy), and of course Three while being able to be catty like no one's business ("he put on weight!") radiates fondness along with the varying degrees of anger and annoyance suitable to the occasion whenever they meet. But Four? Really sees nothing but the mass murdering supervillain (which the Master also is, of course).
And finally, the death and regeneration scene. Four preparing for his death throughout the story was obvious, and Baker's emotional distance worked for this. The enemies and friends montage was a bit clumsy, but mostly worked for me. With one caveat - the flashback to the Three-to-Four regeneration scene with Sarah Jane and the Brig inevitably reminded me that I found that one far more touching. Though I will admit to bias in favour of the Third Doctor in general. And of course the emotional effect this must have had on an audience that had watched Tom Baker as the Doctor for seven years is something that unfortunately eludes me.
And then there was Five. You know, companions really should get together and swap regeneration stories, and how dealing with the Doctor then was. Peri would probably win for sheer horror factor (I mean, none of the others had the Doctor attempting to strangle them), but Nyssa, Tegan and Rose would be on the same level. I was wondering where the whole zero room thing from fanfic came from, and now I know. Also, do we ever see that much of the other rooms in the TARDIS in other episodes? (Save the corridors and courtyard from Logopolis.) One great touch was Peter Davison doing first a William Hartnell and then a Patrick Throughton impression, and good ones, too, while the regeneration was still settling. And after Time Crash, the scene where he puts on glasses also causes fuzzy feelings of pre-empted nostalgia. "Must dash" as a Five catchphrase: it's one of those things you can't imagine the others saying, which is good, as each Doctor should in addition to the shared traits have their own idioysyncricies. And I must say I felt some gleeful Schadenfreude at the demise of the scarf.
I was wondering whether the Master wanting Adric around should count as a symptom of insanity, but then it all made sense. Castrovalva and the concept of it strikes me as an echo of Traken, which would confirmdeborah_judge's hypothesis that the Master is influenced by his non-Gallifreyan bodies to some degree. Mind you, the Master's actions in this particular story are an instance where one wonders "how did they explain this without slash goggles"? Because in addition to the more routine:
Master: *traps Doctor in complicated dastardly scheme*
Doctor: *seems to be defeated*
Master: *goes from glee to feeling annoyed Doctor is not around for another round anymore*
Doctor: *makes come-back*
Master: *is gleeful*
We get the grand climactic scene where the Master ignores everything else because he just has to look at the Doctor once more before getting around to killing him. (Clearly, he likes this new regenerations' aesthetics.) I don't know what the poor Castrovalvians and the companions were thinking when the Master had his "I WILL LOOK AT HIM ONCE MORE!!!!!" freakout, but...
The Nyssa and Tegan bonding is for the win, though Nyssa really should have insisted on Tegan changing before they set off on their trip. If there is any more impractical wardrobe for mountain climbing than high heels and a tight skirt, I can't imagine it. Tsskk. Also, I felt for Tegan - she was so proud of having landed the TARDIS, and then she was toldWesley Crusher Adric had pre-programmed it.
Acting: Davison gets high marks for the One and Two impressions, as I said, in addition to giving some ideas of what his Doctor is going to be like, Ainley uses the chuckle a bit too often, Janet Fielding is great in those TARDIS steering (or not) scenes and her crestfallen reaction later, and somehow the repeated walks through the courtyard don't annoy me here the way the endless walks through the TARDIS in Logopolis do. Possibly because they're a better plot point, and we get splintered mirror imagery. Oh, and that moment where Nyssa and Tegan find out the women have been using the Doctor's regeneration closet as a box to put their washing in is priceless.
No question about it, The Keeper of Traken is awesome. They really put a lot of effort into world-building here - from the set design - especially Tremas' study and the seat of the Keeper - to the costumes and hair styles to individualizing the characters, making their society all the more believable. I especially appreciate that Kassia isn't presented as a villainess but as a tragic character. (Actually, she was my favourite character in this story.) Acting-wise, I must also apologize to Anthony Ainley, whom I had seen solely as the Master before (and there he's not bad but suffering by comparison); I had no trouble at all seeing him as Tremas here, and he showed quite a greater range than I had suspected. Tremas being a believable sympathetic character meant I felt genuinenly sad and horrified when the body-snatch twist at the end came, as I knew it would.
Speaking of acting: Geoffrey Beevers does some great voice acting here for the Master. Again, I was pleasantly surprised, because while he's good in the audio Master, he's not outstanding (and also suffers by comparison to Derek Jacobi, which really isn't his fault). And also, clever script for making the Master a voice through most of the story with only a view glimpses at the rotten corpse; this way, we don't get distracted by bad BBC make-up, and he's a far more impressive opponent. Though I must say, the script also has the Doctor being incredibly slow in figuring out he's dealing with the Master - I mean, a TARDIS plus the fact that "Melkor" wants to see him on his knees just because = who else? I'm going with
londonkds' theory that the Fourth Doctor deliberately distanced himself from all emotional ties his previous regenerations formed/had for an explanation for that kind of obtuseness, methinks. (Ah, for the Mind of Evil days when Three, utterly unsurprised, said "Yeeeees, I thought as much" and had a seat when the Master revealed himself.)
As for new emotional ties: Adric I had seen in Fifth Doctor episodes before, but I had the impression Four is actually being a bit paternal here in a way Five is not. Age factor, I guess. Also, the Doctor hitting it off with Tremas is suitably ironic, and that he's pilfering Nyssa's neat stunner is just typical. Otherwise, I still have my can't-emotionally-connect-to-Tom-Baker problem, but the episode is so good it doesn't matter.
Speaking of Nyssa: nice introduction. Given events here and in Logopolis, I'm surprised that the tv show didn't more with the incredible angst potential the Master having her father's body offers (that I know of; I might be wrong, of course, since I haven't watched that many Five era stories). Blaming the era doesn't work, because the simultanous Blake's 7 definitely did remember that Servalan killed Dayna's father and used it in s3 and s4 episodes when the Liberator and later Scorpius crew met Servalan again.
State of the Master's crazy: surprisingly enough, not as much as in the earlier Deadly Assassin, although he was stuck on Traken in his Melkor-shaped TARDIS for years. Wanting to use the power of the system the Keeper can access actually makes sense for a supervillain, except for the part where one wonders what he would have done if everything had gone according to plan; I can't help but suspect he'd have tired and become bored of the Keeper's power after a while.
Methinks they should have kept that Johnny Byrne fellow instead of hiring Christopher Bidmead, because Logopolis is something of a come-down after the heights of Keeper of Traken. Which isn't to say it doesn't have its plusses, but when with Keeper, every scene is interesting, here we get a lot of filler stuff, and unforgivably in one case using the new companion. Which you shouldn't do to a new companion. I'm referring to Tegan endlessly walking through the TARDIS. Mind you, there is a bit of a pay-off for it in the next one, both with Tegan using her lipstick and with the Doctor unravelling his scarf, but still. Also, as a world Logopolis isn't nearly as convincing as Traken. And really, you can't just use "oops, a quarter of the galaxy is gone!" as a plot point and then never have it any effect whatsoever (other than making Nyssa homeless) in future stories.
On the plus side: Tegan insisting on changing the wheel herself, on the other hand, worked as an introduction demonstrating her energy and stubbornness, and the way she started to bond with Nyssa later was also believable. On the other hand, it was hard to see why she insisted on going after the Doctor when the TARDIS was going to take her and Adric back to Earth; he wasn't her ride home, the blue box was, and she had had nearly no interaction with the Doctor before, thus making a personal attachment at this stage unlikely.
The Watcher: I wasn't spoiled but had guessed it had to be the Doctor in some form early on. I'm a bit baffled, though, as how this was supposed to work. Astral projection? But he was physical enough to steer the TARDIS and to talk. What's the fanon on this?
Ainley!Master, in action for the first time: uses a line that RTD lets Simm!Master reuse in Sound of Drums, slightly altered: "People of the universe, please attend carefully". Which is such a Master thing to say and made me smile. (In the Audio AU Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil, Alt!Master's way of parting the crowd is the line "Stand aside or I will lay your souls to waste! Thank you very much.") Also, we get a return to the "temporary alliance in between scheming and fighting" tradition between the Master and the Doctor, and these scenes are an interesting variation: while the Doctor relents enough to admit to TARDIs envy in lieu of a social conversation, I'd say even here, Four is unquestionably the Doctor with the most disdain and hostility towards the Master. (At least going by the Five episodes I know.) Six while entirely prepared to use that weapon on him slips into the mutual bickering and school reunion mode pretty much from the get go, Seven has the "certain attraction" admission (and goes out of his way not to kill the guy), and of course Three while being able to be catty like no one's business ("he put on weight!") radiates fondness along with the varying degrees of anger and annoyance suitable to the occasion whenever they meet. But Four? Really sees nothing but the mass murdering supervillain (which the Master also is, of course).
And finally, the death and regeneration scene. Four preparing for his death throughout the story was obvious, and Baker's emotional distance worked for this. The enemies and friends montage was a bit clumsy, but mostly worked for me. With one caveat - the flashback to the Three-to-Four regeneration scene with Sarah Jane and the Brig inevitably reminded me that I found that one far more touching. Though I will admit to bias in favour of the Third Doctor in general. And of course the emotional effect this must have had on an audience that had watched Tom Baker as the Doctor for seven years is something that unfortunately eludes me.
And then there was Five. You know, companions really should get together and swap regeneration stories, and how dealing with the Doctor then was. Peri would probably win for sheer horror factor (I mean, none of the others had the Doctor attempting to strangle them), but Nyssa, Tegan and Rose would be on the same level. I was wondering where the whole zero room thing from fanfic came from, and now I know. Also, do we ever see that much of the other rooms in the TARDIS in other episodes? (Save the corridors and courtyard from Logopolis.) One great touch was Peter Davison doing first a William Hartnell and then a Patrick Throughton impression, and good ones, too, while the regeneration was still settling. And after Time Crash, the scene where he puts on glasses also causes fuzzy feelings of pre-empted nostalgia. "Must dash" as a Five catchphrase: it's one of those things you can't imagine the others saying, which is good, as each Doctor should in addition to the shared traits have their own idioysyncricies. And I must say I felt some gleeful Schadenfreude at the demise of the scarf.
I was wondering whether the Master wanting Adric around should count as a symptom of insanity, but then it all made sense. Castrovalva and the concept of it strikes me as an echo of Traken, which would confirm
deborah_judge's hypothesis that the Master is influenced by his non-Gallifreyan bodies to some degree. Mind you, the Master's actions in this particular story are an instance where one wonders "how did they explain this without slash goggles"? Because in addition to the more routine: Master: *traps Doctor in complicated dastardly scheme*
Doctor: *seems to be defeated*
Master: *goes from glee to feeling annoyed Doctor is not around for another round anymore*
Doctor: *makes come-back*
Master: *is gleeful*
We get the grand climactic scene where the Master ignores everything else because he just has to look at the Doctor once more before getting around to killing him. (Clearly, he likes this new regenerations' aesthetics.) I don't know what the poor Castrovalvians and the companions were thinking when the Master had his "I WILL LOOK AT HIM ONCE MORE!!!!!" freakout, but...
The Nyssa and Tegan bonding is for the win, though Nyssa really should have insisted on Tegan changing before they set off on their trip. If there is any more impractical wardrobe for mountain climbing than high heels and a tight skirt, I can't imagine it. Tsskk. Also, I felt for Tegan - she was so proud of having landed the TARDIS, and then she was told
Acting: Davison gets high marks for the One and Two impressions, as I said, in addition to giving some ideas of what his Doctor is going to be like, Ainley uses the chuckle a bit too often, Janet Fielding is great in those TARDIS steering (or not) scenes and her crestfallen reaction later, and somehow the repeated walks through the courtyard don't annoy me here the way the endless walks through the TARDIS in Logopolis do. Possibly because they're a better plot point, and we get splintered mirror imagery. Oh, and that moment where Nyssa and Tegan find out the women have been using the Doctor's regeneration closet as a box to put their washing in is priceless.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 10:51 am (UTC)Fandom slip? :-)
do we ever see that much of the other rooms in the TARDIS in other episodes?
We see bedrooms, on occasion.
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Date: 2008-04-23 12:30 pm (UTC)Bedrooms: I remember having seen Romana's in another episode, but I didn't recall more, hence the asking.
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Date: 2008-04-23 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 12:45 pm (UTC)Something which confuses people: the Melkor is not the Master's TARDIS. If you look very carefully (and may have to freeze-frame) you can see the art deco grandfather-clock-shaped TARDIS in the Melkor's control room and the Master run towards it as the Melkor begins to blow up.
Nobody has ever managed to come up with a proper explanation of the Watcher, including Christopher Bidmead. The closest anyone's been able to come is the vague "interim astral stage between the Fourth and Fifth regenerations with independent volition and the ability to travel in time, created by the trauma of the regeneration and possibly the violent cosmological disturbances surrounding it". Something similar but different happens in Trial of a Time Lord, but a description would be massively spoilery for that story, and again none of the writers or fans can agree about the actual mechanics of it.
Not just Castrovalva but also Logopolis remind me of Traken. Watching the stories in the box set made me realise that they really have much the same plot with an ordered but slightly dull and male-dominated Utopia being threatened by the Master.
Yes, the only other story which has this much TARDIS interior stuff is The Invasion of Time, which is about to be released on DVD to tie in with the appearance of a certain species in new Who.
And no, they never really did much with the Master having killed Nyssa's father for characterisation purposes, or Tegan's aunt (who in fanon is often written as having been a mother-figure to her with her actual mother being dead/absent/neglectful). Similarly, the Master was Peri's first villain in Planet of Fire, in the course of which he impersonated (but didn't do anything nasty to in reality) her father. After reading Astonishing X-Men, it makes me lament that they never did any character moment similar to the Emma-Kitty confrontation early in the series between the Master and either Nyssa, Tegan or Peri.
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Date: 2008-04-23 01:12 pm (UTC)Quite. Kassia seeing existence as the Keeper as something terrible for Tremas as well as something taking him away from her was something you could understand, as a viewer. And her original attachment to the Melkor isn't presented as selfish or evil, either.
Re: Melkor not TARDIS - but that brings up another continuity problem. If the Melkor isn't also a TARDIS, the Master's TARDIS and the Master were miniaturized while in it, which in Logopolis is presented as something that renders the Doctor in a really bad state when it happens to him and his TARDIS.
Watching the stories in the box set made me realise that they really have much the same plot with an ordered but slightly dull and male-dominated Utopia being threatened by the Master.
At least Traken has female consuls, not just males, but it's really glaring in the other two cases. With the added twist that the Master actually created the Utopia in question with Castrovalva.
After reading Astonishing X-Men, it makes me lament that they never did any character moment similar to the Emma-Kitty confrontation early in the series between the Master and either Nyssa, Tegan or Peri.
Oh, that would have been great, and what a shame it doesn't exist. At least Martha got her moment of triumph of laughing at the Master and telling him he was fooled after he had enslaved her family for a year. (And Jo got a number of verbal zingers at his expense.)
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Date: 2008-04-23 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 07:04 pm (UTC)Is that the one which starts off with Leela swimming in the TARDIS pool? It's the only story I can remember which featured anything outside the console room other than bedrooms or the cloister. As I recall, it was all location stuff rather than sets.
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Date: 2008-04-23 01:50 pm (UTC)Nyssa comes off very well in her introduction, but she seems rather flat in most subsequent episodes. It's a shame. The Doctor should've taken Kassia. :(
My favorite Four scene so far is in this episode when he's telling the Master to die. It really fits with
As far as Logopolis:
And really, you can't just use "oops, a quarter of the galaxy is gone!" as a plot point and then never have it any effect whatsoever (other than making Nyssa homeless) in future stories.
Yes, can we please retcon this away? Please? Because it a) is dumb b) makes it harder for those of us who enjoy Master!redemption!fic c) makes the Traken political arc retroactively pointless and d) is morally wrong storytelling to kill so many people for so little narrative purpose e) is dumb. Maybe it was just a clever illusion to play with Nyssa's brain because the Master wanted a 3-way with her and the Doctor. Or something.
And of course the emotional effect this must have had on an audience that had watched Tom Baker as the Doctor for seven years is something that unfortunately eludes me.
Yep...at the end I was feeling 'Yay! New Doctor!' But I like Five very much. I love his helplessness and confusion and the way this sometimes makes him more of an observer than a protagonist. I like the Doctor best when he's the mentor or inspiration to the arc's hero rather than the hero of the arc. (I like this about Six as well, although he's sometimes more a goad than a mentor.) I definitely felt this in Castrovalva, which can sort of be summarized as 'Tegan and Nyssa fight with the Master over who gets to take the Doctor home.' Although the Castrovalvans themselves were also interesting - my favorite moment was actually when the Castrovalvans figure out what's going on and rebel against the Master even though it will destroy them.
And how cool is it that the Master creates people with enough free will to figure out his plans and rebel against him? I think this really changes how we understand other episodes where his subordinates rebel against him...he *created* the Castovalvans, he could easily have made them without free will, or just have made them disinclined to rebellion. For that matter, he could've fixed the library so as not to leave such an obvious clue. But it seems that he wanted to be rebelled against. Or at least that he wanted that to be a possibility. I'm still pondering what that means, and its implications for the endless mystery of What the Master is Really About, but it's way cool.
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Date: 2008-04-23 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 07:05 pm (UTC)I also wonder how much free will she had left in the end, i.e. how much first taking the Keeper's place and then surrendering it to Melkor was her decision, and how much was force-by-control-collar. The action did ensure Tremas would not have to become Keeper, after all, so the Master might not have needed to force her, and her own life had been falling apart anyway.
"Clever illusion to play with Nyssa's brain" seems as good a retcon as any. Because such a catastrophe without fallout and important consequences later in the narrative just offends my storytelling sense.
I definitely felt this in Castrovalva, which can sort of be summarized as 'Tegan and Nyssa fight with the Master over who gets to take the Doctor home.'
LOL. But yes, that would be an accurate summary.
Castrovalvans and free will: that is cool, though the Master's policy on free will keeps changing. Obviously, nobody who counts hypnotism as his chief party trick can exactly be fond of free will, but then again, he seems to enjoy it more when people become his subordinates without being brainwashed into it (in its darkest form, this can be illustrated by his glee in keeping the Jones family as slaves, for example), plus it might just be that a world where everyone is predictable because there is no free will is too boring for him.
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Date: 2008-04-23 09:10 pm (UTC)Obviously, nobody who counts hypnotism as his chief party trick can exactly be fond of free will,
Yes...he certainly doesn't have any moral qualms about taking away people's free will. Or about much else, really. My hunch right now is that maybe he wants to be defeated, that for whatever his purposes are they are better served by being overthrown by the people he's subjugating. The Jones family are a great example - he never makes any attempt to use them as hostages, but having them close by ensures that he'll be surrounded by people who want to kill him. So maybe he just likes a challenge, or maybe he doesn't want (or doesn't completely want) to succeed. Hm.
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Date: 2008-04-23 05:35 pm (UTC)Most definitely. And it is exactly this very lack of paternal mentor dynamic between Adric and Five which pays off wonderfully in Earth Shock, where Adric openly addresses his feelings of being neglected. (I could write more, but wouldn't wish to accidentally spoil you, just in case you are planning to watch this particular ep)
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Date: 2008-04-23 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-23 10:02 pm (UTC)Castrovalva seems to be a lot of people's favorite episodes. It's in the top ten for me...
I've gained a better liking for Five, as well as Three, from your reviews. Look forward to more...
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Date: 2008-04-24 04:48 am (UTC)As for seeing the interior of the TARDIS, as people have said, there's "The Invasion of Time" which shows a lot more of the interior, as there is a very long chase sequence in it. There are a few serials in the First Doctor era that show you a bedroom/rest room of sorts and a . . . kitcheny food machine. We also see Romana II's bedroom once, Nyssa and Tegan's bedroom (they share it), Adric's bedroom and, later, Turlough's (he gets Adric's room for some reason).
It's always bothered me on the new series that we never see more of the TARDIS (besides the Wardrobe Room). I know new fans who think it's just the console room and that the Doctor et all just . . . sleep in sleeping bags or something, or only sleep when they're outside of the TARDIS traveling about (like in The Shakespeare Code). Here's a return to companion bedrooms! :D
Anyway.
I much prefer Four's interactions with Adric than I do Five. I tihnk Adric and Five were too similar (boyish super smart nerds), and as a result, they tended to step on each other's toes a lot. Four and Adric seemed to work together a lot better. Ah well. I'm one of the few who really likes Adric.
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Date: 2008-04-24 07:35 am (UTC)I linked some other reviews in my other reply to you which perhaps explain some of the Master-related interest, but my most extensive meta on the character archetype in combination with another character is here (http://selenak.livejournal.com/368910.html).
I much prefer Four's interactions with Adric than I do Five. I tihnk Adric and Five were too similar (boyish super smart nerds), and as a result, they tended to step on each other's toes a lot. Four and Adric seemed to work together a lot better.
I can see that; as I said, I got a certain fatherly vibe from Four which depends not just on age but character difference.
Ah well. I'm one of the few who really likes Adric.
As someone who really likes characters who are despised by fandom at large in other fandoms (to wit: Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars, and I never had a problem with Wesley Crusher, either), i sympathize. I can't say in Adric's case that I'm a fan, but I don't feel antipathy against him, either, and he certainly does not grate the way poor Peri does on screen (though not in the audios!).
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Date: 2008-04-24 08:40 am (UTC)A general "eh" feeling about Adric is how I think most people would react to the character, where so much of fandom against him. It feels to me much like a mob mentality. The BNFs hate Adric, so therefore all the other people hate Adric too, because they want the BNFs to like them, and so on and so forth. It just perpetuates. He's far from the best character in the series, but he's really not half so bad as fandom makes him out to be. (Poor Peri. If only they had allowed her play it British.)
I also hope Turlough will grow on you. You said somewhere he's like a Draco, but Draco was MEANT to be ineffective. What makes you think Turlough is MEANT to be effective? He's really not. He's meant to be useless and pathetic and unable to go through with the evil things he's agreed to do, and claims to be able of doing. There's a wonderful scene in the next serial (Terminus) where he and Tegan are sitting around, and he says, "Do you think you'd ever be able to kill someone?"
He may never be your favorite character, but I certainly wouldn't write him off without seeing the rest of that trilogy and his exit serial.
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Date: 2008-04-24 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 09:22 am (UTC)Methinks they should have kept that Johnny Byrne fellow instead of hiring Christopher Bidmead, because Logopolis is something of a come-down after the heights of Keeper of Traken.
Bidmead was script editor at the time, so he was the nearest the 1963-1989 production set-up had to a 'head writer' for the 1980-1981 season, and had rewritten The Keeper of Traken substantially (though Johnny Byrne seems then to have taken the script back and put his own touches to Bidmead's changes.
And really, you can't just use "oops, a quarter of the galaxy is gone!" as a plot point and then never have it any effect whatsoever (other than making Nyssa homeless) in future stories.
Agreed - in production terms possibly a result of Bidmead's departure from the office and the indecision which seems to have reigned for months over which of the companions was going to leave first.
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Date: 2008-04-24 09:55 am (UTC)i just watched Castrovalva and i was laughing at the master wanting to see the dr one more time and i def had my slash goggles on!
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Date: 2008-04-24 10:47 am (UTC)Just wait until The Five Doctors, if you haven't seen that yet.
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Date: 2008-04-24 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 03:35 pm (UTC)