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selenakOkay, I couldn't resist and have now also watched the last two Fifth Doctor episodes.
Planet of Fire: Turlough fans, be satisfied; I finally see the point of the character and willingly declare he's great here, save for the bit where he doesn't wonder how on earth Peri's stepfather came on board when he didn't let him into the TARDIS, but I suppose we can fanwank that into declaring he knows it's Kamelion influenced by Peri's wishes, he just doesn't known it's Kamelion under thrall of the Master. Otherwise, he's being clever, competent, has a moving departure and totally cracked me up by declaring being condemmed to life as a student in a British public school was a fate worse than death.
Meanwhile, it's the battle of the fake American accents. You know, I have no idea why they did this to Nicola Bryant instead of just letting Peri be an English girl, it's not like her being American is an important plot point. But really, anyone complaining about Tallulah in Daleks in Manhattan hasn't heard Old Who examples. (Not just Peri: I remember the "American" from Claws of Axos...) Mind you, Peri here isn't nearly as badly written as she's in the Six episodes I've watched. They are absolutely blatant with the eye candy factor, stripping her down to a bikini, but she also gets to have a convincing Mexican stand-off with the Kamelion!Master, holding the circuit from the TARDIS, and go after the real thing with her shoe, so I can't be annoyed. Though I maintain that the Master's utter failure to hypnotize Peri here and in Mark of the Rani but be the most embarassing thing that ever happened to him (other than the obvious, i.e. the self-shrinking which lead to his dilemma in this episode). Visual records of this would have cheered Martha and Jack up to no end in the year that wasn't.
Speaking of the Master, of course it's basically impossible to be unspoiled for what happens to him at the end of this story, but what I didn't know was the degree of sadism and cruelty they let him exhibit earlier. I've seen it questioned why the Doctor reaches the point where he's not just willing to let the Master die but actually goes through with it here and not, say, in earlier stories like Logopolis where the Master managed to destroy a quarter of the universe by accident (still a stupid plot point due to a complete lack of follow-up), or in situations where it was the Master's life versus someone else's, which isn't the case here. Well, given that earlier on we see the Master order a couple of helpless people (as well as the Doctor himself) to be burned alive with glee, I'm surprised people are surprised. Not that he hasn't casually killed before, or gone through various killing-the-Doctor attempts (some sincere, some not so much), but usually as a by product of his scheme du jour. Here, the ordered deaths were superfluous to his aim (using the restorative gas), and completely gratuitous sadism. So the Doctor reaching the point in this story where he thinks this is it, there is nothing salvagable there anymore and he has to finish him for good worked for me in terms of emotional logic, especially since this seems to be immediately after Resurrection of the Daleks where he angsted a lot about whether or not to kill Davros and by not killing him caused much more damage. Mind you, since this is Five, nicest and most passive of the Doctors, the act leaves him thunderstruck and dying in the next story. Given Five regenerating from Four was mostly the Master's fault, there is a great symmetry here which reminds me of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bimo's observation that the Five/Ainley!Master dynamic is not a Yin/Yang or shadow doppelganger one as with Three/Delgado!Master or Ten/Simm!Master, it's a bad fairy godmother/ haunted child one, helped by the age difference of the actors as well.
Sidenote: the Master's last words, "...would you do that to your own..." probably mean at that point the producers were toying with the idea of making him the Doctor's brother, but since he doesn't finish the sentence, and Sound of Drums has dismissed the possibility, whatever he was going to say is still in the era of speculation. Any favourite fanon about that?
Otherwise, Planet of Fire sports the "religious belief system created by what actually was accident during original settlement" plot called too Star-Trek-like in a recent New Who episode, and people in Arab-style clothing but thankfully without fake Oriental accents. Am torn whether or not the Arab look was meant to actually code their belief system as Muslim or not, but probably DW had just run out of expensive costumes and those were leftovers from some other show.
Speaking of costumes: to restore some equality to the blatant objectivication of Nicola Bryant's admirable figure, Planet of Fire also gives us Peter Davison in shirt and suspenders, looking dishier than in any other Five episode I've watched, and Mark Strickson in shorts (which New Who producer Phil Collinson reminisces fondly about in the Five Doctors easter egg commentary). Even Anthony Ainley is allowed to be mostly rid of the silly ruffles in favour of a black suit, which works far better for him than the vaguely Trakenite look. Thank you, BBC, that was very thoughtful, all of it.
And then I finally reached the finale, which I knew was Peter Davison's favourite episode of his era, and which routinely ends up on a lot of Top Ten lists when it comes to Old Who in general. Having now watched The Caves of Androzani, I can see why, though I doubt I'll watch it again soon. I mean, I do love some angst and dark storytelling, but man, if a story makes vintage Blake's 7 look optimistic about humanity by comparison... Though as in B7, Robert Holmes (whose name in the credits instantly makes one feel good about the quality of an episode) has a knack of invidualizing mercenaries, bureaucrats and politicians; they're all sharp little character portraits in his stories, the interaction rings real, and you never wonder who is who. Mind you, basically the only two humans portrayed not as entirely selfish and greedy were the captain and his android-doubled subordinate, and of course they were wiped out in their ambush-gone-awry. Jek's Phantom-of-the-Opera storyline with Peri was too creepy to humanize him, or maybe that was the camera which moved up and down on Peri's delirious body as much as his hands and eyes did.
While we're talking Peri: aaand I see the Six era characterisation coming. She's entirely a victim here, not able to contribute anything because for most of the story, she's sick and dying. Her scenes with the Doctor at the start of the story are oddly touching, though, precisely because you get the sense that they're still little more than strangers to each other, he's still very much subdued and traumatized from Planet of Fire events, and here she is, on that journey she wanted, but with a guy she doesn't know and whom his previous companion not too helpfully has told her to take care of, but no more. (BTW, I agree withlondonkds that this makes the placement of the Five era audios between these two episodes very unlikely, but otoh they do so much better with Peri's characterisation that I can not mind. Even if active and cheerful Five in the audios between Planet of Fire and Caves doesn't make sense, either.)
Caves of Androzani has a very fanfictionish feeling to it when it comes to the Doctor because between getting captured, beaten, tortured a bit, getting lethally sick and finally dying to save his companion, the only thing that would be different if fans were writing it would be that there would be sex. (At least in canon, the poor guy doesn't get raped.) Since this is an unrelentingly vicious version of the Whoverse, Five can't make any changes to society or save the world; he can only save Peri, at the expense of his own life, and given the way Peter Davison plays him throughout the episode, one could argue he's been looking for a good cause to sacrifice himself for; he's that exhausted and despairing. (With a brief shot of energy in the shuttle, and now I know whatx_los meant when pointing out Jenny's last scene in The Doctor's Daughter was full of visual parallels.) The actual death scene, with the Doctor unsure whether he'll be able to regenerate while having visions of his companions telling him to live but the will to live and regeneration kicking in when a vision of the Master tells him to die worked both in regards to the previous episode and as a counterpoint to the regeneration scene from Logopolis. Which is as good a place as any to mention my reactions to the regeneration scenes:
Two to Three (though we don't actually see Three, we just see Two disappearing in the dark): omg that's sad and traumatizing. Yikes. British tv: traumatizing children since the 60s, not just since Chris Boucher stole Christmas.
Three to Four: awwwwww. With the Brig and Sarah Jane at his side. Makes me cry, but in a good way.
Four to Five: the Watcher thing may have looked good on paper, but the execution... also, suffers by comparison to Three's death scene used in flashback here.
Six to Seven: he hits his head on a console - are you serious?
Seven to Eight: You American bastards. That movie is full of indignities, but I shall never forgive you for killing off my favourite Doctor like that.
Nine to Ten: that was so the TARDIS kissing him, but okay. Am moved. And curious about the newbie.
Now, Five to Six: falls into the Three category of "sad but satisfying end". Six starting his tenure by immediately snarking at Peri ("that's three "I"s in one sentence" - the Doctor was always a grammar fiend!) is an effective contrast to the emo before, and only with the knowledge of how this foreshadows the decidedly unpleasant bickering to come is it somewhat darkened. The famous strangling attempt is at the start of the next episode, I take it? I can see why it's not here, it would have made an already dark episode beyond evil. Instead, one can see why Six says "and not a moment too soon". Going with the theory that each regeneration reacts to events of the previous existence, brash aggressive Six coming out of passive and traumatized Five makes absolute sense. Ave atque vale, Five. You will be missed.
Planet of Fire: Turlough fans, be satisfied; I finally see the point of the character and willingly declare he's great here, save for the bit where he doesn't wonder how on earth Peri's stepfather came on board when he didn't let him into the TARDIS, but I suppose we can fanwank that into declaring he knows it's Kamelion influenced by Peri's wishes, he just doesn't known it's Kamelion under thrall of the Master. Otherwise, he's being clever, competent, has a moving departure and totally cracked me up by declaring being condemmed to life as a student in a British public school was a fate worse than death.
Meanwhile, it's the battle of the fake American accents. You know, I have no idea why they did this to Nicola Bryant instead of just letting Peri be an English girl, it's not like her being American is an important plot point. But really, anyone complaining about Tallulah in Daleks in Manhattan hasn't heard Old Who examples. (Not just Peri: I remember the "American" from Claws of Axos...) Mind you, Peri here isn't nearly as badly written as she's in the Six episodes I've watched. They are absolutely blatant with the eye candy factor, stripping her down to a bikini, but she also gets to have a convincing Mexican stand-off with the Kamelion!Master, holding the circuit from the TARDIS, and go after the real thing with her shoe, so I can't be annoyed. Though I maintain that the Master's utter failure to hypnotize Peri here and in Mark of the Rani but be the most embarassing thing that ever happened to him (other than the obvious, i.e. the self-shrinking which lead to his dilemma in this episode). Visual records of this would have cheered Martha and Jack up to no end in the year that wasn't.
Speaking of the Master, of course it's basically impossible to be unspoiled for what happens to him at the end of this story, but what I didn't know was the degree of sadism and cruelty they let him exhibit earlier. I've seen it questioned why the Doctor reaches the point where he's not just willing to let the Master die but actually goes through with it here and not, say, in earlier stories like Logopolis where the Master managed to destroy a quarter of the universe by accident (still a stupid plot point due to a complete lack of follow-up), or in situations where it was the Master's life versus someone else's, which isn't the case here. Well, given that earlier on we see the Master order a couple of helpless people (as well as the Doctor himself) to be burned alive with glee, I'm surprised people are surprised. Not that he hasn't casually killed before, or gone through various killing-the-Doctor attempts (some sincere, some not so much), but usually as a by product of his scheme du jour. Here, the ordered deaths were superfluous to his aim (using the restorative gas), and completely gratuitous sadism. So the Doctor reaching the point in this story where he thinks this is it, there is nothing salvagable there anymore and he has to finish him for good worked for me in terms of emotional logic, especially since this seems to be immediately after Resurrection of the Daleks where he angsted a lot about whether or not to kill Davros and by not killing him caused much more damage. Mind you, since this is Five, nicest and most passive of the Doctors, the act leaves him thunderstruck and dying in the next story. Given Five regenerating from Four was mostly the Master's fault, there is a great symmetry here which reminds me of
bimo's observation that the Five/Ainley!Master dynamic is not a Yin/Yang or shadow doppelganger one as with Three/Delgado!Master or Ten/Simm!Master, it's a bad fairy godmother/ haunted child one, helped by the age difference of the actors as well. Sidenote: the Master's last words, "...would you do that to your own..." probably mean at that point the producers were toying with the idea of making him the Doctor's brother, but since he doesn't finish the sentence, and Sound of Drums has dismissed the possibility, whatever he was going to say is still in the era of speculation. Any favourite fanon about that?
Otherwise, Planet of Fire sports the "religious belief system created by what actually was accident during original settlement" plot called too Star-Trek-like in a recent New Who episode, and people in Arab-style clothing but thankfully without fake Oriental accents. Am torn whether or not the Arab look was meant to actually code their belief system as Muslim or not, but probably DW had just run out of expensive costumes and those were leftovers from some other show.
Speaking of costumes: to restore some equality to the blatant objectivication of Nicola Bryant's admirable figure, Planet of Fire also gives us Peter Davison in shirt and suspenders, looking dishier than in any other Five episode I've watched, and Mark Strickson in shorts (which New Who producer Phil Collinson reminisces fondly about in the Five Doctors easter egg commentary). Even Anthony Ainley is allowed to be mostly rid of the silly ruffles in favour of a black suit, which works far better for him than the vaguely Trakenite look. Thank you, BBC, that was very thoughtful, all of it.
And then I finally reached the finale, which I knew was Peter Davison's favourite episode of his era, and which routinely ends up on a lot of Top Ten lists when it comes to Old Who in general. Having now watched The Caves of Androzani, I can see why, though I doubt I'll watch it again soon. I mean, I do love some angst and dark storytelling, but man, if a story makes vintage Blake's 7 look optimistic about humanity by comparison... Though as in B7, Robert Holmes (whose name in the credits instantly makes one feel good about the quality of an episode) has a knack of invidualizing mercenaries, bureaucrats and politicians; they're all sharp little character portraits in his stories, the interaction rings real, and you never wonder who is who. Mind you, basically the only two humans portrayed not as entirely selfish and greedy were the captain and his android-doubled subordinate, and of course they were wiped out in their ambush-gone-awry. Jek's Phantom-of-the-Opera storyline with Peri was too creepy to humanize him, or maybe that was the camera which moved up and down on Peri's delirious body as much as his hands and eyes did.
While we're talking Peri: aaand I see the Six era characterisation coming. She's entirely a victim here, not able to contribute anything because for most of the story, she's sick and dying. Her scenes with the Doctor at the start of the story are oddly touching, though, precisely because you get the sense that they're still little more than strangers to each other, he's still very much subdued and traumatized from Planet of Fire events, and here she is, on that journey she wanted, but with a guy she doesn't know and whom his previous companion not too helpfully has told her to take care of, but no more. (BTW, I agree with
londonkds that this makes the placement of the Five era audios between these two episodes very unlikely, but otoh they do so much better with Peri's characterisation that I can not mind. Even if active and cheerful Five in the audios between Planet of Fire and Caves doesn't make sense, either.) Caves of Androzani has a very fanfictionish feeling to it when it comes to the Doctor because between getting captured, beaten, tortured a bit, getting lethally sick and finally dying to save his companion, the only thing that would be different if fans were writing it would be that there would be sex. (At least in canon, the poor guy doesn't get raped.) Since this is an unrelentingly vicious version of the Whoverse, Five can't make any changes to society or save the world; he can only save Peri, at the expense of his own life, and given the way Peter Davison plays him throughout the episode, one could argue he's been looking for a good cause to sacrifice himself for; he's that exhausted and despairing. (With a brief shot of energy in the shuttle, and now I know what
x_los meant when pointing out Jenny's last scene in The Doctor's Daughter was full of visual parallels.) The actual death scene, with the Doctor unsure whether he'll be able to regenerate while having visions of his companions telling him to live but the will to live and regeneration kicking in when a vision of the Master tells him to die worked both in regards to the previous episode and as a counterpoint to the regeneration scene from Logopolis. Which is as good a place as any to mention my reactions to the regeneration scenes:Two to Three (though we don't actually see Three, we just see Two disappearing in the dark): omg that's sad and traumatizing. Yikes. British tv: traumatizing children since the 60s, not just since Chris Boucher stole Christmas.
Three to Four: awwwwww. With the Brig and Sarah Jane at his side. Makes me cry, but in a good way.
Four to Five: the Watcher thing may have looked good on paper, but the execution... also, suffers by comparison to Three's death scene used in flashback here.
Six to Seven: he hits his head on a console - are you serious?
Seven to Eight: You American bastards. That movie is full of indignities, but I shall never forgive you for killing off my favourite Doctor like that.
Nine to Ten: that was so the TARDIS kissing him, but okay. Am moved. And curious about the newbie.
Now, Five to Six: falls into the Three category of "sad but satisfying end". Six starting his tenure by immediately snarking at Peri ("that's three "I"s in one sentence" - the Doctor was always a grammar fiend!) is an effective contrast to the emo before, and only with the knowledge of how this foreshadows the decidedly unpleasant bickering to come is it somewhat darkened. The famous strangling attempt is at the start of the next episode, I take it? I can see why it's not here, it would have made an already dark episode beyond evil. Instead, one can see why Six says "and not a moment too soon". Going with the theory that each regeneration reacts to events of the previous existence, brash aggressive Six coming out of passive and traumatized Five makes absolute sense. Ave atque vale, Five. You will be missed.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:08 pm (UTC)...husband?
Just a guess. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:13 pm (UTC)Non slashers tend to say "... best friend", or more generally "... kind". Slashers, well, you can guess.
And the strangling takes place about halfway through the next episode, he initially seems relatively OK after the regen but then goes more and more unstable.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 07:30 pm (UTC)They wanted an American for Peri. So.. Nicola auditioned and pretended to be an American got the part and kept the accent up for several months before coming clean. The way she tells it no one rumbled her either which is what she was hoping would happen.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 04:14 am (UTC)...um, maybe the people she auditioned for never heard a real American talking? *is mystified*
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 04:11 am (UTC)Thanks for pointing it out!