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how-masterful · 2 years

Text

Remastered

Dhawan!Master x Reader

The Power of The Doctor - Part One

Summary: This is it. This is the day the Doctor dies. The plan is slowly falling into place, and the Master is ready for the show. UNIT and the Doctor have their questions, but the main ones are clear- What is he up to? What is going on in 1916 Russia? And why does nobody know where you are?

Notes: This is it! The big one! So big in fact, it has to go over 2 parts! The culmination of a month of daily fics, this remaster is the finale of my 31 fics of fright series (technically 32 now! Halloween part 2!). We were sufficiently fed with master content, and I was absolutely thrilled that it went out on my birthday! So enjoy part one of this remaster. My longest fic to date! As always, this is dedicated to @plethora-of-imagines. Enjoy the roast session, and wish me luck for part 2!

Warnings: Cannon typical violence, mentions of death

A knock came at the door to the cabin, the winter wind bellowing beyond the wooden walls. The woman glanced over towards the desk, her husband’s pen placed down delicately onto the parchment. She made her way to stand, hiking her skirts and placing a hand upon the shoulder of her lover.

“I’ll get it.” She said softly, before crossing over to the door. The latch opened easily, her eyes falling upon the soldier present at the door. The rosy cheeked military man gave a small bow of respect, her hand resting upon her hip, the winter chill biting at her nose. Removing his hat, he held it within his hands.

“Madam Praskovya,” He said. “I have been sent on a matter of urgency from the Tsarina. Is your husband home?”

The floor creaked beside you, the figure at the desk moving to stand. Footsteps made their way across the wooden boards, the man emerging to present himself at the door.

“Father Grigori, your presence is urgently required at the Winter Palace. The Tsaravich has been taken ill.”

The figure nodded quickly, turning his head to glance upon his wife.

“Fetch my cloak, my dear.” He said urgently, before blowing out the candle upon the desk.

“If we correlate the latest tremor detection data, with the aforementioned ground deformation measurements-”

The familiar voice from the conference hall grew louder as the Doctor and Yaz traversed down the corridor. The light bled into the wooden room from the doorway, the Doctor positioning herself as a shadow before the dark. Yaz stayed close behind, her teeth already on edge. She remembered, vividly though not fondly, what happened the last time she left the Doctor alone with the Master. That was a scenario she was keen to avoid this time, with more of the universe under her belt.

This Yaz was older and wiser than the one who had taken the first step onto Gallifrey. This woman had faced the Flux, travelled the world in the 1900’s, fought sword to sword with Sea Devils and beaten the Daleks to midnight. This Yaz had learned to fly the TARDIS. This Yasmin Khan was ready for anything. Yet despite her newfound confidence, a part of her still trembled at the sound of his voice. He was still the Master after all.

The Doctor showed no fear as she stood at the top of the staircase, her eyes falling to the pews filled with shrunken TCE victims. Yaz had tugged on the sleeve of her coat, her attention falling to the rest of the room. There were dozens of them, tiny figures lining the seats. The Master had killed them all.

It was then the Doctor realised the Master had stopped talking. Turning back to the podium she saw him leaning against the wood, a smug smirk on his face. The look was new, his messy hair now neatened and curled, face cleanly shaven. At least he hadn’t devolved into a full goatee like last time. He’d forgone the purple and dressed himself in a tweed jacket and colourful shirt, a pair of suspenders hung over his shoulders. The Doctor scoffed internally. If he’d added a bowtie, he’d have been the spit of her old self. She supposed the mockery was likely intentional.

From beyond his tortoise shell glasses The Master peered at the Doctor and Yaz, wiggling his fingers in a taunting wave. He pushed himself from the podium, swaggering to the front of the stage as he placed a hand on his hip.

“Do you like my seismologist collection? I think I've got the whole set now. First time I picked one up I swore to myself I wouldn't get addicted again, think of the storage space- But then I found out some of them were rare and you know me, such a completionist-”

“Is this just a ramble session or is there a point to your little breadcrumb trail?”

The Doctor said, copying the Master's pose from her position near the bottom of the steps. Yaz found her head bouncing between the pair like a game of tennis, shadowing just behind the Doctor. The Master scrunched his nose, crossing one foot over the other.

“Oh go on, what’ve you got so far?”

“Well, according to some you’re Rasputin, your cyber minions have stolen a quarunx, and all of a sudden there’s a second moon above 1916 Russia. Only it’s not a moon, it’s another planet. Made of metal. Wired up to a TARDIS. Do I get bingo if I say it’s one you made yourself?”

The Master nodded along, counting on his fingers sarcastically at each point, the Doctor stepping down a stair with each moment of emphasis. By now she was on the main floor, watching as the Master pulled the pair of glasses from his face and slid them into his top pocket.

“And do I get a full house if I figure out how it all fits together, or are you just going to explain it all to me with that smug look on your face?”

The Master smirked, hopping down from the stage and raising his hands in surrender.

“Be patient, we’ll get there eventually. By the way, hello to you too-”

“How did you escape Gallifrey? How are you still alive?”

The Master chuckled, raising an eyebrow.

“How many times, Doctor- It’s almost like you’re still surprised. If you paid a little more attention to detail, maybe you would know. Speaking of-”

The Master turned to face Yaz, strolling past the Doctor to lean against the front row of pews. He made a good effort to bump her shoulder on the way, the Doctor rolling her eyes as he went.

“Travelling a little thin on the ground, aren't you, Doctor? No room in the TARDIS for the whole Brady Bunch? I get why you dropped the boring one, I could never remember his name anyway. No hard feelings Yaz, but I was hoping if at least one of you was going to stick around it would be Graham. But then again, no prizes for guessing why you lasted longest. She has a bit of a thing for earth girls.”

“I could say the same thing about you.” Yaz said, pushing back her shoulders and sending the Master a steely glare.

“Where’s yours? I thought she’d be sitting in the front row drawing love hearts around your name in a notebook. Don’t tell me you got dumped.”

The Master smirked, tilting his head and looking Yaz up and down.

“That shade of green doesn’t suit, Yaz. I know you were rather fond of O, but as a married man I cannot sanction all this flirting-”

“And I can’t sanction all this killing. Why?”

The Master sighed, turning to face the Doctor and moving off from the edge of the pew. The Doctor pulled her gaze from Yaz, the proud burst within her chest hardening into disdain as the Master stood inches from her face. The Masters expression softened, eyes melting from his devious glare into wide eyed innocence. For a moment the Doctor found herself back in Australia, staring at the face of a supposed friend. But the dark reality came seeping back at his words. By now her friends, both new and old, were long gone. This was all that remained of the pair of them.

“To give you a simple warning, Doctor. Leave earth, right now. Or it will be the death of you.”

“Why, finally going to make good on all those threats?”

“Because this is the day you are erased.”

“I’ve dealt with that before-”

“From existence,” The Master whispered. “Not just history. This, Doctor, is the day you die.”

The two Timelords stood before one another, almost daring each other to break away from each other's gazes. They were old eyes, each gaze burning with a thousand memories of the universe. Shared histories, crossed paths. Broken trust, broken hearts. The Doctor's cogs were turning in her brain at full throttle, trying to poke a single hole in the Master's exterior that would break open his entire facade. But there was no speck of dishonesty within the Masters hypnotic stare. That was the most worrying part of all.

Eventually, the Master broke the stand off with a melodramatic sigh.

“Wow, quite the conversation stopper. Bit awkward, right Yaz? You see-”

All the energy had returned to the Master's body, his feet dancing across the floor as he slid towards Yaz’s chest. Yaz grit her teeth together, letting her eyes shut as the Master brought his face close to her own. She could feel the villainy radiating off of him like a stench of evil. She’d learned how to sense this sort of thing. Memory always put a vile taste in her mouth. The Master was no exception.

“Now she’s stuck and doesn’t know what to do, because I've just been brilliant and made her second guess everything. She doesn’t want to leave, because she doesn’t trust a single thing I have to say, which quite frankly, my hearts doth break. But she ALSO knows she has to take it seriously, because when I make a threat, it’s no empty one. Scouts honour. Cross my broken hearts, hope to die- we have to hope, because we both know, that never tends to happen-”

The Masters maddened rambles were cut short by a commotion at the back of the room. The Master whipped around in a frenzy as the soldiers of UNIT began to filter into the room, the harsh clatter of police boots stomping down the stairs, every possible exit slamming open as the soldiers began to pour in. Yaz stepped to the Doctor's side and watched as the soldiers began to encircle the Master, the Timelord spinning in a circle not unlike a dog before it sat down. His eyes were busy with thought, his hands once more raised in surrender as the backup descended on their prey, the Master scrunching his nose at the Doctor and chuckling.

“Oh, you brought soldiers! Are these for me? You shouldn’t have!”

The Master spread his arms wide as the soldiers stomped their way onto the floor, finding himself unable to withhold a smirk as he watched one crush a shrunken doll beneath their feet.

“Oh dear, there goes all hope of solving climate change. Those poor polar bears!”

The soldiers, now seemingly privy to the Masters taunting, began to watch their step as they made their way to make the arrest. The Doctor watched with her perfected poker face, the Master smirking as the soldiers took grasp of his arms and began to pull them into cuffs. He shifted uncomfortably, rolling his shoulders and gasping.

“Oh, gentle, gentle boys! It’s a good job my wife’s not here, she’s really into this sort of thing. A good old bit of roughhousing.”

The Master read the name badge upon the soldiers’ uniform, and caught the Doctor's glare with a devious glimmer in his eye.

“Am I going to UNIT? I really hope I am.”

Yaz glanced towards the Doctor. The Timelord was breathing heavily, though she was doing a good job at hiding it. The Doctor looked at the soldiers around her, and memories came flooding back. The last time this situation occurred, with Missy and Kate in London, it had cost the life of Osgood. She knew the Master had more up his sleeve than he was letting on. To leave him alone without any supervision would be to sign the death warrant of all the soldiers in the room.

Maybe he was right, perhaps it was a good thing you weren’t here, no matter why. You weren’t here to encourage him. But you also weren’t here to hold him back.

“Give her a gun.”

The Doctor said bluntly, and the world around her sprung into action. The soldiers, guns aimed at the Master already, intensified their grip. Yaz rushed towards the Doctor with concern, confusion riddled over her face. Even the Master seemed slightly confused, his eyes panning between the Doctor, Yaz, and the handgun that had been thrust from the pocket of a soldier- now primed and ready to be taken. This was new. This was interesting. This meant the Doctor was deadly serious about what was about to occur. The Master found himself sufficiently excited, pressing his lips together to suppress his laugh.

“What?” Yaz asked, her hand lingering in the same spot on the Doctor's arm.

“Why?”

“Cover him. We’re going to take him in the TARDIS. Take the gun.”

“C’mon Yaz,” The Master singsonged, watching her squirm with sick pleasure.

“I thought she didn’t like guns. She must be worried. C’mon, I'll accept it as an apology for insulting my marriage.”

The Master grinned as Yaz accepted the gun, her gaze lingering on the Doctor's eyes. He watched as something unspoken spread between the pair, the Doctor urging Yaz with just the power of her glance. Yaz could see the Doctor was worried, she’d learnt the microexpressions upon the Timelord’s face by heart. All those years of that hologram, she knew what the smile lines at her eyes meant, the furrow of her brow at her anxieties. The Doctor was anticipating the worst. Yaz knew this meant she had to be at her best.

“There you go. Do you need me to show you how to use it, dear?”

Yaz cocked the gun and aimed it directly at the Masters head. She stared at him with hatred down the metal barrel, her finger primed and ready at the trigger. The months and months of police weapons training still lingered in the memory of her muscles, her shoulders hardening as she watched her target.

“The only green I've been is in weapons training. So don’t you worry. Now move.”

The Doctor watched as the Master relinquished his resistance, the UNIT soldiers flanking every side of his body as he was paraded towards the same staircase the Doctor arrived from. Yaz stayed at his tail as he was yanked up the stairs, the Master glancing over his shoulder towards the conference room with a dramatic sigh.

“We’ll pick up on the volcanic ash radius next time. Great chat, brilliant questions. Nice to see some familiar faces. Oh and boys, when you’re done stamping on them, clean up the tiny bodies and inform the loved ones for me. It was Daniel's wedding anniversary, his husband will be so upset!”

The Doctor watched the troupe of UNIT soldiers disappear from the room, a dark feeling twisting in her gut. Everything was so… disjointed. She had the larger pieces of the puzzle to hand, but there were still gaping holes in the picture, one shaped just like you. She knew the Master, and she knew you.

If you really were gone, she also would have known by now. The Master would have pulled something ridiculous- gone on another rampage, destroyed a civilization, scorched a message into the side of a planet begging you to come back. It was the most dangerous part of this current face of his. Beyond his temper, his disdain for good, and his seemingly self destructive nature- he had you.

You were somehow a part of this plot, the Doctor knew for sure. Only where you fit in, and how, were still a mystery to her. All she knew was that your card was still in the deck, and the Master had still to play it. The Doctor sighed as she followed the crowd. Something big was about to come over the horizon.

Though luckily, she still had her own cards up her sleeve- she still had her Tegan and her Ace.

“Tsarina, Rasputin and Mrs Dubrovina approaches.”

A maid declared to the Tsarina of Russia, the grand doors to the Winter Palace opening on command. The man from the cabin and his partner strolled elegantly into the hall, the man's hand reaching forwards to accept the touch of the Tsarina.

“Father Grigori, Madam Praskovya, thank you for coming. It is my son…”

“His haemophilia is a cruel illness.” The woman said softly, Madam Praskovya nodding at the presence of the Tsar at the planning table.

“Such a cruel illness, such a small injury… it is a test of faith indeed.”

“That is the problem I face, dear Father.” The Tsarina admitted through a pained whisper.

“I fear my faith is failing- I worry he has worsened, ever since the second moon emerged in the sky.”

“Such cosmic wonders are nothing to be feared, Tsarina. As I'm sure Father Grigori has told you, the universe is a benevolent leader.”

“Indeed, my dear Praskovya. A new moon, a new test of faith. Times such as these are sent to strengthen our faith, to test our commitment. They are a challenge we should not fall to.”

“I simply fear-”

“You should fear not. You should trust in my words, in the advice of Madam Praskovya. You should place your trust in us. In me.”

“But how-”

Rasputin's words were careful, soft and intentful as he met the Tsarina’s gaze.

“Are my eyes not full of certainty?”

Indeed they were. The Tsarina felt the compulsion within her, the hypnotic pull of command that eased her back into the comfort of obedience. She could trust Rasputin and Mrs Dubrovina. She must trust Rasputin and Mrs Dubrovina.

“They are.” She whispered, before falling back in line.

“Put him in the bunker. Full security detail, constant monitoring. I don’t want him out of our sight.” Kate commanded, the UNIT soldiers standing to attention from the moment the TARDIS had materialised inside HQ.

The Master gave a hop step as he sauntered out of the TARDIS, the strong arms of the UNIT personnel returning to grasp hold of his handcuffs. The corridor was flanked like a bridal procession- soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, every inch of path the Master was about to walk down armed to the teeth. The Master smirked at Kate Stewart, standing there in all her familiar glory. Unknowingly still stood in the looming shadow of her father. One that everybody still casted her in, no matter how hard they denied it.

“Learned from last time, eh Kate? Ooh the bunker! Sounds so dramatic!”

The Master gave another hop step, the arms of the soldiers keeping him in the air. If he were any other Master on any other day, he might have proceeded to swing his way down the corridor like a child. That was more Missy’s style, however. He liked to think he still kept her fun side, not for a lack of heels and a lack of trying.

“I do love a good bunker. Anybody want to join in? Bunk up in the bunker? As long as you don’t snore.”

The Doctor had slipped out of the TARDIS behind the Master, watching him stroll down the corridor with a stone faced expression. Yaz had followed, standing beside her with the gun hanging from her hand. A soldier had opened their palm for her to place the firearm in, and she’d accepted the opportunity with thanks. As much as she hated the Master, she hated guns even more. That was something she’d proudly learned from the Doctor. Guns never solved anything.

The Master suddenly stopped, leaning over his shoulder. Kate had followed him behind, keeping a watchful eye on her prisoner. The Master smiled sickly, leering towards her face.

“You can try all you want Kate, you’ll never be your father. As much as an idiot he was. Your dad had a bespoke little prison made just for me, meanwhile you’re about to throw me in some ratty old cage like an animal. You pulled this stunt last time with the plane. That Briga-dear old dad of yours had a little more respect for me than that.”

Kate smirked, her resolve firm as she stepped closer towards the Master. She’d been preparing for this moment for years, her institution ready ever since the Cyber invasion in 2014. It was the nature of the Lethbridge-Stewart line: every one of them was able to handle the likes of the Master. Or at least, they prided themselves on trying to. No matter how hard the situation seemed.

“You seem to believe I harbour any respect for you at all.” Kate replied, unflinching.

“I suggest you correct that before you rot in the basement of my building. It’ll make things easier for you.”

“Awe, spoken like a true Lethbridge- Stewart. Don’t try and play the girlboss, darling. That was my thing. You think you got this job because you earned it? Tell me, how can the head of scientific research fail her GCSE Maths twice?”

Kate leant in closer, narrowing her eyes and curving her lips into a grin.

“I should start charging you rent, the amount of times you’ve been held captive in one of my facilities.”

“Are you offering frequent foe stamp cards?”

“You wouldn’t qualify. That would suggest we see you as an enemy worth our time.”

The Master grinned, his voice velvet smooth, tongue pricked and tainted with venom.

“If we’re so keen on saving time, why don’t you point out your favourite assistants to me now and I can kill them like I killed Osgood?”

The Master turned away, feeling victorious in his endeavour. He liked to believe he was above such trivial matters as a petty verbal squabble. He liked to think it, but he knew he wasn’t.

The biggest surprise to the Timelord came as he passed under the top deck, emerging out of the corridor and into the main hub of the building. He glanced over every face, each sad state of affairs that bore the UNIT logo upon their chest or name tag. There were soldiers, scientists, assistants and interns. Poor souls hired to pour the coffee. Merely additives to the death toll that was to come later.

But stood on the stairs, oh what a treat. The Master broke into a gasp of delight at the sight of two old faces leaning over the balcony of the stairs, two of the Doctor's old companions stood waiting for him to arrive. Tegan and Ace, those old friends of hers. Certainly, much older than they were when the Master first met them. Still holding the same glare of hatred. Some things never changed, he thought. It was nice to know they still held him in such high disregard.

“Oh, Tegan Jovanka!” He grinned, casting his glance towards the Australian woman. Oh, how wonderful her narrow eyed glare was.

“How’s your Aunty Vanessa? Do you keep ‘er in a liccle doll’s house?”

He teased in a silly voice, watching her face morph into a fury. It was rather adorable.

“Aur naur, hit a nerve did I?”

“I’m going to enjoy watching you get locked up in a tiny cell.”

“That's it, you go girl. Stick it to the Master. Speaking of tiny, where’s that little wife of yours? I expected you to be taking high tea on Trakken with the other ladies of the royal court, not skulking around UNIT in your sensible shoes. Oh don’t tell me… did Nyssa leave you too?”

The Doctor's glare began to burn a hole in the back of the Master's head, her eyes staring daggers into his mess of hair. Yaz watched as her stoic face began to silently crumble, the Master's words digging deep into her guilt. Tegan gave a disgruntled huff.

“Aw, bless. Well If you see her, let her know I made good use of her daddy’s body. Of course, after a few genocides he began to wear a bit thin. So she can sleep easily knowing people around the universe quake in fear at the thought of him, and he’s currently burned out of existence.”

“You destroyed Trakken, you ignorant dick.” Tegan hissed coldly, leaning further over the railing. Ace took hold of her arm to stop her lunging across the bar to throttle him. The Master gasped proudly.

“Did I?”

“When you thought it was a brilliant idea to unwrite reality.”

“Oh wow, I genuinely didn’t know. Oi, Kate, are you hearing this?” The Master called over his shoulder towards the head of UNIT.

“Unwriting reality, destroying planets. Sounds like stamp card material to me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Ace called from the top of the staircase, her hand still holding on to Tegan's arm. The Master turned to look back at the pair, smirking fondly at the woman in the striped suit.

“And Ace too! Aren’t I lucky! Or should I call you Dorothy? Are we a bit too old for our old gang nicknames, or are the 80’s well and truly back?”

“You’re one to talk, Master.” She spat, looking the renegade Timelord up and down. The Master shrugged his shoulders indignantly.

“See, doesn’t it sound nice? Rolls off the tongue. Like your Prrrofessor. Or is that a sore spot for you, considering she ditched you?”

The Doctor was a few steps away from charging down the corridor, but she knew better. The Master was buying time, enjoying picking at the threads of each and every person in the building. It was all he had, now he’d been caught. He was like a bratty child, trying to grab attention while being ignored.

“A little fall out, perhaps? With your machiavellian maestro?”

Ace leant forward across the railing, knuckles white against the metal.

“Last time I saw you, you were half cat.” She hissed, glaring down at the Timelord. The Master smirked, looking from side to side at the two soldiers that had kept a tight grasp on his collar and arm. He remembered the Cheetah planet well, the effects still burning hot within him.

“A man’s allowed to experiment.” He grinned, baring his teeth and turning his hands into claws.

“I mean seriously, is this the best you could do? The Aussie and the street rat? Sorry ladies, but today was going so well. Seriously, Kate. You couldn’t have gotten me Jo Grant? At least I would’ve been nice to her.”

Kate sighed, stepping forwards and taking control.

“Show’s over. Take him away.”

The Master nodded in agreement, scrunching his nose and nodding along with Kate's command. He looked up to see several more faces had joined the audience, staring down at the commotion from the upper levels of UNIT HQ. The Master grinned. You would have loved this.

“Oh yes, yes! Take me away! Because then we’ll all feel safer with me in the building, in the hole, in the dark, right beneath your feet. Great job, Kate!”

The Master was yanked backwards into the lift, the doors starting to close. He suddenly burst forward, sticking his leg out and craning his neck. The door retreated back with a metal hum, the Master turning to stare at the Doctor with the same innocent eyes as earlier.

“You’re not going to leave them alone again, are you Doctor?” He giggled deviously, the soldiers yanking him back once more. This time the doors to the lift managed to close, the Timelord grinning dangerously as they shut before him.

From within the lift shaft his excited whoops could be heard, the soldiers that once flanked the lift dissipating from their post. Kate looked towards the ceiling once more, staring at the onlooking faces.

“I said the show's over!” She stated firmly. At once the onlookers disappeared.

The Doctor took a step forward, meeting Kate’s eyes as she turned towards the looming blue box.

“Kate, put the building on high alert. He’s planning something. His wife-”

“Is currently unaccounted for. I’ve had a team monitoring the chatter, she hasn’t been seen ever since his defection from MI6. We’re working under the presumption that she's planning an attack.”

“The Master has an army of Cybermen in 1916, they could strike at any minute. If he’s in your bunker, somebody else has to be watching over things.”

Kate turned and whispered towards an aid, who scurried off in another direction. Ace and Tegan made their way hurriedly down the steps, watching the Doctor retreat to the front of the TARDIS. The Doctor peered over Kate’s shoulder, looking at her two former companions

“Keep an eye on the Master. We won’t be long.”

Ace stared at the Doctor in disbelief. All of a sudden the same creeping feeling that had plagued her long ago returned. She wasn’t the strong woman she had grown into now: she was a teenager again, standing there watching her mentor, her closest friend, disappear into those police box doors. Disappearing without her.

“Professor,” She called. The feel of it on her tongue felt sour.

“Where are you going?”

Tegan frowned, already disgruntled from her argument, yet more than happy to enter into one with more meaning. But the Doctor didn’t stay- just as the Master had predicted. The two women watched the Timelord beckon Yaz into the TARDIS, closing the door behind her without a second word.

“She really doesn’t want us in there.” Tegan sighed, hands falling to her hips. There had to be a reasonable explanation- perhaps she’d redecorated and knew they’d be more than happy to judge. Maybe she was simply thinking ten steps ahead as usual, and this was part of the grand plan. Whatever it meant, Tegan and Ace were staying in the building. Staying at UNIT HQ. Perhaps that’s where they were meant to be.

Beneath their feet, the Master was pushed from the door of the lift and into the corridors of the basement. He glanced around the dark corridor, categorically observing every turn and side of the route to his destination. He began to whistle a jaunty tune, waving to all the soldiers that flanked his path once more.

“I love what you’ve done with the place.” He mused, the soldiers tugging at the back of his jacket once more. He let out a grunt as he was shoved forwards, clattering against the far wall of the metal cage known as the bunker.

He turned up his nose at his surroundings. God, what a dump. He supposed it must have been his fault the standards were so low these days. All the budget must have gone towards defeating his bigger and better schemes.

“At least the plane gave me a seat.” He grumbled, scuffing his shoes against the concrete floor as the guard secured the lock to the gate. He took a run up to the front bars, plastering himself across the locked door and calling to the guard.

“Excuse me darling, I booked the cage with a bed? And I don’t seem to have the room service menu.”

The guard stared down at him unimpressed, yet the Master continued on.

“I’ve got allergies, you see. Ever since they changed the recipe, I’m suddenly UNIT intolerant.”

The renegade Timelord chuckled as the guard turned away with a scowl, slamming the second door of entry to the bunker shut with a heave.

“You laugh now, but mark my words, the wife will NOT be happy when she gets here.”

The Master grinned, pushing off from the front of the cage. He began to hum a simple tune, sitting himself down in the far corner of the cage and stretching out his legs. He gave a small wave to the large camera in the top corner, before reclining with his hands behind his head. Oh, he missed the early days of UNIT imprisonment. How wonderful his past cage had been, with his workout equipment and colour TV. He’d spent many happy hours watching earth TV shows and scheming, the UNIT sanctioned prison uniform was dangerously comfortable. Oh, and that cape! With its glitter and stars and jewelled clasp. He still had it somewhere in the TARDIS. You were awfully fond of it too. He often thought the world wasn’t as magical as it used to be. You somehow kept the magic alive, though.

“Not long now…” He hummed to himself, staring at the ceiling and settling back down. “I love a good reunion. Oi, warden! Any chance of the WIFI password?”

“My dear Tsar, this endless war- I fear for our people as much as you do. Have you made a decision upon sending in more troops? Or do you intend to withdraw?”

Madam Praskovya approached the planning table, the Tsar pinching the bridge of his nose in concern.

“The decision is difficult. So many lives. What do you suggest?”

The woman smiled, placing a hand upon her stomach.

“Much like my husband, I fear for your family. As a mother myself, I believe the stress brings great turmoil to you all. I’m sure my husband would agree… a holiday for you all is a powerful remedy.”

The Tsar tilted his head in thought as Father Grigori stepped to his wife's side.

“Indeed, a long holiday, very soon. Some time away shall benefit you, don’t you think?”

The Tsar nodded in agreement, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Yes… a long holiday… very soon. That’s what I want… isn’t it?”

Rasputin stepped nearer.

“Yes, it is. I shall care for your beautiful Winter Palace, your staff shall follow the guidance of Madam Praskovya. And you shall remain assured of your one certainty. Which is?”

The Tsar was unable to look away, his eyes locked within the gaze of Grigori Rasputin. The man's wife, Praskovya Dubrovina, watched by his side, a knowing look upon her face. One that understood the instruction within his mind. One that was present when it was first placed there.

“That you… are the Master.” The Tsar spoke, the words falling from his tongue. The Master smiled, your own lips curving into a grin by his side.

“And I will obey you.”

“I really hoped I'd seen the last of him. But y’know, cats and their nine lives.”

Rattle. The brown backpack Tegan had kept slung over her shoulder had spread itself out over the floor.

Clang. The material at the top lip of the bag had rumpled and split open, the contents of the carrier spilling itself onto the linoleum. Tegan watched the bag curiously, taking an anxious step towards the brown bag.

Ace briefly glanced up from the computer screen, watching her friend anxiously.

“You alright?”

“No… the toy-”

Tegans hand nervously made its way to clutch upon the striped material of Ace's sleeve, instinct pulling her away from the other side of the room. The chair the bag had fallen from was spinning idly, her books and papers scattered. But the Cyberman toy, the small doll the Doctor had gifted to her, had somehow walked across the room and positioned itself in the middle of the walkway. It was a stand off between the two women and the small Cyber toy, each one daring it to move and praying it wouldn’t. The screen behind them suddenly began to fizzle and crackle, the picture of the Master’s cell blaring itself in glorious black and white.

“Oh dear, did she want to come out already?”

The pair span around at the sound of the Master's voice from the speakers. The Timelord was sitting in the corner of the room, flexing his bound wrists and staring dead straight into the camera. Tegan was right, the sight of the criminal in a tiny cell brought the pair some sense of comfort. A miniscule sense of justice, just as big as the toy. But the smirk on his face and the glimmer in his eye spoke of something not to be trusted. How was he even communicating with them? How did he know where they’d be?

“I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. It must be awful being trapped inside a tiny little figurine. Mustn't it?”

“How the hell is he doing that?”

Ace whispered to herself. The Master scrunched his shoulders happily.

“Trust you, Tegan the brave heart. Should have nicknamed you Tegan the naive. Did you really think the Doctor would go out of her way to send you one tiny little toy?”

Tegan inched closer to Ace’s side, the woman's fists already clenched, her face calculating what he was saying. The Master was relishing in the cruelty of nostalgia today. It was a loose thread the two were determined not to let him pull. But he was tugging rather hard.

“The Doctor didn’t send you that toy. I did. I must thank you for taking such good care of her. Parting is such sweet sorrow, after all. But I knew I could count on you to keep it close if you thought your beloved Doctor still remembered you.”

The Master had risen to stand, bringing his face inches from the camera as he stared down the lens from the dingy basement bunker. Up close, the pair could see the evil speckled across his eyes. No wonder he’d been so adept at using them to control others. Even his eyes spoke of everything they and the Doctor stood against.

“You kept it close, because deep down you know you have nothing else. It’s poetry in motion, you’ll see. Especially with this next part. I hope you’ve been paying attention.”

“Why do you keep calling it a she?”

Ace suddenly asked, matching his look into the camera. The Master chuckled, tapping his fingertip against the glass.

“Oh, gold star for Mcshane! You see, that ain't just any Cyberman. It’s rather special, close to my hearts. All I have to say is, I don’t know… ‘Activate protocol 23’... and something rather magical happens.”

At the Masters declaration, the Cyberman began to shudder and grow. The doll's limbs began to expand and lurch outwards, the entire figure swelling and shooting up and size at rapid speed. The two women stepped back in shock as the figure soon reached north of six feet, the centre bond between the two half’s glowing and splitting itself open.

“Meet my Russian doll. Sweet Tegan, you should have held on to your dear old aunt. Because y’know what the best part of tissue compression is?... It also works in reverse.”

The Master laughed madly as a wild glow began to emanate out of the Cyber figure, the familiar stomping of Cybermen echoing through the office. Two by two the legion of Cybermen began to bleed out into the HQ, their metal feet punching into the ground as they assumed strategic formation. Ace was quick on her feet- the woman suddenly sprung into action, sliding across the floor of the office and grasping hold of the two handles in a floor panel beneath the main desk. The panel was yanked from its place in the floor, revealing a secret compartment- large black guns and strips of ammunition sat in floor-bound holsters, the gold bullets shimmering within their casings. UNIT knew how to handle a Cyber invasion. They’d had more than enough experience.

The layers within the Cyber doll continued to peel away, until the glimmering white faded into a silhouette of jet black. The doll split open as before, but this time an unfamiliar sight stepped out. It was a Cyberman, decayed and rusted, one arm covered in cloth and wielding flesh, half of its face broken and shattered, revealing the pale skin of its body beneath. The Cyberman glared at the two women with its still human eye. The Master clasped his hands together with glee.

“Don’t be scared girls, meet my friend Ashad! I killed him once but he’s forgiven me now, because now he’s become useful to me. Call him the head of security.”

The figure had yet to finish its lightshow. The black layer had slipped away, revealing a layer of shimmering metal, engraved in circular Gallifreyan and glimmering gold. The join in the middle split once more, revealing a distant figure between the hazing glow of the doll. Two feet stepped out from the doll before it came crashing down into a screwed up mass of metal, the figure's shoulders rolling back and arms stretching to the heavens. Rocking on their heels before sighing with a flourish, the figure gave a teasing wave to the two women.

“Lovely day for an invasion, isn’t it?” You grinned, before pulling two blasters from the holsters on your belt.

“TEGAN!” Ace called from across the room. Tegan instantly sprinted across the screen, the Master smiling devilishly as he peered into the screen.

“The basement calls, Love. Why don’t you let the Cybermen play while we catch up?”

You watched as Tegan hastily flipped the front desk onto its side, Ace wielding the large black guns. You gave a teasing laugh as you waved your blaster in the air.

“I’d love to stay and chat, but places to be! Boys, you can take it from here.”

The Master's laughter echoed in the distance as you sprinted from the room, the sudden sound of gunfire slamming into the walls. Oh, how incredible it felt to stretch your legs again! To feel the wind in your hair as you ran through corridors, terrorising men in uniform. You were practically skipping through the corridors, the tribes of UNIT soldiers bursting in from every direction as you made your way through the building. One by one you unleashed your blasters into their chests, their heads, any place you could land a hit. They had bigger things to focus on than little old you. Cyber invasions always tended to be rather show stopping. Metal men always managed to steal the attention away from the important parts of the plan.

“ATTENTION. UNIT HQ IS UNDER ATTACK FROM CYBERMEN.”

Kate’s voice blared over the speakers, the sirens calling out through the tannoy as you sprinted down the stairs towards the basement. You navigated every turn, the dark grunge of the basement alight with gunfire as you took your quest to find the Master. The corridors were sensical, the path ahead of you easy to navigate as you shot down soldier after soldier. You could feel them all, waiting to get that wonderful kill, a badge of honour. What a shame for them. What fun for you.

The last door in the corridor burst open, and you made your way inside. The two that were waiting were an easy shot, two blasts into their exposed chests were easy hits to make. You dodged the close range fire determinedly, a few near scrapes making you jolt. The soldiers fell like wonderful dominoes as you ran towards the next corridor, the sound of familiar laughter floating from down the hall. You felt your hearts lurch within your chest at the sound, the last two soldiers falling to the ground as you sent the blasts into their necks. There was a door at the end of the corridor, an entryway lined with fencing. That was where the sound was coming from.

You paused just before, shaking your hands and taking a breath. You fixed the stray strands of hair that had fallen out of place, smoothing down your outfit with the sides of the blasters before aiming at the locking mechanism on the door. The lock sparked with fire at the impact, the door to the bunker swinging open, inviting you inside.

Your eyes widened with delight as they fell upon the Master. He’d switched up his look since the last time you saw him, your heart fluttering within your chest as you ran towards the bars. The Master raised his hands to shield his face as you aimed your blaster towards the second mechanical lock, the black box bursting open with the force of the blast and sending the door swinging open with a start. The Master growled excitedly, his wrists ripping apart the chain connecting the two cuffs as he flexed his arms, the Timelord letting out a delighted sigh as he unbuttoned his tweed overcoat.

“Oh darling.” He grinned, his voice as velvet as you remembered it to be.

The distance between you was gone in an instant, the Master's arms opening wide as you flung yourself into his embrace. His hold wrapped tightly around your shoulders, his face plunging into your neck as you buzzed with excitement. Here he was, and here you were. Both alive and well, thanks to his genius.

“I knew it would work; I knew compression would keep you safe. Oh, that Tegan, she did so well. She brought you exactly where I needed you.”

You pulled away from his tight grip and gazed at your husband with adoring eyes. You’d missed him so much, the blood pumping through your veins as you felt his lips press against your hairline.

“Right by my side.”

“UNIT hasn’t changed.” You mused, tugging him forwards towards the exit of the cell.

“Still run like a circus, still just as fun to break out of.”

“I still think my stamp card idea is worth the investment.” The Master purred, his smile like the Cheshire cat as he shook his hands with merriment. All that energy built up in his system, now notched up a level by your arrival. He’d missed you terribly, the ache in his chest at your absence now replaced by the deafening thud of his heartbeats. Now his plan was well and truly in motion.

The Master took hold of your hand, your blaster slipped back into its holster as he leapt through the destroyed gate and into the perimeter around the bunker.

“They thought chainmail would keep me in.” He teased, leaning down and admiring the sparking wires of the lock.

“How cute.”

You watched the Master lean down to the base of the gate, running his fingers over the metal and grasping hold of the rod that connected into the lock box. He tugged hard, letting out a feverish grunt as the metal began to warp, the rod bending and creaking as he yanked it out of its position. The rod came free in the Master's hands, the Timelord snarling like a wild animal as he clutched the metal, and as if wielding a baseball bat, swung forwards and clubbed at the glass circuit breaker in the wall. The frosted glass shattered into a thousand pieces, the Master digging his fingers into the mains and ripping out a section of the wiring. Only this wasn’t any old part of the wiring, the way it shone in the light of the basement and churned within the Timelord's hands. You watched him grip the TCE with pride, his finger slipping into the copper ring as he stood before you with a flourish. You clapped your hands together with glee, the Master preening at your praise. He always worked better with an audience.

The Master suddenly surged forwards, his free hand slipping around your back and the other gasping your hand. The Master began to spin you, feet waltzing across the concrete floor, his eyes meeting your own. You danced to the sweet sound of bullets and screams, just as you’d danced to the destruction of Gallifrey. He’d kept you safe all that time, carrying you between his hearts until he was sure you could be safe. Until he could ensure nothing would stand in your way when it came to your part of the plan. Here you were once more, right between his hearts. Where you always were meant to be.

The sudden arrival of Ashad at the door told the Master it was time.

“The soldiers are moving down the stairs.” He grated, metal on metal.

The Master sighed, tilting his head and pushing your hair behind your ear.

“We need to get moving, don’t we?” You asked, shivering at his touch. The Master nodded, tapping his finger on the end of your nose.

“Yes, my love, we certainly do. I’m so glad I cloned him.”

“We should keep him, like a neutered pet.”

“Trust me, dearest. If it’s a pet you’re after, I have one in mind. You’ll see.”

The Master hummed once more to himself as he spun you one last time, elated giggles pulling themselves from your throat as he leant you down into a dip. Your hands flung to wrap around his neck, the Master's arm that held the TCE extending out beyond your head.

“Welcome home, love.” He grinned, before allowing his thumb to activate the trigger. Your faces met as the trigger was pulled, the Master's lips meeting your own as you disappeared in a whirlwind of teleportation energy.

There was truly no place like home.

The winter wind bellowed beyond the walls of the wooden cabin, the haze of teleportation energy sending light shining against the dark wood. You landed in the Masters embrace, your eyes adjusting to the darkness as you kept a tight hold upon his shoulders.

“Welcome to Russia, 1916.” The Master grinned, his hands refusing to leave your body. He’d been apart from you for far too long.

“I hope my disguise is warm enough.” You teased. The Master chuckled fondly.

“You won’t need to worry about the heat, the Winter Palace is cold in name only.”

“The Winter Palace? Am I about to be a Tsarina?”

The Master shook his head, causing you to give a melodramatic pout.

“Close, but no cigar. We’ll be having a little more fun than that.”

The Master's hand guided your lower back towards the wardrobe in the corner, the doors opening with a creak. Two different garments, similar in style, hung upon wire hangers- your hands instinctively went to caress the material.

“We won’t be Tsar and Tsarina, love. But we’ll be the next best thing. Say hello to Madam Praskovya, and Father Grigori.”

You paused, the name ringing familiar. You turned towards the Master with a raised eyebrow, the Timelord smirking proudly.

“More likely known to history as Praskovya Fedorovna Dubrovina, and her husband: Grigori Yefimovich-”

“Rasputin.” You breathed out, the same smile spreading across your face. You sank back into his hold, the Master’s head resting against your own. His excitement was tangible through his skin, the Timelord buzzing with anticipation.

“Russia’s greatest love machine?” You asked, hope in your tone.

The Master simply winked in reply.

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mrleopard25 · 1 year

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Doctor Who Regeneration Series Revisited: The Eleventh Regeneration

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Wilfred: “Still with us?” The Tenth Doctor: “System’s dead. I absorbed it all. Whole thing’s kaput. Oh! Now it opens…yeah.” Wilfred: “Well, there we are then! Safe and sound. Mind you, you’re in a hell of a state. You’ve got some battle scars there. But they’ve…your face! How did you do that??” The Tenth Doctor: “It’s started.”

Story (from “The End of Time (Parts 1 and 2)” and “The Eleventh Hour”):

After hearing the prophesy that his life will end after hearing a man knock four times the Doctor goes on numerous trips through time and space to avoid his fate. Finally Ood Sigma contacts the Doctor and convinces him to come to the Ood Sphere. Once there Ood Sigma informs the Doctor of not only the Master’s reincarnation but a dark force threatening to wipe out all of existence (again).

The Doctor arrives at Earth in the present day to find that billionaire Joshua Naismith has acquired a devise called the Immortality Gate and plans on using it to grant his daughter immortality. However he can not get it to work and has kidnapped the Master to fix it. The Master’s reincarnation was incomplete, however, and he has become unstable, brimming with strange telekinetic powers and requiring a constant supply of meat (even live humans).

The Master sabotages the Gate before the Doctor can stop him and changes the function of it to overwrite ever human’s DNA and mind with that of the Master’s, except Donna Noble due to her subdued but still imbued half Time-Lord nature (see “Journey’s End”) and her grandfather Wilfred (who the Doctor has protected).

However the true nature of the Gate soon becomes apparent. In the last day of the Time War the Lord President Rassilon (more on this later) and the High Council, save two, voted on sending the whole of Gallifrey into another time and place, away from where the War Doctor was about to use The Moment. To achieve this they had sent a signal through the time vortex into the mind of the Master when he was a child and staring into The Untempered Schism (see “The Sound of Drums”). It was this signal that drove him mad. And now that the Master is using a Whitepoint Star Diamond with the Immortality Gate, the Time Lords can escape the Time War.

At first the Master tries to take advantage of this opportunity by using the Gate to overwrite the Time Lords biology as he did with the Humans but Rassilon easily thwarts this attempt. The Doctor warns the Master that the Time Lords have to be sent back and reveals that during the Time War the Time Lords became insane with the evils they had committed. Indeed, now free of the war, they intend to evolve themselves to a higher plane of existence at the cost of the universe itself.

As the war-torn Gallifrey begins to appear in Earth’s orbit the Doctor, with Wilfred’s gun, finds himself having to choose between severing one of the two points keeping the link open: the Master or Rassilon. He hesitates between shooting either until he sees one of the dissenting High Council is a woman he recognizes. She nods to him and the Doctor is inspired. He turns and shoots the Whitepoint Star Diamond, destroying the focus of the link. The Time Lords start being sent back into the Time War and Rassilon prepares to kill the Doctor with his gauntlet before he vanishes. The Master, infuriated that his whole tormented life was orchestrated by the Time Lords’ plan, rushes at Rassilon and the two fall into the Gate and back into the War to be killed.

The Doctor, astonished that he is still alive, suddenly hears four knocks from Wilfred, who is in a chamber sealed for the Immortality Gate’s radiation purge. The only way out is for someone to go into the adjacent chamber and release the door mechanism. Wilfred pleads with the Doctor to not bother saving him, as he is an old man who has already lived his life. The Doctor is anguished at first with being confronted by this scenario but knows he can not sacrifice Wilfred’s life for his own. He goes into the second chamber and releases Wilfred just as the radiation purges and seeps into his body.

With the radiation released the chamber door opens and Wilfred perceives the Doctor as being all right. The Doctor reveals that he is dying due to radiation poisoning then leaves. While dying the Doctor visits all his past companions to see how they are faring (but we only see a select few) even pausing to wish Rose Tyler a happy New Year in January 2005.

Staggering into the TARDIS the Doctor engages in flight before tearfully admitting he doesn’t want to go. The regeneration commences explosively, shooting radiation and heat out of his body, and devastates the TARDIS console room. The regeneration complete, the Doctor inspects himself cheerfully to see how he looks and then remembers the ship is plummeting towards the Earth.

Crashing in a backyard pool in 1996, the Doctor climbs out of the dilapidated TARDIS and meets 10 year old Amelia Pond. The Doctor demands to be fed and Amelia tries to feed him an assortment of food, which the Doctor in his confused state believes to all be poisonous. He soon discovers that Amelia is haunted by a crack in her wall which is a crack in space-time leading to an Atraxi prison. And coming from that crack is a message that “Prisoner Zero has escaped.”

Production:

After three full years David Tennant and the production team had taken the already successful Doctor Who and built upon it. Ratings were consistently high, and every season head writer / executive producer Russell T Davies was shooting for bigger and better things in the program.

Under his wings plot elements from the classic series crept back in for a new audience including Davros (creator of the Daleks), the Sontarans, the Macra, and the Master. There was even an appearance of the Fifth Doctor in “Time Crash.” At this point there was no question that not only was it a continuation of the old series, but was as popular as it as well. David Tennant became as recognized in the role as Tom Baker had been thirty years before.

However Tennant decided that he had spent enough time on the series and was game to move on. Likewise the production team was ready to move on as well and Davies was ready to hand over his titles to Steven Moffat, a regular writer on the series. To ease the transition, in lieu of another season, 2009 would have five hour-long specials airing through out the course of the year: Christmas 2008, Easter, November 15th, Christmas 2009, and New Years 2010.

Steven Moffat was the most logical choice to fill the shows Davies was leaving behind. Again, he was already writing for the program, and he was also a long-time fan. Sitting down with the rest of the new production team (executive producers Piers Wenger and Beth Willis, and producer Tracie Simpson) it was a consensus that they wanted to find a older, more distinguished actor. 26 year old Matt Smith was the first person to audition and greatly impressed the team. However they continued to audition others because they were worried about passing the torch to someone so young.

In the end the team couldn’t find anyone who matched Smith’s obvious talent and hired him on, making him officially the youngest actor to play the Doctor so far. Unlike Tennant, Smith had no real exposure to Doctor Who before. Granted, he was aware of it but he was from a generation that grew up in that gap between series. So Smith took the assignment to heart and watched some old stories to catch up.

The production team’s initial idea for the Eleventh Doctor’s costume was actually more like Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (a chic swashbuckler?). However Smith became quite taken with the Second Doctor’s portrayal upon watching “Tomb of the Cybermen,” and insisted on a costume more reminiscent of that. He noted that the chic swashbuckler look was not how the Doctor would dress himself, and instead brought back the bowtie.

As for the regeneration itself, Davies’ team had already firmly established that unlike regenerations in the old series they wanted consistent-looking effects. As such, when the Master regenerated in the Tenth Doctor story “Utopia” it was basically the same effects but with a few different colours. So when the Doctor regenerated in this story we see essentially the same effect yet again with one notable difference: the explosion of fire outwards. This served the story well too; after this devastation they could change the TARDIS set.

Analysis:

When I wrote the original version of this article, I had serious qualms about the Doctor lamenting how much he didn’t want to go. I thought it took away from his assertion of his identity over the temptings of the Time Lord Victorious, and removed some of the heroic nature of his character. After all we had seen him stare down the biggest threat to all of creation while still finding the bravery to accept death through sacrifice. And further to that, I felt the shrieks of despair of ravenous Doctor Who fanatics who were crying their eyes out and wailing back to their television screens that they also didn’t want him to go.

But I’ve come to reevaluate this stance.

While I will admit there is definitely some fan service, and arguably some writer service, in going back and seeing all the companions and having the Doctor begin to weep at his upcoming regeneration, I don’t think it is just that. Firstly with hindsight we now know that the Doctor is now using up his last regeneration. So this is more than just regenerating - this is his final regeneration and is one step closer to death. And in that time we is still filled with regret over the Time War. Not only does he still have no way to absolve that guilt, but he had to reaffirm it by ensuring that the High Council and the Master were forced to stay behind on Gallifrey while it burned. And that the planet itself was sent back into the hellfire. That’s pretty rough!

Remember, he has no memory of the events of “The Day Of The Doctor”!

He has also had to watch as an actual half-human doppelganger is now living in an alternate universe with one of the very few women he has allowed himself to fall in love with. Actually scratch that: he didn’t just watch it, he facilitated it. His best friend, Donna, has had her mind wiped and is living as a more shallow previous version of herself.

But perhaps most telling of this mentality comes from his experience in “Human Nature” and “The Family Of Blood”. As the human John Smith (missing his Time Lord memories and nature), he fell in love with Joan Redford and intended to spend his life with her. The Doctor retains those memories and even shared a telepathic glimpse with her of what that life could have been like. For all the times the Doctor has empathized with humans, for once he actually became one and felt real mortality.

I think it’s that retreat to and acceptance of those feelings of mortality that the Doctor allowed himself to experience one last time that led to his sudden declaration of not wanting to go. Whereas when it was said during “The Day Of The Doctor” it was more of a musing, when said here it’s him stripping down and being honest with himself. And even more important to note, it is only him with the TARDIS.

As for the story itself, I like “The End of Time” quite a bit. I think it really ties things together for the Time War, at least up until that point. I originally had written that I felt Davies had tied together all the loose ends of the Time War and was looking forward to moving on to new things. Fortunately Steven Moffat was able to bring in some new angles on the War as well as introducing some excellent new material. I wound up being very happy with the Eleventh Doctor’s run.

Rassilon, played by the ever sinister Timothy Dalton, is a great addition. And yes I believe he is THE Rassilon, hero of Time Lord society, who has been dead for millennia. We saw in “The Five Doctors” that he was really not dead as much as non-corporeal. So I think it’s reasonable that the Time Lords resurrected him in this great time of need. Too bad he went bonkers.

There’s some question as to who that mystery woman from the High Council is that helps Wilfred and tips the Doctor off at the end. Davies said that it’s implicitly supposed to be the Doctor’s mother (again, totally disregarding the “half-human” theory) but could we not entertain the notion that it’s Romana? If you’re firmly in the camp that Romana never escaped E-Space (even though the audio adventures state she did and became Lord President for a while), what about Flavia? Or here’s a wild card…the Rani? The Time Lord High Counsel would not be above recruiting a sociopath like her to include in their ranks.

I’m quite happy with the Eleventh Doctor and Matt Smith’s portrayal. I’m a big sucker for a youthful appearance betraying the wise man underneath – hence why I really dug the Fifth Doctor. That doesn’t mean I want only young men to play the role but handled correctly I think it makes for a fascinating character to watch. And Smith nailed the costume on the head; the look is excellent.

“The Eleventh Hour” was also a great introductory episode. It was very accessible which is something I really expect from a first episode even for a season. There’s no real need to see any Doctor Who previously.

The Doctor post-regeneration is a little less catatonic and a little battier. He’s first worried that he’s swapped genders and then he’s dismayed to learn that he’s still not a redhead (something the Tenth Doctor was hoping to be, mentioned in “The Christmas Invasion”). He has a strange curiousity about every new experience but the knowledge is still there in his head and it slowly reasserts itself through the episode. The adult Amy Pond, played by Karen Gillan, is a great choice as well. This is a quirky girl who’s tormented – not an easy role to fill.

I have always enjoyed Steven Moffat’s stories in the past seasons so imagine my elation to hear that he was becoming head writer. I was ecstatic. I remember a lot of fans were likewise thrilled, but Moffat’s tenure quickly became a divisive one. Truthfully I don’t see what the big issue was. RTD was a great writer but released some stinker scripts, and Moffat was the same. But Moffat was focused more on the fantastical stories and I think that tone shift rubbed some fans the wrong way.

The new title sequence and the new TARDIS set were also welcome additions to the production. If the production team was looking for a way to kick-start the series and bring in fresh blood, they definitely found it.

I want to quickly mention The Sarah-Jane Adventures episode “Death of the Doctor.” For those who don’t know, back in 1981 a Doctor Who spinoff series called “K-9 and Company” spawned a pilot episode. The series would revolve around ex-companions Sarah-Jane Smith and the robot dog K-9. It was not produced further than the pilot allegedly because the then-BBC1 controller really hated it (I saw it recently and it IS a little silly). Anyway in 2007 the Davies Doctor Who team produced a new version of the show called “The Sarah-Jane Adventures” which again starred Sarah-Jane but had less K-9 and instead a supercomputer named Mr. Smith, and a kid named Luke who’s some genetic copy of someone or something. Anyway there was a few Doctor Who crossovers and the “Death of the Doctor” includes the Eleventh Doctor. While talking to this kid Clyde the Doctor says he can regenerate 507 times. Naturally fans were aghast. How does THAT make sense? Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times! Davies (probably) sighed really loudly and then issued a statement saying the Doctor was just being glib, and that he had no intent on taking something so integral to the series and tossing it out in an odd line on another series entirely. This wound up being held true, but I figured I’d mention it anyway since it’s related.

And Another Thing…

The Sarah-Jane Adventures would be far better if they got rid of the teens.

The Eleventh Doctor: “Legs! I’ve still got legs! Good. Arms! Hands! Ooh, fingers! Lots of fingers! Ears! Yes, eyes, two. Nose. Ooh, I’ve had worse. Chin! Blimey! Hair! I’m a girl! No! No…I’m not a girl! Oh…and still not ginger!!”

#doctor who #david tennant #matt smith #the eleventh hour #the end of time #TARDIS #Regeneration #review

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user-2-electric-boogaloo · 3 years

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A Comparison of RTD and Steven Moffat: Saving The Day

So for this analysis I’m going to compare when Moffat and RTD save the day well and when they save it poorly. There are a few bits of criteria I need to explain.

First I will only be including main series, no Torchwood, no spin-offs, and no mini episodes.

Second, I have to define what makes a good and a bad ending (my examples will come from episodes written by neither of them):

Bad endings include when the sonic saves the day (see The Power Of Three) (there are exceptions, see below), when a character spouts some useless technobabble that doesn’t make any scientific sense/when it doesn’t make logical sense in general, when the Doctor invents/presents a machine/equipment that miraculously stops the baddy and is never referred to again (see Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS), and any other ending I deem to be bad (see The Vampires of Venice)

Good endings include when the sonice activates a device that has been well established to save the day, when technobabble is used that actually makes some scientific sense, and just generally when the baddy is destroyed in what I deem to be a creative manner that makes sense with all the things that had been set up in that episode (see The Unquiet Dead).

There will also be cases where there isn’t really a day to be saved, however this happens more often with Moffat.

Let us begin (obviously there will be spoilers but the last episode in the list aired nearly 4 years ago so what you doing with your life).

RTD:

Rose: Bad

What even is anti-plastic?! Like seriously, he’s faced the Autons loads of times and has never thought to use it any other time.

The End Of The World: Bad

The Doctor just goes up to the appearance of the repeated meme (ha meme) and rips its arm off. He then just summons Cassandra back by twisting a knob which apparently everyone can do if “you’re very clever like me”.

Aliens Of London/World War Three: Good

Just nuking them all was a bit dodgy but I’ll give it to him purely because it had been set up earlier in the episode and it is a genuine option that could have been taken.

The Long Game: Good

The heating issue was set up within 2 minutes of the episode starting. It’s always good to see the Doctor using his enemies weakness against them.

Boom Town: Good

Only just. It’s technology that hadn’t been showcased ever before and came out of nowhere, but I’m allowing purely because it was setting up The Parting Of The Ways.

Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways: Good

See above. It was set up the story before so it works.

The Christmas Invasion: Bad

This was so close to being good. If RTD had just let the Sycorax leader be honourable then everything would have been fine. Instead he had to let him be dishonourable and then the Doctor through the Satsuma at a random button that for no apparent reason caused a bit of floor to fall away.

New Earth: Bad

It only makes sense if you think about it for less than 10 seconds as just pouring every cure to every disease ever into a giant tub and then spraying said supercure onto them all, then having them hug each other to pass it on. That is suspending my disbelief just a bit too far.

Tooth And Claw: Good

Everything is set up in the episode so I’ll allow it but I fail to see how Prince Albert had the time to ensure that the diamond was cut perfectly.

Love And Monsters: Bad

It’s Love And Monsters. Need I say more?

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: Good

It was very clearly set up throughout the episode.

The Runaway Bride: Bad

I don’t like how a few bombs can supposedly drain the entire Thames.

Smith And Jones: Good

All the events were well established

Gridlock: Good

It’s a fairly bland way to save the day, just opening the surface to all the drivers. But how else could he have done it?

Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords: Bad

As much as I like the idea that he tuned himself into the archangel network, he basically turned into Jesus. It is arguably the least convincing ending in modern Doctor Who history.

Voyage Of The Damned: Bad

Why was he the next highest authority? If he’s the highest authority in the universe why didn’t they default to him in the first place? If not then why not default to Midshipman Frame? And if he’s somehow in between them then why? Also Astrid killed herself for no reason when she easily could have jumped out of the forklift.

Partners In Crime: Good

It works in the context of the episode, but I don’t see why they needed two of the necklace things.

Midnight: Good

It’s human nature, you can’t get more well set up than that.

Turn Left: Good

It works logically

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: Bad

Donna just spouts a load of technobabble whilst pressing buttons and then the Daleks are magically incapacitated.

The Next Doctor: Bad

Why do the infostamps sever Hartigan’s connection with the Cyberking? As far as I remember it ain’t explained.

Planet Of The Dead (co-written with noted transphobe Gareth Roberts): Good

A good couple scenes are dedicated on getting the anti-gravs set up.

The Waters Of Mars (co-written with Phil Ford): N/A

The day isn’t really saved cause everyone still dies anyway.

The End Of Time: Good

Using a gun to destroy a machine is much better than using the sonic to destroy it.

Summary for RTD:

Out of 24 stories written by him, I deem 10 to be bad endings with 1 abstaining. That’s 41.7% of his episodes (43.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Steven Moffat:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Good

You’ll see this a lot with Moffat, he knows how to explain things without stupefying levels of technobabble. “Emailing the upgrade” is a perfect example of this.

The Girl In The Fireplace: Good

Some basic logic, the androids want to repair their ship, but they can’t return to it, they no longer have a function so they shut down.

Blink: Good

Always loved this one, getting the angels to look at each other, however they do look at each other sometimes earlier in the episode.

Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead: Bad

This is more of a problem with the setup of the episode, I don’t like that he can negotiate with the Vashta Nerada. I’d rather see them comprehensively beaten, but I guess it’s good for the scare factor that they can’t be escaped from.

The Eleventh Hour: Good

He convinced the best scientists all around the world to set every clock to 0 all in less than an hour. In the Doctor’s own words “Who da man!”

The Beast Below: Good

The crying child motif pretty much ended up saving the day (well for the star whale, life went on as normal for pretty much everyone else).

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone: Good

The artificial gravity had briefly been set up earlier so I’ll allow it.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: Good

Everything had been set up perfectly, the vortex manipulator, the Pandorica’s survival field thingy, the TARDIS exploding at every moment in history.

A Christmas Carol: Good

Literally the entire episode is the Doctor saving the day by convincing Kazran not to be a cock.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day Of The Moon: Good

The silence’s ability to influence people is their whole thing, so using it against them is a good Doctory thing to do.

A Good Man Goes To War: N/A

The day isn’t really saved, Melody is lost, but River shows up at the end so is all fine? I love the episode it’s just the day isn’t really truly saved (yes I know Amy was rescued but she still lost her baby).

Let’s Kill Hitler: N/A

There isn’t really a day to be saved. They all get out alive but no one is really saved other than maybe River but we all knew she was gonna live anyway.

The Wedding Of River Song: Good

Whilst opinion is divided on the episode, the ending still works. the Tesseracta was established in Let’s Kill Hitler, and the “touch River and time will move again” was established well in advance.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: Bad

I don’t like how the lifeboat travels through the time vortex for no reason but to rescue the dad. It don’t make no sense and I don’t think it’s explained

Asylum Of The Daleks: Good

Oswin had access to the Dalek hive mind so of course she should be able to link into the controls and blow everything up.

The Angels Take Manhattan: Good

Paradoxes really do be something powerful, and they even acknowledge how nobody knows if it’d work so I’ll let it slide.

The Snowmen: Bad

Lots of people cry at Christmas, why are the Latimers anything special?

The Bells of Saint John: Good

The whole episode is about hacking so why shouldn’t the Doctor be able to hack the spoonheads

The Name Of The Doctor: Good

It was the story arc for the season pretty much, so of course it was explained well in advance.

The Day Of The Doctor: Good

Both the storing Gallifrey like a painting and the making everyone forget if they’re Human or Zygon works in the context of the episode.

The Time Of The Doctor: Bad

Since when were the Time Lords so easily negotiated with?

Deep Breath: Good

I like the dilemma over whether the half-face man was pushed or jumped.

Into The Dalek: Good

It’s set up well with this new Doctor’s persona of actually not being too nice of a guy (at first).

Listen: N/A

There isn’t a day to be saved. It’s just 45 minutes of the Doctor testing a hypothesis and I low-key love it.

Time Heist (co-written with Steven Thompson): Good

It works logically so I’ll allow it however it isn’t very well set up at all.

The Caretaker (co-written with noted shithead Gareth Roberts): Good

The machine to tell the Blitzer what to do was set up well in advance so I’ll allow it.

Dark Water/Death In Heaven: Good

The fact that Danny still cares even as a cyberman is set up fairly early on after his transformation.

Last Christmas: Good

He does use the sonic to wake up Clara but he convinces the others to wake up through talking so I’ll allow it.

The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar: Good

It’s set up well with that little scene from actually inside the sewers.

The Girl Who Died (co-written with Jamie Mathieson): Good

IDK why the vikings would randomly keep electric eels but they’re set up well so I’ll ignore it.

The Zygon Inversion (co-written with Peter Harness): N/A

Not including this one as it’s only the second part and I’d argue the ending is most likely Harness’.

Heaven Sent/Hell Bent: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved, yes Heaven Sent really is amazing but it’s only the first part and, being completely honest, he dies several billion times before finally getting through the wall.

The Husbands Of River Song: N/A

Again there isn’t really a day to be saved here.

The Return Of Doctor Mysterio: Good

He gets Grant to catch the bomb which is good. But he does just sonic the gun out of Dr Sim’s hand and says UNIT is on its way which just sort of wraps it up very quickly.

The Pilot: N/A

No day to be saved here.

Extremis: Good

You could technically call it the sonic saving the day, I consider it to be the Doctor emailing the Doctor to warn him of the future.

The Pyramid At The End Of The World: Good

The fire sanitising everything makes sense and it’s in character for Bill to love the Doctor enough to cure his blindness in return for the world

World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls: Good

Yes it is the sonic just blowing the cybermen up, but it’s blowing them up with well established pipelines so I’ll allow it (also the story is amazing).

Twice Upon A Time: N/A

No day to be saved here. Just Doctors 1 and 12 getting angsty about regenerating.

Summary for Steven Moffat:

Out of 39 stories written by him, I deemed 4 to be bad with 7 abstaining. That’s 10.3% of his episodes (12.5% if we don’t count any abstaining).

Conclusions:

Moffat was much better at saving the day than RTD

Moffat liked telling stories where the day didn’t actually need to be saved

I’ve spent way too long on this and I need to sleep

If I spent as much time on this as my coursework I’d probably pass

If you’re still reading this, you probably need to get a life

#doctor who #steven moffat #rtd #in case you can't tell I really don't like RTD #Remember the Superwholock days when everyone ripped the shit out of Moffat #what am I doing with my life #tardis #rose tyler #martha jones #donna noble #amy pond #rory pond #rory williams #river song #clara oswald #Bill Potts

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Doctor Who: Ranking the Master Stories – Which is the Best?

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Roger Delgado looms large over the character of the Master, being simultaneously influential and something of an anomaly: Delgado played the role with a debonair front, but since his death, the character has been less urbane and more desperate, manic and violent. In fact the actor who’s come closest to Delgado’s approach is Eric Roberts, who plays an American version of Delgado’s Master until his performance goes big towards the end of 1996’ ‘The TV Movie’.

Each actor brings different facets to the fore, but after the character’s successful launch in Season 8 we get the tricky balancing act of the returning villain: We know that the character returns because they’re popular (indeed, the reason for their existence was the question ‘What can we do to attract viewers for the season opener?’), but in story terms, this makes them seem increasingly ridiculous. The Master, among all Doctor Who villains, seems especially keen to involve the Doctor. Why do they keep coming back if they’re always defeated?

In recent stories, writers have attempted an explanation for the Master’s behaviour, be it an unspecified insanity or a damaged friendship where each party attempts to bring the other round to their way of thinking. Mostly, though, the Master appears in Doctor Who for a simple reason: a lot of viewers find it fun when the Master appears in Doctor Who, and the Master seems to find it fun when the Master appears in Doctor Who too.

Overall the character has a solid record in the show. Fewer classics than the Daleks, fewer duds than the Cybermen, but a lot of solidly entertaining stories mostly lifted by his presence. Here, then, is my ranking of – give or take – every Master story from the television series.

27. Time-Flight

I’m sure there are redemptive readings of ‘Time-Flight’, and its flaws are more understandable in the context of its production (with the money running out at the end of the series and a shopping list of items to include imposed on writer Peter Grimwade), but the end result is poor.

To contrast Anthony Ainley’s performance with Roger Delgado’s for a second: Delgado always played the Master with a calm veneer, as though his nonsensical schemes were perfectly sensible. As a result, he seemed in control. Ainley plays the role as if they’re not merely sensible but clearly brilliant plans even though they strain credulity. They’re smaller in scale and this makes Ainley’s Master seem tragicomic. He loses control more, there’s a kind of ‘She’s turned the weans against us’ desperation that’s much more apparent in this incarnation.

‘Time-Flight’ is, despite its faults, a poor example of this. While the Master disguises himself as a mystic for no clear reason, his end goal is simply freeing himself from prehistoric Earth. Once he’s discarded his disguise, Ainley’s performance is largely underplayed (especially in contrast with ‘Castrovalva’, earlier in the season). While there’s some camp value in the guest cast, it’s not enough to rescue this from being dull.

26. The Timeless Children

The most urgent problem with this story is not the retcon, it’s that it’s simply boring television. The Doctor is passive, trapped in a prison of exposition, and billions of children on Gallifrey are slaughtered because the Master is furious that he’s descended from the Doctor (the former childhood friend whose life is intertwined with his own, indeed who is frequently defined against). This, for me, doesn’t extend logically from what we know of the characters or indeed the situation and turns Doctor Who into a grimdark slog. Not only is it lacklustre, it feels like someone has cyber-converted the show itself.

Sacha Dhawan (saddled with a Master characterisation usually reserved for when they’re clinging on to life in animalistic desperation) brings out the aggressive and violent side of the character to reflect his rage and genocide, is satisfyingly disparaging of the Lone Cyberman, and is working hard to liven things up. There’s not a lot for him to work with, though. This Master is not a dark mirror of the Doctor, he’s just here to do what the plot needs him to. Sometimes that’s what the Master is there for, to be fair, but usually in stories with much lower stakes.

You realise that the Master is only back because the story needed a big villain to destroy Gallifrey and tell the Doctor about the Timeless Child, and it couldn’t be the Cybermen (because of their other function in the series finale) or the Daleks (been there, done that). Based on the character’s interactions with the Time Lords (most obviously Rassilon in ‘The End of Time’ and the chaos he sows in ‘Trial of a Time Lord’, but Borusa was presumably the Master’s teacher too, and uses him in ‘The Five Doctors’), it’s not completely implausible that the Master would resent them, but the reasons shown thus far inadequately explain the character deliberately committing genocide. Whenever the Master’s been reset previously there’s usually been a clear and coherent motivation. In ‘Deadly Assassin’ he’s dying and furious, in ‘Logopolis’ his pettiness unravels him, and in ‘The Sound of Drums’ he wants to be like the Tenth Doctor. Here though, his motivation just poses more questions.

Things could improve. This story is incomplete and – like a Scottish football fan watching their team in Europe – hope lingers that it might be alright in the end.

25. The King’s Demons

After disguising himself reasonably well in ‘Castrovalva’ and ‘Time-Flight’, here the French Knight with the outrageous accent and surname ‘Estram’ is clearly the Master. His goal is to use a shape-shifting android to stop the Magna Carta being signed. The result is less exciting than it sounds. It’s an amiable enough low-key runaround with some good character moments for the regulars, but you’d be forgiven for thinking this was the plateau of the Master’s descent. Ainley, deprived of a Concorde crew to camp things up, gamely takes on that mantle himself.

24. The Trial of a Time Lord

As with ‘Mark of the Rani’, here we find the show using the Ainley incarnation more knowingly. Here he turns up in the thirteenth of fourteen episodes to interrupt the Doctor’s trial. This is something of a relief, because if there’s a consensus on ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ it’s that the trial scenes are interminable. Then the Master arrives on an Eighties screensaver and just turns the whole thing on its head, casually dropping huge revelations that take a minute to sink in. His presence has a galvanising effect, bringing to a head everything that had been stirring thus far in the story. His satisfaction with Gallifrey falling into chaos also ties in nicely to ‘The Five Doctors’ and his later actions in the Time War. The final episode, written in an extremely turbulent situation, doesn’t pay off this thread well (originally the Master was intended to help the Doctor in the Matrix) but that it makes sense at all is impressive given the chaos behind the scenes.

23. Spyfall

The reveal at the end of Part One, in which mild mannered agent O is revealed to be the Master, was exciting on broadcast. It came as a surprise because there’d been so little build up to it, and at the time it seemed extremely unlikely that the Master would come back so soon after their last appearance. In the end, the contrivance that reveals the Master’s presence is indicative of this episode’s larger flaws: as with ‘The Timeless Children’ the character motivations and plotting feel like they’ve been worked backwards from an endpoint. This is not an intrinsically bad way of writing if you have the time and ability to make it work, but here the episode breezes along in the hope you won’t notice the artifice (small things, like the car chase that doesn’t go anywhere, to larger ones like the Master reveal drawing attention to his ludicrously convoluted scheme that involves getting hired and fired by MI6). As it does breeze it isn’t dull, at least, but the promise of Doctor Who doing a spy film with added surprise Master really isn’t fulfilled here.

22. Colony in Space

Possibly the most boring interesting story ever, and one where the Master’s appearance doesn’t lift things. If anything, it implies the Master spends his spare time as a legal official (and to be fair to ‘Spyfall’, it does maintain this tradition of the Master sticking out a day job). Aware that the character’s appearance in every Season 8 story might become predictable, the production team decided he should arrive late in this story. This makes it feel like the Master has simply been added to pad out an underrunning six-parter (and there is a lot of lethargic padding here).

There are some interesting ideas, especially the tension between Doctor Who’s revolutionary side and its conservative one; on the radical side the story clearly sides with the colonists of Uxarieus in the face of the Interplanetary Mining Corporation’s attempts to remove them by force, with initially sympathetic governor Ashe shown to be naïve, while gradually the more active Winton exerts more authority and is proven right when he insists on armed rebellion rather than plodding through legal processes that would inevitably take the IMC’s side (the IMC’s leader, Captain Dent, is a timeless villain – calmly causing and exploiting human misery without qualms).

On the conservative side, this is a story based on British settlers in America and their relationship with the indigenous population. Here we have some British colonists under attack by British intergalactic mining corporations, and throughout everyone refers to the natives of Uxarieus as primitives. It is ultimately revealed that they were once an advanced civilisation, but the Doctor continues using the term. Indeed, he warns the Master that one is about to attack him, knowing the Master will shoot them. This latter example is absolutely in character, and we’ll see in other stories how the Doctor’s blindspot towards the Master is explored in greater detail (indeed, this story also has the Master offering to share his power and use it for good, another thread in a Malcolm Hulke script picked up on later).Considering how padded this story is, though, having no sense of empathy towards or exploration of the Uxarieans’ point of view is a glaring omission.

21. The Time Monster

In many ways ‘The Time Monster’ is crap, with its Very Large performances and a man in a cloth bird costume squawking and flapping gamely. In many ways ‘The Time Monster’ is good, there’s some funny dialogue, great ideas, and a fantastic scene with the Doctor and Master mocking each other in their TARDISes. In many ways ‘The Time Monster’ is hypnotically insane, and you can’t help but admire the way it earnestly presents itself as entirely reasonable; ‘The Time Monster’ straddles the ‘Objectively Crap/Such a hoot’ divide, and is in fact the Master in microcosm with its blend of nonsense, camp, and occasional brutality.

Delgado has now been firmly established as someone who usually lifts a story with his presence, the Master’s routine now a regular and expected part of the programme’s appeal. It’s cosy enough to somehow be endearing despite this clearly being crap on many levels. This is Doctor Who that is extremely comfortable in its own skin; on one hand this involves establishing that the Doctor’s subconscious mind being a source of discomfort for him, and on the other it involves five characters gathering round to laugh at Sergeant Benton’s penis.

20. Castrovalva

‘Castrovalva’ suffers from similar structural problems to ‘Logopolis’, in that the first two episodes are a preamble, and while there’s no lack of good ideas it does feel like the regulars have to go on a long walk to actually arrive in the story. This means we have a lot of good moments (‘Three sir’, ‘With my eyes, no, but in my philosophy’, and the Master being set upon by the Castrovalvans in a nightmarish frieze, as if he’s about to be pulled apart) but there’s little emotional pull as we haven’t spent time with the characters. The idea of people being created by the Master for an elaborate trap and then gaining free will is great, but we’ve only known them for about half an hour so the impact is lessened. The ponderings around ‘if’ in the first half could be better connected with the concepts in the second.

In contrast to the cerebral tone, Ainley is at his hammiest here. Sensing perhaps that the Master improvising an even more elaborate plan than his previous two is stretching credulity, and stuck with Adric and his little pneumatic lift (not a euphemism), Ainley goes big and ends up yelling ‘MY WEB’ while standing like he’s forgotten how to bowl overarm (extremely unlikely given Ainley’s fondness for cricket). He’s also started dressing up again, which is actually done well here but the knowledge of what’s to come makes this foreboding.

‘Castrovalva’ also connects with John Simm’s Master’s misogyny, in that when Nyssa tells him he’s being an idiot he can’t think of a reply so pushes her away, and that he creates a world where the women’s role is to do the cleaning (although that might be partly explained by Christopher Bidmead following ‘Logopolis’ with another world of bearded old science dudes).

19. The Mark of the Rani

In some ways a low point for the Master, but also a relatively good-natured story for Season 22. Here the Master is first seen dressed as a scarecrow, and chuckles at the brilliance of his disguise, as if the Doctor should really expect to find him hiding in a field caked in mud. His plan is to accelerate the industrial revolution so he can use a teched-up Earth as a powerbase.

It’s not that this Master lacks ambition, it’s just that his plans all feel like first drafts. He also plays second fiddle to the title character, with the Rani clearly put out that he’s there at all. Ainley, who regarded a few of his scripts as less than impressive, wasn’t happy at being demoted, but this works for the character. This pettiness is part of the Master now, and so ‘Mark of the Rani’ can be celebrated for finding a tone and a role that makes sense for him, something that invites the audience to indulge him rather than take him too seriously.

Doctor Who: Ranking Every Single Companion Departure

By Andrew Blair

Doctor Who: Ranking the Dalek Stories – Which is the Best?

By Andrew Blair

18. The Mind of Evil

The Master is cemented here as an entertaining nonsense. He has a multi-phase plan to start World War III which involves converting a peace conference delegate into the avatar of an alien parasite which has been installed in A Clockwork Orange–style machine in a prison, after which he will take over the planet. Delgado, as ever, plays this as if it’s perfectly straightforward. As with his debut story the Master bites off more than he can chew in his allegiances, and you get the impression he’s not totally serious about global domination and just wants to hang out with the Doctor. Pertwee is at his peak here, rude and abrasive, righteous and enjoyably sarcastic, but also put through the wringer by the Keller Machine (which the Master has apparently invented using the alien parasite).

For all the good work ‘The Mind of Evil’ does with the Doctor and the Master (the idea that the Master’s greatest fear is the Doctor laughing at him ultimately comes to define the character), and with this being a mostly well-made story, it does devolve into an action-orientated (I say ‘devolve’, your mileage may vary) story where the Keller machine is now lethal and capable of teleporting, combined with a Bond movie plot where UNIT find themselves transporting a missile and guarding a peace conference (far from their stated goal of dealing with the odd and unexplained).

There’s a satisfying clash between the horror of the Keller Machine and the sight of prison guards shooting and screaming at what looks like a Nespresso prototype sitting on the floor. This is a good tonal summary of ‘The Mind of Evil’ – a lot of grimness (horrible deaths and genuinely nasty characters) rubbing up against something enjoyably silly.

17. The End of Time

As with ‘The TV Movie’ here the Master get some new and largely inexplicable powers, suddenly craving food and flesh. What John Simm’s stories add is the idea that the Master was driven mad by the constant sound of drums. Here it is revealed that the Time Lords planted it in the eight-year-old Master’s head as a means of escaping the Time War. As with The Timeless Child reveal, this Chosen One storyline lessens the characters for some viewers, limiting the character’s free will and making them less interesting. Russell T. Davies is smarter than that here though.

What works well are the references to the Doctor and Master’s childhood, the brief suggestion that that Master would like to travel with the Doctor without the drumming, the Master and Doctor choosing to save each other and return the Time Lords to their war; the Master rejecting his appointed role of saviour, refusing to have his entire life disrupted. Including the Master here is a good move beyond hype, offering a warped reflection of the departing hero (the fact that the Master’s big plan is grounded in vanity is telling).

It’s a strange mix, because there are clearly great scenes in this story, but the dominant impression of the Master is now being able to fly, shoot lasers from his hands, and occasionally have his flesh go see-through. The latter feels like a call-back to his emaciated state in ‘The Deadly Assassin’ but lacks the physicality.

It feels not dissimilar to ‘Twice Upon a Time’, in that it contains parts of what made the showrunner’s work so good, as well as being a clear sign that it was time to move on.

16. Logopolis

Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the context of its original broadcast, that sense of a Titan of my childhood finally saying goodbye, but – besides a memory of finding the opening episode unnerving on VHS – I have no real sense of this story from a child’s point-of-view. As it is, I can appreciate the ideas in it – a planet of spoken maths that can influence reality (riffing on Clarke’s Third Law), the sense of the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration being inevitable, the scale of the threat involved and that it results from the Master’s attempts at petty revenge rather than a deliberate plan – but I can’t honestly say they’re woven into compelling drama.

I have few objections to silliness in Doctor Who, but I find it hard to get on board with something so ludicrous that thinks it’s incredibly serious.

There are the recursive TARDISes that stop because the Doctor has to go outside for the cliff-hanger, Tegan spending her first story as someone with a child-like fixation on planes, the exciting drama of Adric and the Monitor checking an Excel sheet for errors, and the stunning scene where the Doctor explains that the Master knew he was going to measure a police box by the Barnet bypass because ‘He’s a Time Lord: in many ways we have the same mind’ immediately followed by the Doctor’s idea to get the Master out of his TARDIS by materialising underwater and opening the door. This story thinks itself clever, but judders forward through a series of nonsensical contrivances before cramming the actual story into two episodes.

The first half is stylish nonsense, building up to the reveal of the Master chuckling to himself about ‘cutting the Doctor down to size’ – it’s then you realise that everything he did in the first two episodes was for the sake of a joke that only he can hear, and this pun kills several trillion people. To be fair, this is a brilliant idea, it’s just a shame about the slog to get to this point. The final confrontation is then less ‘Reichenbach Falls’ and more ‘Argument at a Maplin’.

The Master is well played by Antony Ainley in his full debut, and as a child his mocking laughter was genuinely unsettling. As reality unravels, so does he. If he’d killed trillions deliberately, and they knew of his power before dying, he’d be fine, but doing it by mistake without people knowing seems to break him. Mostly there’s the feeling of lost momentum with the character, going from a powerful symbol of evil that corrupted paradise to a man broken by his own banter.

As with Nyssa witnessing the death of her planet, there’s a lot of potential for character drama here that the show wasn’t interested in exploring at the time.

15. The TV Movie

As written, the Master here is a devious, manipulative creature who is willing to destroy an entire planet just to survive. This is extremely solid characterisation, matching what’s gone before. You can also hear Delgado delivering this dialogue (though I’m not sure how he’d respond to ‘you’re also a CGI snake who can shoot multi-purpose venom’).

The shorthand for this Master is Eric Roberts’ big performance in the finale, which does tend to blot out the rest of his acting. Full of smarm and charm, Roberts is mostly downplaying his lines as an American version of Delgado (indeed his costume for the ‘dress for the occasion’ scene was going to be like Delgado’s Nehru jacket), and his line delivery obscures the fact that the final confrontation scene is very well written up until Chang Lee’s death. It’s quite a good summary of the character so far: cunning, persuasive, visually monstrous, driven by survival, then ultimately camp and desperate.

While the Master and Doctor’s rebirths are very well shot, the movie would have worked better without regeneration so we could get more screentime with the new cast, and the final confrontation is the only time the Doctor and Master get to actually talk, which means we only get a broad brushstrokes version of their relationship. Nonetheless the ‘What do you know of last chances?’ ‘More than you’ exchange is fantastic.

14. The Claws of Axos

Bob Baker and Dave Martin’s debut script for the show is busy and full of nightmare-fuel for the viewer, with the Master (who wasn’t in earlier drafts) put into uneasy alliances with UNIT and the Doctor. Briefly he fulfils the role of UNIT’s Chief Scientific Advisor, which is inspired, showing through his interactions with the Brigadier how alike he and the Doctor are.

The first story in which the Master is just grifting and trying to survive rather than being halfway through a devious plan. ‘The Claws of Axos’ wisely tries something different with the Master in the midst of an enjoyably garish romp (Doctor Who will never have this colour palette ever again). There’s some effective body horror, tinges of psychedelia, and a hokey American accent.

It’s all over the place this one, but barrels along with glee and feels like the Pertwee era has relaxed into a lighter mood, albeit one where people are still electrocuted and turned into orange beansprout monsters.

13. Terror of the Autons

We are immediately told that the Master is dangerous, but also not to take him too seriously: one of the first things he does in Doctor Who is kidnap a circus in order to raid a museum.

And so the rest of the story proves: a darkly comic (and famously terrifying) blast which sets out the character of the Master for the rest of the Pertwee era: the delicate balance between the ridiculous and the vicious. Delgado isn’t quite there yet in this story, not fully realising the comic potential in the character and playing things straighter than he would later. One thing he lands immediately is acting as if the Master’s plans are perfectly sensible, bridging the gap between animating murderous chairs/phone cables and suffocating people with plastic daffodils, so that they die uncomprehendingly as they claw at their face.

Therein lies the appeal of Doctor Who, with one of its central tensions being between the mundane and the ridiculous, the cosy and the suffocating. This is exemplified here by a plastic doll coming to life and trying to kill everyone because Captain Yates wanted to make some cocoa.

12. The Dæmons

In which the Master is good-humoured and ostensibly pleasant while trying to summon a demonic alien being, accompanied by a moving stone gargoyle who can vaporise people. The show is well aware of the Master’s impact, to the extent that one of the cliff-hangers features him in danger rather than the Doctor or UNIT.

What his debut season has established is that the Master himself is mostly fun (indeed, often more fun than the Doctor), but the monsters that he brings with him are terrifying. This is true from his first story, in which he brings a barrage of nightmarish ideas to life. Bok, the aforementioned gargoyle in this story, absolutely terrified me as a child. Most of the accompanying monsters in the Pertwee era did, but by tapping into the paranormal and demonic this story has an extra frisson of fear.

I have nothing new to say about ‘The Dæmons’: it’s the first Doctor Who story to mine the works of Erich van Daniken and it does it well, the Doctor is a dick in it, the resolution with Jo’s self-sacrifice is weak, it’s an episode too long, but also it’s got Nick Courtney effortlessly winning every scene he’s in, which helps a lot.

11. The Five Doctors

This is a story that plays to Ainley’s strengths, and he delivers. No other Master is as good at looking pleased with themselves, so when the Master is having a mission pitched to him by the High Council of Time Lords Ainley’s face is priceless. He’s present, and enjoying himself immensely, disdainful of the upper echelons of the society he escaped.

Then, when he attempts to persuade the Doctors that he’s there to help, the fact they all immediately assume he’s trying to trick them makes him entertainingly frustrated. Terrance Dicks’ script plays to the former friendship between the two characters, and the Master feels more like his old self before the Brigadier dispatches him with a cathartic biff. His brief alliance with and inevitable betrayal of the Cybermen is something you can imagine Delgado delivering, while also highlighting the difference in the two incarnations. Delgado would say ‘Your loyal servant’ with confidence, and find the ‘driving sheep across minefields’ line drily amusing. Ainley feels venal and nasty in these scenes, more like a childhood bully trying not to get hit. That he ultimately does is a lovely pay-off.

10. The Sea Devils

A somewhat padded Pertwee six-parter? With much of the padding being fight scenes with lots of guns and stuntmen flipping everywhere? With the Doctor being rude to everyone? And a meddling Civil Servant, Jo being plucky and resourceful, and the Master allying himself with a group that betrays him? With Malcolm ‘Mac’ ‘Incredible’ Hulke subtly undermining the entire thing? It’s like coming back to your old local and finding nothing has changed while you understand it better than ever.

Trenchard, in charge of the Master’s prison, is a relic of Empire and friends with Captain Hart – the highest ranking Naval officer we meet – who is clearly sad when he is killed. this story may have been made with the co-operation of the Navy but Hulke implies an old boys’ club which the Doctor breezes into and disrupts (but he is no longer averse to the military’s involvement as he was in ‘The Silurians’- it’s not clear whether it’s his relationship with UNIT or the Master that has changed his mind here – is he now used to having military support or does he deem it necessary due to the Master’s presence?).

Hulke, being one of the better writers of character the show had at this point, draws out his characters extremely well and deepens the Doctor and Master’s relationship by mentioning their past in more detail (a lot of what Steven Moffat developed in Series 8 – 10 was inspired by Hulke). Delgado briefly departs from the cosiness of this story by snapping in rage at a guard he’s attacking, letting the affable façade drop just for a second to show the fury beneath it all. It’s a small moment, but it’s something that will be built on for many years to come.

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9. Frontier in Space

In some ways, this is just a ridiculously long pre-credits sequence for ‘Planet of the Daleks’, but there’s just something incredibly endearing about Doctor Who attempting a space opera, complete with hyperdrives and space walks. The genius move is giving it to Malcolm Hulke, who fleshes out his characters more than most and manages to use genre cliches to achieve this. There’s a great gag where the Doctor tries to convince the Earth authorities that a war with the Draconians is being engineered, only to be captured by the Draconians who put him through the exact same rigmarole.

This is also Roger Delgado’s final story before his tragic death, and he arrives delightfully, walking into Jo’s prison cell and saying ‘Let me take you away from all this’. He’s also, after ‘Colony in Space’, taken another day job, this time as a commissioner from Sirius IV. Hulke is clearly determined to explain what the character gets up to on his days off, and the repetition both underlines how static the character has been (especially in contrast to Jo Grant) but also functions as something of a last hurrah.

The dialogue is absolutely superb throughout, which is ideal because not a lot actually happens in this story. However it doesn’t really matter because Jo, the Doctor and the Master are so established that it’s great fun watching them all riff off each other, with Jo resisting the Master’s hypnotism and going on a weary semi-ironic monologue about her day-to-day life at UNIT, the Doctor having a whale of time with political prisoners, and the Master dropping bon mots left, right and centre. There’s a lot of great lines here, so I don’t really mind the repeated capture/escape/capture padding because everyone’s having such fun that it’s just a joy spending time with them.

8. The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar

Opening a series with a character piece semi-sequel to a 1975 story shouldn’t work this well, however there’s definitely a sense of offering up shiny things to distract us from setting up other stories. The ending also happens in something of a rush. Nonetheless, I’m a big fan.

This story is interesting in terms of how inward looking it is. All the components involved have been established since 2005 and are explained in-story, but it’s still a demand that can limit the audience. So while I like this story, it does rather confirm that ultimately, making Doctor Who that’s right up my street isn’t a valid long-term strategy. However, if you are going to do a story steeped in lore, this is a good way of doing it: using the past as a foundation rather than trying to recreate it. Here Steven Moffat builds a lot: the Twelfth Doctor’s character softens based on his past few stories, Missy and Davros return and their relationships with the Doctor are explored, the actual experience of being a Dalek is expanded on (Rob Shearman’s ‘Dalek’ novelisation goes further if you’re into that), and the Hybrid arc is set up.

Previously in a ‘Ranking the Dalek Stories’ article I mentioned how ‘Into the Dalek’ felt like a story needed to establish that series’ themes, and didn’t do enough to integrate this with a good Dalek story. Here, though, the themes are woven more subtly in the episodes and less so in their titles. They’re also more interesting ones than ‘Fellas, is it bad to hate genocidal cyborgs?’

In the swirl of character building we have Missy essentially being the Doctor, exploring Skaro with her companion. Clara takes this role and has a terrible time as a result. As with the Doctor’s conversation with Davros, this highlights uncomfortable similarities: yes, Clara is literally pushed into danger while Missy has a secret plan for her, but it’s not like the Doctor hasn’t done similar over the years.

7. Planet of Fire

Considering all the tasks it has to do (introduce a new companion, write out two existing companions, using Lanzarote for location filming, and provide a potential exit for Anthony Ainley’s Master), ‘Planet of Fire’ is ultimately rather impressive. It suffers from an uneventful first episode (roughly 80% setup and 20% dodgy American accents), but once the Master arrives it livens up considerably.

With the Master controlling Kamelion, a shape-shifting android, remotely Ainley gives different performances for the actual Master and the Kamelion-Master, the latter more controlled. He’s also having fun here (his little smile after Peri responds to ‘I am the Master’ with ‘So what?’ is great) The Kamelion-Master, in a black suit and shirt combo (which suits him better than his usual outfit), seems more pragmatic and violent. It actually works for Ainley’s Master to be less threatening than a robot version of himself. Bent on survival, this Master has a better motivation than usual and the writing is layered: when he realises he’s in trouble in the final episode he switches instantly to pleading for his life and futile rage as the Doctor stares, either unable or unwilling to help him. There are emotional beats like this throughout the story which makes it fit well with post-2005 Doctor Who.

The rest of ‘Planet of Fire’ – as with writer Peter Grimwade’s previous script ‘Mawdryn Undead’ – has a knack for character lacking in many Fifth Doctor stories. As well as being a strong outing for the Master he writes Turlough out well and introduces Peri as a flawed but brave companion who clearly had a lot of potential. These arcs all intersect with each other, as well as the religious fundamentalism story (watered down in development), producing clear emotional journeys and an underrated gem.

6. Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

Delgado’s Master was very specifically an inversion of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor: both of them were geniuses, one was grumpy and rude and the other suave and funny. The rude one tended to save the Earth, the funny one tried to subjugate or destroy it. John Simm’s Master isn’t an inversion of David Tennant’s Doctor so much as a warped reflection – they’re both quick-talking, charismatic and alluring figures, but while this Doctor is dangerous because he doesn’t notice the power he has over people, this Master is dangerous because he absolutely does.

It’s worth noting on the character’s reintroduction that Russell T. Davies dispensed with the kind of low-key plan that is clearly doomed to failure from the start, and instead showed the full realisation of the Master getting what he wanted coupled with the most cartoonish version of the character we’d seen: Simm went bigger than Tennant, and as Ten is a dangerous enough figure already it made sense to exaggerate this. While some fans wanted another Delgado, we got someone building on Ainley and Roberts’ over-the-topness while still feeling in control of his plans.

The character’s return was also tremendously exciting on broadcast. The impact that ‘Utopia’ had especially was huge, and Derek Jacobi left fans wanting more after his brief appearance as the Master (Hey, Big Finish Twitter person: here’s your angle if you want to retweet this). After the endearingly dated urban thriller stylings of the middle episode, ‘Last of the Time Lords’ is a really bleak episode that doesn’t quite stick the landing: the idea behind the floating Doctor offering forgiveness rather than vengeance is good, although I’m not sure it’s realised as well as it could be, and there’s an extra fight scene that adds nothing and loses momentum. The Simm Master is kept at a distance from the Tenth Doctor too, mostly speaking through phone or radio. The aged and shrunken Doctor is a misstep in terms of limiting their interactions, though the phone call we do get includes some fun nods to slash fic.

5. Survival

Rona Munro writes Ace and people her age with more verisimilitude than the surrounding stories, and she brings that same level of characterisation to the Master. Here he’s struggling against the animalistic power of a planet and plotting to escape. Ainley commits to the savagery and relishes the opportunities to be nasty.

What’s especially well written here is that this is still clearly the Master of ‘Time-Flight’, ‘The King’s Demons’ and ‘The Mark of the Rani’ – yes, he’s desperately trying to survive here and that shows him as more threatening than usual, but what’s equally important is when he says ‘It nearly beat me. Such a simple brutal power’, and then immediately takes the Doctor back to the planet, now engulfed in flames, and tries to kill him. It has beaten him. He’s lost to it. He even refuses to escape (‘We can’t go, not this time’) and is ready to die. This is the last we’ll see of Ainley in the role on TV (his last performance in the role, from a mid-Nineties computer game, can be found on this story’s DVD extras), going out with the acknowledgement that this Master is a tragic figure, he’s out of silly plans and costumes, now all that he has left is the violence that was latent within him – previously seen in…

4. The Deadly Assassin

Writer Robert Holmes hadn’t written for the Master since the character’s first story, and since then the character’s sadism had been downplayed. Here, after the death of Roger Delgado, Holmes elected to dispense with Delgado’s calm and suave persona, with the Master now a Grim-Reaper-like figure, still hypnotic but now without any pretence of reason: a creature of pure spite. That moment of jarring rage from ‘The Sea Devils’? That’s on the surface now. This, combined with his design for life, makes his plan seem more vicious than usual: simply to survive he will set off a chain of events that will destroy Gallifrey and hundreds of other planets. We’ve gone from the warped friendship of Delgado and Pertwee’s characters to explicitly stated hatred here.

The story does feature Holmes’ main weakness, in that after the fantastic world building, dialogue and horror, it all ends rather swiftly with the Doctor physically dominating the villain. What we do get here, though, is an almost casual rewriting of the lore of the series in a gripping and atypical story (that some fans hated at the time), and the successful recasting of the Master. What’s more, the character can now be revisited as this nightmarish figure or as another more Delgado-like figure, his scope has widened. What no one was expecting, though, was bringing the Master back as an almost primal force.

3. The Keeper of Traken

I know what you’re thinking. Putting this story ahead of ‘The Deadly Assassin’ is madness. Well, that’s subjective opinions for you. I think it’s fair to say that ‘The Deadly Assassin’ is a more solidly realised production than ‘The Keeper of Traken’, but I prefer the ideas in the latter and so it’s slightly ahead for me (and the ideas are still well realised).

We’ve seen from his debut onwards that the Master arrives in a location or organisation and brings it under his influence (the village in ‘The Dæmons’, the Matrix in ‘The Deadly Assassin’), but here we see him corrupt an entire civilisation. What’s more, it’s a fairy tale of a place, reputedly somewhere ‘evil just shrivelled up and died’ (to which the Doctor adds enigmatically ‘Maybe that’s why I never went there’).

I’m not 100% behind the more mythic versions of the Master (such as Joe Lidster’s Big Finish play ‘Master’, which is a great piece of work in itself but not one I keep in my headcanon). This could be one of them, with the Master a being of such purest evil that he infects and destroys the fairy tale kingdom.

Instead Johnny Byrne’s story shows Traken with a fairy tale’s darkness and decay, begging the the question of how much of Traken’s fall is down to the Master and how much of it is due to their own complacency (Traken’s Consuls are old and bickering. The youngest is clearly an idiot. They seem distant from their people). It seems the Master’s arrival exacerbates the collapse rather than causes it. This level of power likely comes from the original script without the Master, the character fulfilling a role created for something new, but it still fits with the ‘Deadly Assassin’ version who plays long games motivated purely by survival and spite.

And he capitalises on a very human fear, that of Kassia not wanting her new husband Tremas to take over as the titular keeper so that she will barely see him again. The main weak point of this story is that Doctor Who was not in a position to really commit to the heart-breaking ideas in this story (technobabble yes, but not as much pathos as there should be), especially the Master’s abrupt takeover of Tremas’ body.

As a child I found the final possession scene underwhelming, but the bit where the Master takes control of the Doctor is chilling. You understood that something extremely serious was happening. Tom Baker, it must be said, is exceptional here, especially when he shames Tremas (who doesn’t seem too fussed by the possession of his new wife) into helping him.

This story has a rich setup with good motivations for drama, and balances this with a more mythic quality. This is a significant development for the character, to become an evil so pervasive it manifests as rapid societal decay. Fortunately if there are two things Doctor Who fans are good at dealing with, it’s symbolism in storytelling and change.

2. Dark Water / Death in Heaven

Missy is something of a patchwork creation by necessity. In some respects she’s an evolution of John Simm’s Master, a manic figure concocting season finale-scale schemes and building on the Tenth Doctor’s frustration that they aren’t friends. She also evokes Peter Pratt’s Master in terms of sadism, killing a fair few of the guest cast, including some unexpected ones (and for a while it looks like she’s killed Kate Lethbridge-Stewart). She’s also reminiscent of Delgado, not necessarily in Michelle Gomez’ performance but in the sense that she’s largely in control and is written and cast as an inversion of the Doctor (Capaldi is irascible, seemingly heartless and mostly contained, whereas Gomez buzzes with childlike energy and revels in cruelty). From here, Moffat starts building towards the ends of Series 9 and 10.

Two things separate Missy from other incarnations: firstly there’s Michelle Gomez, a unique performer who varies the size of her performance in interesting ways, and secondly there’s explicit vocalisation of past suggestions that the Master does what they do as a warped gesture of friendship. This makes the character suddenly and deliberately tragic and strangely relatable: we’ve all been in difficult relationships where we try to get someone else’s attention, but none of us have been driven to an unspecified insanity by virtue of a constant drumming sound implanted by the resurrected founder of our entire society. As an explanation for all of the Master’s behaviour it’s rather neat, while also trying something different with the season finale: the grand plan isn’t to conquer the world (as with ‘Logopolis’ a colossal death toll is a side effect).

It’s Moffat’s grimmest finale – atypically no happy ending here – but if it hadn’t worked then there wouldn’t have been such solid foundations for what followed.

1. World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls

Series 10 is arguably one long Master story, as Series 1 is one long Dalek story, which is not only true but also a handy excuse for not wanting to watch ‘The Lie of the Land’. Missy’s story is initially told around the edges of the episodes, and as a result these short scenes are to the point and occasionally clunky while laying foundations for the finale. Fortunately the finale is superb.

We are shown the relationship between the Doctor and the Master as a tragedy spanning millennia: ‘She’s the only person that I’ve ever met who’s even remotely like me’, and so the Doctor’s hope that the Master can be the friend he remembers trumps Bill’s fears. And Bill is shot. It harks right back to the Doctor remarking – after all the death and carnage in ‘Terror of the Autons’ – that’s he’s rather looking forward to their rivalry. The Doctor has a blind spot where the Master is concerned, and it kills people.

It’s impossible to say how well the John Simm reveal would have worked if his presence hadn’t already been announced, but nonetheless he does great work as both Razor and a Master who represents pretty much all other incarnations except Delgado (not unlike the War Doctor standing in for all the original run’s Doctors in ‘The Day of the Doctor’). Steven Moffat builds on the way Simm’s Master delights in pure nastiness but continues to be cruel when there’s no joy in it for him. His is a Master abandoned by his people and his friend, very much feeling it is him against the universe.

In contrast, Moffat had been re-establishing the sense of friendship present between Delgado and Pertwee’s characters with Missy and 12. Delgado’s planned final story was planned to reveal the Doctor and the Master as two aspects of the same person, with the Master ultimately dying in an explosion that saved the Doctor’s life (with it remaining ambiguous whether this was a deliberate sacrifice). It feels like Moffat took inspiration from this, with the resulting story of a broken friendship and the cost of restoring it: Bill’s conversion to a Cyberman, the Doctor’s words – for once – cutting through to the Master, who tries and fails to escape her past. Part of her would rather die than be friends with the Doctor (as Simm’s Master also did in Series 3).

It’s spoilt slightly by Simm commenting that this is their perfect ending, which feels like it’s obvious without being spelled out, but on the other hand he does have a point. If you were going to kill off the Master, it’s hard to see past this as their ideal conclusion.

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"I'm her best enemy" Playlist [ PART ONE - Songs 1 to 30]

Click READ MORE to see the whole list

1. Nemeses (feat. John Roderick) – Jonathan Coulton I mostly see this as being in the Master’s POV.

“Could it be that you need me To keep you out, to run you faster Promise me you'll let me be The one, the worst of all your enemies”

2. Crazy – Burn the Ballroom 12 to Missy. This one is quite cute. He does calls her mad, but we all know the Doctor isn’t exactly the perfect picture of sanity either.

“She had problems with my love connections So she bought me bullets and she made corrections (…) I'd say crazy, doll, but you've got something different I'd say complicated but that's your kind of rhythm I'd say lost and you'd say love

But you're crazy not to see That you're crazy just like me...”

3. Silence – Citizen Shade This kinda makes me picture the Doctor trying to give in and settle down with the Master (any version) while dealing with the inner conflict that they’re far too cruel for their taste.

“I found peace in your violence Can't tell me there's no point in trying I'm at one, and I've been silent for too long”

4. Dangerous Man - Little Dume This alternates between the Doctor’s POV and the Master’s. But you can also interpret it as being 100% about any version of the Doctor, since they do have a dark side.

“Every bone in my body's bad Fire's burning, the skies are turning black They say I'm a dangerous man” “Can you hear the storm's a coming I'm a silver in the lining There's a spark in me They say I'm a dangerous man Better run fast as you can Don't you look back”

5. Under Covers – LeRiche A bittersweet song about two people who had this precious friendship and love for each other, and about how distance can keep it all bottled up but once they give it a chance, they immediately go right back to the start. Just fits them very well, if you picture a happy ending to their relationship.

“I don't know why you're looking for a friend I'm right by your side But out here from a distance You won't look me in the eyes Without your love, I think I could die Then you let me in, we go back to beginnings When we were just friends hanging out on the ceiling We'll laugh about love and how we felt for one another And I love the way we make up under covers”

6. The Scientist – Coldplay A song about longing to make things right again and with little analogies involving science? I mean…

“Nobody said it was easy It's such a shame for us to part Nobody said it was easy No one ever said it would be this hard Oh, take me back to the start”

7. Renegades – X Ambassadors The “They actually stole a TARDIS and ran away together from Gallirey” AU we need so much

“Run away with me Lost souls and reverie Running wild and running free Two kids, you and me And I say Hey, hey hey hey Living like we're renegades”

8. Love is War – American Young I like how cute this song is and yet there is a bit of a dark twist. Fits them.

“Sometimes love is all that can save us Sometimes love can kill a man Yeah sometimes love is a soft touch Or a pistol in your hand Sometimes love is a white flag (...) Sometimes a cannon ball But it's worth fighting for Baby, sometimes love is war”

9. Bury a friend – Billie Eilish (Cover by Pomplamoose) Master’s POV. Can apply to any of their regenerations but I think of Simm!Master the most, since Ten tends to run towards him rather than walk away from him.

“What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me? What are you wondering? What do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go?”

10. Come as you are – Nirvana (Cover by Imaginary Future) Best Enemies, everyone. Master’s POV again.

“Come as you are, as you were As I want you to be As a friend, as a friend As an old enemy (…) And I swear that I don't have a gun No, I don't have a gun”

11. Turn – The Wombats Academy!Era, Doctor’s POV. Theta (Doctor) clearly has a crush on Koschei (Master) and they’re both love being chaotic together.

“I like the way your brain works, I like the way you try To run with the wolf pack when your legs are tired I like the way you turn me inside and out I like the way you turn I like the way your brain works Baby, it's the crazy I like I think I saw the world turn in your eyes”

12. Run – Snow Patrol Master’s POV if he was ever able to be honest about his feelings. Some parts can easily be read as the Doctor’s POV too.

“You've been the only thing that's right In all I've done And I can barely look at you But every single time I do I know we'll make it anywhere Away from here”

13. Maps - The Front Bottoms The Doctor’s POV as their relationship deteriorates after the Academy and he plans to steal the TARDIS and leave Gallifrey and his friend behind. I had to help myself from quoting the whole song because IT REALLY FITS SO WELL.

“There is a map in my room, on the wall of my room And I've got big, big plans (…) You say 'I hate you', you mean it And 'I love you' sounds fake It's taken me so long to figure that out I used to love the taste, I would do anything for it Now I would do anything to get the taste out of my mouth (…) "And what about your friends, Don't you love them enough to stay?" And I say, "If I don't leave now, Then I will never get away." Let me be a blue raft on the blue sea, I'll blend right in”

14. Old College – The Mountain Goats This fits the tiresome, sad, manipulative and draining part of their relationship.

“The warning signs have all been bright and garish Far too great in number to ignore (…) Our love has never had a leg to stand on From the aspirins to the cross-tops to the Elavils

But I will walk down to the end with you If you will come all the way down with me”

15. Like a Staring Contest – The Future Kings of Nowhere Covers the end of their friendship and start of the new enemies dynamic.

“I'm so tired of open warfare When the point of this was to be best of friends (…) When you fall in love as hard And recklessly as you and I do It seems that the final act should have The same intensity as the first scene”

16. Poison and Wine – The Civil Wars Reminds me of 12 and Missy but before Series 10.

“You only know what I want you to I know everything you don't want me to Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine You think your dreams are the same as mine Oh I don't love you but I always will”

17. Genesis 30:3 – The Mountain Goats The mentions of a past relationship and the following lines followed by drums really make me picture this as Simm!Master and Ten getting a happy but bittersweet ending.

“For several hours we lay there, last ones of our kind Harder days coming, maybe I don't mind Sounds kind of dumb when I say it, but it's true I would do anything for you”

18. Blood Under The Bridge – Frightened Rabbit Could literally be any version, but I picture Dhawan!Master and 13 making amends here, mostly because he might be crazy and frenetic but behind that façade he’s clearly way more tired than she ever will be.

“And it's alright, it's alright It's just blood under the bridge And I'm too tired to fight And you're sick of feeling sick And so am I It's alright It's just blood under the bridge”

19. Even Though Our Love is Doomed – Garbage Missy’s POV. You can interpret this like her train of thoughts and reflections starting from early Vault days to the last time we see her on-screen. Reluctance, guilt and then the resolution.

“Come a little bit closer I need to understand Why we kill the things we love the most (…) Can you love me for what I've become Love me for what I Said that I would not become 'Cause they don't burn like I do (…) And even though our love is doomed And even though we're all messed up You're the only thing worth fighting for” You're the only thing worth dying for”

20. Starlight – Muse 12 and Missy during the episodes World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls.

“Now I'll never let you go If you promised not to fade away Never fade away Our hopes and expectations Black holes and revelations”

21. Control – Halsey This screams Missy to me, especially since she literally incorporates the character of the evil nanny in her book (The Missy Chronicles) and in Big Finish’s audio dramas.

“I'm bigger than my body I'm colder than this home I'm meaner than my demons I'm bigger than these bones

And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me" I can't help this awful energy God damn right, you should be scared of me Who is in control?”

22. Enemy – Woodlock End of Academy!Era. Yet another song which reminds me about their early fighting days and the end of their friendship.

This is where it begins At the start of an end I could no longer pretend No more, you walked out the door You’re my enemy

23. Why Can't We Be Friends? – The Academic The title says it all. The lyrics also mention how the relationship is always turning into something new, so I had to associate with the longest friends to lovers to enemies we’ve ever seen on television.

“This world is pointless If you're not here This world is pointless If we're not self-destructing love And it falls and it breaks and it turns into something new And it falls and it breaks and it turns into something”

24. Wish That You Were Here – Florence + The Machine Doctor’s POV, in the days when he regrets leaving Gallifrey for a couple of seconds before turning to occupy his with something else. Because he knows that even if he went back, things aren’t the same and everyone has changed – including him.

“And I never minded being on my own Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home To be where you are But even closer to you, you seem so very far

And it's beautiful but there's that tug in the sight I must stop time traveling, you're always on my mind”

25. No Light, No Light – Florence + The Machine This one makes me picture the first moment the Doctor realized his friend had changed too much and had to choose between his own feelings and standing for what’s right. This happens A LOT in the show, but I imagine realizing that for the first time was the hardest.

“But would you leave me If I told you what I've done And would you leave me If I told you what I've become No light, no light in your bright blue eyes I never knew daylight could be so violent A revelation in the light of day”

26. Dancing with the Devil – Wolf Gang This alternates between the Master’s POV and the Doctor’s POV.

“If you're the chosen one How does it feel to be loved by no one? If you're the number one Where do you run to? Can you hide behind the sun? You say that there's no oxygen again You're forcing down the lies but you always get your way Something tells me that this was all arranged You tricked me once again”

27. Skeleton Park – Kasador Master’s POV. “You know, back in the day, I'd burn an entire city to the ground just to see the pretty shapes the smoke made” (Missy, in The Lie of the Land, Series 10, Episode 8)

“When the house is on fire Air fills my lungs I satisfy desire From watching all you run Yeah the house is on fire Hear the sirens scream My hands hold the lighter It fits so naturally”

28. Elastic Heart – Longfellow What I love the most about the Doctor (all versions) is how they keep fighting for what is right despite their own feelings being hurt or despite how much it may cause them pain. I love what this character represents, and those lyrics reminds me so much of them.

“Oh why can I not conquer love? And I might have thought that we were one Wanted to fight this war without weapons And I wanted it, I wanted it bad But there were so many red flags (…) Yeah, let's be clear, I'll trust no one You did not break in here I'm still fighting for peace”

29. Bite Back – The All-American Rejects “You think you've broken me? You'll have to try harder than that” (The Doctor, in The Timeless Children Series 12, Episode 10). Same unbreakable side of the Doctor, but this time she definitively resents it a little more than usual.

“You couldn't break me in the end And such a freedom I enjoy When you're deaf to the sounds you trust If that was all you've got, my friend Then set yourself to disappoint”

30. No Children – The Mountain Goats Listen to me here: this covers the whole “They were married way before they started to hate each other back on Gallifrey” fan theory.

“I am drowning There is no sign of land You are coming down with me Hand in unlovable hand”

[ PART TWO TO BE ADDED SOON ]

#doctor who #thoschei #doctormaster #best enemies #my playlists #playlist

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foxcantswim · 4 years

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Whittaker!Master | Your Doctor

(Whoever started this whole Master!Whittaker era... I love you.) https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021668

Set after the Series 12 Finale.

Doctor!Whittaker x F!Reader x Master!Whittaker

Jack helps the Reader to find the Doctor in a Judoon prison. They run into the Master instead. Reader starts to distrust the Doctor when they are reunited.

-x-

"Through here," Jack said, leading you and the 'fam' through the doorway.

"Oi, Jack," Graham whispered as he stayed by the man's side, "You sure the Doc's here?"

"Positive," he assured, "Trust me on this. The Judoon are smart but they aren't that smart," he then held up a hand, causing everyone to stop walking. He peeked round the corner, "All clear."

Your mind was racing. You had spent almost a year on Earth without the Doctor. You and your friends had been worried sick every day and you couldn't even count the sleepless nights you had endured.

Jack had magically appeared inside your fridge, he had apologised about smashing all the food inside, "Vortex manipulator," he showed his wrist, "Cheap and nasty time travel. Not always accurate."

Yaz patted you on the shoulder, "Don't start daydreaming now," her voice held warning as you passed by a few cells.

"I'm picking up an entity that holds two hearts," Jack said looking down at his device, "Who else but the Doc?" he grinned as he took off down the hallway.

"Oi, mate!" Ryan exclaimed as he followed, "You can't just go runnin' off in a place like this."

You smiled as you stayed at the back of the group, you glanced around at your surroundings. The place was quite dark, the little light came from the small windows that were scattered across the walls.

A cool breeze made you shiver as you felt your mind go fuzzy, your eye-sight began to falter. A bright blue light engulfed your surroundings. You could hear your friends call out to you before everything went black.

Your head throbbed as you tried to focus on the quiet whistling. You forced your eyes to open, your cheek and hands were against the cold flooring.

"Finally awake, I see..." a familiar voice echoed in the room, "Been out for quite some time."

That voice. You sat up with a groan as your head banged, "D-Doctor?" you questioned, hoping that your eyes weren't deceiving you, "Is that-"

"Don't you ever compare me to the Doctor," the voice that you knew well was laced with darkness.

"B-But you-"

"Ooooh..." she said, standing up, "Is that what I look like? Your Doctor," they teased, "What kind of prison doesn't have a mirror?"

You were beyond confused, "Doctor, did you hit your head?"

"Oh, Y/N..." a smirk was on the familiar face, "Come onnn... Don't tell me you forgot all about me. You know who I am..."

You wished it wasn't true. There was a feeling of dread in your stomach... This wasn't the Doctor. They might look like the Doctor. But deep down you knew who they were.

"It's your old friend! I gave you a lovely trip on a plane, remember? That explosion was the best part! I was hoping you enjoyed it!" she exclaimed before making her way towards you, she sat in front of you in order to be eye level, "Call me by my name."

Her eyes. They were cold. Filled with hatred. There was little to no life in them at all.

"Y-You can't be," your voice shook, "You died on Galli-"

"You think the Doctor could get me killed?!" she shouted, clearly infuriated, "You stupid little humans... Thought you could get away from me. The Cyberium saved me. I made it to Earth and regenerated. A small price to pay all things considering. The Judoon showed up and ruined my breakfast, you know?" she glared right at you, deep into your eyes, "But you're telling me that I regenerated into her."

You felt the fear and panic wash over you as the Master's voice became more and more sinister. More and more annoyed by the fact that he- she now looked like the Doctor.

"Her!" she exclaimed, standing abruptly, "What did I do to deserve this!? I've done nothing but good for this universe-!"

"Good?" you scoffed, "You haven't done a single thing that-"

The Master was once again at your eye level on the floor, a hand on your throat, "I teleported you in here. I can just as easily teleport you into the middle of a Dalek fleet. Or in the centre of an active volcano. Or in some random corner of this cold and dead universe where no-one would ever hear you scream," your head was pushed against the wet wall of the cell.

"I-If you can teleport me around..." you cautiously grabbed the wrist of the hand that was still around your neck getting tighter by the second, you swallowed and tried to take in air, "Why can't you-"

"Don't you think I've tried that already?!" she exclaimed, "This stupid device malfunctioned. I tried to get myself out but I got you in!" her other hand held a device that looked similar to Jack's vortex manipulator. She threw it at the wall before releasing your neck.

You took in a deep breath, the ache around your throat evident - redness would surely spread in no time.

"Doctor, Doctor, Doctor..." the Master muttered under their breath, "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor..." she turned to look down at you, "You and I... We are going to get out of here. And I'm going to keep you as my little pet. The Doctor won't save you this time. I'll make sure of it."

"You-"

"Stop looking at me like that!" she exclaimed before quickly making her way over to the window, "Humans and their infuriating emotions. Especially love," she turned her head towards you, "You think the Doctor loves you in return?" a smirk plastered across her face, "What a shame."

You had to be brave. Stop the tears from falling. You couldn't appear weak.

The Master suddenly grabbed your wrist and pulled you up, "I'm going to enjoy breaking you," she grabbed your other wrist and pushed you against the wall, squeezing your wrists hard, "Now what did I say!?" she exclaimed, "Call me by my name!"

You couldn't look her in the eye, your fear was overcoming you, "Master..." you whispered.

"Can't hear you, love," she growled.

"Master," you said.

"Louder!" she shouted, her hands tightening.

"Ma-"

"Doctor," that voice. That voice was so familiar and so soft, "That's the only name that should belong to that face," the Doctor spoke, looking through the bars.

"Doctor-" you breathed in relief. The Master cut you off, grabbing both of your wrists in one of her hands and pinning them above your head. Her other hand came to your throat once more.

"Shut. Up."

The Doctor quickly opened the door and stepped in, "Let her go," she pleaded.

"You come any closer and your little pet doesn't make it out of here alive," the Master warned, "I won't hesitate," her eyes never left yours. You could see nothing but darkness... But they were still the same eyes you fell in love with. It hurt you more than anything to be looked at like this. You wished they still looked like they did before. It would definitely hurt less.

"You don't have to do this-"

"You wanted me to die on Gallifrey, Doctor!" the Master exclaimed in pure anger, "But you see... Regeneration is a- is a funny thing we Time Lords have," venom laced the words 'Time Lords', "You should know that more than anyone."

"I know you hate me..." the Doctor said in a calm manner. She didn't want to escalate the situation.

"Hate?" the Master questioned, "Hate is such a weak word, Doctor. There is not a word that describes how I feel about you right now."

"Just listen," the Doctor spoke, her voice shaking, "Please... You can have whatever you want."

She replied sincerely, "I want you dead. I want everything that has anything to do with you dead. I crave death," the Master was tense, "There are a lot of things I want right now... There are a lot of things you want right now... But we can't all get what we want, now can we?"

You never thought you would be scared of this face. The need to breathe was catching up with you. You felt your legs go weak.

"Please," the Doctor replied, "Just walk away from this. We can co-exist. We're the last ones left-"

"The last ones?!" the Master shouted, removing her hands from you. You coughed and tried to take in air before sliding down the wall to the ground, "The last ones?!" the Master exclaimed once more, moving to stand face to face to the Doctor, "The Time Lords mean nothing now..." their voice was merely a whisper.

"I didn't want this," the Doctor tried to reason, "We could've been friends."

"Never," the Master assured, "Never..." she smirked, "Now step aside. Let me and my new pet leave. And I'll consider not killing her."

The Doctor sighed, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

"You can't stop me, Doctor."

"I know..." she nodded before stepping aside, "But he can."

Suddenly, a flash of light illuminated the room, causing you to close your eyes - the blinding light was too much for you. Your eyes adjusted to the room once the darkness settled in. Jack. Of course. He lowered a device that was once pointed at the Master.

The Master.

Gone.

"Y/N..." the Doctor whispered. Your Doctor. With those stupid yellow braces and that wonderful rainbow shirt.

You couldn't stop yourself from flinching once she knelt down next to you, "I-I'm sor-" you began.

The Doctor kept her distance, "No... It's okay," she kept her voice calm and steady. Her eyes scanned your body before the familiar sound of the sonic echoed throughout the room. She made sure to make the scan quick, she wanted to know if anything had happened to you.

Her eyes kept drifting up to the marks on your neck... And then down to her own hands. She hated that it was her hands that caused this pain.

"I-It wasn't you," you assured, gulping at the feeling of your sore throat.

"Shh," she hushed, "You shouldn't talk in your condition. Let it heal," she said, trying to focus on anything but your neck.

The silence was awkward. The only noise that filled the room was the sound of the sonic every now and then.

"I missed you," you muttered.

A sad smile appeared on the Doctor's face, "I missed you, too."

"I hate to rush things, Doc. But the Judoon are going to get suspicious sooner or later!" Jack exclaimed from the doorway.

The Doctor stood up and pocketed her sonic screwdriver. She looked like she was about to grab your hand... But she decided against it, "Jack," she turned to face him before nodding.

He nodded in response, "Okay," he walked over and offered you a hand which you cautiously took, "Don't worry about the Master. I've sent them far into the future. Bit of peace and quiet will do us good."

You felt your legs shake as he gave you support.

"The TARDIS is just down the hall," the Doctor said as she left the cell with you and Jack on her heels.

For some reason, your eyes wouldn't look at the Doctor ahead of you. You tried to focus on anything but her. The cold, wet floor. The rocky walls. That loose thread on Jack's coat. Anything but the Doctor.

"You okay?" he questioned as you got closer and closer to the TARDIS. That beautiful blue box...

You simply nodded.

"Time heals all wounds," Jack assured as the Doctor pushed the door open, "Ryan, Yaz and Graham are safe on Earth. We used the Judoon teleportation system to get back to the TARDIS."

"And now it's time to go back and pay them a visit," the Doctor said.

Your eyes lit up as you stepped into the wonderful machine. Jack helped you over to one of the seats. The Doctor was being unusually quiet.

Still... you couldn't look at the Doctor.

Time heals all wounds.

You hoped that was the case.

Because you still loved the Doctor. But you couldn't bring yourself to say anything to her. Not right now at least. Hopefully, things would be back to normal soon.

Just you. Jack. The fam. The TARDIS. And the Doctor.

-x-

Thanks for reading! I might write a part 2 where the Reader gets comfortable around the Doctor again and finally reveals feelings and all that jazz!

#doctor who #whittaker!master #thirteenth doctor x reader #13th doctor #jodie whittaker #the master x reader #team tardis #the timeless child #captain jack harkness #thirteenth doctor imagine

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magicofthepen · 3 years

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Gallifrey Relisten: Spirit

This reaction post is almost 4,000 words long, which, given the episode in question.....is very on brand for me. So here have a whole lot of ramblings, in which I go back and forth between “I love this so much” and “hmm yes I do think Spirit is overhyped by virtue of being The Romana/Leela Episode,” and back and forth between “I will be objective and not get overtly shippy about this” and “I’m definitely getting overtly shippy about this.”

(Includes discussion of The Apocalypse Element, the rest of Series 2, Intervention Earth and Enemy Lines, also a bit about Time War 3, but only in the last section.)

Things that are absolutely not overrated and deserve every bit of the hype:

1. The premise

Like, hold on. Hold on. Here we have an entire episode resting on the premise of “Romana wants Leela to stay on Gallifrey so badly that in spite of being y’know, the President of a planet, and specifically a planet currently undergoing major social changes and dealing with evil eldritch beings, the #1 most important thing for her to do with her time is take Leela on a private vacation off world to convince Leela why she should stay on Gallifrey.” (Hint: it’s. it’s for Romana.)

She also then proceeds to be very bad at using her words when it comes to this premise because Romana is all into grand gesture and very little into actually talking about her feelings. Of course. But in an episode that rests on the idea of Romana as the Rational, Logic-Driven One, and Leela as the Instinctive, Emotion-Driven One, it is very good that the premise of the episode is entirely driven by Romana’s emotions. (Wait. Am I going to talk myself out of the idea that Spirit creates these overly simplistic contrasts between Romana and Leela by arguing that it also muddies them at the same time? .....I still think the “overly simplistic” thing is true to an extent. But stay tuned.)

2. The core emotional story

I’m deeply into Gallifrey for the relationships between the main characters, so Spirit is vastly appealing on that front.

The central question of Spirit is: can Leela trust Romana? Leela’s been deeply betrayed by her husband, she feels lost and adrift and she’s doubting her own ability to judge people. (“He stood before me as Torvald, and I did not know him. I had thought myself to have a keener eye.” / “But is his the only trust I may have given in error?”) Leela’s doubting her own instincts specifically, which is why it’s so important that this episode has Romana move from being more dismissive of Leela’s instinctive, emotional approach to the world, to understanding where Leela’s coming from and appreciating her instincts and worldview. Leela needs to trust not just Romana, but also herself.

And it is 1. important to explore this! Shoutout to Gallifrey for not brushing aside the emotional repercussions of Andred’s betrayal on Leela’s close relationships in general and her own image of herself! and 2. intersects in super fascinating ways with Romana’s trust issues.

Romana gets a hard time for the “valuable asset” thing, which. Fair. But I think it is important to acknowledge the premise here — the whole vacation, everything Romana is actually doing screams “I care about you very much on a personal level,” and just because she isn’t saying that doesn’t mean she isn’t showing that. Because she has her own baggage when it comes to friendship and trust, and a lot of that does loop back around to “being imprisoned for twenty years and having no one come to save you really messes you up. on so many levels.”

(Also I have to mention the end of The Apocalypse Element because that last scene with the Doctor and Romana really established how I looked at Romana and her close personal relationships moving forward. Because yeahhhh maybe having the one (1) person who is specifically your Friend (and not your colleague, or advisor, or anything related to The Presidency) go “yeah you can clean up this mess right! cool bye!” after you’ve gone through decades of trauma immediately followed by needing to repel an invasion of your planet....maybe that might make you distrust that anyone in the universe is actually going to care about you as a person anymore, and not see you as The President of Gallifrey first and foremost).

Bottom line: Romana really, really likes Leela (.....we all can decide in what way....), but also has a whole lot of doubt that other people could care about her as a person, doubt that it’s even worth letting herself be that emotionally vulnerable with someone else, because what if they throw her trust and care back in her face? And so this whole episode, there’s this undercurrent of wanting to trust each other and wanting to care about each other simmering under the surface for the both of them, but they’re both having trouble really seeing and believing what each other is feeling and I love it. I love this kind of interesting, complicated relationship struggle so much, and I love how Spirit has a positive ending, where they both manage to convey to each other in one way or another that they really do want to be around each other. ( “I was so alone in the world of dreams when you left. The wildlands were dark and so quiet. I do not wish to be alone.” / “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

(Sure, the later episodes of the season fuck everything up again, but we are Not Talking about Insurgency/Imperiatrix here.)

(We are also Not Talking about Intervention Earth/Enemy Lines....okay I’ll talk a little about IE/EL, but only because when relistening to Spirit there’s this sort of elephant in the room with “There will be a place for you with me, for always. Whatever face I wear.” And that elephant is the writers deciding that when Romana regenerated, she would abandon Leela, which...hmmm. To be fair, I have lots of more complex, specific thoughts about what might have happened emotionally and literally in that thankfully jettisoned timeline, but the bottom line is that I was and still am very *side eyes* at that writing choice.)

3. The chair scene

Oh my god. Oh my god. This scene is actually brilliant and delightful on every relisten, I want it framed please??

I think it’s probably iconic because it’s just so happy, and it is so so wonderful to have a moment like that, with the two of them making up a silly story to Hallan about what happened to the window and laughing about it. And it is good! It’s so good! (A side note: Romana in particular in this episode has that “audibly smiling” tone of voice so so much more than usual, in addition to her overall tone having very clearly shifted away from “presidential” for the majority of the episode and y’all.....it’s so excellent to hear, that is such a rare thing.)

Also specifically, it’s the fact that Leela is like ugh this room is too stuffy :( and Romana immediately is like “I must fix this, I need to make her happy” and does something so ridiculous and impulsive just to please Leela.......again, this episode is pulling a Romana Has Too Many Feelings and is acting on her emotional instincts thing......yes.

“You’re a breath of it yourself in the Capital.” “Oh Romana, nice words will not make me stay.” I’m sorry but Romana’s delivery of this line is so flirtatious? (And Leela going ah no, you can’t flirt your way out of this.)

Things that are......not good:

1. The science vs. spirituality dichotomy (and how it makes the characters look)

The whole evolution vs. creation discussion thing not only feels too simplistic for the characters, but it also feels like it’s deliberately painting Leela in a negative light? To have Leela specifically going I don’t believe in evolution when the audience is going to disagree with her and bounce off of that....yeah. It also feels like the whole exaggerated ~super in tune with nature, doesn’t know or believe things about science~ thing is leaning into the racist indigenous stereotypes her character is too often linked to.

And on top of that, it doesn’t feel in character? Classic Who episodes don’t stick in my brain that well so my memory isn’t super clear on the details, but Leela was banished from her tribe for questioning their beliefs. Plus she learned that her society’s social divisions were based on misinformation and forgotten history (having more information was important, it changed things for her world). And she was the one who wanted to leave and travel, and also has always showed a lot of interest in learning new things. To have Leela so deeply clinging to the beliefs she learned when she was young, without any of that questioning or the nuance of weaving in new things she’s learned with the old......it feels reductive. (There could be so much more nuance here re: how living so long away from the Sevateem and having to defend her background so much on Gallifrey has affected her relationship with the culture and beliefs she grew up in, but Spirit has none of that.)

2. The mindswap’s lack of nuance

There’s a similar issue here with the mindswap, where Leela especially comes off as over-simplified. I don’t know if this was an acting choice or a directing choice, but the over-the-topness of Lalla’s performance during the mindswap really feeds that (the way Romana’s voice sounds so different when she’s “acting like Leela”, while Leela still sounds fundamentally like herself when she’s acting more like Romana — why the difference?). Also, Romana is a lot more helpless and distressed when she has part of Leela in her mind, which again, does not make Leela come off as especially competent (even though she is). There are times when this episode feels like it’s trying harder to put Romana and Leela into these boxes than it is at trying to break down those boxes and yeah, all around I wish there was more nuance.

3. The interrupting of the vacation date, damn it, do you think I care about a “plot”?

Alright, alright this one is not in the same category as the other two. It is absolutely not a valid criticism, it is purely the “I want this audio to cater to me, personally” part of my brain getting disappointed every time I relisten when Wynter crashes the vacation. Specifically, when they’re all alone in the woods together having important personal conversations and Leela’s decided that they’re camping out for the night....maybe I just wanted to hear the overnight camping trip, y’know. Maybe I just wanted them to cuddle beneath the stars. (Also this will come back big time next episode, but I very much back away from horror of Wynter’s mutilation, I am a squeamish person and the Wynter thing is not my favorite plot.)

Misc liveblogging things:

“I’m sorry I had to have you dragged here to my quarters. I have requested an audience with you several times on a matter of security but have received no answer.” — It’s unclear exactly how much time has passed between Lies and Spirit, but not too long(?) and Leela’s been trying to track down Andred a lot during this time (which means that once again, Romana’s specifically taking Leela away from looking for Andred....).

Leela scathingly calling Romana “Madam President” oof. (I think this moment may have been what I was thinking of re: Leela only uses Romana’s title when she’s annoyed or angry, will have to note if/when it happens again.)

“It is your world and not mine. Although I have lived here for many years it has never been my home. And I am unhappy.” I know I’ve said this before, but Leela’s concept of home is very much the people she cares about and hhhhh so many feelings about this throughout the series.

Oof Darkel’s got Romana pegged with the “how far will she go” thing.

Is Narvin......being nice re: Romana having a trying time? Or sarcastic? Or is he just like oh thank god she’s off the planet for a hot sec I can take a breath.

Brax saying it was him that recommended Romana leave and insisting they don’t talk about it — he’s sooo covering for her, but also I want to know how that convo went....how exactly did Romana explain the “I’m going to take Leela on a private vacation off-world for.....personal reasons.....please cover for me slash be my emergency contact” thing?

“So I can only conclude from your recent behavior that you’re experiencing a considerable amount of pain.” — I mean, Leela did explicitly say earlier that she was unhappy. Still, it is a really good moment here — Romana saying I see that you’re hurting and I want to help.

.......and that’s right before “valuable asset” line. You were doing so good, Romana. (She does say friend though! I mean, she says it like it’s an ordeal, but she does immediately course correct to admit that Leela’s her friend.) Also....I’m having some kinda thought here about the “asset” line — how she compliments Leela in terms of her usefulness is icky, but I think Romana often judges her own worth based off of how useful she is to Gallifrey? I think there are several moments throughout the series that point to Romana basing her worth as a person off of her work and how successful she is at protecting her world and making it better, which is just an overall unhealthy mindset to be in (and this says something about the toxicity of Gallifreyan culture possibly but also something about the lingering trauma of Etra Prime and living for decades in a place where her life itself (whether she survived) was directly tied to her usefulness...going to mull this over more, but I think there’s something here).

Hallan is so awful about Leela, and he goes on for a bit about how he should be watching the president at all times — aka there is definitely resentment within the Chancellery Guard towards Leela for taking the role of bodyguard to the president. And this is mixed in with nasty comments about Andred, former member of the Chancellery Guard, for marrying an alien.

“A marriage is about maintaining the power of the chapters, strengthening alliances between houses” — it is interesting how more than once in the audios they talk about marriage as primarily a political thing in Time Lord culture (at least among the elite), with love being an exception and something disapproved of.

The “Leela’s been on Gallifrey for twenty-five years” math......does not work. Between The Invasion of Time and the Gallifrey audios, Romana left Gallifrey, ended up traveling with the Doctor for a while, stayed behind in E-space for a while, returned from E-space to Gallifrey, became President, got captured by the Daleks and held prisoner for twenty years, and according to Square One I believe it’s been “years” since The Apocalypse Element.......and apparently only twenty-five years have passed on Gallifrey? Even if we pretend that no time passed on Gallifrey during Romana’s adventures with the Doctor and in E-space, that timeline is still questionable. Leela has to be on Gallifrey for a lot longer than that.

“I’ve searched for [my purpose] in many places.” — It’s interesting that Romana lists off the places she’s tried to find purpose, but doesn’t say anything at all about Gallifrey — Leela is the one to say that Romana has found her purpose on Gallifrey, Romana never actually says that. (I have...lot of feelings about Romana’s very complicated relationship to Gallifrey.)

Romana mentions Pandora predicting that she would rule over Gallifrey, and predicting that Romana would let that happen — Romana is worried about Pandora in particular, and also there’s the implication that she wants Leela to stay to help her hold onto herself and prevent that future.

Just ahhhh the scene by the fire where Leela decides, after avoiding too much discussion about what she’s feeling, to be emotionally honest: “It frightens me to think that I have spent so much of my life with another in a trust that I believed was true and strong, one that could not sicken, and that I was wrong.”; “You are my friend. I know that, for all we disagree on. And yet, if tomorrow you grew sick, you could throw off your form like an old sheet and be a person I would no longer recognize, not with my eyes nor with my heart.” It’s a good scene!!

The whole “who is the broken man?” mystery is good on first listen I suppose, but I’ve never quite bought that they can’t ID him. Can the Time Lords not do a quick DNA test or something? (To be fair, these are the same people who missed that Andred was impersonating someone else for months, but at least here they actively know that they need to be figuring out who he is.)

The herbal remedy — “The outsiders use it when in pain or distress.” Confirmation that Leela does hang out with the outsiders on Gallifrey.

“I’ve been inside these things I don’t know how many times and I assure you nothing could go wrong.” Post-Etra Prime Romana trying to get some sleep for once tbh (also okay she does have some healthy coping mechanisms apparently).

“It speaks to your innermost wishes and wonders and indulges them while you dream” “There is a wild woman inside me” I’m so sorry but did they really not intend to making the sensory tanks and mindswap sound incredibly erotic because

“It is winter here.” *eyebrow waggle*

I do not like hearing stabbing sounds! (Also apparently this season has a thing for Romana kinda sorta killing people with knives.)

Leela wakes up a bit later than Romana (she stays in the dream space longer), and she says she heard Pandora’s voice — Romana dismisses that, but I do wonder what exactly happened in the dreamspace after Romana woke and what additional things Leela might have heard/seen??

Hallan is so shitty, kick his ass Leela.

I do wonder why the subplot with Melyin and Hallan was included? Was it to introduce Hallan as a character and flesh out the side characters so we know them a bit better when they’re around with the Wynter subplot? (Personally, I don’t enjoy how earlier in the episode they keep cutting away from Romana and Leela’s really important and interesting conversation to those two sides characters, so I’m not sure they needed that storyline?) But there is this sort of interesting moment where Melyin talks about freeing herself from this place where she’s isolated and Leela sympathizes — and yet at the same time is choosing to go back to Gallifrey. There is potentially an interesting parallel here, but I’m not exactly sure what the parallel is supposed to be saying about Leela.

“And what about you? Back to Gallifrey and your husband?” “I am returning to Gallifrey, yes. It is not yet time for me to leave.” Leela expertly dodging mentioning Andred in her response or referring to him as her husband. Actually I kinda want to pay more attention to when she does or doesn’t refer to Andred as her husband. I’m pretty sure she calls him her husband after he dies because that is who she’s grieving, but in this episode she talks about wanting to confront him and hurt him or make peace with him, and in A Blind Eye she was all “my husband is dead” (and I think there are some things in Insurgency about this) —there is a question here about whether or not she still considers herself married to Andred at this point.

How did the knowledge of events get out on Gallifrey? Brax says if people were watching his movements closely it wouldn’t be hard to put things together — but also he probably knows that Romana needs to return for Gallifrey for events to play out, so it seems quite possible that he essentially leaked the info himself (knowing that the events of Pandora are coming....oof).

Leela talks about returning to Gallifrey avenge the broken man — in series 2 and 3, she frequently turns to vengeance as something to give her motivation and purpose when she’s unhappy and grieving, but I forgot it came up as early as Spirit ahhh yikes.

The (shippy) elephant in the room:

(Includes vague mentions of Time War 3.)

As a final thing, I do want to mention that while this episode has a reputation of being really gay (because yep it so so subtextually gay)....I do always remember that it is only subtext. Specifically in a “isn’t it interesting that other ships between main characters get clearly teased as romantic possibility, but when it’s the core relationship of the show that just so happens to be between two characters played by women, they would never explicitly hint that there might be anything romantic going on there” way. (For a long time, I tried to convince myself this didn’t bother me. It does.)

Like don’t get me wrong, I adore their friendship and I am very cool with their relationship being entirely platonic in the audios. However, my feelings are also very context-dependent, and the context is an audio drama series in which the only explicitly queer characters are side/minor characters who die horribly (and also only exist in the very recent releases). There are no canon f/f relationships or canonically queer women in the entire series (no, Leela/Veega doesn’t count, they were pretty explicit on that being not canon), in contrast with plenty of canon m/f relationships. This is also why I say that I’d be 100% unbothered if Gallifrey really was equal-opportunity devoid of romance (I really genuinely enjoy the friendship-centric narrative of this series, it’s so good) or even had significant canonically queer side characters, but when there’s such a pointed ignoring of any queer subtext and a general ‘would never ever make any main character canonically queer’ vibe throughout the whole series (I am looking at you Unity) it’s.....hmmm. It just doesn’t feel good, you know?

To end on a lighter (ish) note, going to talk about shippy things for a sec — so I have many headcanon universes that float around in my brain, but generally speaking when I’m writing Romana/Leela fic or thinking about the possibility of their relationship being romantic at some point, I tend to go for things happening between them later in the audios (ideally post-Enemy Lines), with the early series just being endless unresolved tension. But gosh there is a part of me that’s interested in the disaster universe where they do get romantically involved with each other post-Spirit (because as far as the early series go, it does feel like it has to be post-Spirit, when Leela does make the choice to stay with Romana/for Romana on Gallifrey) because oh god that’s so emotionally messy. (It’s only been six months and change since Leela’s husband first disappeared! We’re only two episodes away from Andred’s death! She’s not in a healthy emotional space to be doing this right now, and neither is Romana, frankly! Especially given what’s going to happen in the next several episodes.....but oof wow there’s certainly a story to explore there).

This was not a lighter note, I’m so sorry. Anyways, friendly reminder that I’m always down to go on and on about Romana/Leela, I have....so many feelings about them. Also if you’ve actually read through this entire post, wow and thank you??

Previous Episode Reaction: Lies

#gallifrey audios #romana #leela #(i will be honest i had large chunks of this written even before i relistened)#(what can i say i will take any and all opportunity to ramble on about these two)#also i think this reaction post deserves the #romana x leela #tag #the relisten of rassilon #ramblings #emily listens to big finish

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johannesviii · 5 years

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Just wanted to say that all your Big Finish reviews for Eight’s stories with Charley and Lucie we’re SUPER helpful to me when I first started listening to BF earlier this year!! Eight is now one of my favorite Doctors and I love your artwork of all his stories so much!! So I thought you’d be the best to ask this: if I just read a few EDAs, which would you recommend as the best?

Heyyy you’re welcome! It’s time for a new version of a rec list I made around the time I was reading The Blue Angel (= a while ago). Here are my 9 favorites among the 55 books I’ve already read!

(I’ve been stuck on Book of the Still for about ten months because 2019 has been complicated for me so far)

Vampire Science

Standalone? - YES

Required reading? - None

Quick summary - Modern vampires try to coexist with humans while some others just want to declare war on them. UNIT decides to intervene and kind of makes things worse.

Why is it good? - This book defined how to write Eight, basically, and don’t let the summary fool you, it’s very funny. Also, vampire squirrels.

Alien Bodies

Standalone? - A metric ton of references, but still readable without getting all of them, so let’s say YES

Required reading? - None

Quick summary - Some strange individuals representing different alien powers are invited to an auction in the middle of a rainforest. Apparently, they are bidding for some kind of weapon that could be used in some kind of, hmm, temporal War. Probably nothing to worry about, right?

Why is it good? - This book has so many amazing concepts and ideas that it has been pillaged by the new series, and you can find bits of its legacy in The Impossible Astronaut, The End of Time, The Pandorica Opens, The Name of the Doctor, The Doctor’s Wife and more.

Seeing I

Standalone? - NO (but still understandable out of context)

Required reading? - Vampire Science, Genocide, Longest Day, Dreamstone Moon

Quick summary - After being separated from Sam in Longest Day, the Doctor is looking for her on the planet Ha’olam. It… doesn’t go well. Meanwhile, Sam tries to rebuild her life, far away from home.

Why is it good? - THIS BOOK HURTS LIKE HELL but it‘s a very good and important book for Sam as well as Eight. It’s a great character study, and you’ll even manage to get a couple of laughs among all the pain of the first three quarters of the book. And the ending is wonderful.

The Scarlet Empress

Standalone? - YES (despite Iris referencing old episodes and stories)

Required reading? - None

Quick summary - The Doctor, Sam and Iris Wildthyme embark on an epic quest to dethrone the evil Scarlet Empress of the planet Hyspero. There’s magic and wonderful imagery everywhere.

Why is it good? - It’s a story about the power of stories and gets meta without being annoying. This book is one of the most joyful things I’ve ever read and if it doesn’t put a big happy smile on your face we definitely don’t like the same things.

Unnatural History

Standalone? - NO. NO. DEFINITELY NOT.

Required reading? - Vampire Science, Genocide, Alien Bodies, Longest Day, Dreamstone Moon, Seeing I, The Taint, Revolution Man, Dominion. Also you’ll need to have watched the TV movie.

Quick summary - The Doctor, Fitz and a version of Sam who never met them try to repair cracks in the fabric of reality in San Francisco. Someone wants to exploit the damage instead.

Why is it good? - Just like Alien Bodies, it’s full of great concepts and ideas that the new series has pillaged - both the entire arc of Series 5 and The Name of the Doctor, for example, owe something to this book. Also it allows everything to be canon at the same time, which is fantastic.

The Turing Test

Standalone? - YES. You just need to know the Doctor is stuck on Earth with a damaged TARDIS, and lost his memories after destroying Gallifrey.

Required reading? - None, really, but I recommend reading The Burning anyway.

Quick summary - The Doctor is stuck on Earth during WW2 and works with Alan Turing to break a mysterious new cipher. It only raises more questions once it’s cracked.

Why is it good? - The central question of the story is “what does it mean to be human?” and it really digs into it. It’s also told by three different narrators with completely different points of view and who know very little about the Doctor. And it will destroy your heart. In various ways.

The Year of Intelligent Tigers

Standalone? - YES. Mostly.

Required reading? - None. You just need to know the Doctor has spent a century stuck on Earth and has recently reunited with his friend Fitz just before meeting Anji.

Quick summary - Team TARDIS spends quite some time on a planet full of musicians and strange alien creatures which look exactly like tigers from Earth.

Why is it good? - It’s a book about identity, and difference, and music, it has some of the best worldbuilding ever put in the series, chapters ordered like an opera, great characters, top quality escapism - I can’t list everything, and it’s my favorite EDA so far.

The City of the Dead

Standalone? - YES

Required reading? - None

Quick summary - The Doctor has recurring nightmares where some sort of void is chasing him, and team TARDIS tries to solve a strange murder in New Orleans. If that sounds weird, it gets weirder.

Why is it good? - It’s almost a Clive Barker novel, it’s full of strange and creative characters, and the murder mystery has a great resolution. And most importantly, it’s funny as hell even when it gets very dark. Maybe my second favorite? idk

Anachrophobia

Standalone? - Yes? No? Maybe? There’s an important plot point from Henrietta Street in it. Let’s say NO

Required reading? - The Adventuress of Henrietta Street

Quick summary - Experimental time-traveling goes very, very wrong very, very fast.

Why is it good? - It terrified me and I’m recommending it just so that more people can share my pain.

#long post #replies #edas #eighth doctor adventures #rec list #anachrophobia #The City of the Dead #The Year of Intelligent Tigers #The Turing Test #The Scarlet Empress #Unnatural History #Alien Bodies #Vampire Science #Seeing I #Eighth Doctor #anon

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billpottsismygf · 4 years

Text

Okay firstly, what the fuck. Secondly, I absolutely loved that episode.

Jack is back and I'm so excited! Loving him just full on snogging Graham because he thought he was the Doctor, loving him just still being Jack, loving all of his interactions with the fam.

I thought Ryan was particularly funny in this episode, too. I'm really glad to see Tosin Cole's comedic acting getting to shine through, given that for most of series 11 I thought he was quite wooden.

It's hard to talk about the story much given that I spent most of the episode in a state of bewilderment and delight. However, the set-up was great and I loved Ruth and weird dossier Alan and all the pretty shots of Gloucester. Then everything went crazy.

My first thought is parallel universe. That perhaps we have even been in a parallel universe for a while somehow, which may also explain the whole "possible future" in Orphan 55. I mentioned back in my reaction to Spyfall Part 1 the possibility of parallel universe Doctors and that seems the most likely explanation, which is... huge. If this is done well, it could be incredible. Otherwise it could be truly dire and fuck up the Doctor Who mythology forever. I'm hopeful given the incredibly foreshadowing so far (the "multiple Earths" in spyfall, the aforementioned possible futures in Orphan 55).

When the TARDIS was revealed under the ground, that was a truly great moment, and felt like some kind of psychological horror where the Doctor's universe was crumbling around her. The thoughts racing through my mind after Ruth revealed her identity were things like a re-hash of The Next Doctor, or a re-hash of the "oh look there was a secret extra regeneration" War Doctor story, but it's obviously something more than that. This is clearly a Doctor with a very different past. It sounds like possibly quite a dark past, what with her working for Gat, and for the very different way she acted. I didn't particularly like her Doctor; she was too prone to violence, despite her proclamation that she knows the Doctor doesn't use guns. However, I think she was very well played and is absolutely brilliant at playing a version of the Doctor in which her past played out very differently, if indeed this is a parallel version. Her outfit was also incredible.

If Sacha Dhawan's Master is also from the parallel universe, it would also explain the retcon of Missy's redemption arc, which would be a nice work-around to having the Master back as a villain without actually destroying that.

I am absolutely adoring the emotional range we're getting from Thirteen this series; from her reaction to the destruction of Gallifrey, her emotional isolation from the fam (in earlier episodes too, but especially at the start and end of thi episode) and the way she’s played every shocking revelation so far. Jodie is just finally getting to use her terrific acting ability, rather than just only getting to play the Doctor in her happy-go-lucky mode.

Anyway, I loved that so much and will definitely be rewatching it very soon. I'm excited to learn more about this Lone Cyberman, as well as to learn out what the hell is going on with Gallifrey, the timeless child, these alternate Time Lords and just about everything else. Of course all this build-up could lead to something incredibly disappointing, but so far I'm enjoying the ride a lot and I'm letting myself hope that this is going to be amazing.

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arenee1999 · 4 years

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The Consistency of The Doctor

Beware: Wall-of-Text (huge wall-of-text) and my thoughts on (and how I view) The Doctor and the regenerations.

Also massive Classic Who spoilers in case anyone cares. (There are some things I’m glad I didn’t know before I started watching it) And a non-specific spoiler for Spyfall part 2.

As fans of Doctor Who we put a lot of our focus on favorite or least favorite incarnation of The Doctor or The Master, favorite and least favorite companions. We sometimes lose sight of the show as a whole and that even though the Doctor has many different faces, it is the same character.

My first introduction to Doctor Who was in 2005 with the revival. I saw the commercial with Chris Eccleston proclaiming it to be “the trip of a lifetime” and I knew I had to watch it, I was hooked from that moment before it ever aired. I watched Nine and Ten and halfway through series 4 I decided it was time to go back and actually watch Classic Who. I started at the beginning with An Unearthly Child and worked my way forward and also watching all the new episodes as they aired. Life got in the way, while I kept up with the new episodes I had to put my Classic Who watching on hold. I had made it through season 13 before I had to stop. Rather recently I picked it up again. I now only have the Eighth Doctor movie and the Peter Cushing movies left to go and they’ll have to wait a few months.

Through all of this I came to realize, my “favorite doctor” tends to be whichever version I’m currently watching. I do have a ranking order, those that if I want to watch a random episode I’m most likely to gravitate to. Versions that resonate deeply within me for various reasons. My list is very much opposite from the majority of fandom and that’s ok. We shouldn’t all like the exact same things. How boring would that be?! (I do wish I could move on to the Big Finish audios, but there’s so many and they all cost money that I don’t have. I’m also very hard of hearing and tend to get lost in the sound of peoples voices and not be able to concentrate on what they’re saying.)

When I finished Survival, about a week ago, and then watched Spyfall just a few days later I really stopped to think about the different regenerations of the Doctor (and the Master but mostly the Doctor). If you pay attention, you can see the frame of mind the Doctor was in when he regenerated each time and see the threads that tie all the versions together. The First Doctor started out overly arrogant, cold and a bit of a bully. But he had had little interaction with anyone except other Time Lords at that point. Through his three seasons (sadly most of which are missing) he does tone down the arrogance and coldness a bit towards his companions but doesn’t have the right personality to really be friendly to them. When he regenerates we get Two, who is gregarious and happy. Two regenerates after having his companions stripped from him and his mind wiped. Consequently Three is reserved and focused on science. He is surrounded by friends, including multiple clashes with the Master (they’re best friends as well as enemies), throughout this regeneration without any truly dark stretches, which lets him regenerate into the fun loving Four. The Fourth Doctor spends the majority of his reign happy, even when he gets blisteringly angry it only lasts a short time before he’s smiling again. He regenerates while facing the Master and we get Five. The Fifth Doctor has an innocence about him, is softhearted and kind. At least, he is until Adric’s death. Then we see him close himself off a bit, become short-tempered and prickly. Cue the Sixth Doctor who has a porcupine exterior wrapped around himself as protection against being hurt but still has a soft center, if you can handle being stung multiple times in order to reach it. He’s bristly and sarcastic, some of his superior attitude shows through again but he still cares about his companions, you can see the anguish when he’s told Peri is dead and the sheer relief when he finds out it was a lie. He regenerates into Seven, who is once again softer and kinder but still with a rather large thread of steel running through him. If you’re paying attention you will see where Ten’s “Time Lord Victorious” attitude comes from. Eight (while I’ve not seen all of it, I have seen some) has the rough edges from Six all worn away. Seven was largely happy and carefree without massive trauma, which makes Eight more relaxed and softer. His growth and change happens in the audios :( but we see how and why he changes into the War Doctor. Who then turns into Nine. The Ninth Doctor is angry and broken after the Time War. He re-learns to see the beauty and the wonder of the universe through the eyes of Rose. Ten is happy and optimistic and full of energy, until he loses Rose. He never quite gets over that, there’s always a bit of melancholy running through him from that point and having to wipe Donna’s memory just exacerbates the problem. But when he knows he’s regenerating he visits his companions and sees them happy. He sees Donna getting married. He sees Rose smiling just months before their first meeting. So we get Eleven, who is a mix of exuberance and caution. He’s capable of insane highs and doleful pensiveness. When he regenerates it’s a special circumstance, because it shouldn’t have been able to happen. But he was given a complete new regeneration cycle. Twelve is a complete blank slate. He has no social skills, he doesn’t remember who or what he is even. When the memories return and all that loss hits him at once, he wraps himself in layers of armour as protection and lets the social ineptitude be his excuse for a myriad of sins. But Clara was already under the armour before he donned it and she shows him how to trust and care again. Which is why he nearly tears the universe apart to keep her alive and why he had to be the one to lose his memories of her. Then he spends 24 years with River on Darillium, finds Bill and loses her in the most horrific way and because of the machinations of the Master, no less. But before he regenerates his memories of Clara are returned and he knows Bill is happy with the final choice she made. (as an aside, we see bits of every previous Doctor in Twelve during his seasons, and it’s glorious) Which brings us to Thirteen. She is outwardly friendly, she is kind and optimistic but she is also reserved and reticent about sharing much about herself. And now she’s been hit with the Master’s actions to Gallifrey. I’m not sure I really want to know what is so bad, so horrific, it crosses over the Masters moral compass. And it better be horrific, if it’s not I will lose any ability to take Chris Chibnall serious as a writer or showrunner for Doctor Who.

I don’t really expect anyone to agree with my take, but maybe my view can give you a new way to look at the Doctor. Maybe a way to find the common threads through the regenerations. Maybe instead of blaming the actors for bad episodes or seasons, blame the weak scripts, the scripts with plot holes large enough to cram Jupiter through. The actors did (have done and are doing) brilliantly and can only work with the material they’re given. They’ve kept the Doctor consistent, even when it doesn’t seem like it at first glance.

#doctor who #doctor who meta

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rumata-est · 5 years

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Impossible Girl

Part one

Well, to summarize: when the Doctor met Clara Oswald, she was about 24, she was curious, brave, eager for adventures, very smart and fast. In "Deep Breath" she is 27, so she spent about 3 years with the Doctor and learnt a lot. She is very forthright but she also understands people's feelings very well that's why she knows when to stop and when to make the Doctor stop. She cares.

However, we rarely see Clara being really kind to somebody in particular. Is she kind? She obviously knows it’s necessary to be kind and sympathetic (never mind to whose advantage), and this knowledge defines most of her actions. It sounds very Machiavellian though pretty realistic, and such character type fits adventures and life in general very well.

What happens when the Doctor changes?

The thing is throughout the series 8 the Doctor is in the middle of his own “am I a good man” crisis, he shows off deliberately, he wants Clara’s attention, he parks the TARDIS in her flat, and they are actual roommates. From now on every day it's a roller coaster and a personal matter cause his argument to pull her into adventures is "I need you no matter how I treat you and other people" at any time. That’s annoying. But she says "fine". The Doctor is not the only one who changed: the veil lifted, she is not a young woman anymore, she has to accept bad choices exist, and sometimes (most of the time since you’re a Doctor) it’s you who make them, and it’s not an easy burden.

Why does Clara want Danny Pink? Firstly, she hates to mess things up and she did so with Danny at first sight. She was trying to be funny but instead she said something unacceptable, and she needs to fix it immediately. Secondly, she is a carer, and Danny needs somebody to deal with his trauma. Thirdly, she’s eager to make her existence well balanced: job, domestic life, traveling, adventures. Her life’d better be amazing.

“Listen” is an extremely important episode cause Clara basically plays the Doctor’s part, and not the one shining with joy and glory. The way Clara treats Danny during their date is at least weird, but honestly, she is horrible to him. She brings the killing subject again though she doesn’t know the details and they both know it hurts him. She doesn’t apologize, makes an exit, and he doesn’t deserve it. When she got distracted, Clara and the Doctor end up in Danny’s childhood, and soon the Doctor gives a little boy a dream which will have a tremendous impact on his whole life. They don’t even know whether the monster under the bed is real. And it’s Clara’s fault. She feels guilty, and she cares so she tries to fix her ruined date (breaking the time travel rules), and she doesn’t succeed cause she is actually always “in a rush, in a state, and in space helmet”. Danny will spell it out quite neatly later: she is so busy saving the universe she can hardly see people right in front of her. Then she gets distracted again...

It's a perfect description of one of the Doctor's bad days in a nutshell: interfere, act weird, be charming, don't respect people's opinions, get distracted, mess things up, try to fix them, mess them up again...

...then have an insight, actually fix things, be charming, everyone's in awe, run away.

When Clara sees her friend and her hero as a crying little boy, she has to be a Doctor even for the Doctor, she tries to fix him. And then she wants her 2000 year old Doctor to feel that she really cares in every way. When he refuses (to hug her or whatever else), guess where she goes... underneath the strong facade she is vulnerable too. Both the Doctor and Clara are very good at hiding feelings and messing things up with people, but when you supress something it only becomes stronger. The Doctor never explains what is going on in his hearts, Danny will never know how scared, or vulnerable, or happy Clara really is.

The great discovery is nobody’s perfect and everybody’s vulnerable. And even worse: the Doctor is vulnerable too. “Silly old universe, the more I save it, the more it needs saving”. True. Also, the truth is sometimes the universe works just fine until you interfere and screw up.

So, Clara and the audience face the problem: to care about people you need to be kind, to care about the universe you need to be practical. It wasn’t so obvious before, but with Twelve it is. The thing is you’re a good man only if you manage to do both. Clara has to develop the concept of kindness. It’s not enough to be kind naturally, it has to be your moral choice. You have to explain how exactly you’re going to be kind to not mess things up. Unfortunately, this explanation usually includes tons of lying.

Rule One: the Doctor lies. Why? Vital survival skill, mainly for everybody around the Doctor. Clara lies too. Why? The same reason. For example, what can she possibly answer to Danny's question about the Doctor? Erm, lets see: the man who usually saves people and worlds saved my life once cause he was looking for me cause he had met kinda me twice and that kinda me had saved his life and died cause it turned out later I sacrificed myself for him and was divided into million echoes each of which was born to save him. But he saved me again, and then I helped him save his own planet which was very good cause he had been immensely traumatized by thinking he had destroyed it for the rest of the universe had survived. So, we travelled together, and saved the universe, and saw wonders, and then he changed, and now I have to get the bloody permission to hug him when he's upset.

What the ........

It's too complicated to be explained. So Clara goes with the easiest part: he's an alien, and she sees wonders.

Saving the world isn't that easy cause there's never just black and white, you can't jump high enough, or call the Army, or name somebody "an officer". Basically, be kind. But it's quite difficult to apply these beautiful simple words to real life. Why?

We can see it in “Kill the Moon”. We usually concentrate on things like Clara’s “clear off“ manifesto or the Doctor’s “ that was me respecting you”. But what about humanity? Why did everybody turn the lights off? Of course, that's an exagerration, of course, there would be some light on Earth. But the dark planet is a metaphor: even in the darkest of times, remember to turn on the light. Even if you’re alone never fail to be kind. And it’s a damn difficult job when all you want to turn your back on all these predictable silly little humans.

“I nearly got it wrong. I nearly didn't press that button”, Clara blurts. Ring any bells? Of course, it’s Gallifrey and the barn all over again. When there were three Doctors it was easy for Clara: she just had to tilt her head, cry a little bit and remind the Doctor to be a Doctor. But it’s not so easy when you’re in charge and your home's at stake.

A little reminder: Clara is still about 27-28, has a regular job and a lot of cool outfits, tries to be a girlfriend and has to deal with very difficult philosophical problems and the Doctor who is a tidal wave and a walking philosophical problem himself. Don’t forget Clara is a control freak so avoiding any problems is not an option. Of course, it's too much for her.

“Mummy on the Orient Express” is all about who is in control. At first the Doctor and Clara talk about two different subjects: Clara wants to talk about her feelings and the Doctor wants to talk about his planets. Actually, each of them wants to persuade the other, it’s not just about feelings and planets. But they really have to talk about what is happening. The next scene in the corridor is a little bit better cause they are trying to talk (without bringing the real subject, of course). And the real subject is: I don’t want you to go but since I am a control freak I will stick to my “last hurrah” line. It’s more like juggling questions than a proper conversation. Clara is freaking out for fear of losing him. For fear of getting it all wrong.

Clara hasn’t looked at the mechanism of being a Doctor like that before. We always assume the Doctor is so clever, he can push his luck and fix everything, even when it's absolutely impossible. But what if sometimes he really really can’t? What if sometimes people die on his watch, real people, no matter how hard he tries? And even worse: what if sometimes he really has grey areas? And you happen to be smart enough to notice all this?

So, he isn’t a Deus ex Machina anymore, he is pretty real. All of this is revealed in their brilliant conversation on the beach. And then Clara asks the Doctor the same question Danny asked her: why are you doing this?

What can he possibly answer? It's his life and his hobby. It's the right thing to do and an addicition as well. And it's so beautiful Clara can't help but say "I love you" stay.

I personally adore the way the Doctor answers Clara's question "Have you ever been sure?". He says "no", and there's a visible trembling happiness in his voice cause she really understands and accepts this part of his life now.

A big change of heart happened. But it's a story for another day.

#doctor who #whouffaldi #moffat era #twelve x clara #clara oswald #12th doctor #jenna coleman #peter capaldi #otp: i am not your boyfriend #impossible girl #trust me i know #dw meta

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snarkyfinch · 5 years

Text

Change

The Doctor and the Ponds find their way back to one another, and the Doctor doesn’t plan to leave again. It just takes a few months to convince them of that. And another year or so to convince them both he loves them, but really, what’s a few years compared to a thousand?

(aka 2,000+ words of snarky giving amy rory and the doctor a happy romantic ending)

- -

“I suppose, in the end, they break my heart.”

And hadn't that been the truth for so very long? Hadn’t that been the one thing he carried with him, every time someone new stepped foot in the TARDIS? Yes, for quite a while his companions had all broken his hearts. They smiled and laughed and cried and lived, and then at some point they didn’t. The smiles were gone, as were the laughs, and the tears. So was the life.

And it was so terribly lonely.

Sometimes he made himself live with that loneliness. Sometimes he let the years pass by with nothing but the wheezing of his TARDIS, no humans or otherwise present to make his chest ache. No one there to remind him he didn’t need to be alone.

“Doctor?” The voice, so soft and hesitant, makes him smile. Despite the dark place his thoughts have drifted to, he smiles. “Hello, Rory.” “But how-?” Rory looks like a surprised fish, and if he were any less sorrowful and any more thrilled he might have laughed. As it were, he can only continue to smile at Rory. Judging from the concern that blooms like honeysuckles in Rory’s eyes, the smile mustn’t look very happy. Oops.

“I’m a time lord. I do what I want.” “But this- you can’t be- not that I’m not happy to see you, of course I am it’s just-“ “Rory.” The Doctor keeps his tone gentle, always gentle around Rory. Because Rory has seen too much, because Rory the Roman deserves a little gentleness after everything he’s been dragged through on the Doctor’s account. “May I come in?”

Rory gapes at him for a moment more before nodding his head and letting out a series of stutters that collects in the Doctor’s mind to form, “Yes, yes of course, please do.” Then, Rory calls for Amy. There’s a long pause before her voice, irritated but not overly hostile, calls back. “What is it?”

“Get down here! Now! Preferably!” The Doctor wants to laugh, to cry, to something, at the familiarity of it all. Of the warmth creeping through him, at the fact he can’t seem to stop smiling. His cheeks are getting sore.

Rory hasn’t stopped staring.

The two men sit in silence as Amy makes her way to them, and they continue their silence as she enters the room with a gasp. “Doctor?” “Pond,” the word is said with all of the warmth, all of the love, he has left within him. Embers of a fire that has been dampened time and time again, the broken pieces of his heart crying out. “I’ve missed you.”

Amy sobs, does what he can’t, and then she’s in his arms. She’s in his arms and Rory seems unsure, standing to the side with eyes that shine suspiciously bright. He’s going to cry, too, then. The Doctor reaches out, tugs him in because his hearts ache and his eyes are wet. Because he’s home. It took him so long to realize what his home was, and he felt like the biggest idiot to ever exist when it hit him.

Gallifrey was forever his home land, his origin, but it wasn’t his true home anymore. No, his true home was in the arms of those that loved him.

“How are you here?” Amy asks, her face buried against his chest. “How is this possible?” “I’ve never been good at following the rules, have I? Especially not when it comes to you two.” Rory looks surprised to be included, and the Doctor squeezes him closer just to spite that surprise. Rory was a part of this, whatever this was. Whatever this was going to be. Rory was a part of it, too, and the Doctor didn’t intend to let him forget that.

Judging from the death grip Amy had on Rory’s hand, she didn’t either.

“What does this mean?” Amy meets his gaze now, eyes red and tear filled. Her nose is running and her skin is blotchy, and really it’s not the most attractive she’s ever been, but she is beautiful. “It means, Pond, that it’s time for some coffee and snacks.”

She laughs, and so does Rory, and the Doctor doesn’t think he’s ever heard a sound more beautiful.

“Doctor?” Rory’s voice pipes up from behind him, and he glances away from his book to the man leaned in the doorway. “Yes, Rory?” “When… when are you leaving?” Rory sounds as awkward as ever, unsure of what path he’s meant to be taking when it comes to conversation. “What do you mean?” “I just. It’s not that I want you to go. Of course I don’t, it’s lovely having you here and all. It’s just. Well. You’re… you. You get bored. And it’s already been, what? A week? So, I was just wondering when you planned to leave, and when you do go if you’d mind-“

“Rory,” his voice doesn’t waver, which is a pleasant surprise. “Rory I’m not leaving. If that’s alright.” Rory blinks, mouth open, uncomprehending. The Doctor lets out a soft breath at the familiar expression, thinks back to the first time he saw that mute shock. He had missed all of this, though he could do without the awkward mornings. Those never had gotten easier to navigate.

“Of course it’s alright, you dolt.” And there’s Amy, snow still melting in her hair, eyes as sharp as daggers. “We’ve kept an empty room for you for… how long?” “Years,” Rory whispers, sounding absolutely mystified. “Years.” Amy agrees, eyes focused solely on the Doctor. “So don’t even think of leaving, understand?”

“I won’t even consider it.” He’s not sure she understands how much he means those words. She’ll understand eventually, though. He knows she will. She’s always been smart.

Six months. Six months of learning how to function as a human being on earth. He gets a job, thinks of Craig as he suggests the best toys for parents to place under the Christmas tree. Wonders how his friend is, wonders about a lot of things, and then he’s spiraling. He’s learned how to deal with spiraling, he’s learned a lot of things.

Clara would be proud. He’s adjusting. He’s learning. He’s coping.

“Amy? Have you seen my glasses?” “The ones you don’t need?” She sounds exasperated, but amused. He gives her his best sheepish but cheeky grin, unable to stop the nervous fluttering of his hands. His hands never sit still when he wants them to, but he’s found he doesn’t mind it. Lovely way to work off excess energy.

“Yes, those.” “They’re in the bathroom on the medicine cabinet. For some reason. I saw them up there when I was dropping off your laundry.” “Ah, lovely. Thank you!” He makes sure to make his voice just a bit sing-songy because it always makes her smile when he does. Something about his dorky charms.

“Oh, Doctor? Rory and I won’t be home for dinner tonight. Work.” The Doctor almost winces at that, but instead he just gives a wobbly smile. Amy looks sympathetic, and he really rather hates that. “You two are so busy. I feel like I should get another job.”

Amy laughs despite herself at that, shaking her head vehemently. “No, no you don’t need another job. You’d go insane.” “Still! You two are so busy all the time. Absolutely no time for me!” He absolutely does not whine his words out as he flops onto the couch, staring up at her flushed cheeks and wide smile. Beautiful.

“You’re like a cat, sometimes.” She muses this as she runs a hand through his hair, watching it flop down over the edge of the sofa. The Doctor grins at her, unable to find the right response to that. She continues to fiddle with his hair until her hand comes to rest on his chest and her eyes return to her book.

The Doctor stays there for as long as his back and legs will allow, basking in the comfort that is his Pond.

“Rory! There you- oh.” “Lost a patient.”

The words come out in a tired croak, and as the Doctor takes in the sight of tired eyes and slouched posture, his hearts crack just a bit. He moves forward before he can think why, arms reaching out as Rory leans willingly into his embrace. The Doctor has never been the best at these things, but he wraps his arms around Rory as tightly as he can and makes sure to tuck Rory’s face against his shoulder. That’s a comforting position, right?

Of course. The movies do it. He hasn’t had to do this in such a long time.

“It’s alright now, Rory. You did all you could. It’s alright.” “You're terrible at this.” “Hush. I know.”

Rory’s laugh is feeble, but it’s a laugh. The Doctor laughs with him, just a little, because he can’t help it. Rory goes from holding him to gripping onto his shirt like a lifeline, shaking for a moment as he bites back a sob. The doctor hears the way his breathing hitches, hears him swallow the sound like a pill.

“I’m sorry, Rory. You can’t save everyone.” “I know-“ “But you can stay strong for the ones you do save. It’s not going to get easier, but you will at least know how to cope with it.”

Rory looks at him and something clicks. The Doctor sees the light of understanding, the flickering ghosts that haunt this beautiful man. “You made dinner.” The sudden observation is startling, but the Doctor nods his head and motions to the table. “I’m still a bit rusty with it, but-“

“Doctor, it’s going to be amazing.” Rory’s eyes are still dripping tears, but he seems determined to ignore it so the Doctor decides to ignore it as well. For now. Until Amy gets home.

Until Amy gets home, the Doctor will hold Rory’s hand and pretend death is just something in children’s dark fairytales.

“Doctor.”

He has lived with the Ponds for two years, now. Two wonderful, confusing, happy, terrifying years. Two years of an itch he can’t scratch no matter how much he runs, no matter how many bird houses he puts together, no matter how many children he helps find the perfect toy.

The tone Amy uses sends a spike of fear through him, ice crawling up his spine.

“Pond?” And there’s Rory at her side, both looking so serious. So severe. It scares him. It scares him so badly. “We need to talk.” “What about?” “We love you,” it’s Rory who says it. Rory who looks so nervous, like something fragile is in his hands and one wrong breath will break it. The Doctor wonders, distantly, if he’s that fragile thing.

“I love you both, too.” He sounds confused. He knows he does.

Amy bites her lip.

“That’s just it, Doctor. We love you.” He’s not sure he understands. For a little while, he finds himself frozen like a popsicle before them. Just staring, mute and uncomprehending. Of course the Ponds love him, they’ve always made that clear. And he’s always done what he can to make it clear he loves them. So then why is this important?

Then his mind reaches back. A bit further than Amelia Pond and Clara Oswald. Back, back, back. To blonde hair and glassy hazel eyes.

“I love you.”

Rose. Ah. So that’s what all of this was about.

“Oh.” He says intelligently.

Amy barks out a laugh, Rory nervously chuckling along. “Yes, Doctor. Oh. We love love you. Now what do you have to say?” Her smile is almost bitter, eyes hardening as though she’s expecting-

“Oh, Amy.” He doesn’t mean to sound so sad when he says it, but really. After everything, for these two bumbling idiots to think he really wouldn’t love them back is the saddest thing he’s heard in quite a while. “Of course I love you.”

Amy laughs again but this time it’s with relieved tears in her eyes. Rory has gone quiet. The Doctor feels like strangling him. “I love both of you so much I quite literally defied the laws of everything to be here. Really, was there any doubt?”

He moves first. A few steps and he’s got them both in his arms, pulling them as close as he possibly can to make sure they know. To make sure they hear how fast his hearts are beating for them. Rory nuzzles closer and Amy stubbornly wriggles about until she can steal a kiss.

The Doctor lets himself fall in love, hard and fast and without regret. He’s going to be happy.

“Doctor Pond,” he breathes it like a prayer, eyes watching himself in the mirror as he carefully fixes his bow tie.

He’s going to be married, today.

They’ve waited a handful of years for this. He’s had a ring for a whole two years now, he’s held the title of fiancé for a whole two years. It feels absurd, and yet the fact that he’s finally getting married is… surreal.

He feels like he’s floating.

“Doctor? Are you ready?” Clara’s little voice tears him from his thoughts, and he gives her the brightest grin he can. He’s still not sure how she found her way here, but she did. She’s going to walk him down the aisle, and that thought makes him lightheaded. “As I’ll ever be, I suppose.” Clara laughs in that special little way of here, the one that reminds him of Christmas bells.

Her arm waits patiently for his own to loop around it, and once it’s there she gives it a gentle squeeze. “It’s going to go fine.” “Of course it is. I’m not nervous. Why would I be? Are-“ “Doctor.” She’s scolding him with a smile, a knowing gleam in her eyes. He huffs, and definitely not like a petulant child. “Fine. I’m nervous. It’s my big day! Of course I am.”

Clara laughs again, resting her head against his shoulder. “Don’t be nervous. You’ve known them your whole life. Sort of. Just pretend they’re the only ones here.” The Doctor does his best to follow her advice as the music starts, but the nerves return when they start moving. His hearts race, he’s fairly certain he’s sweating.

It all fades when he sees Amy and Rory waiting for him. The sun glows around them, and he’d call them angels if it didn’t bring up so many bad memories to do so. Instead, he calls them ethereal.

Amy smiles and Rory is already crying. The Doctor just grins.

He’s never been more excited to say, “I do.”

#amy pond #rory williams #the eleventh doctor #snarky writes #snarky says fuck time and space #clara oswald #amy rory and the doc are an item i make the rules here boys

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ofstormsandwolves · 6 years

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We Need To Talk About School Reunion

One thing that’s always baffled me about School Reunion is how Rose is held up as an example of a selfish, spoiled, self-important young woman who refuses to recognise that the Doctor has had other companions before her. Does she maybe come across that way at least in part? Yes. But that’s not the part that baffles me. What baffles me is that Rose is made an example of, while the Doctor and Sarah Jane walk away relatively untouched by fandom.Why is that? If Rose is being a selfish child having a tantrum when she and the Doctor fight outside the cafe, then what does that make Sarah Jane and her snide comments? If Rose is selfish for wanting the Doctor to be straight with her about how many people have come before her, doesn’t that make him selfish for wanting to string her along allowing her to believe that she was ‘the One’?

Do I think that all the negative comments about Rose are undeserved? No. Of course she’s being a bit selfish, of course she’s a bit childish when Sarah Jane gets involved. She’s a young woman in her early twenties, suddenly intimidated by this older woman walking back into her best friend and crush’s life. She feels threatened, can see that Sarah Jane knows about Gallifrey, and the Time Lords, and lots of other stuff the Doctor has never told her. She gets upset, she gets angry, she lashes out. Her snide comment about Sarah’s age is petty and childish, but it’s also in character for a young woman who feels threatened and who grew up on a council estate. I’m sure arguments like that back at the Powell Estate happen frequently, possibly with even more name calling and swearing. That doesn’t justify Rose’s actions in the slightest, but she is also not the only person who needs their actions called out.

Let’s start by looking at Sarah Jane’s actions. Sarah Jane is clearly on the back foot when she meets Rose. Of course she is, the Doctor told her he was just dropping her off for a quick stop, and then he cleared off for, what? Three decades? Of course she’s going to be upset to find that the Doctor now has someone else, someone who seems to know him just as well as Sarah, someone who has inside jokes with him, and is the one by his side. But Sarah Jane also knows that the Doctor had companions before her. Unlike Rose, she is aware of the Doctor’s former ‘assistants’, and yet she takes out her anger on Rose herself. She makes snide comments about how ‘your assistants are getting younger’, and when Rose resents being called an ‘assistant’, she makes a sarcastic comment which- now I’m older- is clearly a dig at the idea of the Doctor bedding Rose. Sarah Jane is an adult, a journalist, and is fully aware that she would not have been the first or last companion aboard the TARDIS. Rose may act her age and throw sarcastic comments about Sarah’s age in her face, but what’s even worse is that Sarah Jane decides to act the same age as Rose.

That is one thing that I’ve always found odd about the episode- Sarah Jane’s pettiness really made me dislike her as a child, because although I could see that Rose was also being childish, I knew that Sarah Jane was an adult. Like, a proper adult. Rose is 20/21 in that episode (technically 21 as it is 2007 and she was 19 in 2005, but she skipped a year and her date of birth is screwed up, so she’s one of those ages) and is still arguably young enough that that sort of behaviour is frowned upon but not wildly unusual. As I said before, on the Powell Estate that’s probably common behaviour. But Sarah Jane is an actual adult, in her 50s (60s?), a journalist who should be able to keep her behaviour in check, and who you’d think had grown out of that sort of behaviour. Had she been respectful of Rose, had she accepted that her anger is for the Doctor, then Rose wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on. And maybe that would have been a good thing for Rose. She can be rather confrontational, probably a by-product of being in her early twenties, raised on a council estate with Jackie Tyler as her mother. And it certainly would have knocked the wind from her sails if Sarah Jane had been polite and calm. That wouldn’t stop Sarah from being angry at the Doctor, but had she been a bit more mature when faced with Rose she could have changed a lot.

Understandably, she’s upset at the Doctor, and she’s upset that Rose has no idea who she is, but surely that should be enough to tell the rather clever Sarah Jane Smith that it’s the Doctor rather than Rose that she should be angry at. How is Rose supposed to know about former companions? The Doctor has been shown to not talk about his past much, especially with Nine coming fresh from the Time War. Every little detail Rose is told is something she cherishes, because she understands that, for whatever reason, the Doctor doesn’t want to talk about the past. Yet Rose is the one that is often described as ‘childish’ while Sarah Jane picks fights and takes out her anger at a man out on another woman.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is just as selfish as people say Rose is being. He is selfish because he enjoys keeping Rose in the dark about things. While him not talking about Gallifrey is understandable, there is no real reason for him not to talk about former companions besides guilt and selfishness. Perhaps he thinks Rose will leave him, should she learn how many former companions died. Perhaps he just wants to keep Rose believing that she’s special, that the things he offers her are hers and hers alone. Perhaps he selfishly doesn’t mention previous companions because of what happened in Boom Town, when Mickey announces he’s dating someone else just an hour or two after trying to get Rose to spend the night with him. If Rose were to find out that he’s just like any bloke off the estate, with a string of- for want of a better word- exes that he’s kept secret for so long, she might not be too happy with him. And then there’s the fact he’s a father and grandfather. But whatever his reasons, he is for all intents and purposes leading Rose on.

People accuse Rose of leading Mickey on, particularly in series one, but no one ever mentions the Doctor. But that’s exactly what he’s doing; leading her on. Letting her think that she’s special, that she’s different. Of course she’s going to be upset when she finds out, and the confrontation in the street shouldn’t mark Rose as ‘selfish’ or ‘naive’ or ‘childish’ so much as ‘upset’ and ‘confused’. He came back for her, gave her a second chance to travel with him. Her, a girl from a council estate, with no job, coming from a single parent family and no A-levels. He wanted her to travel with him. And then he says things like ‘I could save the world but lose you’, and ‘I only take the best. I’ve got Rose’. He threatens to kill a Dalek because the Dalek tried to kill her. She nurses him back to health after his regeneration, not knowing if he’d still want her around, only for him to insist that he would love her to come. He’s furious when Cassandra takes over her body, he wraps his entire body around her to pull her into the library in Tooth and Claw. Of course the conclusion any young woman in that situation would draw is ‘this man likes me’. She’s fully aware of his age, it’s an exaggerated ‘older man, younger woman’ relationship, and of course in those sorts of relationships the young woman always thinks she’s special that a man wants someone like her despite her inexperience. He leads her to believe that he travels alone, except for rare occasions, and that she was an exception. And then in walks his ex and Rose is left arguing with him in the middle of the street, because she probably feels like an idiot for not realising sooner, for not questioning whether other people travelled with him. There’s probably a nagging voice that sounds like Jackie saying ‘I told you so’ in the back of her head. Mickey brags about how the Doctor’s just a normal bloke, in Aliens of London he gloats that the Doctor’s left her, and then he does the same after Sarah Jane turns up.

The Doctor is a normal bloke, a normal, selfish bloke. He is the reason Rose thought she was special, not because Rose has an inflated sense of self-importance, but because she doesn’t. Because her feeling of self-importance comes only from him. Comes only from his praise, his beaming smile when she gets something right, comes from him saying things like ‘Rose is asking the right questions’, all of which suddenly makes her feel like she’s worth something. Rose may act like she thought she was this ultra-important, special person, but that’s only because that’s what the Doctor led her to believe. They’re together 24/7, they’re best friends, and he’s constantly praising her and bigging her up, he’s constantly yelling and fighting anyone who wishes harm on her. He gave up his own life to save hers when he took the vortex out of her. How else is she supposed to react when a former companion walks in?

So maybe we need to talk about School Reunion. And maybe we need to stop blaming one character when there are several who need to be discussed.

#meta #doctor who

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memoirsverse · 5 years

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Verse: Doctor Who

Character name: Evelyn Alvar.

Birth date: November 3, 1984.

Physical characteristics:

5'4, curvy, with wavy brunette hair that she usually keeps cut to shoulder length or shorter, and brown eyes. She lives in the small town of Wisteria, Louisiana, about an hour’s drive from New Orleans.

When she Travels, she is a similar height, build, and facial structure, but her hair is very long and thick, silver threaded with gold strands; her eyelashes and eyebrows are the same color. Her eyes are an intense violet. She doesn’t know why she looks this way when she Travels, but she’s learned to just go with it.

Face Claim: Emilia Clarke.

Traveling

Since she was twelve years old, Evelyn has had the ability to separate her essence from her body, taking physical form, and move anywhere in the universe. She has no idea how she does it, just that she does. Her travels are sometimes just as physical and real to her as her everyday life, but more often, she is in a dream-like state when they happen even though she is physically present. They also leave her primary body drained quite often; she’s learned various ways to recharge so she can function, though if she overdoes it she can become very tired and susceptible to physical illness. Also, if she gets hurt while Traveling, it reflects in her primary body. Her Traveling form has some limited ability to “teleport” from place to place, though if she does it too much it drains her. She has some limited telepathic ability in both her Traveling and human forms, and often parses that connection in terms of a person’s “song.”

Her travels tend to drain her so much that they generally only last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. The further out she goes, the more it drains her. But, to some extent, they are spontaneous and uncontrolled by her.

Evelyn is aware on a private, personal level that she is probably not human, at least not fully, though she identifies as human. She just doesn’t know what she is or why she can do the things she can do. As far as she’s aware, her parents were both human. (She recently discovered the name of her real father, Soren, who is one of the last of a species known as the Aetheryn.)

Evelyn’s life

Evelyn is a writer and an illustrator, and has a series of illustrated novellas that are basically about her own travels, with names and details changed somewhat and billed as fantasy fiction. The stories were written for a Young Adult audience, but have something of a cult following, though she’s not overly well known.

The Curiosity Shop

Evelyn currently co-manages a curiosity and antique shop called “Alice’s Wonderland” with her friend Alice Deva. She sells a variety of merchandise at the shop, much of it quirky, strange, or eccentric. She also sells more conventional antiques.

Alice, however, is not entirely what she seems, nor is she an especially healthy friend for Evelyn to have, a point which will be woven into any threads that she is a part of.

Dreams

Evelyn has recurring dreams about a place with burnt-orange skies, silver trees, and red grass. She doesn’t think it’s a real place, really, because she’s never actually seen this world in her travels. She figures it’s just a dream. Still, though, she’s written it into her books, a vague reference, because it stands out to her for some reason.

She also has nightmares of blood and fire and battle, the taste of ashes in her mouth and the pain of dying, and of being pulled from the broken shell of her body and drawn into a dark space that is too small to contain her. She doesn’t understand them.

Personality

Evelyn is very creative, and has a tendency to be very aware of things like color and form. She also has a mild form of synesthesia, manifested within her mostly by seeing colors within sound and music, which occasionally also layers additionally into tasting sound, though the latter isn’t as pronounced or frequent. She is a highly emotional being, but has learned to hide her emotions for the most part. She has never really felt a part of anything, never really finding a social niche in the world, though she does have friends and family. She’s quite introverted, and has difficulty getting close to people, partly because her life is so unusual, and partly because she has had bad experiences. However, she does love meeting new people– just tends to be a little nervous and babbles a bit when first introducing herself, though. She can very direct and straightforward when she talks, which sometimes translates to seeming socially awkward, blunt, or even rude. When it comes to her crossworlding experiences, though, she tends to be a bit reticent, mostly because she’s had bad experiences in the past when she talked about it openly. She is also fiercely independent and keeps herself a little bit distant, because she’s always had to look after herself for the most part, having had somewhat neglectful parents and many friendships strained by either too much honesty (when she told people about her Traveling), or too little (hiding that aspect of her life completely).

Evelyn has little patience with people who lie and manipulate, even if such lies and manipulations are done with good intentions. She is slow to trust and can be very unforgiving if that trust is violated, carrying a grudge for years. She has a tendency to speak her mind whether it is appropriate or not, once she feels more comfortable around somebody. She dislikes crowds, but can tolerate them.She is not particularly outspoken around strangers, but if she feels strongly about something, or loses her temper, she will speak her mind, and her characteristic bluntness will come out. She does have a bit of a fiery temper, which tends to be set off most easily when she feels somebody is trying to control her. She has certain intellectual strengths and weaknesses– for instance, she sometimes has difficulty in thinking on her feet, or debating, or anything that requires a quick response, but she’s very good at constructing logical explanations for things at her own pace, carefully examining every angle of a situation. She is very observant and is sensitive to the emotions of others, somewhat psychically empathic as well as mildly telepathic. Though Evelyn may appear rather genteel and sophisticated at first glance, she has an almost feral nature at her core, a wild creature who has taken on a civilized veneer.

It’s important to note that Evelyn and Siobhan are the same person. Siobhan is not an alter ego– she just has a slightly different appearance. She will act like the same person, with the same strengths and weaknesses. She just uses an alias when Traveling so she won’t be recognized. However, her facial structure is the same, so a very observant person might be able to recognize Evie if they’ve seen Siobhan.

Sexuality

Evelyn is pansexual and demisexual. For more details, read here and here. She is also, theoretically speaking, polyamorous (again, this is explained in more detail in the above links).

The Travelers, or the Chronoforms

There is (or was, maybe) a race of non-corporeal beings who were able to see and move through all of time and space, all possibility and potentiality. Little is or was known of them, but when the Time Lords began harnessing the power of time and space far back at the beginning, somewhere along the way they acquired knowledge of these beings and thought to exploit them as power sources. Their very first experiments sought to draw them into physical bodies, but the bodies were unable to withstand the beings inside, and practically fell apart. So they began to genetically engineer bodies, splicing together genetic code from a number of “higher” species, through trial and error, also programming blocks and channels that would be utilized for control, and eventually managed to create a being who could physically move through time and space at will.

The first successful experiment was named Galatea, after an Earth myth about a sculpture brought to life.

As remembered in writing by Evelyn Alvar:

The process of integrating the essence of the being in question is an unpredictable one. Mutations can occur, anything from physical abnormalities to certain forms of dementia or madness. The psychological infrastructure can be compromised by the trauma of the coalescence, resulting in undesirable displays of willfulness and independence that have been not only counterproductive to our intent, but in some cases have been manifested as outright adversarial. Furthermore, the knowledge we have gained has allowed us to develop another project which utilizes the bio-engineering of machinery to achieve our goals without the struggle of maintaining control over willful Crossworlders. Therefore, we feel it is in the best interest of Gallifrey and her people that this project, and all prototypes created within its parameters, be terminated with impunity.

All of the prototypes were destroyed, except for Galatea. It is not yet clear how she survived the purge, but it is thought she had help. Little else is known of her life.

Evelyn Alvar’s Traveling form, Siobhan, is identical to Galatea, except for the fact that she has very little memory and no knowledge of Galatea’s life. The details of how she came to be (part) human and living a life as Evelyn Alvar– and why– are unknown.

Becoming Evelyn

Near the end of the Last Great Time War, the Time Lords extracted Galatea’s essence from her dying physical form and integrated her into a half-human, half-Aetheryn embryo carried by Evelyn Alvar’s mother, Isabelle. This was accomplished with the help of Soren Masterson, the leader of the remnant of Aetheryn refugees that took shelter on Earth after their planet was laid waste during the War. Soren is also Evelyn’s biological father, and facilitated the genetic manipulation and modification of Isabelle so that the cross-species pregnancy could be viable. Isabelle was kept in the dark during the whole ordeal, as she was continuously administered a drug similar to Torchwood’s Retcon to purge her memory; she remembers an affair with Soren which resulted in her pregnancy with Evelyn but nothing more. She was also made infertile from the process, an unintended side effect that caused Isabelle to deeply resent Evelyn even though she didn’t understand the full story. A half-human, genetically manipulated form was chosen for Galatea because it was thought she would be easier to control that way, and easier to dispose of when she had served her purpose.

Galatea’s memories were suppressed, and a trans-dimensional bilateral mirror framework set in place to contain a portion of her essence in a half-phased state, since the form of Evelyn Alvar, though it had been genetically engineered specifically to hold Galatea, would break down if it held her full essence. They never intended her to Travel like she does, except when fulfilling their purpose for her, which was intended to burn her out so she would no longer be an issue for them as she had so often been as Galatea. However, their precautions were not perfect, and some subconscious part of her broke through when she was a child and started bilocating. As a result, her body is slowly breaking down over time, a situation which is exacerbated every time she Travels. Her primay form is quite frail for this reason, though her Traveling form is still very strong. Her journeys tend to be rather brief, even though they are a natural reflex, because some instinctive and automatic part of herself is trying to preserve her strength.

#verses #doctor who verse #long post

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