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yeonchi · 7 months

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A different take on The Power of the Doctor

Jodie Whittaker's final episode of Doctor Who, The Power of the Doctor, premiered one year ago today. While it was one of the better episodes of the Chibnall era, it heavily relied on memberberries from the 80's while making no effort to address lingering plot threads, most notably the Timeless Child arc. Earlier this year, I saw this post from @armageddon-generation about how they would rewrite the episode as a tribute to the Chibnall/Whittaker era instead of the classic series, and in doing so, expand the special into two hour-long specials. Off the bat, this could work as a Christmas/New Year Special, or put Part 2 on 23 November for the 59th Anniversary. The OP put in quite a few good ideas, but there were some gaps and omissions here and there, so in this post, I'll be sharing my take on armageddon-generation's take on The Power of the Doctor while also adding in some things myself.

Part 1

The space train at the start is replaced by Karvanista, Bel and Vinder, who are transporting the young Ux Delph from the Series 11 finale (instead of the Quaranx, and yes, I am spelling it that) when they are attacked by the CyberMasters. The sequence presumably goes similarly to the original before the Doctor rescues Karvanista and co. In the TARDIS, Karvanista gets angry at the Doctor and when Yaz asks why, she tells Yaz about Division and her past as Ruth way before the original where she only found out (kind of) towards the end when she appeared. Dan has a heart-to-heart with Karvanista, which leads him to leave TARDIS. As Dan is taken back home, the Doctor restores his house (thank you) before she leaves with Yaz and the others.

The Doctor tracks down Delph's life signs to the Cyberplanet, which is actually Gallifrey, transformed and transported by the Master using his powers. As the CyberMasters attack the Doctor and Kate calls her back to Earth, leaving her unable to rescue Delph, who is being held in Tecteun's lab. The Doctor tells Karvanista and co about this and he offers to investigate the Cyberplanet in a subship, thereby taking Vinder's place in the episode.

Ryan and Graham were slated to replace Ace and Tegan in the episode, with Gabriela, Jake and Adam returning from Praxeus. Now, Tosin Cole was busy filming in the US after leaving the series, but yes, we'll assume that he was able to reprise his role here. Regardless, there is a glaring omission here, and that is Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan from the Series 12 finale. OP puts Gabriela and co travelling the world with Graham, but I think they should be with Ryan while Ravio and co are the ones travelling with Graham.

So Ryan (and co) investigates ZAIA Enterprise VOR from Spyfall, which should have collapsed after Barton went missing, but instead it is leading a worldwide tech revolution; on top of that, history has changed so that technological advancements happened far earlier than they did. Meanwhile, Graham and co are investigating the missing seismologists and the missing paintings (because why not). They are revealed to have been in contact with Kate Stewart at UNIT who calls the Doctor and that's where we get the reunion of the companions, or rather Ryan for the time being.

The missing paintings were defaced to show Nikola Tesla's face instead of the Master as Rasputin; the Doctor learns that Tesla became very successful after the Master saved him from financial ruin, taking over Thomas Edison's factory in the process and causing the technological advancements as a roll-on effect. The Doctor and the others see the Master's message just as Graham informs Ryan that he and his group are headed for the same university in Naples where the Master is, leading the Doctor to rush off with Yaz, Ryan and co following. Graham and co are captured by the Master before the Doctor arrives with UNIT. Graham is reunited with the Doctor, Yaz and Ryan while Gabriela, Ravio and the others stay with UNIT in Naples to deal with the dead seismologists, which is where we leave them for now. As the Master is put into UNIT custody, the Doctor has Graham and Ryan stay with Kate at UNIT HQ to guard him while she heads off with Yaz.

During this time, the Order of the Custodians from Resolution have been in contact with the Doctor as they deal with a Dalek incursion beneath the Earth. They infiltrate the Dalek base in the Bolivian volcano and meeting with the Doctor and Yaz, they give the former a chemical weapon that can kill Daleks (tested using samples from the recon scout Dalek), but the Order are killed and the Doctor is captured by a Dalek puppetering her, managing to get the Order's weapon to Yaz in the process before she escapes in the TARDIS.

Karvanista's subship crashes into the Cyberplanet and it is here that we get a brief cameo from Paltraki, who made it his duty to keep the Ux safe and is checking in with Karvanista on the progress. Karvanista gets impatient and uses the phone that the Doctor gave Vinder to contact her.

Ashad and the Cybermen appear from the Kasaavin realm. In the ensuing fight, there is a scene where Graham confronts Ashad about how the fear of death makes people human and I think it'd be nice to have, but I wouldn't know where to fit it in. The Master manages to escape to 1920s Wardenclyffe, where the Doctor has been brought to. There, the Doctor learns that the Master had also been using Tesla to construct the regeneration chambers he would use for the forced regeneration in an effort to spite the Doctor for failing to save him from the fate history dictated for him. Part 1 ends with the Doctor's forced regeneration.

Part 2

The Master's rampage in the Doctor's body is expanded here, leading a jailbreak in the Judoon prison and inciting Zellin and Rakaya's bet in Can You Hear Me? Tesla is shown restraining Yaz during these scenes, but she manages to overpower him and escape, locking him and the Master out of the TARDIS before responding to Karvanista's call.

The Guardians of the Edge scene cuts out the classic Doctor cameos in favour of an appearance from Ruth. It is here that we finally get some kind of closure from the Timeless Child arc by addressing the Brendan visions near the end of Series 12; at some point, after being recaptured by Division, Tecteun finally grants Ruth's request to leave and uses the Chameleon Arch on her to reset/limit her regenerations and memories, leaving her as a male Time Lord baby who would go on to become the Doctor. As much as I hated the Timeless Child being the Doctor, at least we got an answer to it.

The hologram implants activate in Yaz, Ryan and Graham, giving them some scenes with the Doctor. Ryan and Graham head up to the roof with parachutes, but Graham turns back at the last moment and decides to help Kate instead, thereby taking Ace and Tegan's roles in the following sequences respectively while also giving a highlight to Ryan's dyspraxia.

There is a bit of a modification to the Cybermen strategem here; when the Daleks detonate the volcanoes, UNIT would evacuate civilians to their strongholds, where Cybermen would be waiting to trap and convert them. Yaz saves Ryan and drops him off in the Bolivian volcano. To further emphasise Ryan overcoming his dyspraxia, I think he should be the one to destroy the volcano alone with the Order's weapon and the hologram Doctor guiding him. Or better yet, for an optional bonus, why don't we have Kane and Bella from Orphan 55 make an appearance here, going to Earth's past so they can help avert events that would contribute to Earth eventually being something like Orphan 55. It would also give them closure by showing that they managed to survive the destruction of the Dregs and also briefly reuniting Bella with Ryan before quickly leaving. There weren't any others good enough who could have helped Ryan in that scene but Kane and Bella did come to mind as another loose end.

At the same time, Yaz would pick up the Master and Tesla before going back to Wardenclyffe. While Yaz went out of the TARDIS with the Master and Tesla, Karvanista would stay hidden inside before coming out and shooting the Master after the Ruth hologram tricks the CyberMasters into shooting each other. Yaz uses the CyberMasters' regeneration energy to degenerate the Doctor into her old self. We then get a Thasmin kiss (OP's idea) while Karvanista has a heart-to-heart with the Ruth hologram, giving him closure while also alleviating his resentment for the Doctor.

Meanwhile, Gabriela, Ravio and the others fight off the Cybermen at the UNIT stronghold in Naples while Graham would save Kate from being converted before she self-destructs all the UNIT strongholds, trapping the Cybermen in them. The Doctor, with Yaz, Karvanista and Tesla, now freed from the Master's hypnotism, goes to pick up Graham, Kate and Ryan and they go to deal with the Cyberplanet Gallifrey.

The Doctor frees the Ux Delph and leaves him with Karvanista so he, Vinder and Bel can take him to where he was originally meant to be going, while also not wanting him to stress himself even further given what he went through. While the Doctor gets to work in the Master's TARDIS, Tesla (and Delph) helps Karvanista fix his subship before going back to work the controls in the Doctor's TARDIS alongside Yaz, Graham, Ryan and Kate. Karvanista and Delph successfully escape in the subship while the Doctor and her companions freeze the erupting volcanoes on Earth and transport Gallifrey back to its proper place in space, disintegrating the Cyber constructs with it.

The Doctor leaves the Master's TARDIS and prepares to leave Gallifrey, ready to make peace with the loss of her past as the Timeless Child and leave it all behind, but the dying Master returns to his TARDIS and uses his TCE to fire a laser beam at the Doctor (whether from the TCE itself or from the lamp atop the Master's TARDIS), knocking her out and triggering her regeneration. OP wrote it so that the effects of the forced regeneration was the cause of her eventual regeneration, but it left the Master with an unsatisfying ending so I adapted the original scene without the destruction from the Cyberplanet being disintegrated.

Yaz comes out, brings the Doctor back to the TARDIS and lays her on the floor before she takes everyone else home (well, she takes Tesla back to Wardenclyffe then drops everyone else off in Croydon). The Doctor regains consciousness, realises that she is regenerating and they have ice creams on top of the TARDIS. Just before Yaz is dropped off, OP wrote another Thasmin scene, gifting her the hologram implant in a projector Yaz had in Survivors of the Flux to round off her character development, praising her for what she did on her own while telling Yaz to carry (a part of) herself with her.

The ending scene with Graham's Companions Anonymous is replaced with a dinner celebrating Yaz's anniversary of running away from home as shown in Can You Hear Me? Yaz's sister, Sonya, is there, along with her parents Najia and Hakim and grandmother Umbreen. Ryan, Graham, Dan and Diane are there as well, having been invited by Yaz in addition to Aaron (Ryan's dad), Kate, Gabriela, Jake, Adam, Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan. The Doctor's extended fam is now Yaz's extended fam and support network as Yaz begins to tell them about the Doctor, calling back to Ryan's opening line in the Series 11 opener.

The Doctor's regeneration is witnessed by the Thijarians before they disappear again, leaving the Thirteenth Doctor to regenerate into the Fourteenth Doctor.

tl;dr

OP's changes and additions

The 90-minute special is expanded into two hour-long specials

Karvanista takes over Vinder's role in the story, though he and Bel make an appearance

The Quaranx is replaced by the Ux Delph, being transported on Paltraki's request

Ryan and Graham replace Ace and Tegan's roles in the story

Gabriela, Jake and Adam return from Praxeus

The Winter Palace is replaced by Wardenclyffe and Tsar Nicholas II is replaced by Nikola Tesla, who plays a more significant role alongside the Master

There is a sudden acceleration in Earth's technology as a result

The Cyberplanet is actually Gallifrey transformed using Delph's power

The rebel Dalek is replaced by the Order of the Custodians, who have a weapon that can destroy the Daleks

The Cybermen appear from the Kassavin realm and they attack all UNIT strongholds

The Master's rampage across the universe as the Doctor is expanded

Ruth is the only Guardian of the Edge shown and we get some closure to the Timeless Child arc

All UNIT strongholds are destroyed by Kate to trap the Cybermen within them

Ruth appears again to give Karvanista closure

Tesla (and Delph) helps repair Karvanista's subship

Extended Thasmin scenes

The Doctor's extended fam becomes Yaz's extended fam

The Thijarians bear witness to the Doctor's regeneration

My changes and additions

Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan return from the Series 12 finale

The missing paintings are defaced with Tesla's face instead of the Master's

(Optional) Kane and Bella return from Orphan 55 for a short cameo

Gabriela and Ravio et al help defend the UNIT stronghold in Naples from the Cybermen

Delph is freed and is left with Karvanista - the Doctor's plan with the two TARDISes returns Gallifrey to normal

The Doctor is still killed by a laser beam thanks to the Master, but it's not Delph's fault because he's already gone by this point

Once again, The Power of the Doctor was a decent send-off to the Thirteenth Doctor akin to an anniversary special, but it heavily relied on memberberries from the 80's without addressing the Timeless Child storyline. OP contends that the episode would be better if it were a tribute to the Chibnall/Whittaker era and I agree with it, though there were some aspects of their pitch that could have been improved upon, hence me making this post.

The Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials are coming in November, which isn't long to go now. There is also a Christmas Special coming up as well in December (the first since 2017) and Series 14 is expected follow in Spring 2024 (again, the first since 2017 or even 2011). My schedules for those months have been reserved for Doctor Who to be the focus because I intend to review the RTD2 era. We're still waiting for the exact airdates, but hey, at least we knew the specials are coming out sometime in November this year for two years, so that's a plus.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor

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thenotoriousscuttlecliff · 2 years

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You can really see RTD's influence on Chibnall in '42' because all the future humans have names like Kath, Riley, Abi, and Dev instead of Ravio, Yedlarmi, Feekat, and Bescot.

#doctor who #dw #he just should not be allowed to name things #it is one of his biggest weaknesses

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esonetwork · 2 months

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Timestamp #301: Ascension of the Cybermen & The Timeless Children

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-301-ascension-of-the-cybermen-the-timeless-children/

Timestamp #301: Ascension of the Cybermen & The Timeless Children

Doctor Who: Ascension of the Cybermen Doctor Who: The Timeless Children (2 episodes, s12e09-10, 2020)

The story that broke so many fans.

Ascension of the Cybermen

In the depths of space, Ashad speaks of the Cybermen. The mechanical menace has finally been defeated after winning a billion battles, and after a reign of terror, the empire has fallen. But that which is dead can live again in the hands of a believer.

The adventure plays out in two stories: One follows our heroes on a refugee planet in the far future, and the other follows a mysterious man named Brendan in Ireland.

Brendan’s Tale—

In mid-twentieth century Ireland, a man named Patrick finds a baby in the middle of the road. He takes the baby home to his wife Meg, and together they report the incident to the Garda police. With no leads, they couple decides to take care of him until the parents are found. After a year, they adopt the boy and name him Brendan.

Brendan grows up, attends school, and learns to farm. He applies to join the Gardaí and is welcomed into the police force by the sergeant who met him as a baby. While on duty one day, Brendan chases a thief named Michael near a cliff. Michael pulls a revolver and forces Brendan toward the cliff. Brendan is shot and falls to his death, but by some miracle, he springs back to life.

Brendan attributes it to luck, but everyone else is confused and afraid. Nevertheless, Brendan is awarded with a commendation. Many years later, Brendan retires from the Gardaí and is faced by his father and his sergeant, both of whom have not aged. They take him to the back office where he is strapped into a chair and has his memory wiped while he screams.

The Refugees’ Tale—

The Doctor, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz follow Shelley‘s coordinates to a planet in the far future. The Doctor parks a half mile out and breaks the news of humanity’s near extinction at the hands of the Cybermen. They find the last remaining human settlement comprised of seven surviving humans. The travelers arrive just in time to help establish a defense against the arriving Cyberman fleet.

With the help of Feekat, Ravio, Ethan, Yedlarmi, Fuskle, and Bescot, Team TARDIS gets to work: Graham sets up a neural inhibitor system that can restore Cyberman emotions; Yaz builds a particle projector to attack the automatons with gold dust; and Ryan establishes a forcefield. Unfortunately, a swarm of Cyberdrone heads arrive and destroy the gadgets. They also kill Fuskle and an older woman.

The drones leave and the Doctor orders the survivors to escape in their ship. She tells her companions to join them since the TARDIS is too far away. She promises to find them after she holds off the invading force. As the humans escape, Ashad confronts the Doctor with two additional drones. The drones pursue the companions to the ship, and Ryan is left behind with Feekat and Ethan as the rickety craft takes off.

The Doctor prepares a grenade as Ethan distracts Ashad. Ashad calls Ethan’s bluff and kills Feekat, then tells Ethan to carry his message of the Cybermen’s power. The Doctor uses her grenade and runs with Ethan and Ryan to the nearby Cyberfighters. The group hotwires Ashad’s ship and rockets into space.

The refugees aboard the gravraft limp toward Ko Sharmus and a phenomenon known as the Boundary, which can teleport people to random locations in the universe. On the Cyberfighter, Ethan also sets course for Ko Sharmus. Ethan talks about his upbringing and lessons about destroying cyber tech. Ashad makes contact and threatens to destroy humanity, even if it costs him his imperfect life. He believes that he was chosen to resurrect the Cybermen, and the death of everything is harbored within him.

The gravraft’s systems fail, leaving the ship on emergency power. A series of collisions prompt Yaz to look outside and find a Cyberman graveyard. A ship sits dormant in the debris and Graham convinces the survivors to use their remaining power to board it. They succeed, but as the ship powers up around them, Ashad and his guards arrive in a Cyberfighter.

The Doctor’s craft arrives at Ko Shamus. The planet has a single temporary settlement, and Ko Shamus is the elderly man who maintains it. He is stunned to see living humans and explains that he helps survivors pass through the Boundary. He fled with a handful of others, but as the word spread, more survivors sought sanctuary.

Graham, Yaz, and the refugees explore the Cyberman war carrier. They reactivate it and decide to use the ship as a mobile settlement to rescue what’s left of humanity. Graham and Ravio explore the rest of the ship and discover millions of dormant, battle-ready drones of a new design. The pair runs from Ashad, returning to the control center as the team continues to Ko Shamus despite the threat. Meanwhile, Ashad begins the ascension with his new army.

The Doctor, Ryan, and Ethan investigate the Boundary. It manifests as a rippling sheet of purple energy. As the carrier approaches the planet, Yaz calls the Doctor and explains the situation. The awakened Cybermen rampage through the ship and the Doctor urges the humans to evacuate. Unfortunately, they are trapped.

Then the two stories come together as the Boundary clears.

Through the portal, the Doctor sees the Citadel of Gallifrey. The Master leaps through the Boundary and tells the Doctor that everything is about to change… forever.

The Timeless Children

The Master forces the Doctor to join him in Gallifrey. If she doesn’t, he will kill the humans. As she crosses the Boundary, the Cyberman carrier arrives at the planet. Once on Gallifrey, the Master gloats about burning Gallifery to the ground and then takes the Doctor on a tour of the ruins.

On the carrier, the humans hide in a storage area after Bescot is killed. Graham develops a plan to use Cyberman suits as disguises. The team sets to work removing the biological remains and disconnecting the neural nets. Meanwhile, Ko Sharmus shows Ryan and Ethan his limited weapons supply.

In the Citadel, the Master is notified that the Cybermen have reached the Boundary. He invites Ashad to join him on Gallifrey and to leave some Cybermen behind to destroy Ko Sharmus, Ethan, and Ryan.

Graham and Yaz take a moment to talk about what happens if they don’t survive. He is quite proud of her and impressed by her resolve. With a tear in her eye, she jokes that he’s not so bad either. As their team puts the plan into motion, Ashad is alerted to their presence. Ashad searches for the humans but cannot find them in their disguises, and he gives up when the ship enters the Boundary.

The Doctor questions why the Master would surrender Gallifrey to the Cybermen. He deflects, directing her to the Matrix instead. He is driven by an unbelievable truth that he discovered in Gallifrey’s history, and he traps the Doctor in a paralysis field so he can share that truth with her. He sends her deep into the Matrix with a promise that it will hurt.

The Master presents a history of Gallifrey. In the time before the Time Lords, the Shobogans were the native population of the planet. An explorer named Tecteun found a gateway on another planet, with an orphaned child at its base. Tecteun and the child explored the cosmos before returning to Gallifrey, where she ran experiments trying to determine where the child came from. One day, the child fell off a cliff, but instead of dying, the child regenerated.

This was the first time regeneration happened on Gallifrey.

On Ko Sharmus’s planet, the humans wage war on the Cybermen. Ryan takes out several with a basketball-shaped bomb, but the drones keep marching. Meanwhile, the carrier literally lands on the Citadel. Ashad meets with the Master and introduces the Death Particle, a device created by the Cyberium to wipe out all organic life. Ashad has purged the new Cybermen of organic components in preparation for his takeover of the universe, but the Master offers an alternative to fully robotic life. He accompanies Ashad while his consciousness remains with the Doctor.

The Doctor’s story continues as Tecteun experiments on the child, forcing the child to regenerate time and again. Finally, Tecteun cracks the mystery and injects herself with the solution. Tecteun regenerates. With this new technology, Time Lord civilization exploded with the Timeless Child at its core, limiting each individual to twelve regenerations.

The Doctor asks what happened to the Timeless Child. The Master tells her that she is that child.

Meanwhile, Ko Sharmus, Ethan, and Ryan continue their guerilla campaign. They take out several drones, but Ethan is eventually captured. He is almost executed, but Graham’s team destroys the execution squad. Ryan is surprised to see his friends.

Ashad and the Master arrive in the Cybermen storage bays. The Master uses his Tissue Compress Eliminator to kill Ashad and release the Cyberium. He absorbs the Cyberium and pockets Ashad to keep the Death Particle nearby.

The Doctor awakens on a vast green landscape. She struggles with the revelations but the Master promises his story is true. He continues the story with Tecteun and the child becoming part of a secret group called the Division. Despite the Time Lord philosophy of non-interference, the group intervenes in time when necessary. The vision flashes in parallel with Brendan’s story, then stops altogether because the files were redacted. It is impossible to tell how much was lost, but what remains was encoded with a perception filter that looks like Brendan’s story.

The Master wonders how many lives the Doctor has lived.

As the Doctor revives from her experience, the physical version of the Master reveals that he kept the corpses of every Time Lord he killed. He has combined the power of regeneration with the durability of the Cybermen.

He has created CyberMasters – festooned in Time Lord regalia and armed with the power of regeneration – and he leads them into a conquest of the universe. Meanwhile, the human survivors cross the Boundary and arrive on Gallifrey.

The Doctor’s mind swims in the Matrix’s redacted void when the Fugitive Doctor appears. The Thirteenth Doctor wonders about her life before their First, but the Fugitive Doctor tells her it doesn’t matter. They’ve never been limited by who they were before, and the Thirteenth Doctor has the power to stop the Master now. But first, she must harness the power of the Timeless Child to overload the Matrix. She unleashes the memories of the Doctor into the Matrix and blows out the paralysis field.

She comes to and finds her companions and the human survivors standing over her. The humans explain their plan to destroy the carrier, and the Doctor devises a plan to use the Death Particle to destroy the CyberMasters. The humans place explosive charges throughout the ship while Team TARDIS tracks down the Master. They find Ashad’s miniaturized form and the Death Particle, and the Doctor telepathically offers one last meeting with the Master in the Citadel.

Unfortunately, the bombs are activated early, so everyone has to run. The ship is destroyed as the Doctor ushers everyone into a TARDIS. She asks Ko Sharmus for a bomb – it only has a hand detonator – and explains her plan to unleash the Death Particle on Gallifrey. She sets the TARDIS for the twenty-first century and sends the humans to Earth.

The Doctor returns to the Matrix Chamber on her suicide mission. There she finds the Master and his CyberMasters. The Master goads her but the Doctor doesn’t fall for it. His revelations have strengthened her. She pulls out the bomb and mini-Ashad, but before she can pull the trigger, Ko Sharmus arrives. He sent the Cyberium into the past, and he takes the detonator as his penance for not hiding it well enough. As the Doctor runs for a TARDIS, the CyberMasters shoot Ko Sharmus and he detonates the Death Particle.

The new Cyber-Empire is dead.

The humans arrive on Earth and their TARDIS disguises itself as a house. The Doctor materializes on the refugee planet near her own TARDIS, and the TARDIS she used to get there disguises itself as a tree. Unfortunately for her, three Judoon materialize inside the TARDIS and arrest the Doctor, finally closing the cold case on the fugitive.

The Doctor is taken to a maximum security prison to serve a life sentence, and her companions have no idea if she survived.

It’s the most controversial story in modern Doctor Who history… and I like it just as much now as I did when it first aired.

I understand the complaints. Fans of most major sci-fi franchises don’t like to see things meddled with. From Star Trek to Doctor Who, the complaints remind me of the oft-memed scene from The Incredibles 2: “I don’t know that way. Why would they change math? Math is math. Math. Is. Math!”

But… here’s the reality check. Doctor Who has never been consistent with continuity, and there are several extensive parody lists on Reddit about how changes in the franchise have “ruined the show forever”. Yet, somehow, the franchise continues on even under periodic threat of cancellation (in various definitions of the word).

Of the complaints I have seen regarding the Timeless Child revelation:

“This change disrespects William Hartnell.” How? Show your work. Because his stories still exist (even in telesnap form) and are even being preserved in high-definition format. If anything disrespects the legacy of William Hartnell’s work on Doctor Who, it’s how “An Unearthly Child” won’t be available because of Stef Coburn’s efforts. Otherwise, Hartnell’s legacy as the First Doctor remains intact.

“This change removes the mystery from the Doctor.” If so, please explain the history of the pre-Hartnell incarnations. Because all I see is massive story potential for the Doctor’s time with the Division and the implications of whether or not the Time Lords deserve to come back at all. We already knew they were arrogant and self-righteous, but now we get some context behind the regeneration limit. I also look at the events of The Time of the Doctor and how the Time Lords view the Doctor with a different lens, especially after thirteen incarnations risked their lives to save Gallifrey from utter destruction. Those Time Lords either gave the Doctor another set of regenerations or unlocked the Timeless Child’s potential that they had previously tried to stifle, allowing the Doctor to be who they truly are. In the end, the mystery is still there, effectively fulfilling the so-called “Cartmel Masterplan.”

“The Morbius Doctors aren’t real.” To the contrary, it was Philip Hinchcliffe’s intention that they were previous incarnations. The dialogue is also pretty clear: “Back! Back to your beginning!” followed by the eight faces. What happens on the television screen is part of the official continuity unless retconned later, and showrunner intentions fall into that same category for me. Showrunners are in charge of the show’s legacy while they hold the reins. Fans don’t have that responsibility. Philip Hinchcliffe has even seemed amused that fans ignored the obvious in Morbius but readily attached themselves to the regeneration limits a mere four stories later.

“The Timeless Child isn’t canon.” We’ve already covered that. Unless retconned later, what happens on the screen during the show is official continuity.

Boiling it down, fans just don’t like the change. While that’s their prerogative, it’s also a personal choice. I don’t agree with that choice, but I respect it. We all need to remember that fan opinion is not continuity.

That said, it’s not all puppy dogs and marshmallows for me. I do have issues with the revelation.

First, is it even true? The revelation is provided by the Master, the man who massacred his entire civilization and is known for lying. Even if he is telling the Doctor the truth, is it based on his own interpolation of redacted events? Even with the Doctor having lives before the First Doctor, could the Timeless Child be someone else? Say, Susan, for example?

Imagine that storytelling potential. Taking Susan away from Gallifrey to protect her and remove some leverage from the Time Lords. Especially considering that Chris Chibnall’s screenplay suggests that the Time Lords who join Tecteun at the dawn of their society could be Rassilon and Omega.

10:27:40 INT. GALLIFREYAN CORRIDOR – DAY

TECTEUN walking down a corridor — at the far end, two Gallifreyan figures (with the collars up) in silhouette. We can assume these might be Rassilon and Omega.

I’d buy that. It would be a stronger story, leave some room for future work, and make the Doctor a bit more vulnerable in the future. It also provides a dramatic reason for the Time Lords to return. Note that the script says “assume” and that these characters were not credited on screen, so we can’t verify that it’s true.

As far as what happened to the Time Lords? I don’t like it. It feels disgusting, which makes it work dramatically. The fact that I physically recoiled from seeing Cybermen that can regenerate tells me that the Master is a villain of the highest order. While Missy had a path to redemption during Series 10, I don’t think this incarnation has a path back. He’s a monster.

I had a similar feeling toward Tecteun and her experimentation on the Timeless Child. She literally killed several incarnations of the child to unlock the secrets of regeneration for her own selfish desires. Yuck.

I also don’t like how the Timeless Child revelation was handled from a writing and production standpoint. The entire sequence with the Doctor in the Matrix was handled in a “tell don’t show” manner. I think it would have been better for the Doctor to experience Brendan’s story in A Christmas Carol format, then have the Master fill in the blanks in a much shorter manner. Having Brendan’s story in Ascension of the Cybermen was more confusing and probably made viewers more defensive from the start. A little rebalancing between the two episodes would have worked wonders.

Otherwise, I liked the balance of action and drama in this pair of episodes. The Doctor doesn’t have all the answers and has to figure things out with us. The companions get a huge chunk of the spotlight, and everyone has to use their wits and smarts to save the day. And Yaz getting some dues was a great thing to see.

In terms of franchise lore, there wasn’t much in terms of callbacks aside from what has already been mentioned. The Timeless Children does have the most extensive use of archive footage in Doctor Who at the time of airing. It’s also the first time clips from William Hartnell’s and Patrick Troughton’s eras were shown in full color.

It also features the first on-screen female-to-male regeneration.

Finally, for something to chew on, this adventure fulfills several elements of the Series Nine Hybrid prophecy: A hybrid creature (the Master and the Cyberium) stood over the ruins of Gallifrey and unraveled the Web of Time (the Master hacked into the Matrix and revealed the Timeless Child secret), and broke a billion billion hearts to heal its own (the slaughter of the Time Lords).

Probably not Chibnall’s intent, but a nice parallel nonetheless.

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Doctor Who #Thirteenth Doctor #Timestamps Project

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karolinadeaen · 4 years

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How am I meant to contradict that, if you’re going all heroic?

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sixthdoctor · 4 years

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whatever our feelings on the episode or this season are can we all agree chibnall’s alien names are kinda wack

im sitting there trying to pay attention to the timeless child lore but im distracted by sacha dhawan trying to make “tecteun” sound natural

#and then you've got the future humans with names like feekat and yedlarmi #why is it like this chris #doctor who #the timeless children #dw spoilers//#is this a spoiler

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tuppencetrinkets · 3 years

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Below you will find links to sorted screencaps from Doctor Who (2005) season 12 for the following one shot characters:

Alex Austin - Yedlarmi

Amy Booth-Steel - Hyph3n

Aruhan Galieva - Tahira

Aurora Marion - Noor Inayat Khan

Buom Tihngang - Tibo

Clare-Hope Ashitey - Rakaya

Gia Lodge-O’Meally - Bella

Goran Visnjic - Nikola Tesla

Haley McGee - Dorothy Skeritt

Ian Gelder - Zellin

Ian McEthinney - Ko Sharmus

Jacob Collins-Levy - Lord Byron

James Buckley - Nevi

Jo Martin - Ruth Clayton

Joana Borja - Gabriela Camera

Julie Graham - Ravio

Kirsty Besterman - Solpado

Lenny Henry - Daniel Barton

Lewin Lloyd - Sylas

Lili Miller - Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

Matt Carver - Ethan

Matthew McNully - Adam Lang

Michael Bgley - All Ears Allan

Molly Harris - Suki Cheng

Nadia Parkes - Claire Clairmont

Neil Stuke - Lee Clayton

Lewis Rainer - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Rhiannon Clements - Bescot

Ritu Arya - Gat

Robert Glenister - Thomas Edison

Selyan Baster - Tecteun

Stephen Fry - C

Sylvia Briggs - Ada Lovelace

Warren Brown - Jake Williow

This content is free for anyone to use or edit however you like; if you care to throw a dollar or two my way for time, effort, storage fees etc you are more than welcome to do so via my PAYPAL. Please like or reblog this post if you have found it useful or are downloading the content within. If you have any questions or you have any problems with the links or find any inconsistencies in the content, etc. please feel free to drop me a politely worded message via my ASKBOX (second icon from the top on my theme!)

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i-was-bored-so-this-happened · 4 years

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The Companion: Ascension Ascension Of The Cybermen

Whoops, it’s been a while since I updated...but hey! This is the penultimate episode!

Sam Tate is my OC! If you’d like to know more about them or the Companion, shoot me an ask or a message

@theaussietimelord

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Sam

“Question. Would you like some help?” As the Doctor asks the question, the woman in front of us whips out a blaster. Just as quickly, my own is trained on her.

“Don’t try it.” I tell her, shifting the canon that’s resting on my other shoulder.

“You don’t need to use that against us.” the Doctor tells her.

“Who are you?” the man of the group asks. There’s three of them, man, woman and child. I’m not sure if they’re a family or not. “Where’d you come from?”

“Doctor, Graham, Ryan, Yaz and Sam. Don’t worry about where we’re from, concentrate on how we can help.” the Doctor tells him. In response, the woman wavers, but then she looks at me and her aim steadies.

“After you.” I nod. She hesitates before putting her blaster down. The second she has, the Doctor turns to the fam,

“Right. Set this all up like I showed you.” she tells them. I stay put, holstering my blaster and swapping it for the canon on my shoulder. With any luck, it should get through any shields the Cybermen have around them. The fam all split up in different directions except for Ryan, who I know is somewhere behind me. I can hear the Doctor talking to the man that seems to have proclaimed himself leader, but neither of them are loud enough for me to hear anything they’re saying. This is all that’s left of humanity. Six or seven people in the whole world. All killed, deleted by Cybermen. There’s going to be an attack here, and we’re going to try and stop it.

A finger jabs into my arm and a pained noise slips out of my mouth, the canon swinging wildly as I try to balance it again.

“The hell are you doing?” I ask, and I don’t make an effort to disguise my anger.

“What ‘appened to you then?” the man who’d poked me asks. He pokes my bandaged arm again, and I hit him.

“Stop it! I burnt myself, alright? Bugger off if all you’re going to do is prod me.” I tell him. The burn’s a couple of weeks old now, but it still hurts like hell.

“Yedlarmi.” is all he says in response, holding out his hand for me to shake. I have to put the canon down to do this. “Wassat?” he asks, pointing at the canon.

“It’s a really big gun.” I tell him impatiently. There’s a loud bang somewhere in the distance, and I can hear the Doctor yelling,

“Activation time, fam!”

“Get your people and hide. Hide, okay? Don’t run.” I tell him. He hesitates, and I shove him towards half of a building. “Yedlarmi. Go!” when he starts running, grabbing another man and pulling him with him, I lug the canon back up onto my shoulder. There’s a different noise then. A kind of…whooshing. The Doctor sees them first.

“Cyberdrones!”

Cyberman heads, flying in formation towards us. Bullets of lasers causing a small explosion where the Doctor had set up her own instruments.

“Fam, get down! They’re targeting the defences!” the Doctor yells, just before Ryan’s machines go up in flames.

“Graham!” I hear his name before I realise it’s coming from me. I take a shot at one of the drones before they can take a shot at him. Two of them go down in the blast. The downside is that now…well, now they’re aiming at me. “Shit, shit, shit.” the canon is too heavy to throw, so I just drop it and run. Well, I try to run. I hear the lasers, hear the boom. I can feel myself being thrown back by the explosion, feel my head as it cracks onto the ground, and then I can’t really feel anything.

***

Ringing. All Sam can hear is ringing, and then a voice. Saying their name. Their name, over and over again. And then a different word, a word that makes their eyes snap open. Cybermen.

“Sam. Sam! Sam, please, the Cybermen are comin’ and Yaz an’ Graham are gone. Sam!” Ryan. It’s Ryan. Sam sits up quicker than they should, pain rocketing through their head. “Sam!”

“Ryan. Ryan, what did you say about-” Sam cuts themselves off. They can hear them. Cybermen. Three sets of footsteps. They can’t see the Cyberman. Sam isn’t sure if they’d landed behind this wall or if Ryan had dragged them over here. Sam’s hands have pulled out their blaster and readied it before they can think, an automatic response to the sound of the Cybermen. There’s a voice there, in the back of their head, a memory screaming a name they feel like they should know.

“Where are Graham and Yaz?”

“I don’t know, we got separated. What do we do?” Ryan asks as the heavy, robotic steps of the Cybermen fade.

“You let me go first.” Sam tells him, pushing up onto their feet, but wobbling when they get there. “Woah. Oh, that felt weird.”

“Are you hurt?”

“A bit.” Sam mumbles. The tip of their tongue pokes out of their mouth as they deliberate. Sam would be fine on their own, but they have to protect Ryan, and to do that, “The Doctor. We find her. And you let me go first, okay?”

“You’ve met the Cybermen before, haven’t you?”

“Oh, just one of the few hundred alien life forms that have been hunting me down for the last few centuries. None of them have killed me yet. Worst case scenario, I’ll be a good distraction. They get me, you keep running, okay?”

“Are you sure you can run?” Ryan asks. Sam reaches up to their head. Both of them wince at the same time as Sam touches their head. Their hand comes away smeared with blood, which they then wipe onto their trousers before reaching into their jacket to fish out the beanie that’s stuffed into the pocket and pull it onto their head.

“Nothing that won’t heal.” Sam tells Ryan, picking up their blaster again and ramping it up a couple levels. Sam walks a few steps, pauses for a moment with their hand on the wall, and the pushes off and walks out into the open as they say, in an almost sing-song voice, “If you see a Cyberman, don’t forget to scream.”

Sam wobbles a little as they walk, but less and less as they progress, Ryan close behind. Every so often he reaches out to touch Sam’s shoulder. Both of them turn at the same time to the sound of an explosion and a loud bang followed closely by a yell.

“Graham.” Ryan says quietly, and there’s fright there.

“This way.” Sam tells him, moving towards the old broken building the sounds had come from. There’s an opening to go through, and there’s someone talking. The voice…it’s not fully Cyberman, but there’s a definite robotic edge to it. Shelley. The incomplete Cyberman Graham had told Sam about. Sam stops suddenly, and Ryan bumps into them. The leader, the man who had spoken with the Doctor. Feekat. Lifeless on the floor next to an exploded wall.

“What is it?” Ryan asks, trying to whisper.

“Feekat. He’s dead.” Sam tells him. “The boy…the boy, the Cyberman’s talking to him.”

“-Spread my message. Tell them, ‘Be afraid. All humanity have been erased. All life will fall. And the Cybermen will rise again.’”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sunshine.” Sam calls out, moving forward, blaster aimed at Shelley. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m the spanner in the works.” they can see the Doctor behind the Cyberman, can tell that Ryan’s seen her too as he moves closer to Sam. She’s holding what looks like a Plan B Bomb. “The Cybermen aren’t going anywhere.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.” the Doctor says, pulling Shelley’s attention away from Sam, Ryan and the boy and towards the Doctor instead. The red thing in her hand starts beeping.

“Ryan, go.” Sam says, and he darts past the Cyberman without question. Sam steps towards the boy, “You go too. There’s nothing you can do for Feekat now.” after a second’s hesitation, in which the Doctor throws the bomb, Sam grabs him and pulls him along with them. As the Cyberman goes boom behind them, all four of them rush out of the building.

“Doctor!” Ryan shouts as they run, “We’ve got to find Yaz and Graham!”

“I saw them get on the Gravraft. They’re gone.” the boy tells him, and both he and Ryan stop.

“What?”

“Concentrate, Ryan,” the Doctor tells him, “we have to get out of here. We can’t make it to the TARDIS-”

“Wait!” Sam tells the Doctor, lifting their wrist. They can teleport everyone to the TARDIS. “Ah beans. My teleport’s broken.” the screen of it is covered in cracks, and there’s a button or two missing. A copper wire pokes out of the side, the coating ripped off.

“-no teleport, no escape ship, a relentless Cyberman and very limited options. Well. One option. How fast are you feeling?”

“Uh, Doc, I don’t think-” Sam starts, but the Doctor’s already taken off.

“Alright?” Ryan asks.

“I think I have to be. Let’s go.” Sam tells him, darting after the Doctor even as it feels like their head is going to rock right off their shoulders. The Doctor’s running all the way to where the Cyberships landed.

“Are we going to steal their ship?” Ryan asks, shouting as he runs.

“Yes we are!” the Doctor answers.

***

Sam hisses at their teleport.

“This would be so much easier if I had anything other than Cyber tech.”

“Will Cyber tech not work?” Ryan asks.

“Well, it would, but it would then try and take over the entire system. That’s what the Cybermen do, they latch onto something, anything, and upgrade it.”

“Upgrade?”

“That’s what they call it.” Sam says, leaning further down over their teleport, which sparks again. “When they delete your free will, your emotions, turn you into one of them.” Sam pauses for a moment, “I didn’t want to be the one to give you this talk, mate, but once you’ve crossed that line of deletion, there’s no going back. You have no control over yourself anymore. Your only function is to delete humanity and build the Cyberman army.” Sam looks up at Ryan, “If they’ve gotten Graham or Yaz and they’ve gone too far, we can’t get them back.”

“But-”

“You can’t, Ryan. I knew someone who thought they could reverse the process. Use the technology to save life rather than delete it, but they couldn’t. Had to kill someone they loved.” Sam tells him. They know the story, but for the life of them can’t remember who that person was. “I need you to understand.”

“I do.” Ryan says quietly, not very surely, “I…I do.”

“I’m sorry.” Sam adds, as an afterthought. They are sorry, but they’re not going to sugar-coat the situation. They won’t give him false hope. Not like the Doctor would.

“We’re here!” almost as if on cue, the Doctor’s voice rings through the ship. Ryan turns and leaves instantly, not stopping to wait for Sam as they use the wall beside them to get to their feet. They move down the corridor back to where the Doctor and the boy are, “Shuttle calling Ko Sharmus. Anyone hear me? Anyone there on Ko Sharmus, talk to me. Please? What I’d give for a friendly voice right now. Go on. Please? Shuttle calling Ko Sharmus.” the Doctor says. Sam has just stepped into the cockpit when they hear,

Ko Sharmus responding. Hello?

“We’ve made it!” the boy cries excitedly. Sam still doesn’t know his name yet.

“This is the Doctor, who’s that?” the Doctor asks.

I’ve told you, this is Ko Sharmus.

“Ko Sharmus? You’re a person, not a planet?”

Who are you? What do you want?

“We’re human.” the boy tells him, “We’ve come to cross the Boundary.”

No, I don’t think so.

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asks.

There are no more humans.

“We’re right here.” Sam says, voice hushed. “We’re human. We’ve hijacked a Cybership, but there are no Cybermen. Just us. And there are more humans out there, coming here.”

“Very looking forward to meeting you.” the Doctor adds.

***

Ko Sharmus, as it turns out, is an old man. An old, old man with white hair and beard, dressed in reddish-earth tones. He’s got a stick almost as tall as he is.

“I don’t believe it.” Sam hears him say as the group reaches him, “There’s me having lost all hope.”

“Consider us your hope restored.” the Doctor tells him, “I’m the Doctor. This is Ryan, Sam and Ethan.” each of them nod as the Doctor says their name. “Do you mind if I have a shufty around? How are your defences here?” the Doctor doesn’t wait for an answer, gesturing for her companions to follow her, “Come on.” Sam hesitates. This whole place is hilly grassland, where they’re standing the top of a cliff. It’s incredible. Untouched apart from the small network of tents not far off that the Doctor is headed towards.

“Did this settlement start with you?” the Doctor asks when all of them are inside. It’s incredible here too, massive pipes serving as tunnels, the roofs and walls all made up of swathes of fabric or netting.

“Yes.” Ko Sharmus answers, “Myself and a handful of others fleeing from the Cybercamps.”

“So you fought in the war?” the boy, Ethan, asks.

“Yes. For a long time. Then I was captured and held in a human interment camp for processing, sent for an upgrade. I was one of the lucky ones who got away. We’d heard tell of this place. We didn’t really believe it, but we managed to get here. The war hadn’t made it this far, so we built shelter and, over time, others came. The word spread.” Ko Sharmus answers as he guides the group. He reaches what seems to be the centre of the whole place, and Sam and the Doctor’s head tip back to look at the ceiling of it, higher than the rest of the shelter.

“So where’s everyone else?” Ethan asks.

“There’s only me.” Ko Sharmus tells him, “I helped everyone else through the Boundary. And then, cause I’m an idiot,” he pauses momentarily, “felt like it was my duty to wait in case others came. But it’s been a long time.”

“You sacrificed your own life on the chance others were still out there.” the Doctor says.

“You make it sound more noble than it is.”

“It is noble.” Sam tells him, “You were right. We’re here.”

“So it’s true? The Boundary, it’s real?” Ethan asks.

“Of course it’s real.” Ko Sharmus tells him, almost sounding amused by Ethan’s question.

“Will you show us?” the Doctor asks.

***

Sam is still staring at the impossible Boundary. Oddly purple, stretching all the way up to the sky. Sam isn’t sure how wide it is. If they stepped through, would it be just one step? Or would they have to walk for a certain amount of time before reaching the other side? Where does it lead to? Ko Sharmus had said it led to another galaxy. What if it was one Sam had been to before? Or not? How had the Boundary been created? Was it natural? So many questions about this impossible thing.

-All frequencies. A voice is crackling through Ko Sharmus’ communication setup. Yaz looking for the Doctor.

“Yaz, we can hear you, can you hear me?” the Doctor asks. There’s a pause, long enough for Sam to re-join the group and stand near Ryan. A pause that goes on for almost too long.

Doctor!

Sam’s hand goes to Ryan’s shoulder.

“Hey, they’re okay! Cybermen didn’t get ‘em!” they tell him as he starts to smile.

“Where are you?” the Doctor asks, and Ryan’s smile fades as Yaz answers,

We’re on a Cyber battle cruiser with that Cyber guy and a lot of Cyber troops that are waking up.

“Oh. Not so okay.” Sam says, their hand falling from Ryan’s shoulder.

“Yaz, get off that ship now.” the Doctor orders.

We can’t! We’re trapped and they’re about to break in.

“Yaz. Yaz!” the Doctor calls, but before Yaz can answer there’s a cracking noise like lightning, loud and close. The Boundary. Something’s happened to it. It’s like…it’s like it’s clearing, the other side now visible. This Boundary is more impossible than ever.

“What is that?” Ethan asks.

“That’s not possible.” the Doctor answers.

“I’ve never seen it look like that before.” Ko Sharmus says.

“That’s my home planet.” the Doctor says, “That’s Gallifrey.”

The image of Gallifrey had faded somewhat from Sam’s memory since they’d last seen it. They’ve seen it ravaged by the Time War, of course, but this is different. Burned to the ground for no reason they or the Doctor knows. All that’s left of the citadel is metal Sam doubts scavengers would want. They’d always hoped that one day, they might see Gallifrey. Truly see it, in all its glory. Not burned or bombed or the inside of a prison cell. They’d imaged walking through the streets, telling stories of their travels to little children. But there are no children left.

The Boundary seems to ripple, pulling Sam back to reality a split second before someone jumps through, landing on the beach in front of them.

“Wow! Oh!” the exclamations followed by some kind of squeaking noise, “That’s a good entrance, right?” The Master. Grinning like the madman he is. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, not in Sam’s mind. His eyes land on Sam and they could swear he winks at them, “Told you I’d come pick you up.” the smile drops a second later as he turns his eyes to the Doctor, “Be afraid, Doctor. Because everything is about to change. Forever.”

#mywriting #The Companion: Ascension #sam tate #thirteenth doctor #ryan sinclair #yasmin khan #graham o'brien #dhawan!master

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timeagainreviews · 4 years

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The Filler Fluff of the Cybermen

When is a two-parter not a two-parter? When the first part is tonight’s episode "Ascension of the Cybermen." As stories go, that was pretty damn sparse. I’ll be honest, friends, I don’t have a lot to say about tonight’s story. But that’s not why you come here, so I will try my damnedest to find something to talk about in this latest episode of Doctor Who. Right, now, how many words was that? Sixty-seven? Christ. This is going to be a slog.

I honestly shouldn’t be surprised. It had to happen. I was saying just last week that I hadn’t seen an episode I outright hated so far this series. We were due. That’s not to say I actually feel hate for this episode, more accurately, I feel very little about this episode. Usually, I endeavour to do more than simply trash an episode, but tonight, it’s either that, or I end the review here. So apologies ahead of time.

The episode opens on a Cyberman head floating in space with some knucklehead voiceover telling us about how the Cybermen have been mostly wiped out and what remains of humanity isn’t much better. The episode will now spend the next fifty minutes reiterating this point ad nausea. It was like a Star Wars title crawl, except in Star Wars, the crawl isn’t the plot of the movie you’re about to watch. Funnily, a lot of tonight’s episode reminded me of "The Last Jedi." Our heroes get split up. A slow chase ensues. No new information is gained. And it ends leaving us feeling like not a lot happened.

The Doctor and her companions come to a small human colony in the distant future. There are only seven of them left. The Doctor sets up a series of relays to help this ragtag bunch of humans kill off an oncoming Cyberman attack. Only thing is, they had never accounted for the Cybermen to first send out "Cyber Drones." Now, say you’ve got a room full of artists who love Doctor Who. And you tell them all to design drones that will be utilised by Cybermen. You can imagine they might have some rather impressive designs. Now, gather up all of those beautiful and creative drawings into your arms and throw them in the bin. Instead, we’re going to just use floating Cyberman heads. Was this because Chibnall is the kind of guy who thinks a dude with teeth pressed into his face is creepy or is this because reusing Cyberman heads is cheap? I’ll let you decide.

The Cyberheads and their eye lasers do quick work of the Doctor’s relays and sends everyone scattering to the wind. With three of the humans dead, Ryan, a young boy named Ethan, and the Doctor get left behind. Yaz and Graham, find themselves aboard a rickety gravraft with the remainder of the humans. With the TARDIS too far away, the Doctor decides they need to hijack a Cybership. I gotta give it to the Cybermen, they take better care of their ship than they do their own bodies. It’s almost as if there was no continuity in the design. Or maybe it’s like when you see someone whose life is a total mess but they have a dope car. I’ll let you decide.

After Ethan hotwires the Cybership, the Doctor pilots the ship to the most logical destination- her TARDIS. No, I’m just kidding, that would have made sense! Instead, she goes somewhere. I just double-checked with my boyfriend and we honestly couldn’t remember why anyone was doing anything at this point in the episode. After combing the episode I finally found a bit of throwaway dialogue where Ethan programmed the ship to go to a place called "Ko Sharmus." Meanwhile, the other group of protagonists are floating listlessly in space, making them the most relatable characters in this episode as that’s exactly how I felt.

By now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t gotten to the B-story happening in this episode. I guess here is as good a place as any, as it made just as much sense crammed anywhere in the episode it pleased. We see a young man and woman find a baby. This baby grows up to be their adopted son, Brendan. Brendan becomes a cop. Brendan gets shot and falls off a cliff. Brendan wakes up unscathed. Brendan’s dad looks at him like he’s creepy. Brendan grows old and retires. Brendan’s dad and boss, seemingly having not aged, wipe his memory. It makes as much sense as a wicker toilet and gives us no new information. At one point I thought he may have been Captain Jack’s kid, but then he grows old, so I don’t know what to think. What I do know is that you could have edited it down and made it into a far better cold opener than that Cyberhead floating in space shit.

The humans aboard the gravraft get stranded next to a giant Cyberman ship where a battle has gone down. Remnants of Cybermen ping the hull of their vessel like tiny asteroids. They get the bright idea to use the airlock to give the gravraft an extra thrust into the Cybership. I don’t know if it was intentional, but having Graham say "Don’t panic," right before they release the airlock was a nice little Douglas Adams reference. Or maybe it wasn’t at all, but I’ll take any joy from this episode I can get. Much like the idiotic hip bounce from "Can You Hear Me?" that knocked the sonic screwdriver up into the Doctor’s hands, the gravraft makes a million in one shot directly into the Cyberman ship’s docking bay. If they have that kind of luck sinking shots like that, they should really take their skills to the minigolf course.

The second I saw the ship, I knew that they were going to do the rows upon rows of sleeping Cybermen emerging from their tombs. It’s a Doctor Who trope as old as the Patrick Troughton era. My boyfriend was enjoying these bits as he is less familiar with the history of Doctor Who, so I let him have his fleeting enjoyment. I couldn’t even get jazzed about the new Cyberman design as they had already spoiled it with online photos. Basically, aside from the head-scratching B-story, the plot to tonight’s episode could be gathered by looking at promotional photos. There were new Cybermen. The Lone Cyberman was there. Nothing new to be learned here. Though, I will admit those new Cybermen are genuinely awesome.

The Doctor has a brief encounter with a hologram of the Lone Cyberman, or "Ashad." We learn that Ashad doesn’t just want to destroy all humans, he wants to destroy all life in the universe, for reasons. So I guess it wasn’t all a wash. Ashad heads to the Cybership where he begins waking up the Cybermen by what looks like torture. I have absolutely zero idea why he was doing what he was doing. It’s not at all made clear. Was he giving a titty twister so the Cybermen would accept him as their leader? Because after waking up the rest of them, they all seem to fall in line. Honestly, what the hell was he doing to that Cyberman? It makes no goddamn sense.

One thing I will say that made me happy was that one of my predictions from before episode one came true. They gave Graham a bit of a love interest. I called that shit. This possible love interest came in the form of Ravio, one of the human colonists. I found it rather amusing that in the future humans would still speak with British accents but have lost all context for Cockney rhyming slang. It was a cute bit of dialogue that falls apart if you think about it too much. The Cybermen force the humans into a corner to barricade themselves from the onslaught of Cybermen, and that’s where they’re left until next weekend.

Meanwhile, the Doctor arrives at Ko Sharmus which ends up being a person’s name as opposed to a planet. Chris Chibnall’s ability to name characters has not improved. Seriously, there are characters named Feekat and Yedlarmi in this episode. It hardly matters though as they’re all rather forgettable. I had to comb the episode and the internet just to figure out who was who. The Doctor never even introduces herself to Ethan. I had to figure his name out through one of the many throwaway lines of dialogue. That’s not to say that they don’t have real bits of character development. But you can take all of the character development in the world and wrap it around a hollow plot and it equals a lot of me not giving a shit.

Ko Sharmus was a welcome addition, simply because he was played by the charismatic Ian McElhinney. Turns out he’s a human colonist who stays behind in case any more humans might one day also come to this planet. There’s a sort of gateway or “boundary” out of the galaxy where many humans have gone to escape pursuit by Cyberman. Ko Sharmus’ job is to act as a guide to any possible newcomers also looking to reach said boundary. However, the Doctor quickly learns that the boundary is actually a gateway to Gallifrey. Only now it shows Gallifrey as the Master left it- in ruins.

Did I mention the Master? Well, here he is, making a "grand" entrance. The only thing at this point that was grand about the introduction of the Master to the story was that I was excited that something of substance was actually about to happen. Instead, this is our cliffhanger- this not at all surprising reveal that the Master is still alive. Of course, he is, he’s the Master. It’s a season finale with the Cybermen, of course, the Master is going to be there. It’s been that way for the past two Cyberman season finales. I guess the third time is a charm? What about any of this is supposed to be surprising? Remember how I said I was afraid they were becoming far too reliant on big reveals? This ending is the epitome of that. I think they expected to blow our minds by having the storyline they set up at the beginning of the series come into fruition. Try harder Chibs, this shit was weak.

The biggest shocker here is how little happened. What we were left with was akin to a classic filler episode where the Doctor gets captured. They padded out everything because they didn’t want next week’s episode to be ten minutes longer. Tonight’s episode exists purely because Chris Chibnall couldn’t edit down the script of a single episode into something shorter. This wouldn’t be so egregious if at least one storyline came to some sort of conclusion. If the B-story with Brendan had gone somewhere it might have made the entire episode feel somewhat worth the time and effort. Instead, we’re forced to watch a team of talented actors fill time.

I can’t help but feel like last week’s episode should have been this week’s episode with maybe a bit more setup for the finale. In place of this forgettable fluff, we could have gotten a single contained episode in its place. Something that had a beginning, middle, and end. Because of this, it’s almost as if we’ve been shorted an episode. Because of all of the wasted time in "Ascension of the Cybermen," I can only think of two outcomes for next week. One is an episode crammed so full of exposition that it will feel messy and disjointed. The other is an episode that is as equally underwhelming as tonight’s effort. Do you really mean to tell me they’re going to fit a Cyberman battle, Captain Jack, the Master, Gallifrey, the Timeless Child, and possibly Ruth into an episode and it not be a mess? It’s hard to have faith that there is a reason behind this much wasted screentime. I could use some of Graham’s optimism because at this moment it’s looking a bit hopeless.

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evviejo · 1 year

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thirteen’s era appreciation: 229/?

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yeonchi · 3 years

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Doctor Who 2021 New Year’s Special Review: Revolution of the Daleks

Air date: 1 January 2021

New Year’s Day is the new Christmas Day for Doctor Who. Two years ago, I was writing the review for the 2019 New Year’s Special, Resolution. One year ago, I was writing the review for the first episode of Series 12, Spyfall Part One (which essentially served as the 2020 New Year’s Special). Today, I'm writing this review for the 2021 New Year’s Special. Whether the change was because of political correctness, low ratings or just to change up the status quo, I think we should be glad that we even have a festive special, unlike the English dubs on Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games.

Amazingly, this special was filmed alongside Series 12 last year and kept on hold to today, meaning that production was largely unaffected by the coronavirus. Even with the anticipation and uncertainty for Series 13, which has already been reduced to eight episodes (with festive special status unknown), this episode serves as a good icebreaker given everything that’s happened in 2020 and the Timeless Child arc of Series 12.

Here is my spoiler-free thought for this episode: “It’s epic, heartbreaking and ridiculous at the same time.”

Spoilers continue after the break. Also, please don’t forget to check out my look at Doctor Who: Lockdown and the hiatusbreaker update for some post-Series 12 review thoughts.

Introduction

Chibnall mentioned that the recon scout Dalek from Resolution give birth to the new Dalek variant that was seen in this episode, thus making this episode a sequel to said episode. As such, this was the case.

367 minutes (about 6 hours) after the Doctor and her extended fam fought the recon scout Dalek at GCHQ, its shell was recovered. Jo Patterson, then Technology Secretary, tipped Jack Robertson (he will be referred to by his surname hereafter to differentiate him from Jack Harkness) off about it and managed to acquire it. After acquiring the plants of car firms that had abandoned Patterson and Rugazzi Technologies, Leo’s company, Robertson had defence drones developed (and 3D printed) based on the design of the Dalek’s shell.

The production of this episode was concluded by April 2020, with Chibnall stating that post-production work was continuing during the lockdown. This was before the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, meaning that the scene showing the testing of the defence drones was likely inspired from the Hong Kong protests. We see people throwing bricks and molotov cocktails, and the Dalek is shown to be fitted with a water cannon, CS gas sprayer and a sonic deterrent. That’s about all the allusion we get - if we had any more then we would have had a serious problem.

Doctor and companions separated

At the end of The Timeless Children, the Doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment in a maximum-security prison, while Graham, Ryan and Yaz were brought back to Earth along with Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan. We don’t get to see those three in the episode, sadly.

Over the next ten months, Graham and Ryan had moved on with their lives while Yaz became obsessed with finding the Doctor (yeah, just forget that you have a family and a job as a policewoman lol). Graham shows Yaz some leaked footage of Robertson at the defence drone testing. They go to confront Robertson, but are turned away by his security guards.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had been in prison for decades, accompanied by a Weeping Angel, an Ood, a Sycorax, a Silent and even a Pting. Unbeknownst to her, Captain Jack Harkness had managed to get into the same prison as her, spending 19 years just to get the cell next to her, before making himself known and breaking out of the prison together. The Doctor and Jack head to Graham’s house, where they catch up and set out to find Jack Robertson.

There are a couple of one-to-one scenes that really got me thinking. When Jack and Yaz investigate traces of Dalek DNA in Osaka, they talk about their separation from the Doctor and what their time with the Doctor has changed them into. Jack tells Yaz, “Being with the Doctor, you don’t get to choose when it stops. Whether you leave her, or she leaves you.”

Let’s break that line down with information from the TARDIS Wiki page on companions. There are several ways that a companion can join the Doctor - they stow away on the TARDIS, they were “kidnapped”, or were assigned by higher powers, like UNIT, the Time Lords or the White Guardian. Just like that, there are several ways that companions leave the Doctor - they might choose to leave, the Doctor decides or is forced to leave them behind, or they die.

The interesting thing is that Jack says that they don’t get to choose when they leave. In the case of companions who decided to leave of their own will, you might think it was an easy decision for them, but in truth, there is context behind their motivation to leave. In Series 2, Mickey Smith stayed on Pete’s World to help defeat the Cybermen after that world’s counterpart of himself (Ricky) died and he became increasingly disillusioned with Rose favouring the Doctor over himself. In Series 3, Martha Jones decided to leave the Doctor after seeing her family enslaved by the Master for a year, travelling around the world to get people to think of the Doctor, and realising that her feelings for him would never be reciprocated. In the classic series, Tegan Jovanka left the Fifth Doctor after being sickened by the death and destruction she witnessed. From this, I can deduce that what Jack meant to say isn’t that the companions don’t get to choose when they leave, but that they don’t get to choose the circumstances that lead to them leaving. In some cases, that also applies to the companions who get left behind by the Doctor or killed.

The other one-to-one is between Ryan and the Doctor in the TARDIS. The Doctor apologises to Ryan for leaving him, Graham and Yaz behind for ten months and Ryan tells him that during this time his relationship with his father has improved and that he got to catch up with friends. Ryan asks the Doctor what has changed with her since they last met and the Doctor tells her that she isn’t who she thought she was (that storyline’s never going to go away, isn’t it? Hope to learn about the full story of the Timeless Child in Series 13). This scene really highlights how the companions can be a source of support for the Doctor, just as the Doctor is a source of support for them.

Ryan tells the Doctor that she is the same as she has always been. The Doctor comforts herself by saying that nothing’s changed, but Ryan says that it wasn’t what he meant; things change all the time and we might be scared of the new, but in the end, we have to confront the new, or the old. This bit was definitely made with the Timeless Child twist in mind. Yes, things change (particularly when it comes to Doctor Who), but some changes can be good or bad; just as there are people who saw the Timeless Child twist as good, there are people who saw it as bad (including myself). It’s like what I said in the hiatusbreaker update about The Timeless Children pulling an Ultraman Orb and trying to lessen the impact of the twist when it didn’t make sense and caused more damage than expected.

Human-created Daleks (sort of)

When the recon Dalek’s shell was salvaged, some traces of its DNA remained in it. Since, according to Missy in The Witch’s Familiar, every cell of a Dalek is genetically hardwired to survive, their consciousness can live within the tiniest fragment of their DNA. Leo managed to clone the recon scout Dalek out of those traces and hooked it into the neural network. Disgusted after being shown the creature, Robertson tells Leo to incinerate it, but when he tries to do so, it escapes and takes possession of him. In a way, the recon scout Dalek was resurrected in this episode, but it didn’t feel like the same character.

While hooked into the neural network, the Dalek managed to make more clones of itself using Robertson’s resources, feeding them with the liquefied remains of the people who worked on them. After being confronted by the Doctor and the others, the Dalek uses the UV light to activate the Daleks, transport themselves into the shells that it augmented, then kills Rob and begins subjugating Earth.

Just as Jo Patterson introduces the defence drones in her first speech as Prime Minister, she gets exterminated by them quickly after they are activated. If Jack Robertson is an expy of Donald Trump, then Jo Patterson is an expy of Theresa May - a forgettable Prime Minister whose claim to fame (defence drones for the former, Brexit for the latter) backfired on them. To be honest, when I heard that they would be in this special, I almost thought that they got married or something.

There was a similar situation like this in the Series 3 two-parter, Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, only this time, the Daleks were more involved. In that story, the Cult of Skaro were attempting to find a way to survive beyond the Dalek shell, to the point of creating Dalek-human hybrids, a new race with the intelligence of Daleks but with the emotions of humans. In both cases, the new Dalek variants were considered impure due to the human elements within them.

I’ve compared this episode to Victory of the Daleks when the trailer came out. With the addition of the conflict between the two Daleks (as I will outline below), there are additional contrasts to the Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks and the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio story Blood of the Daleks.

The nuclear option

With thousands of defence drone Daleks on the move and no weapons to deal with them, the Doctor seems to do the only thing she can think of that doesn’t involve destroying the Earth ala the Moment (which was what I was thinking) - signal a ship of Death Squad Daleks (SAS Daleks, but more brutal) to Earth to deal with the impure defence drones.

The two groups of Daleks confront each other on a bridge (specifically the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol). After seeing his Daleks get exterminated, Robertson takes his nuclear option - part with the Doctor and side with the Daleks. That’s right, Jack Robertson does an Utsumi (Nariaki Utsumi from Build, if you didn’t know) and sides with a race that would kill him the first chance they got. Give him a cane to break and we would have gotten the first tokusatsu meme in Doctor Who.

For someone who seems to be so obsessed with protecting himself (normally by using other people), I must say that this was a strange step for Robertson to take. Given that Robertson is an expy of Trump, one can only wonder what Chibnall and people like him think of Trump. Would Trump sell himself or humanity out to invading aliens? Personally, I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to do so. I think he’d bomb them with everything he has.

Robertson convinces the Daleks to take them aboard their ship and meet their commander. Meanwhile, Jack, Graham and Ryan board the ship and plant explosives on it. Graham tries to get Ryan to fistbump him, but he just tells him to “stop talking weird”. We’re back, fellow kids. Missed us?

Robertson tells the Daleks that the Doctor summoned them. The original Dalek returns and offers to be purified, only to be exterminated. Graham, Ryan and Jack find Robertson and they get off the ship together just as it is destroyed.

The Doctor floats her TARDIS in the sky among the Daleks and lures them inside, which would normally be an impossible feat if it weren’t for the fact that it isn’t actually the Doctor’s TARDIS, but the other TARDIS from earlier. She sets it to fold in on itself and send itself to the heart of the Void, thereby destroying them.

Soon after that, Robertson claims that he was acting as a decoy and so, he is lauded as the saviour of humanity. A honorary knighthood and a revived presidential run is mentioned after the toxic waste scandal (Arachnids in the UK) ruined his previous attempt. This is where my comparison to Utsumi weakens - Utsumi pledged himself to Evolto so that he could find a way to bring him down, but there doesn’t seem to be any ulterior motive in Robertson’s actions. Frankly, I’m surprised that he wasn’t exterminated at all.

Parting ways (for now)

By the time Graham and Ryan return to the TARDIS, Jack has left and is on his way to see Gwen Cooper, who has apparently had another child, a son. Honestly, his departure feels quite lackluster.

The Doctor offers to take the fam to a restaurant apparently named the Meringue Galaxy, but Ryan decides to leave the Doctor since he believes that his friends and planet need him. Graham struggles to decide, but in the end, he decides to leave with Ryan, leaving the Doctor and Yaz on the TARDIS. The Doctor gives them some psychic paper as a parting gift.

The final scene is a throwback to the beginning of The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Graham is helping Ryan ride his bike when they bring up some strange incidents around the world, like a troll invasion in Finland or gravel creatures in Korea. Ryan begins riding his bike one more time when they see Grace looking back at them in the distance. This is the last episode where Ryan’s dyspraxia is explored. Shame Chibnall never managed to do a lot with it.

We’ve known that Graham and Ryan would be leaving the series for months now, and we’ve also known that there would be opportunities for them to return. Let’s hope we see them again in Series 13.

Going back to my discussion about companions leaving, the major factor in Ryan and Graham’s decision to leave was that they had spent ten months away from the Doctor and unlike Yaz, they had already moved on with their lives. Additionally, for Graham, he doesn’t want to leave Ryan given the relationship they built up during their time with Doctor and possibly also for fear of abandoning Ryan, given how his father wasn’t there for him previously. This doesn’t feel as deep compared to other companions’ motives for leaving the Doctor, but it’s still quite deep.

At the end of Can You Hear Me?, we see Ryan talking to Yaz about spending their lives with the Doctor and forgetting everyone back home. I’d always thought that the human element of being a companion was annoying, but we have to remember that companions are people too and they had their own lives before they met the Doctor.

Other general thoughts

I know this is kind of irrelevant given that this episode was produced at the end of 2019, but could Leo be considered an Uncle Tom for inventing something designed to suppress protesters? By the way, don’t let China know about this or we’re all screwed, even in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Jack gets a gold star for rescuing the Doctor. That puts Jack and Graham at 10 points and Yaz and Ryan at 20.

Jack also has his sonic blaster back as well. Will Jack also be back for Series 13? We’ll just have to see it to believe it.

The title cards are jarring again. Can the production team not be inconsistent with their fonts?

I swear, all the Yaz favouritism in the last two series must have given her Stockholm syndrome. Who’s to say that Mandip Gill wanted to leave, but Chibnall asked her to stay?

Taking a look at the designs for the Daleks, the defence drones are alright. They glow a bluish-white colour normally, but they glow red and shoot red beams when the Dalek creatures took control of them. You could probably mistake them for being red in the dark, which is highlighted when they are shown shooting people in the streets. As for the Death Squad Daleks, they’re basically just the basic bronze Daleks, including their leader. They should’ve brought back the multicoloured New Paradigm Daleks just so the Death Squad Daleks could be differentiated from ordinary Daleks.

Following the premiere of this episode, a new companion was announced for Series 13, with John Bishop playing the role of Dan. Honestly, with the Timeless Child mystery still looming and the lack of character development for Yaz, a new companion is the last thing this series needs, particularly since Series 13 would be Jodie Whittaker’s third series and possibly, her final one (if we’re going by previous Doctors). At the moment, Bishop is currently isolating after being tested positive for the coronavirus. I wish him well and look forward to seeing him in Series 13.

The reduced number of episodes in Series 11 or 12 may have contributed to the lack of focus on Ryan’s dyspraxia or character development on Yaz, but that’s no excuse. Chibnall had plenty of opportunities to factor them in, but he was too focused on not having a story arc in Series 11 and destroying canon in Series 12 to even think about it (Graham and Ryan got more character development in those two series than Yaz did). Now that Series 13 has been reduced to eight episodes (not counting the possibility of a split series or another New Year’s Special out of the eight), I fear that Chibnall won’t have enough opportunity to factor in Dan’s character development with Yaz’s character development, the Timeless Child, Ruth and/or the Master, particularly when he delegates half of the series to other writers and does very few good things in the remaining episodes he writes (or co-writes). Honestly, Series 11 and 12 felt like a waste of time in some aspects.

Summary and verdict

Like I said at the start, this episode acted as a good icebreaker in the long break between series. However, ever since my red-pilling in The Timeless Children, I’ve started to see this series in a new light, particularly with the help of YouTubers like Bowlestrek or Nerdrotic. Despite this, I’m reluctant to hop on the #RIPDoctorWho bandwagon because we still don’t have the full details for the Timeless Child arc, so I’m reserving most of my judgement until we get it.

Most of the episode was good, but the ridiculous part for me was when Robertson Utsumi’d himself and somehow managed to survive. Jack’s departure felt lackluster, Ryan and Graham’s departure felt lackluster to other companions’ departures and Jo Patterson was just... ehh. Let’s not forget that we didn’t see or hear a mention of the surviving humans from the previous episode because Chibnall just forgot about them.

Rating: 6/10 Series 12 total: 77/100 (77%) Series 12 total with Revolution of the Daleks: 83/110 (75%)

Overall, this special brought down my total score for Series 12, but it still did slightly better compared to Series 11. If it weren’t for Jack Harkness, my score for the episode would have been lower. Robertson, being a Trump expy, essentially represented all the SJW red flags in this episode; pointing them out is unnecessary at this point given my red-pilling.

That’s it for my review of the New Year’s Special. There is a certainty that Series 13 will premiere this year, so the next time I return with another review will presumably be in late 2021. As long as Jodie Whittaker is the Doctor, my mission to review her episodes will continue. Follow me on Facebook and/or Tumblr and keep an eye out for my future posts, Doctor Who-related or otherwise, such as the Kisekae Insights series where I give insights on my personal project, which was heavily influenced by Doctor Who.

Stay safe and I’ll see you then.

#doctor who #doctor who series 12 #thirteenth doctor #doctor who series 12 review #thirteenth doctor review

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