REVIEW OVERVIEW: WHICH UMBRELLA SEASON IS THE BEST? - PART TWO- A: THE KEY TO TIME

After a brief overview of what to expect in this latest series, we can get on with the true work at hand: Reviewing the actual Umbrella Seasons! 

We begin at the beginning with the show's first attempt at a season-long tale. For this part (and the next, for that matter), we shall embark upon a journey into the deeper mysteries of the Key to Time. But will it be worth the trip?! 

A BIT OF BACKGROUND

As Doctor Who moved into the late 70s, Tom Baker now had several seasons under his belt as Doctor Four. Most of his material had been produced by the famous Philip Hinchcliffe. This particular era would go on to be known as the Golden Age of the show. Though it wasn't necessarily appreciated as well back then as it is currently. Nowadays, many fans consider this to be the show at its ultimate pinnacle. It's never been better. 

(Not really my opinion, though. There was some good stuff during this period. But I do find a lot of it to be over-rated!) 

But then it came time for a change. Hinchcliffe bowed out and in came Graham Williams. Tom Baker stuck around but he started getting new companions. That Gothic Horror vibe that dominated so many stories during those first few seasons of the Fourth Doctor shifted into something more comedic. Tom Baker, himself, started pushing the humor harder and harder. Guest cast members often followed suit. Writers might even try to hand in serious scripts but they were quickly changed into high farce during the read-throughs and rehearsals.  As we near the end of the Graham Williams Period, the show started becoming a parody of itself. 

In the middle of all this sits The Key to Time season. A somewhat bold idea for late 70s television. Back then, TV tended to be very fragmented. Producers didn't want to confuse viewers so, for the most part, a new plot was introduced and resolved in every episode. In some cases, characters even seemed to forget what had gone on before. The slate was wiped clean every week. So to create a season-long story thread was definitely something that was very much going against the grain, at the time. 

In many ways, creating the first Umbrella Season for Doctor Who gives Williams a bit of notoriety within the context of the show. The Big Question Is: Does this first effort earn him praise or malice?    

GOING THROUGH THE CRITERIA - THE MORE OBJECTIVE STUFF 

With a bit of background established, let's start putting The Key to Time through the paces. We'll begin with some points of criteria that are a bit more tangible. Traits I can actually prove a bit. 

(NOTE: If you want to better understand these points of criteria and haven't read my introductory essay, you should probably check out this link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/03/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html) 

1. The Foundation 

The Ribos Operation establishes the Foundation of the whole Quest for the Key to Time in the most straightforward of manners. I mean that quite literally. Of the the three Umbrella Seasons, the central premise to this one is told to us in the bluntest of ways. Which isn't, necessarily, a bad thing. It was quite nice to just take a few minutes of that first episode to have everything explained in a great big infodump. 

The scene, itself, with the White Guardian is very nicely executed. Holmes wrote it well. Tom Baker and Cyril Luckham do a great job on the performance end of things. Even the set looks pretty good! This is a great way to set things up. Problems don't really arise with anything that is done here until we reach the end of the season and certain key points in the introduction aren't properly addressed. But that's hardly the fault of the Foundation. 

I do find the whole intro scene to be executed fantastically. I especially like how cool and laid back the White Guardian seems as he sips cocktails and tells the Doctor nothing will ever happen to him if he refuses to help. It's a great moment. 

But Ribos Operation offers a greater Foundation than just its opening few minutes. It does provide the basic gist of how most stories in this season will work. Aside from a slight variation in Androids of Tara, the Doctor and Romana will spend the bulk of the plot just trying to figure out what the latest Segment has disguised itself as. While they do this, they will also deal with a few other conflicts that need to be solved (ie: stopping the Pirate Planet, bringing Cessair of Diplos to justice, disassembling Kroll, etc...). It's not just a bit of exposition at the beginning of Part 1, the basic format of the whole season is also displayed. 

All in all, a very solid Foundation. 

2. Momentum

Here is where The Key to Time begins to flounder.   

Ribos Operation, I feel, creates a great Foundation (although some fans claim it moves a bit too slow). Pirate Planet and Stones of Blood continue to entertain with engaging, well-paced stories (although some fans complain that Part Four of Stones drags on a bit). By the time we get to Androids of Tara and Power of Kroll, however, it really does feel like the whole thing is starting to lose some serious steam.

Part of the problem, I feel, is the quality of the stories, themselves. I find neither of these tales to be particularly engaging so sitting through them does wear me out a bit and causes me to lose interest in the thrust of the whole season. I'll get into their problems at a later point, though. Here, I'll focus on legitimate pacing issues. 

While Androids of Tara does mix things up a bit by having Romana find the Fourth Segment right away, I do think the structure of the season is still too rigid.  Telling a whole story and only revealing where the Segment is in the last few minutes gets too repetitive. Which I think really starts to make things feel like they're moving too slowly. I do feel we needed more than just the slight variation in Tara to keep things interesting. The Doctor finding a Segment halfway through a story but deciding to stay to sort out whatever mess is going on could have made for a nice change, for instance. If, maybe, one or two other stories in the season had subverted the structure just a bit more that would have helped pacing enormously. But getting the same thing over and over (for the most part) really takes the wind out of The Key to Time's sails.  

I think another big problem with pacing lies in the fact that giving the retrieval of each Segment, at least, four episodes each was too much. I think a couple of two parters would have really tightened things up a bit. Finding a Segment here and there in only two episodes instead of four would have helped enormously with the pace. Taking so long to retrieve each and every Segment just drags on a bit too much. Yes, Williams has an obligation to produce so many episodes a season but he should have just gotten permission to shorten the season a bit. Or not taken a whole season to do the saga (maybe a free-standing story or two with the leftover eps after Key to Time was over?) Or something to that effect. As with a lot of 70s Who - there does feel like there's not enough story to fill the run-time. Which really damages the Momentum of this Umbrella Season.    

 3. Conclusion

That bad momentum in the latter half of the season takes us into a Conclusion that I feel is largely unsatisfactory. 

Armageddon Factor does have some good moments. It starts off quite decently and actually manages to get us excited again about the Quest for the Key to Time. The concept of making a mock piece of the Key to get it to freeze Mentalis and the Marshal was also quite clever (although the execution seems a little awkward and disjointed). Drax is also a very fun character and it's good that he gets introduced into the story when he does. These are all things about this story that I feel work really well and make for a great final story of the season. 

But there are two gigantic problems that really sour the Conclusion of this saga for me.

The first is the comedy element. Quite simply, it goes way too far. A little levity now and again throughout the six episodes would have been okay. Even letting Tom Baker get really playful works (Invasion of Time benefited greatly from this during the last season - the Doctor translating Latin to an imaginary Borusa is still so delightfully surreal!). But everybody really starts going for high farce as we reach those middle episodes. Shapp doing a comic pratfall into the transmat shaft after his shoot-out with a Mute is truly the moment where I find myself giving up on trying to take anything all that seriously anymore. Which is not how you should make an audience feel at the climax of a season-long saga. There really should have been a stronger emphasis on the drama. But because everyone just seems to be trying to create as many gags as they can, the ending to it all feels very hollow. Like it was meant to be so much better - but failed.  

And then there's that final confrontation with the Black Guardian. It's great that the Doctor figures out who he really is and denies him the Key. That was certainly very important. But the White Guardian emphasised way back in the Foundation that he still needed it, himself, to restore balance to the Universe. So the Doctor just splitting up the six Segments again and installing a randomiser seems too irresponsible for even him! What happens to the Universe because he didn't give the Key to the White Guardian? We needed a better explanation than what we got. 

Yes, we can create a bit of headcannon for this sequence (and I did exactly that in these links: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/06/fixing-continuity-glitches-what-hell.html and https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/06/fixing-continuity-glitches-what-hell_19.html), but I feel this is similar to one of the problems I discussed in my Greatest Hits Essay about Pyramids of Mars a few entries back. There are moments in a good sci fi franchise where you can leave things a little ambiguous and let the fans make up their own resolution to an issue. And there are times when an author should provide a better explanation than they did. The final ending to Key to Time is like giving Sutekh his own means of escape. Things just aren't making sense and they should have been made clearer to us. I'm amazed when the script writer(s) and script editor let this sort of thing slide. 

4. Coherency 

For the most part, the adventures in The Key to Time do feel very interconnected. This is best achieved by the TARDIS Console Room Scenes that bookend all the stories. With the exception of the beginning and ending of Power of Kroll (which does brings a very refreshing change), every tale starts with the Doctor and Romana in the TARDIS fitting the Locator into the console to find the next Segment. The final moments of Part Four show the Doctor and Romana back in the TARDIS fitting the latest piece of the Key into place. This really does help us to feel like we are watching one big saga broken down into smaller parts. Everything connects together nicely because of this structure. 

(Super Pedantic Sidenote: Androids of Tara also doesn't have a console room scene at the end. I didn't forget! Although I'm trying to forget its final scene as it was rather cringy!) 

But there are some inconsistencies that damage the Coherency. Most of them seem to involve Romana. In Ribos Operation, she seems obsessed with Pop Psychology. Spewing all sorts of psycho-babble all over the place anytime she can. This trait then largely disappears for most of the season until Robert Holmes is writing for her again in Kroll. Clearly, Romana's proficiency for Armchair Psychology should have either been written in to the rest of the season or written out of Holmes' scripts. Season 24 experiences a similar problem with the Doctor mixing up his proverbs during Time and the Rani and Delta and the Bannermen but not doing it at all during Paradise Towers and Dragonfire. 

There's an even bigger problem of this nature regarding Romana's understanding of her mission. The Doctor finally explains to her during Stones of Blood that she wasn't actually assigned her job by the Lord President. But rather, the White Guardian in the form of the Lord President. Working at the behest of the White Guardian seems to make a strong impression on her. Apparently, not strong enough, though. As she seems to forget completely about this by Armageddon Factor and is shocked, once more, to learn that the Guardians are involved with the retrieval of the Key to Time. 

There things are fairly easy fixes that seem to have slipped by the Script Editor. While they're not huge mistakes, they do damage the overall sense of Coherency to the Umbrella Season. 

As I worked through the editing stages of this entry, I started thinking to myself: "Goodness! This is going on for a quite a bit!" So I decided to split the thing in half. This way, you can take a little break. Hope to see you in the next part.  

  

 

REVIEW OVERVIEW: WHICH IS THE BEST UMBRELLA SEASON? - PART ONE: THE INTRO....

As March wraps up and we enter into April, it's time to embark upon a big REVIEW OVERVIEW adventure. Having looked at Major Trilogies and Dalek Sagas and other concepts that span over several episodes and/or stories, it's time to look at Umbrella Seasons and try to determine which one was the best. 

DEFINING AN UMBRELLA SEASON

Most of you probably know what the term means. You probably even know which seasons qualify as being one. But let's just make sure we're all on the same page. 

An Umbrella Season is a single season that tells one long, sprawling story. It may even be broken down into subsections - smaller adventures that make up a whole. But, in the end, a greater tale is being told that takes an entire season to accomplish. 

It should be noted that many seasons of New Who resemble Umbrella Seasons since they do tend have a theme running through them of some sort. Series 10, for instance, tells the story of the Hybrid. Or Series 3 reveals the identity of Harold Saxon. And so on... But I do feel that these ongoing themes are loose enough that we don't quite get an Umbrella Season, here. Just a season-long arc. Although I will admit that Series 1 does come perilously close to being an Umbrella rather than an arc. It's a tight enough ongoing theme that it does almost feel like we're being told one long story. I'm not talking so much about the Bad Wolf stuff, either. But, rather, the character growth we see in both Rose and Nine. The way Rose evolves into someone who wants to actively fight for what's right and good and the way the Ninth Doctor overcomes his survival guilt really do feel like one long, ongoing plot. However, I'll still say that Series 1 does not qualify as an Umbrella Season and exclude it from this essay topic. 

Just so we're clear, then, here are the Three Great Umbrellas Seasons of Doctor Who:   

Classic Who - 

Season 16 - The Key to Time

Season 23 - Trial of a Time Lord 

New Who - 

Series 13 - Flux 

I think we can all, universally, agree that these three seasons properly fit the definition. 

POINTS OF CRITERIA

As is always the case with a REVIEW OVERVIEW essay, we have to establish what our rating system is. We'll go through each point of criteria and give a bit of an explanation of what it represents: 

1. The Foundation 

Depending on how the Umbrella is structured, the Foundation represents either the first episode or the first story of the whole season. That first episode or story establishes the central premise of the whole ongoing adventure. A good Foundation will not only reveal that central theme, however, it will also demonstrate how that one great plot will be executed throughout the course of the season. Basically, it will display a sort of structure that all the other installments will roughly adhere to.  

2. Momentum

Quite possibly, the most crucial element of any good Umbrella Season. When you're pushing one big storyline through so many episodes, pacing is very important. The overall flow of the whole season needs to receive crucial attention or the audience will lose interest.  

3. Conclusion

Of course, how the whole season resolves is as important as the Foundation. This can be extra tricky to execute. The audience has been strung along for quite some time and have developed some fairly high  expectations. So the ending needs to be satisfying. It can even have some fun subverting those expectations. But it does have to feel like the story is truly complete. 

4. Coherency

As is the case with any tale that stretches over several adventures, everything needs to link together nicely. The bigger story that's being told has to flow coherently through all the smaller ones. Otherwise, the overall plot can really start feeling disjointed and the whole thing falls apart a bit. You can even have a really well-told sub-story, but if it doesn't tie in well with the rest of what's going on, then it can do more damage than good. 

5. The Actual Central Premise

This one, I feel, moves a bit more into a subjective realm. The first four points have more to do with structure and, therefore, can be analysed with more concrete evidence to back up opinion. This one is definitely more about personal taste. Basically, what did I think of the actual central conceit of it all? Was it worth spending an entire season on it? 

6. Quality of the Stories 

And now we get even more subjective. Generally, with a REVIEW OVERVIEW essay, I leave some room for me to just express my opinion. To, essentially, say how much I liked something. In this instance, I will state how much I enjoyed each smaller story in the Umbrella Season. I will, then, deliver a "Final Verdict" on the ultimate story that they came together to tell. 

INTRO COMPLETE

A definition has been set and the Points of Criteria clarified. From here, we can move on to analysing the actual seasons in question. Spending a small entry on establishing the Ground Rules seemed the most sensible way to tackle this REVIEW OVERVIEW. Now that we've done that, we can start examining the content....

We will be reviewing the Umbrella Seasons in chronological order. Up first: the Key to Time. 

See you soon!  

  

 

POINT OF DEBATE: SHOULD WE CONSIDER THEM AN ACTUAL COMPANION? - RIVER SONG

Apparently, starting one new series this month was not enough! 

On top of  the Greatest Hits entry I did earlier in March, I have decided I want to do a regular feature with my POINT OF DEBATE essays, too. It's a fun little argument we've seen break out about several recurring characters in the show's history. I felt it was time to take the fight out of our parents' basements and onto this blog. 

The title of "companion" in Doctor Who can have a very fuzzy definition. If we really break things down, the companion's main purpose is to travel along in the TARDIS and ask: "What is it, Doctor?".  The Doctor then explains to the companion what's going on in terms the audience understands. That really is the raw essence of what a companion is. 

But we all know a companion is much more than that. It is the character we're meant to find relatable in the adventure so that we can identify through them. They also "ground" the Doctor so that he remembers the values he represents and doesn't get lost in his "alieness". We fall in love with the companion and are sad when they leave. They take us on a journey with them. 

That's just a smattering of the various other functions a companion fulfills. There is so much more to them than just facilitating exposition. The problem is, actually, that the definition of a companion has almost become too wide. There are any number of characters that have populated both the New and Classic Series that fit the description.  But we can't quite say, for sure, if we should refer to them as companions.   

There are so many characters of this nature, now, that I felt it was time to start a special series in my POINT OF DEBATE category of essay that will take a regular look at the issue. Basically, we will examine characters who seem to be in unique situations in the show and ask: "Should We Consider Them a Companion?" 

OUR FIRST CONTESTANT

For the first installment of this series we will look at someone who's had quite the solid presence in New Who. We haven't quite seen her with every Doctor since the show came back on the air, but we've seen her with quite a few. And she's definitely played a very significant role in the Doctor's life since we've been introduced to her. There are very few people who can claim to be the Doctor's spouse. And even less who actually seem to know his real name. 

I'm speaking, of course, of the Great River Song. 

As great as she is, I'm still not sure if we can call her a companion. So, for the next few paragraphs, we will run through a few of the major traits that all characters who hold that status seem to have and see how much they apply to her. Will I actually reach a legitimate conclusion by the end of this essay? Probably not! The whole thrust of a good POINT OF DEBATE entry is to just try to present as many sides of the argument as possible and then let you decide.

IMPORTANT COMPANION ATTRIBUTE #1: ONSCREEN LONGEVITY

This is probably the easiest way to identify a companion. 

In almost any adventure the Doctor has, (extremely unique stories like Heaven Sent are the exception) he will make "allies". These are people who populate the story that take the Doctor's side and assist him to combat whatever menace is trying to execute their latest sinister plan. These characters are accomplishing the same sort of task that a companion undertakes. They help the Doctor in his cause. Surely, then, we should call them companions? 

It's not that simple, of course. One of the main things that separates an ally from a companion is that, at the end of the tale, the Doctor leaves them behind. They don't continue on with him into the next episode. And the episode after that. And so on... They just had the story where they helped the Doctor and then the Time Lord moves on without them. Whereas a "proper" companion usually has adventures with the Doctor for, at least, a good season. Usually more.  

This rule helps, even, to disregard certain characters who do return from time-to-time to work with the Doctor. People like Professor Travers or Alpha Centauri from the Classic Series. Or Craig and Rigsy from New Who. Maybe they get a few episodes under their belt - but it's still not quite enough. There needs to be a bit more history between them for us to really give them the title of companion. 

I also feel that we need to legitimately see the relationship between the Doctor and the character. It's for this reason that most people don't seem to really view Handles as a legitimate companion. Yes, he was with the Doctor for a few centuries on Trenzalore. But it all happened within the context of just one episode. If Handles had been infuriating the Doctor with his cold logic throughout the better part of Series 7, we might hold him in a different regard. But he is introduced and then "dies" during Time of the Doctor and hasn't been seen since. 

This is why I use the term: "Onscreen Longevity" to describe this trait. A companion needs to have spent some serious time with the Doctor and we need to have actually witnessed it going on over the span of several episodes.  

HOW DOES RIVER MEASURE UP TO ATTRIBUTE #1?    

In terms of Onscreen Longevity, I think we can say that River definitely makes the cut. A quick (and somewhat lazy) Google Search reveals that she has been featured in 15 episodes, now. Bill Potts, someone who is universally accepted by fandom as being a companion, is in only 13. Surely, this settles the argument right there. If River is in more episodes than someone who definitely holds the title of "companion", then she must be one, too. 

If only it were that simple. 

River is in more episodes than Bill.  That much is true. But several of those episodes are like Closing Time or A Good Man Goes to War. She's only making a brief appearance or two. Whereas Bill Potts always kept a fairly strong presence in any story she was featured in. In fact, even after she was converted into a Cyberman during the Series 10 finale, we still see quite a bit of her as Bill Potts. We get only "brief flashes" of her true exterior. Not only does River have mere cameo appearances in certain adventures, but there are several other episodes where she appears only intermittently. Tales like The Wedding of River Song or Name of the Doctor have her dipping in and out of the plot. She's only there for about half the story's running time. 

Factors such as these certainly stretch the credulity of her Onscreen Longevity. But there are still even muddier waters.

Companions tend to travel with the Doctor one episode after another for a consistent block of time. This has been a Rule of Thumb right from the very beginning of the show. We see Susan for all of Season 1 and then she leaves near the beginning of Season 2. Ian and Barbara make it through the better part of two seasons and then leave. Steven comes along at the end of Season 2 and stays for the bulk of Season 3. And so on... 

Companions, for the most part, stay with the Doctor for multiple episodes in a row. There are some exceptions, of course. Martha Jones leaves the Doctor and then returns a half-season later for a bit. Then comes back again for the Series 4 finale. Then even makes a brief cameo in the Tenth Doctor's very final episode. But she does accompany the Doctor for all of Series 3 before she starts ducking in and out of his timeline. There is still a consistent run of back-to-back episodes where she is the Time Lord's companion. 

River, of course, never hangs around for much longer than two episodes before she will disappear again from the Doctor's life(ves) for a bit. She may even make multiple appearances in a season. But there are huge chunks of time where she's nowhere to be seen. This is definitely another issue that clouds the argument.   

Some might claim you can use Captain Jack Harkness to quickly settle the fight. Most would say he is definitely a companion. But he also pops in and out of the show a fair amount. Very much in the same way River has. But there is something Jack has done that definitely solidifies him as a companion. 

Which leads us neatly to our second Major Attribute. 

IMPORTANT COMPANION ATTRIBUTE #2: TRAVELLING IN THE TARDIS FROM STORY-TO-STORY

This is the other great Companion-Qualifier. As mentioned before, allies don't climb aboard the TARDIS at the end of the story. They say goodbye to the Doctor and stay where and when he first met them. A companion, however, leaves with the Doctor on new adventures.  

An ally might even travel for a bit onboard the TARDIS within the context of a single story. In my last essay, for instance, I talked about Pyramids of Mars. In Part Two, Laurence Scarman takes a quick trip into the future with the Doctor and Sarah to see what will happen if they don't stop Sutekh. They then return to the period the story takes place in and Laurence gets killed by pointy-chested mummies. Does this mean Laurence Scarman was a companion for the brief time that he lived after the journey he took in the TARDIS? Of course not! Allies will, sometimes, get a bit of TARDIS travel. What really makes a character a companion is travelling in the TARDIS through multiple adventures. 

For example: Leela meets the Doctor in Face of Evil. She, pretty much, forces her way onto the TARDIS at the end of Part Four. From there, they travel to the events of Robots of Death. Then it's Talons of Weng-Chiang. Then Horror of Fang Rock. Then they meet K9 in The Invisible Enemy who will also enter the TARDIS at the end of story and start travelling to new adventures with them.

All characters that are solidly confirmed as companions travel in this manner. They join the Doctor in the TARDIS and travel from story-to-story for a period of time. 

RIVER AND ATTRIBUTE #2

Once more, River makes things very complicated. 

We see her travelling quite a bit in the TARDIS in episodes like Time of the Angels, Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon and Husbands of River Song. That's a crapload  of TARDIS travel. But all these trips take place within the plot of just the story she's in at the time. She's not like Leela in the example that was just given. As the story concludes, River gets left behind until the next time the Doctor meets her. She might even get a few more TARDIS trips in that next tale. But, again, she doesn't keep going with him after the adventure is over. 

Until, of course, we get to the events of Angels Take Manhattan. At the end of the story, River does say she will travel with the Doctor for a bit. At this point, we can say she has officially become a companion. 

Except, of course, we don't actually see the trips they take together. The next story is The Snowmen. If the Doctor and River did travel together, those trips are done and he has dropped her off, somewhere. Once she left, the Doctor went to the 1800s to live alone on top of a cloud. In this sense, these unseen adventures take on the same sort of status that Handles has. Yes, he spent quite a bit of time with the Doctor. As did River Song (more than likely, at least. For all we know, the Doctor had a huge change of hearts and didn't travel with her, after all. He just moved straight onto his cloud). But, somehow, these things don't feel valid unless we see them actually happening over the span of multiple episodes. Had there been even a handful of stories where we watch River and the Doctor going to various different points in Time and Space and getting into all kinds of trouble together, we would definitely consider her a companion. 

This is why the Captain Jack Example doesn't apply to her. We do watch Captain Jack take, at least, a few trips with the Doctor at the end of Series 1. This, to me, cements him as a valid companion. He does get some legitimate travel time with him over the span of several tales. After that, he just pops in and out of the show. But there is, at least, a period where he maintains proper companion status. 

We can't quite say the same thing for River Song. 

FINAL VERDICT 

While there are many more minor traits that can make or break the definition of a companion, Onscreen Longevity and Travelling in the TARDIS from Story-to-Story are the major ones. If a character doesn't display these two attributes prominently, it's not even worth sweating the small stuff. 

River does seem to fulfill those two qualifiers quite nicely. But, in both instances, she also negates them a bit. Nothing is totally cut-and-dry. Yes, she has on Onscreen Longevity - but it's very intermittent. She has travelled aboard the TARDIS quite a bit - but it's either contained to a single story or we don't actually see the trips she took. 

It's a very murky situation. 

Were I in a grumpy mood, I would say we definitely can't call her a companion. She comes close, but doesn't truly meet the qualifications. It's like she didn't quite pass the test. If you get some half decent marks on your driver's exam but still, ultimately, fail, they don't say "Well, you almost made it - so let's give you your licence!" You just don't get to drive. A harsher man might say that the same thing goes for being a companion. You either make the grade or you don't.    

However, I'm not always so harsh. When I'm feeling more cheery and optimistic, I'm inclined to think that River probably qualifies as a companion to the Eleventh Doctor. She really only meets Ten and Twelve once. But she's in Eleven's life enough that I think we could almost - if we squint just the right way - consider her a companion. 

That's where I stand on the matter, at least. As always, with a POINT OF DEBATE essay, I'll leave it up to you...    

There we go. Another series has begun. I hope to re-visit this one soon, too. POINT OF DEBATE essays feel a bit more well-researched rather than just being opinion pieces. So I do feel like I've accomplished a bit more this month than just subjecting you all to my rantings. 

Having said that, next month will probably feature a sprawling REVIEW OVERVIEW. So, it's back to me just getting up on my soapbox!

Here are a few links to some related posts, though: 

I did actually do a POINT OF DEBATE essay a while back that is quite similar to this one. But a bit broader in theme: 

Should We Actually Consider Robots Companions?

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/05/point-of-debate-should-we-consider.html

And, since we're talking about River Song, here is the CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay I have put the most work into. Ever!: 

The Complex History of Professor River Song 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/03/chronologies-and-timelines-complex.html

 

 

UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: GREATEST HITS

After a month of showing off my actual knowledge of the show with some CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essays, I decided to get lazy again and go back to opinion pieces. What can be more opinionated than an UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION entry? 

GREATEST HITS is a new series that I've decided to develop that I hope you will find interesting. Because there's definitely more stories I'd love to cover that fit into this category! 

MY OTHER GREAT GEEK PASSION

This is a topic I've wanted to cover for a while, here. Even before I ever started writing a blog, this issue has consumed me deeply and caused me to rant endlessly. It's a phenomenon that doesn't just go on in Doctor Who, but in all forms of fandom.   

The term "Greatest Hit" is one we see referred to the most in the music industry. It's used to describe a song that an artist or band has made that they are most famous for.  The tune has earned them their highest revenue in royalties and gets the loudest cheers when they play it live. When you think of this particular artist or band, it's this track that comes first to mind. 

I'm not a big fan of Greatest Hits. 

The best way to exemplify why I have such feelings about these types of songs is to discuss my other Great Geek Passion. I'm as much in love with the Canadian progressive rock trio Rush as I am with Doctor Who. I have, in fact, contemplated starting a sort of Pretentious Rush Essays Blog for quite a while. But, really, a man only has so much time for blogging! 

Rush's Greatest Hit would probably be a song they did way back in the early 80s called Tom Sawyer. It's a pretty good track. It's especially impressive because the drummer has to execute this very difficult cross to create a drum beat that's heard right at the beginning of the song. The lyrics, however, are a bit too nonsensical for my liking. Particularly for a Rush song. One of the things I always enjoyed about the words of their music are how delightfully straightforward they are. 

I probably saw about a dozen live Rush concerts and just as many concert videos while the band was still active. Tom Sawyer was usually the last song they played in their set before they came out for their encore. They did this because they knew this was the song the crowd had been waiting for all night and they wanted to go out with a bang. It always received a standing ovation with thunderous applause and wild cheers as it concluded. 

Everyone loves Tom Sawyer. 

Tom Sawyer is, at best, a decent song. As I outlined in an earlier paragraph, it's got some significant strong points and some equally-potent weak qualities. If you want to hear a really great song by Rush, try listening to Natural Science. It really shows the range of the band as it starts off very melodic and then shifts gears several times until it reaches a very inspiring crescendo a good ten minutes later. The lyrics also explore some fascinating themes as they examine several different sociological issues. Natural Science, to me, is a masterpiece. Some of the best work the band has ever done. 

And yet, it's rarely played in concerts. Whereas Tom Sawyer comes out at every show. 

I'm not a big fan of Greatest Hits because they may be songs that resonate with a larger market but they are not, usually, the best example from an artist's body of work. This fact almost seems to frustrate me.

"You're a big Rush fan?!" people will say to me, "Man, do I love that song Tom Sawyer!!" 

"Yeah." I'll answer almost dismissively, "But, if you really want to hear a great Rush song, give Natural Science a listen. It's actually probably better than Tom Sawyer." 

"No way, man!" they'll scoff, "Nothing beats Tom Sawyer!"

Then they'll suddenly pretend to air guitar.

"A modern-day warrior mean, mean stride." they quote, "Today's Tom Sawyer mean, mean pride!"

I do my best to stifle a sigh and the rolling of my eyes! 

BACK TO THE WHO STUFF

What I just described with Rush also happens in Doctor Who. 

"Genesis of the Daleks, man!" fans will go on, "Such a classic! Best story ever!" 

"It's a bit clunky, in places." I'll try to refute politely, "Should only be four episodes instead of six. And probably has the worst cliffhanger resolution in the history of the show." 

"No way, man!" they'll say back. "It's so awesome when Davros does a pointless monologue about having a lethal virus that can wipe out all life! And those killer clams rock!" 

They suddenly pretend to be a Dalek. Standing erect and extending one arm out further than other to imitate the plunger and egg whisk. 

"We are entombed!" they quote, "But we live on!"   

A BIT MORE OBJECTIVE (BUT ONLY SO MUCH!)

Admittedly, I may be exaggerating things slightly for comedic effect (or even trying to make myself sound cooler than everyone else - I have been known to do that!). But it does rankle me that, quite frequently, a Greatest Hit gets way more attention than it really should. In discussions about the Fifth Doctor era, for instance, Caves of Androzani tends to steal all the thunder. Whereas I feel Kinda is such a better Peter Davison story. Or Earthshock, for that matter. Although Earthshock does tend to get the credit it deserves. But I still almost froth at the mouth over the fact that people will go on way more about Androzani than they will Kinda. That first tale about the Mara is such a superior creation! 

Yes, this is all pretty subjective and based entirely on my own opinion of what constitutes a good Doctor Who story (apparently, paper mache snakes is a vital ingredient!). But, if you go back and look at the title of this thing, it is called Unadulterated Boorish Opinion. So that's what I'm going to do: express how I feel on the subject. Basically, I will blather on about what I think is a story that gets more love than it ought to. 

I will still try to be fair to the tales I choose for this series. I'm not here to just completely tear them down. Clearly, there's a reason why they've become Greatest Hits. They have plenty of good things about them and audiences appreciate that. But my real point will be to express that there aren't quite enough fine points to the adventure to give it the respect and recognition it receives. 

THE LUCKY WINNER FOR THIS ENTRY 

Okay, we've gone to elaborate lengths to explain what constitutes a Greatest Hit (pretty sure I could have just said "overrated" and everyone would've understood - I think I was just looking for an excuse to talk about Rush!). Now that we've accomplished that, let's actually get on with discussing a story that I feel is one. 

I've decided I don't want to be too inflammatory, yet, with this series. There are several stories out there that are greatly loved by the fans that I don't really think are half as awesome as people say they are (if you've been paying careful attention - I've already mentioned one!). I could tear into one of those fan favorites right here and now. But I thought I'd start things off gently. I'm going to go with a story that is still highly regarded but isn't so dearly-loved that it will cause some of you to boil with rage if I denounce it in any way. 

The first Greatest Hit that I want to discuss will be Pyramids of Mars. A popular little tale from Tom Baker's second season. I do find that the Fourth Doctor Era is heavily plagued with Greatest Hits. Particularly the stuff that was produced by Big Bad Philip Hinchcliffe. There is a lot of content from this period that is very solidly put-together - I'll be the first to admit. I do find, however, that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. They're decent stories with a few critical misfires that I feel cause them to fall short of being considered "Classics". But a lot of fans seem to gloss the flaws over. They see so many stories from this time as being the greatest television ever made. I think a lot of this is due to the combined talent of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. They were both so excellent in their roles that it almost made the shortcomings fade away. Or, at least, they achieved that effect with a lot of the audiences that have watched these adventures over the years. I did enjoy the incredible charisma of both of these performers, but that didn't stop me from still taking note of various problems that occurred in many of the episodes they starred in. 

Pyramids of Mars is a great example of this. Baker and Sladen do a great job of propelling a fairly threadbare plot along. But, for me, it's just not enough to get me to ignore a few crucial issues with the whole story. 

Before I tear down too much, though, let's build things up a bit. 

THE STUFF THAT ALMOST GETS IT TO ACHIEVE "CLASSICNESS" 

Pyramids of Mars, like so many tales from the Hinchcliffe era, oozes with atmosphere. It's not just really well-shot, it was recorded on some genuinely impressive film. Even decades later, the colors look strong and intense. When things need to appear gloomy and full of shadows, the effect is also well-achieved. The whole thing is great on the eyes.  

On top of the visuals, we also get a great backing track of incidental music. Particularly all that organ music! This all helps to create that "Hammer Horror Vibe" that's frequently referenced about stories from this particular period. Undeniably, the superficial aspects of Doctor Who are at their best, here. Pyramids excels even better in this area than most because it's meant to to take place in the past. The Beeb always does a great period piece. 

There are also some great ideas at work in this story. Egyptian mythology being based on an actual alien culture was a very neat concept. The info dump the Doctor does about the whole thing in Part Two is a very fun moment. As is the quick side-trip that gets taken in the TARDIS later in that episode. It's nice to have the "history is in a state of flux" or "time can be re-written" concept illustrated so clearly for us. The whole digression, if we're being totally honest, is meant to be a bit of filler for an episode that's running too short. But it ends up being a really great scene, anyway. 

And then there's the sheer magnitude of the Main Threat. This is what provides the story with a lot of its potency. We've seen the Doctor save all sorts of civilisations or even entire planets. On some occasions, he's thwarted perils that would have affected an entire galaxy. This just might be the first time he's saved the whole Universe, though. Dealing with such a huge menace really does make the whole adventure very dramatic. I really think this is the story's greatest asset.

Finally, there's the ending to Pyramids of Mars. Taking advantage of a legitimate scientific fact about the length of time it takes radio waves to travel from Mars to Earth is undeniably clever. It wraps the whole plot up quite neatly. 

MORE STUFF THAT ALMOST GETS IT TO ACHIEVE CLASSICNESS

Before hitting on the negatives, there's some important things we need to acknowledge about the performances in this tale. The entire cast does a great job in this one. Several characters, of course, hail from the early 1900s and the actors excel at being convincing characters from the past. But there are some specific nuances that really need some high praise. 

I'm really impressed with the chemistry between Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. Truthfully, they've always been excellent together. But, here, they seem to do better than usual. The synergy between the two of them really is at an apex. Part of it, I think, is how Sarah Jane is actually written. She seems to be at her absolute smarmiest in this tale. Right in her opening scene in the TARDIS, she's taking the piss out of the Doctor as he talks about walking in eternity. For some odd reason, making her so sarcastic really works for the character. It never seems to go too far but it does make for some really good interplay between her and Four. 

Tom Baker's performance specifically stands out. He's in a very weird space with the role during this particular period of the show. In some stories, he's a complete buffoon who can barely be taken seriously (which would, eventually, be the only way he would play the part until he's properly restrained during Season 18). At other times, he plays things very straight with only the briefest moments of levity. During Pyramids, he chooses the latter approach. I'm so glad he did because the plot is meant to have such high stakes. If Baker had been mugging his way through it all as he did during, say, Season 17 - the whole thing would've fallen flat. I'm so happy he makes the choice he did. Truthfully, I preferred when he played the part this way. He was so much more effective when he did. I particularly love the scene where he reminds Sarah that he isn't actually human. Had he not done that scene with a serious tone, it would have been terrible to watch.    

And then, of course, there's the vocal work of Gabriel Woolf. No villain has sounded more wretched and evil than he did (Okay, maybe Valentine Dyall beats him - but not by much!). An absolutely perfect piece of casting for a creature of pure evil.  It's not just a question of the voice being so rich and sibilant, though. Woolf really seems to understand the character and hits each note perfectly in the way the lines are delivered. You can hear it in moments where we do get ever-so-slightly inside of Sutekh's head. The "Your evil is my good" moment demonstrates this beautifully. The conviction in Woolf's voice is great. 

AND NOW, THE BAD STUFF THAT MAKES IT FAIL TO BE A CLASSIC  

In order to make my critique as concise as possible, I'm going to legitimately enumerate the flaws of this story. Just so you can see how the negative points add up and make it impossible to truly see this story as "the Absolute Classic" that some fans label it to be.      

1. The Poacher

The Poacher in Pyramids of Mars is, in  many ways, almost not a bad call. We could, in fact, view him as an example of some very avant garde writing. He has no real interaction with the principle characters. He is his own separate, self-contained subplot that begins and ends during Part Two. He's not even all that necessary to the overall story. We do first discover through him that Sutekh placed a force field around the Priory. But we could've, easily, learnt such a thing through other means. And, yes, the Doctor and Sarah go to his shed to get some blasting gel but that doesn't mean we had to actually ever see him. It could've easily just been mentioned that there's a poacher in the area who has a shed with blasting gel in it and be done with it. 

We really could almost say that the Poacher was a bold piece of experimental writing that uses a character in a very unique way. He is introduced and then killed off in the very same episode without creating much of any real consequence to the plot. It's an extremely novel concept. 

We could claim this but it seems far more obvious that the Poacher was created because the episode was running short and needed some padding. 

Padding isn't, necessarily, a bad thing if it's done cleverly. Look at the cook in Enemy of the World. He's called into existence for a similar reason. But his scenes are quite entertaining and he is used a bit to help propel the story forward. His kitchen is a place for some important business in the plot and he becomes a part of it in the process. 

The Poacher, however, falls more under the category of blatant padding. If he had been kept alive in Part Three and assisted the Doctor and Sarah for a bit before getting killed by a mummy, he might have been a bit less obvious (it could have easily been him shooting at the bomb on the pyramid rocket. That would have made more sense than having Sarah suddenly become a skilled marksman). But creating him, having him serve the plot in no real way and then killing him off all in such a short span of time makes it pretty clear that he was just there to fill a hole. 

Also, getting crushed to death by the pointy chests of mummies looked extremely silly! 

2. Providing Sutekh with a means of escape 

I've already discussed this a bit in a recent COMPLETE AND UTTER SILLINESS essay about My Favorite Plot Holes  (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/06/complete-and-utter-silliness-few-of-my.html) so I won't go on about it too much. 

There is zero logic to imprisoning Sutekh but then giving him robot servitors and a missile that has the ability to reach Mars and blow up the pyramid that generates the containment field that is holding him. Why would you leave this sort of stuff lying around for him when you're trying to restrain one of the greatest menaces in the Universe?! 

This fundamental flaw to the whole plot seriously hampers my enjoyment of the story. The high stakes that the Doctor is dealing with are meant to be taken very seriously. But it's a bit hard to get into the drama when such a silly plot hole sits in the center of the whole tale. 

I did also do a FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES essay a while back that comes up with a bit of head cannon to explain this away (I tried to find it and provide a link but I really did write it a long time ago and it was only a small portion of the entry. Sorry!). I, basically, theorised that Sutekh was still able to exercise his powers slightly (as we see him do in the actual story) and he, slowly but surely, conjured all this equipment into existence. 

Creating head cannon is not always a bad thing to do (it can be quite fun, in fact!). There are certain "murky areas" in Trial of a Time Lord, for instance, that I think are perfectly acceptable to fill in the gaps for. Figuring out for yourself what really happened in the Matrix falsifications is no great crime. Or trying to work out Mel's convoluted time line after the trial concludes is just fine for me. 

But to not provide a proper explanation for why Sutekh has all this stuff to free him and just leave it to the fans to figure out is too great of a sin for a writer to commit. Especially when you have this extra-sarcastic version of Sarah Jane Smith. She should've questioned this. Then a bit of an explanation could have been given by the Doctor. I don't even care if it had not been my theory that provided the answer. I just think an explanation of some sort would have been nice!   

3. The traps of Episode Four 

This is where I start getting a bit nitpicky. 

For a few seasons of 70s Who, the writers used a very blatant trick to mark time. In fact, they used it a bit too frequently for my liking. And, unfortunately, they use it in Pyramids of Mars. 

Essentially, they will take an entire episode of a story and place the Doctor and Sarah (or, in some instances, Belal) in a place that is full of Indiana-Jones-style traps. Slowly but surely, they assail the perils by using their wits and guile. The whole process, of course, fills up the episode nicely and we have enough story to create a proper four-parter.   

If this had only been done in, say, Death to the Daleks and not seen again a season-or-so later in Pyramids and then done again less-than-a-season later in Hand of Evil then I wouldn't be so bothered by it all. Just resorting to the trick once would have been okay. Even a bit inventive. But to tote it out every time you need to get the running time up gets tiresome really quickly. I was glad when this technique was finally abandoned. But, unfortunately, it left a nasty stain on my appreciation of this story before it was finally dropped. 

Also, the way the Doctor solves the picture puzzle is quite silly. Clearly, it's just an odd man out situation. He didn't need to measure everything with his scarf! 

4. Just not enough there

While I have discussed padding issues in two different sections, already, I still feel it is important to address this problem in a point of its own. 

There just isn't enough story, here, to fill four parts. Some digressions, like returning to the TARDIS and showing a future where Sutekh isn't stopped, work very well. But other attempts to fill things out, like the Poacher or assailing traps throughout Episode Four, work to the story's detriment. The truth of the matter is: the adventure is just a bit weak on plot. 

It makes one wish that the production team had returned to the three-parter way faster than they did. So many stories in the Sylvester McCoy era work as well as they do because the writer wasn't under pressure to fill that imposing fourth episode. Pyramids of Mars, I think, would have benefited greatly from this. 

Sadly, because it needed to meet requirements that were beyond its ability to fulfill, I find myself not being able to quite label this a "True Classic". 

FINAL VERDICT

While those four negative points I've made cut quite deeply, I still wish to emphasise that I do really enjoy a lot of what Pyramids of Mars has to offer. It, very nearly, qualifies for the "Absolute Classic" label that many fans ascribe to it. But I do feel that, like many Greatest Hits, it falls a bit short of being as great as people say it is. 

As I continue to contribute to this series, however, there will be stories that I will criticise far more harshly. I will look at tales that I have no idea why they are so highly regarded. They seem riddled with problems. To the point where I find them legitimately bad. 

I will add this extra warning: several of these "bad stories" hail from what many consider the "golden age" of the show. The Tom Baker/Philip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes period. So, if you want to read about some very controversial opinions - stick with this series. There's much more to come... 

And so, the first installment in my Greatest Hits series is complete. 

If all goes well, I will be here again soon. Talking about other stories that I consider to  merely be Greatest Hits rather than truly excellent examples of Doctor Who.   

Hopefully, you will enjoy my blow-hard opinions!

 

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX - PART THREE: THE REST OF 'EM!

And so we move into an unexpected third part to this essay. I really did think I could get it done in just two chapters but there was so much more stuff involving Daleks than I'd originally realized!   

Just in case you missed the earlier segments, here are links to them. It would help if you read them first: 

Part One:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/02/chronologies-and-timelines-state-of.html

Part Two:  

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/02/chronologies-and-timelines-state-of_19.html 

And now, Part Three...

As we move into our final chapter of STATE OF FLUX, we are going to mainly deal with one particular species. Like the Daleks, I am certain these are time travellers rather than creatures from the Present Day. While I'm quite sure the Sontarans and Weeping Angels were contemporary, these infamous cyborgs hail from the future. 

Once we have determined which era they are from, I want to explore a theory as to why they and the Daleks have come back in time the way they have. It's a bit of a complicated idea, but it could make sense of things. 

Before we finally wrap up this exploration of the Flux, there is still one more creature that we have seen before on the show that we need to put in a timeline of some sort. We don't see much of him, but he's there! 

STILL IN THE NURSERY 

In case you haven't guessed, we're going to be trying to figure out when exactly the Cybermen that we see in Flux come from. As was clearly established right in Halloween Apocalypse, the events of that particular cosmic disaster take place in 2021. But we do not see any Cybermen from that particular period. I believe the Cybermen that do show up in the story come from the distant future. 

Like the Daleks, I'm basing my opinion mainly on aesthetics. If we were seeing Contemporary Cybermen in Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers, they would not appear the way they did. More than likely, they would resemble the model we saw in The Invasion. Or, quite possibly, the ones from The Moonbase. Those are the types of Cybermen that were around during that particular period (I'm ruling out Mondasian Cybermen as they do seem to get completely decimated when Mondas burns out during The Tenth Planet in 1986). There are a few other versions that we see here and there during the 20th and 21st Century (Neomorphs in Attack of the Cybermen and Silver Nemesis, Cybus Cybermen in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and Nightmare-Style Cybermen in Dark Water/Death in Heaven), but they are not what I would call "locals". They are time travellers or intruders from another reality or a specially-designed version by Missy. So we'd be less likely to see those particular kinds of Cybermen during the Flux as they only pop up incidentally in that era. Invasion and Moonbase Cybermen would be in greater proliferation. So those should be the ones being featured.**

But we see neither of these two models in Flux. Instead, it's the warrior-class Cybermen from Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children. This type would have fought during what I labelled the Second Great Cyber War that took place sometime around the 31st Century (for more details on this era, read here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/06/chronologies-and-timelines-appendixes.html). These Cybermen were capable of time travel. The Lone Cybermen does, after all, go into the past to recover the Cyberium. So it is possible for them to be able to make such a journey to the time of the Flux. 

How there is another army of this particular model might be a bit more difficult to explain. A troop carrier of them is discovered during Ascension but appears to get wiped out during Children when their ship is blown up. My guess would be that there were still other Cybermen of this nature out in space in ships that had been abandoned during battle. One of these groups of hibernators was, somehow, awakened. They probably caused some trouble in their own time zone but, eventually, went into the past. Where they then pop up for two episodes of Flux. 

Like the Gunmetal Grey Daleks that we also should have seen, I'm guessing the Contemporary Cybermen models were, more-or-less, destroyed fairly early on as the Flux spread across the Universe. Only the temporally-displaced Cybermen really remain. 

** To better understand the different models of Cybermen, check out this link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/03/special-glossary-models-of-cybermen.html

BUT WHY ARE THEY THERE, ROB? 

Okay, so we've worked out where this particular batch of Cybermen comes from. We've also done the same for the Daleks in the previous entry. When discussing the Daleks, I claim they were time travelling to accomplish some sort of secret mission and just happen to get caught up in the events of the Flux. 

Should we say the same sort of thing just happened to be going on with this army of Cybermen? Were they, too, on some sort of unrelated expedition into the past and got swept up in events? Admittedly, it does seem like a bit too much of a coincidence. 

It might make more sense if we just assumed that these Daleks and Cybermen from the future actually came back in time to investigate the Flux. It's entirely possible that the two armies were trying to save their own timelines because the catastrophe was powerful enough to re-write the future. That, indeed, the Universe was going to get totally destroyed by the Flux and the Daleks and Cybermen were trying to prevent this from happening before they became an aborted timeline. 

I'm likening the whole thing to that experience the Doctor has with the Ood at the beginning of The End of Time. Where they actually explain to him that "events of the past are affecting the present" (or words to that effect). The Oods' psychic ability enabled them to see a divergence in the timeline that was about to happen that would erase them from existence and enlisted the Doctor's help to stop it from happening. 

While Daleks and Cybermen don't have psychic abilities (it is kinda cool that Sontarans have developed a special psychic division, though) they are both proficient at time travel. That proficiency caused them to create some sort of technology that allowed them to view the causal nexus and see that what was happening in 2021 would change the future and wipe them out. 

As usual, the two races applied brute force to solve the problem. Sure that a gigantic army could fix anything, they sent a huge force back to 2021 to take care of things. Once there, they saw that even their great numbers were useless against such a disaster. But they could not escape back to the future. That timeline was now gone and wouldn't return unless someone could stop the Flux. 

All that's left for these time-travelling Daleks and Cybermen is to consolidate their losses. They try to occupy what little of time and space is left. Eventually, they get lured into a trap by the Sontarans. The events of The Vanquishers happen here.   

Clearly, there are still some Daleks and Cybermen around after the Sontarans spring their trap. Either some escaped when they realized they'd been betrayed or there are some Daleks and Cybermen in the future that still exists because the Flux didn't completely destroy the Universe. Whatever the case, we have already seen the post-Flux Daleks harassing the Doctor. No doubt, Cybermen will come along too.   

JUST ONE LAST THING.... 

Okay then, the Daleks, Sontarans, Weeping Angels and Cybermen all seem to be taken care of. We're done, right?    

Not quite. 

I almost don't think about that nice little Ood we saw in Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishers because he isn't actually a baddie. But I did create a timeline for the Ood a while back (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/02/chronologies-and-timelines-odd-history.html) so I should give these two episodes a place in their history. 

No doubt, Tecteun has the ability to pluck the Ood from anywhere in time and space. But, once more, we're going to let aesthetics have a role to play in things. The Ood does have a translation device so we're going to say he was taken from some time during the Halpern Family's occupation of the Ood Sphere (some time between the 40th and 42nd Century). I'm guessing Tecteun just time scooped one of them out of the warehouse and everyone chalked up the sudden disappearance of livestock to a glitch in the inventory program! 

Clearly, snatching the Ood took place before the events of Planet of the Ood. Yes, there were Oods that still had translation devices after they were liberated, but I doubt they would still be all that subservient. And Tecteun would have wanted an obedient slave. Although, we could argue that the Doctor gets the Ood to help her as much as it did because it is one that has been freed. But I'm more inclined to think that the Ood just saw the sheer magnitude of what its master was commanding it to do and broke its conditioning. It just couldn't do what was being asked of it. 

We could really nitpick and try to decide whether or not this Ood hails from before Impossible Planet/Satan Pit or after but I don't think we really need to be all that precise. I'm fine with just saying it comes from somewhere within those two centuries when the Halpern Family ruled the planet. 

There we go, we've now taken care of everything that happened during The Flux (and a little bit before and after if we're counting some of the Dalek stuff!). Everything has been neatly arranged into the various timelines that I've conjured up over the years. 

No doubt, I'll be adding an Appendix soon to my CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay about Homo-Reptilia. In the meantime, I'll write about some other stuff. Easter is still a long enough way off!   

 

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX - PART TWO: THE DALEKS!!

My vain efforts to create coherent timelines for all the returning baddies that showed up in Flux continues. I thought I could tackle this in two parts. It looks like it might take more...

DALEK STUFF - MORE THAN I REALIZE!   

Ironically, the recurring foe that we saw the least in Flux will probably take up the most amount of space to discuss. At first, I thought I would just be dealing with the brief cameos the Daleks make in Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers and be done with it. But then I made an important realisation: 

"Hey Rob," it dawned upon me as I attempted the mental gymnastics of placing the Daleks from Flux in a timeline of some sort, "There are two other Dalek stories that have come out over the last year or so that you still haven't reconciled!"

"Oh yeah!" I said back to myself in sudden surprise, "I should take care of them too!" 

I have these sort of conversations with myself quite frequently. Sometimes, I'm just crossing my own timeline while still in the same incarnation. On other occasions, it's a full-on multi-incarnation adventure!    

RESOLVING THE REVOLUTION

Shortly after it was transmitted, I went to the trouble of figuring out where the very fun and exciting Resolution fits within the Dalek Timescale. You can read the full entry here if you so desire: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html. 

I actually made a very bold claim about the tale. I believe that this is the first story in the New Series that uses a Dalek from before the Time Wars. It is my theory that this Recon Dalek was sent to Earth sometime after the events of The Daleks but before Power of the Daleks. 

I find this to be a rare occurrence with how the Doctor has been dealing with the Daleks since the Time Wars. For the most part, Dalek stories have been happening in a fairly linear fashion. I have even postulated that the Daleks might be operating on the equivalent of a Gallifreyan Mean Time. Admittedly, this might not actually be the case. Such rules may not exist for the Daleks. But I do think the Doctor might be making a concerted effort to keep his relationship with his greatest foes as orderly as possible. He tries his best to meet them chronologically. And he is making a concerted effort to avoid dealing with Daleks from before the Time Wars for fear that he might accidentally give them a "sneak preview" of things to come.

Resolution, then, is a bit of an oddity. Clearly, Daleks from after the Time Wars would have no need to send a Recon Dalek to Earth in the 1700s to investigate it. By this point in their history, they know Earth quite well, already. So this has to be a Dalek who comes from that specific time who is scouting the Earth. The battle that splits the Kaled Mutant into three parts represents the very first contact Daleks have with humans. 

It stands to reason, then, that the Recon Kaled Mutant that is re-created by Leo Rugazzi from the remains found in the "junkyard chic" Dalek casing left behind in Resolution also hails from the same time period. Chibnall provides us with a very clear narration that this Recon Dalek has come back to make more trouble. That the Kaled Mutant originally comes from the 1700s and re-assembled itself in 2019. A clone of it was then made about a year later. From there, it creates an army that it intends to use to take over the Earth and establish a power base from which it can begin a campaign of galactic conquest. 

This Recon Dalek has no idea of the contrived future that its race has forged for itself that we have already seen. It does not know of the other attempts to conquer the Earth that will happen in adventures like The Dalek Invasion of Earth or Frontier in Space. Nor is it aware that its people will eventually wage war against the Time Lords in stories like Day of the Doctor. It does not know, either, that survivors of that Great War will come back to plague the Earth in the early 21st Century in episodes like Army of Ghosts, Doomsday, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End (to make this things even more convoluted, those particular episodes all take place prior to Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks if we are viewing them from the perspective of Earth's timeline!).

While the Recon Dalek is oblivious to all this, it will still be influenced by these events as Daleks from its own far-flung future will come back and complicate things. 

ESTABLISHING A SECOND DALEK TIMELINE 

So, it seems pretty clear where and when the Recon Dalek and his army come from in Revolution of the Daleks - but that doesn't mean we're done sorting out the timelines for this story. There is a second group of Daleks that we also need to address. I'm speaking, of course, of the Death Squad Daleks. Or the SAS Daleks - as they are nicknamed.

Because of their bronze livery, it's clear to me that these are Post-Time-War Daleks. Sometime after their battles with Gallifrey, they have intentionally placed themselves in the Time Vortex so that they can easily go to any period in history and wipe out Daleks that they deem impure. The Question is: where do they fit in the Dalek Timeline before they entered into  the Vortex? 

My guess would be that they come from some time shortly after the events of Victory of the Daleks. One of the main elements of that particular story's plot involves Daleks having to prove to the Progenitor's computer that they are "true Daleks" even though they are showing signs of genetic deviation. It would seem to me that, after such an incident, the Daleks would want to create a more concrete solution for the problem of other impure strains that might be out in the Univere. We see by Assylum of the Daleks (a story that takes place a short while later in that particular part of their chronology) that they have become a mighty army, again. They can afford to allocate a small force to the Time Vortex to manage the problem. Their great numbers would also mean that they have no need of these impure Daleks to increase their size. They are just fine with having the rogue Daleks exterminated. 

For me, then, the Death Squad Daleks come from some time between Victory of the Daleks and The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang. Or, quite possibly, shortly after Pandorica Opens/Big Bang and Assylum of the Daleks. Dealing with the Cracks in Time the Doctor's exploding TARDIS caused might have been a higher priority than creating a Death Squad. It all depends on just how much time actually passes between Vicotry and Pandorica/Bang. If the Cracks In Time Crisis happens almost immediately after Victory then forming the Death Squad might have taken a bit longer. If it took a while for the disaster to occur, the Death Squad might have come along first. But all three stories, I feel, happen quite close together. I do think the Death Squad would hail from sometime around this period. 

If you want a better look at that particular period of their history, here is the entry that covers it: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4155651475182736486?blogID=4155651475182736486.

AT LAST, WE GET TO THE FLUX 

Finally, we've reached the Daleks that we see in Flux. While we clearly established in Part One of this little dissertation that the Flux is taking place in late 2021, I don't believe the Daleks that we see during the event are from that particular time period. These are, in fact, Daleks from the far-flung future that have travelled back in time and gotten trapped in this period as the Universe seems to be ending. 

As usual, I'm going with my philosophy of: "If it's a bronze-liveried Dalek - it's from after the Time Wars." Which is exactly the sort of Dalek we see in both Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers. Had it actually been Daleks that existed around that era, they would have been more of a gunmetal grey. It's entirely possible, of course, there were some contemporary Daleks roaming about as the Disaster unfolded. We just don't see any of them. More than likely, the Flux wiped them out fairly quickly and these time travelling Daleks were all that remained. 

We could easily say that these Daleks came from any period after the Time Wars. Their presence in Flux is so fleeting that we can't really get any kind of clear idea of their true place in the timeline. At no point do we hear a Dalek proclaim: "We have just survived our battle with the Cybermen at Canary Wharf!" or "We just defeated the revolting sewers of Skaro!" or anything like that. Absolutely no clear point of reference is given. 

Just to make things simple, though, I'm going to say this is a very recent form of Post-Time-War Dalek. These are Daleks from shortly after their cameo in The Pilot but before their appearance in Twice Upon a Time. Like the Sontarans and Weeping Angels that we spoke of in Part One, there is a huge gap of time that takes place between the two stories I just mentioned. No doubt, more adventures from this era will eventually be made. To get a clearer idea of when these stories take place, you can check out this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/03/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html. 

There is one big question that still needs to be addressed: What are Daleks from somewhere near the 50th Century suddenly doing in the 21st? The simplest guess would be that an army had been sent into the past on a mission of some sort. Perhaps the Daleks were actually attempting to meddle in time. As they were trying to alter history, the Flux began and they were caught up in it. Gunmetal Grey Contemporary Daleks were destroyed by the Flux but the time-travelling Bronze Time War Survivors were escaping the peril for as long as they could. 

I do have a more elaborate theory as to why the Daleks went into the past to encounter the Flux but I'll get into it in the next part of the essay. There is another group of recurring foes that are also doing some time travelling (Hint: their name rhymes with Ryberpen). As I place them in their timeline, I will also divulge my Daleks and Cybermen From the Future Have Purposely Sought out the Flux Hypothesis. 

EVE

And now, all that's left is to figure out where Eve of the Daleks fits into all of this. A snippet of dialogue within the story makes it all quite easy. At one point during all those time loops, the Daleks explain that they are a special hit squad dispatched to take out the Doctor as an act of revenge for what she did to their forces in the Flux. The Doctor explains, of course, that she wasn't the one who did it. It was the Sontarans. The Daleks don't care and just want to kill her, anyway. 

This means that the hit squad has also travelled from the future. Like the army before them, they would come from some time after The Pilot but before Twice Upon a Time. The large group of Daleks from this period goes back in time first and is wiped out by the Sontaran double-cross. A short while later, the team we see in Eve of the Daleks makes a similar trip to eliminate the Doctor, Yaz and Dan. They also fail. 

THAT'S IT FOR DALEKS

With this latest appendix, we are now up-to-date with the chronologies of all the latest Dalek stories and cameos. Revolution of the Daleks. Once, Upon Time, The Vanquishers and Eve of the Daleks now fit into the neat little timeline I've made for them. No doubt, there will be more adventures for me to arrange soon enough. 

I will bother to note that at this current place in their timeline (between The Pilot and Twice Upon a Time) the Daleks do seem weak. Pilot indicates that they are, once more, at war with the Movellans. Perhaps, just like last time, the Movellans got in a good shot at them and there's not many Daleks left. On top of the Second Movellan War, they also lost large numbers in the Flux. These losses have greatly damaged their campaign to conquer the Universe. Which is why they would go to the trouble of hunting the Doctor down and trying to eliminate her once and for all. They really want to make sure she will no longer interfere as they attempt to re-build their numbers. 

And so ends our second chapter. We still have two more creatures to place in their proper timeline. We will tackle them in Part Three...

 

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) - PART ONE: THE CONTEMPORARIES

After a crapload of BOOK OF LISTS entries, it's time to change gears. Thankfully, we've just had a season full of recurring foes whose histories I have chronicled in previous essays that now need to be properly placed in the timelines I've created. 

 

I'm guessing that, by this point, anyone who hates Chris Chibnall has stopped reading this blog. I've taken a ridiculously strong pro-Chibnall stance on here. Not just because I think a lot of the persecution he's suffered was completely unfounded, but I also feel he's actually doing legitimately great things with the show. So much so, that I may just consider him to be the best Showrunner since Doctor Who returned to the air in 2005! 

Flux, for me, has greatly re-enforced this notion. I do feel it's something of a masterpiece. Six glorious episodes that linked together beautifully and told a continuously compelling story that was richly-layered and brilliantly-conceived. A really amazing piece of television that actually had a lot of the Chibnall-naysayers (not all of you, of course, some will never convert!) having to finally admit defeat and agree that he did something really good. Although, I'd say it was more than just really good. In fact, I'd say it was amazing. 

Quite simply, Flux kicked ass. 

As the whole season played out, I appreciated more and more what Chibnall had been doing all along. Series Eleven gave us no recurring foes and a very "light" Doctor. Series Twelve started bringing some villains back and the Doctor went to some darker places. Thirteen was steeped in Lore and recurring monsters and showed a Doctor that was being pushed beyond all her limits. I absolutely loved the way he arced things across the last few years. To me, it shows off just how good of a writer he truly is by having the skills to plan things out so far ahead. I know many will be happy to see the back of him as RTD steps in for 2023, but I won't be one of them. I loved Chibnall's work and will miss him dearly. 

NICE REVIEW, ROB - NOW GET TO THE POINT! 

All right, that little review was largely unnecessary. This is supposed to be a CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay. But I still wanted to voice my opinion just a little bit in the intro before getting to the real meat of the essay. Flux rocked and I felt that needed to be stated clearly for all the world (or, at least, those who read this blog) to see. 

Besides being awesome, something else that Flux did to make me happy was to feature sooo many recurring creatures whose timelines I have already pieced together into something linear and mildly cohesive. The inclusion of these various races throughout the season now means I get to do a nice, gigantic two-part Appendix where I can figure out where these latest appearances will fit in to the histories I have established. This, of course, makes me very happy! 

It's my theory that some of the returning aliens that we saw this season came from another time while others hail from the present. Part One of this Appendix will focus on the ones that come from our current time period. I will not just point out which races are in the present tense but I will try to provide evidence to support my views. 

Part Two of the Appendix, of course, will look at the time travellers who I feel came from another era to investigate the Flux. I will also try to present evidence to substantiate those claims. 

But we'll get to that later. Let's focus on the Now. 

SETTING A DATE

The Halloween Apocalypse very quickly establishes a date for when the Flux Disaster starts. It seems to begin on October 31st, 2021. Or, at the vary latest, November 1st, 2021. It seems pretty late in the night when the story starts. Due to a slight time distortion, Karvanista arrives on Earth ahead of the rest of the Lupari fleet. So the Event probably did start later in the night but then Karvanista accidentally slips back in time to rescue Dan. So when Vinder sees the Flux advancing towards Observation Outpost Rose, a few hours may have elapsed since the start of the adventure. Which means we might be past midnight, by this point. So, if we want to be super-pedantic, the Flux may have started on November 1st.   

Whether this all begins October 31st or November 1st is not all that relevant. The most important fact is that providing a date in Halloween Apocalypse does make it clear that we are not in the future or the past. This is a present-day experience. 

It stands to reason, then, that several of the returning aliens that we see during the season would also be from the present. I would think this would especially be the case with anyone that appears in Halloween Apocalypse. This is a story with a very specific date and the creatures that cameo in the tale are, very much, reacting to the current events of the Flux. 

This leads me to believe, then, that Commander Ritskaw and his forthcoming Sontaran invasion force all hail from the Modern Day. When they make their bid to conquer the Earth by slipping in just before the Lupari shield forms, they have only travelled in Space - not in Time.

PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS - PART ONE

War of the Sontarans may cause a bit of confusion about what period these Sontarans come from since most of it does seem to take place during the Crimean War. But, as the story progresses, we learn that the Sontarans established an original foothold on Earth during late 2021 and are using time travel technology to go back into the past and pervert the course of human history (they tend to like to do that!). So these are still Sontarans from current times - they're just time travelling a bit once they make it onto our world. 

Thanks to the intervention of the Doctor, their original plan to conquer the Earth fails. But this doesn't stop the Sontarans from hatching a second, more subtle plan. In this scenario, the Grand Serpent is recruited to their cause to interfere with the formation of UNIT and make the Earth vulnerable to another invasion from the Sontarans. 

While this does seem to be a different battalion (led by a Commander Stenck, this time), these are still Sontarans from the present. Just like the other Sontaran invaders, they are desperate to use Earth as a means of protection from the Flux. And, at the same time, they are planning to eliminate the two other major races that are competing with them to dominate what's left of the Universe. While they have probably given the Grand Serpent some time travel technology so that he can influence UNIT over the years, the scheme is still initially-hatched in late 2021 as the Flux is sweeping across the cosmos. 

WHERE DOES IT FIT? 

All that's left, now, is to go back to my original entry on Sontaran History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html) and place it somewhere in the timeline I established, there. The Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans, Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishors takes place between the events of Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky and The Sontaran Experiment. There is, of course, a sizeable gap of time between those two stories. I wouldn't be surprised if more Sontaran adventures eventually appear in this period in future episodes. 

About the only other thing that needs to be brought up about all this is the fact that the Sontarans in 2021 look radically-different from the ones in 2008(ish). How do we account for such a big difference of appearance in only a handful of years? Especially from what is meant to be a clone species?!

If you do bother to go back and read my initial essay on the matter, I theorise that the Sontarans are similar to us in that different regions of the planet produced different races. Those races then started cloning themselves as the Sontarans began fighting the Rutans all those many years ago. This explains why clones can look so different from each other during certain stories. Basically, we are seeing different races from the same species. 

PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS: PART TWO 

The other Big Nasty that we need to deal with in this entry are the Weeping Angels. I'm convinced that they also hail from the Present Day. But, just like the Sontarans, things can get a bit confusing as they do a fair amount of travelling back and forth in time. Their initial entry point onto Earth, however, is late 2021. 

The first Weeping Angel that we see in the season is the one that abducts Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. Which, as we've already established, is taking place on October 31st/November 1st, 2021. So we can safely assume that this is where (or, more accurately,when) the Angel comes from. In some ways, it's a bit difficult to be certain of this since we have no clear idea of how Weeping Angels get around. They can transport people into the past but they don't seem capable of actually time travelling, themselves. Since moving through time doesn't seem possible for them, I'm inclined to believe this Angel is from the present. I don't believe the Angel could attack Claire in 2021 if it didn't come from that time period.  

As we go into Village of the Angels, things become tricky. We see Weeping Angels in 1967 and then in 1901. These are Angels working as an extraction team that are trying to capture an agent that wants to leave Division. The rogue agent, of course, is the same Angel we saw attacking Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. What about the rest of them? What time period are they from? 1967? 1901? 

It's my belief that, like the fugitive Angel they were chasing, the extraction team are originally from current times. Division has granted them the ability to travel through time so they can set up the quantum extraction. I believe this because the Angels bring the Doctor back to the Present to meet Tecteun in Survivors of the Flux. This leads me to think that Tecteun put together a team from a contemporary position on the timeline and sent them back in time to get the fleeing agent and the Doctor. 

PROPERLY PLACING THE ANGELS AND DEALING WITH A TRICKY BIT

Just as we did with the Sontarans, we need to place Halloween Apocalypse/Once, Upon Time/Village of the Angels and Survivors of the Flux in a timeline I have already established for the Weeping Angels. Should you wish to take a full look at it, I tried to piece their history together in this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html . 

Chronologically, all the episodes from Flux that involve Weeping Angels take place between Blink and The Time of the Angles/Flesh and Stone. We could be nitpicky and try to fit things in a bit better by dealing with their brief cameo in The God Complex, but let's not sweat that too much. Those particular Angels, after all, were just an illusion. 

The Flux episodes that involve Weeping Angels fit into a pretty big gap of time between Blink and Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone (just like the Sontaran episodes did). More than likely, there will probably be other Weeping Angel stories that will get made someday that we can also slot into this particular part of their timescale.  

There is one more issue to deal with that might be a bit tricky to reconcile. During Once, Upon Time we see a Weeping Angel appearing to Yaz during certain scenes that take place in her past. This is happening so that  the Angel can, ultimately, leap out from Yaz's memories and into the TARDIS to commandeer it. I have asserted that all Weeping Angels in Flux are from the Present. I also believe that the species is capable of temporally displacing their victims but cannot travel in time, themselves (the very fact that an Angel needs to steal the TARDIS to go back to 1967 helps to re-enforce this). So the Big Question is: how was this Weeping Angel able to slip into Yaz's past? 

My guess would be that Yaz is having a very unique relationship with Time during that particular episode. And, while an Angel cannot actually travel in time, it can still manipulate it. Those two elements working together enabled the Weeping Angel to briefly reach into Yaz's past and make some appearances in her memory. She is now retaining the image of an Angel, which enables the creature to leap out into the TARDIS at the opportune moment. But a Weeping Angel would never be able to do this sort of thing under normal circumstances. Yaz needed to be zipping around in her own timeline like she was for the Angel to accomplish such a trick. 

THUS ENDETH PART ONE

We have, now, "properly" chronicled the recurring baddies that hail from the Modern Day. There are, of course, a few other creatures that appeared in Flux that I have chronicled over the years that were not brought up in this particular installment. This is because I don't believe they actually came from our Time Zone so I am going to give them a special entry of their own. As we move into Part Two, I'll explain why I believe them to be time travellers who are visiting this period from another era and try to present evidence to support my ideas. 

See you then.... 

SPECIAL NOTE: 

Just wanted to offer a bit of an apology for not posting so much in January. I had intended to put up a few entries for the month but then a personal tragedy came into my life that was clearly a bigger priority. After a very brief battle with cancer, my father passed. Grieving him was more important than blogging about Doctor Who so I took a little break from here. 

While I will never totally recover from such a loss, I am starting to feel well enough to get back into my passion for blogging about Doctor Who. So the entries should start coming out fairly regularly, again. 

Thanks to all of you who have been patient with me while I was away and I appreciate the great support you show me now that I am starting to write in here, again. 

 

Just in case you don't feel like scrolling up to find the link, here are the full histories of the two monsters we covered in this entry:

Sontarans: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html

Weeping Angels: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html