SECOND ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL!!!

It's hard to believe I'm still keeping this thing going on a regular basis after two solid years. But here we are: celebrating the second anniversary of Pretentious Doctor Who Essays. 

I've decided to post the second part of a series of articles I wrote for a fanzine a friend of mine was making way back in the day. It's, basically, a biographical piece that details how I first discovered the show when I was but a young lad. It discusses that most pivotal of events in a new fan's life: handling your first regeneration!  

Whocology 101:   An Introduction to the Greatest TV Show, Ever!

Episode Two:   "The times they are a-changin'..."                 

                                                                                                                       

In my continuing mission to present the Television Program "Doctor  Who" to the unschooled, I will maintain my format of simply recounting to you how I discovered the show.    For some reason, folks seem to like the "biographical edge" I'm adding to this presentation of dry facts and figures!  

         

Just in case you missed my first installment: I explained that I initially came into contact with this quirky British series when I was but a young lad of Twelve or so - growing up in the bordertown of Windsor, Ontario. I'd watched my first few episodes on a weird local channel that came out of Detroit. Having relished the deadly efficiency of a well-aimed hat in the tale: Destiny of the Daleks, I was now sold on the idea that this strange mysterious traveler known only as the Doctor might become my greatest hero.   

The biggest problem was, of course, that the Doctor really was mysterious.    Not just in the way the character was being portrayed, but the premise of the series completely boggled me, at times.   If nothing else, I really needed it explained to me how this big white gleaming control room could fit into this tiny blue telephone booth!    What was the whole science behind that?!

   

But there were greater questions than that (how the console room fits in the phone booth, by the way, never really did get properly explained!).   The Doctor was this tall, curly-haired madman with bulging eyes and a ridiculously long scarf.     But he was, very obviously, brilliant.   Far too brilliant, in fact.   I was getting the impression  that, even though he looked human, he was an alien of some sort.  What kind of alien was he?    Where did he come from?    Why had he chosen to become a sort of intergalactic crime-fighter?  These were all things I wanted to learn.... 

I was lucky to discover that this attractive blond woman he was travelling with also hailed from the same alien race. As I continued following the show on the weird Detroit channel, I learnt that both the Doctor and the attractive blond (named Romana) were known as Time Lords. And that the impossibly large phone box that they stepped in and out on a regular basis was a TARDIS. A craft capable of taking them to any point in time and space.

  

This was established to me through various bits of passing dialogue.    And though it still didn't tell me much, it was enough to keep me going.    The premise was definitely cool: advanced aliens flitting around through time and space in a really eccentric manner. As they did, they righted wrongs and defeated evil menaces wherever they went. They were also very witty and articulate about it as they did!  

            

I decided I would just keep watching the show and try to pick up odds and ends about the Doctor's background whenever it came up in throwaway dialogue.    It was the only way I could learn about the series, really.  Bear in mind, this is the early 80s. There may have been some sort of internet already floating around out there.   But, by no means, was it particularly accessible to a 12-year-old boy who wanted to learn about some cheap-looking British sci-fi series.   So I couldn't get all my questions answered with a few clicks of a mouse as we do, nowadays. 

            

Which was alright, really. Something I discovered, quite quickly, was that part of what makes Doctor Who so fun is that it has a very "shadowy" mythos behind it. Even now, there's really not all that much we know about the title character. And the more mysterious he remains, the more charm he seems to wield.   

            

So those early days of not really knowing what this Doctor fellow was all about had a unique sort of piquancy to it. Instead of trying to load us down with all kinds of ridiculous expository dialogue like a lot of other science fiction TV shows do, Doctor Who allowed its viewer to just sit back and enjoy the adventure. The facts, in many ways, were somewhat irrelevant.    Just have fun watching this zany character actor, Tom Baker, portray an eccentric alien who continuously wanders inadvertently into danger and ends up saving the day through all kinds of creative improvisations.  

            

In many ways, there is no better way to enjoy a science-fiction television program.

            

Nonetheless, the geographical location I grew up in provided me with an excellent convenience. Living in the Windsor area meant I received television signals from Ontario, Michigan and parts of Ohio.   Within a month or two of finding the series on the weird local Detroit station, I also discovered that Public Broadcasting Stations loved to show Doctor Who. It was, in fact, one of their best money-makers during pledge time.  Now, had I been living in any other area, I would've had only one PBS station servicing me. But living in Windsor meant I could watch Doctor Who from PBS stations that came from Canada and the States.   

            

Basically, this meant there was a glorious time during my adolescence when I could watch Doctor Who on four or five different stations a week!

            

By some sheer coincidence, these stations were all running, more or less, the same era of the show as I started watching it.   It was Tom Baker as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana (yes, that's really the name the actress used!) and their silly robot dog, K9.    Though I had found an article or two in some sci-fi magazines that talked about how old the series was, I had always assumed that this was the "basic line-up" for the show: the Doctor, Romana and K9 travelling through time and space together.            

            

And then, suddenly, the most incredible thing happened: 

            

The Doctor changed.   

            

I'm not talking a minor change, either.    That had already happened.    I had noticed that Tom Baker had radically altered both his costume and his portrayal during the last few stories I had watched (what I would, later, learn to be Season 18). I had also noticed a few other signposts that a big change was to come.    Romana and K9 had left the Doctor - and a young mathematical genius named Adric had climbed aboard.

    

But nothing could prepare me for the size of the change that had awaited me, this time. 

            

I had neglected watching one of the channels that was showing Doctor Who for a few weeks.   It was running the show on a night when I was, generally, enjoying the social life a teenage boy is meant to have (although a tremendous geek at heart, I was still blessed with the ability to inter-relate with other people who weren't into the weird "cultish things" I enjoyed!).  But it happened, one time, that my social plans during that particular night of the week were cancelled and I was stuck at home.  So I decided to see how the series was coming along on that particular channel.  

            

I could not imagine the surprise that awaited me as I tuned in that night.    

            

The story opened with Tom Baker lieing on the ground - not looking in a very good way.    Oddly enough, he didn't seem bruised or battered - but his performance seemed to insinuate that he knew he wasn't much longer for the world.   

            

"What the hell?!"   I immediately remarked to myself,  "Is the Doctor about to die?!"

            

Some people gathered around his prone figure.   I only recognized one of them. It was Adric - the mathematical boy genius.   The two women with him were unknown to me.   

            

There was some rushed dialogue between the Doctor's three friends and then Tom Baker closed his eyes for the final time.    I was now seriously freaking out.   This great sci-fi series that I had discovered had just killed off its main character.   What the hell was going on?!     

            

And then, something really amazing happened.  

            

This strange white figure appeared in the distance and walked towards Tom Baker's dead body.    One of these two women that I didn't know suddenly uttered:   "The Watcher.   He was the Doctor all the time!"    And then the white guy merged with Tom and the two of them, in some cheap 80s special effect, transformed into an entirely new person.

            

My jaw hit the floor.    

            

The Doctor was suddenly being played by a new actor. 

            

An actor who wasn't the slightest bit like Tom Baker.     Well, he was equally tall.    But that's where the similiarities ended.     This new bloke was called Peter Davison.    He had straight blond hair and looked nearly 20 years younger than Tom.   

            

It wasn't just the physical characteristics that made him different. All the mannerisms had changed too.   This new  Doctor seemed intensely neurotic and far more vulnerable than Tom ever was.    And while Tom always seemed to be the person in charge in all his scenes (even when he was busy playing the buffoon), Peter seemed to get bullied about quite easily.     Particularly by this mouthy Australian air-hostess he'd recently taken on as his companion.   

            

All this sent me into the deepest state of shock, of course.    A mental state that, apparently, all fans of the show go into when they witness this weird metabolic process that the show's format refers to as a regeneration (or, at least, that's what it calls it, these days) for the first time.  Apparently, every so often, the Doctor must induce one of these regenerations in order to prolong his existence.  Sometimes it's just due to the fact that he's growing too old.    Other times, it's because he's fatally ill from a virus or radiation poisoning.    Other times still,  he's been brutally injured from a great fall or a surgical accident that pierced his extra heart.  There was even one time he had to regenerate cause he fell off an excercise bike!  But this was another part of the show's established mythos that I was only just beginning to familiarize myself with.    And I had to admit: I was getting acquainted with it in the most brutal of ways.  

            

Had I been  a teen in Brittain, where the show is a huge cultural icon, someone else might have given me the nod and let me know that Tom Baker's Doctor was soon to die.   But living where I was meant that being a Doctor Who fan made you a bit of an island onto yourself. There weren't a whole lot of people who were even familiar with the show.    And many who were, had dismissed it as being "too silly" because of its poor budget.   

            

So I had to face my first regeneration all on my own. Completely unprepared. I had very much fallen in love with this show through the wild interpretation Tom Baker had given to the role. But that had been suddenly and harshly ripped away from me. His Doctor was gone - never to return.  And this new guy ... this Peter Davison, was the man in charge of the TARDIS. It was not going to be easy accepting him, of course. Particularly since one of the first things he did was tear up Baker's simply magnificent twenty-foot-long scarf!   

            

Fortunately, one of the pre-requisites of casting the Doctor was to hire someone positively brilliant.    And good 'ole Petey Davison was no exception to the rule.  As his first story concluded, my fierce loyalty to Tom was already being put aside.  I liked this new guy.   He had a very different sort of charm to him that made him very amiable. And it was kinda neat to see him so much more sensitive and aware of both himself and his environment than Tom had been. As Peter stuck that fateful piece of celery to his lapel and climbed into his poorly-landed TARDIS, I had decided he was as much the Doctor as Tom had been. Perhaps even more. Because this was a Doctor I would be following right from his very beginnings.    Whereas I had stepped in on Tom's reign while it had been nearing its end. I would feel all the more connected to this new Doctor because I had witnessed his birth.     In fact, I probably consider Peter more "my Doctor" than Tom because it was through his travels that I really got to know the ins and outs of the series. I might have started with Tom - but Peter was really the one who took me along on the journey.  

            

And as my initial shock subsided, I also realized another key element in the effectiveness of this television series. In any other show, a huge dependence rested on the stars of the program. They were a vital ingredient to its success.  This was particularly true of a lot of the American TV that I was watching.  I had seen any number of US shows face cancellation within weeks after a main actor was written out and the audience was not able to accept the replacement.  Some had gone on to survive, of course.  But very few.  

            

But in Doctor Who, this appeared to be a vital ingredient.    Not only did companions come and go on a regular basis (some, as I would soon find out, even died!).  But the Doctor, himself, could change in the blink of an eye.  No specific "name" could ever be all that firmly attached to the series because no specific "name" was ever allowed to stay throughout the entire course of  Doctor Who's long history. This applied to both on-camera and behind the scenes. As I would later learn, the show's various eras were, oftentimes, divided by the reigns of various producers that had worked on the series. So even the ultimate creative force behind the show was replaced on a regular basis.  

            

In the simplest of terms: in Doctor Who - the show is king.    And all the people involved with it are but its humble subjects.  Serving their ruler for a period of time and then being sent along to other projects when their presence was no longer needed. Some servants stayed on longer than others.  Some were respected and appreciated more than others. But, ultimately, the continuation of the series was the most important thing.    And one of the things that helped it stay alive was the fact that a stream of new talent was constantly being fed into the creative team while the old talent slowly but surely moved on to other things.     

            

This basic principle has always been one of the things that makes the show so much more vital and downright entertaining than most of the other stuff that's out there.    And even as a young adolescent, I recognized this quality (perhaps more subconsciously than consciously) and appreciated it enormously.  

            

Doctor Who always has been and always will be about change.    And I can see no better crux to put the central basis of your television series on. 

Want to see what Part 3 will cover? Hang around for another year! 

Want to read Part 1? Here you go: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/03/first-anniversary-special-something.html  

UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: UNSUNG CLASSICS - PART 2

I decided that, since I did an UNSUNG CLASSICS post on a Classic Series story, I needed to equalize things and talk about a New Series story, too. So, here we are: doing another UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION essay to re-dress the balance (it could be entirely possible that I also just really enjoy doing these and wanted to do another one!). 


The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

The Doctor dies.    He doesn't, simply, regenerate (though an attempt is made).  He flat-out drops dead and ceases existing.    It's the moment we've all dreaded to see: our hero falling, once and for all.   And it all happens within the first ten minutes of an entire new season.     Never has Doctor Who done a bolder a thing.

Though this is a mind-blowingly effective way to grab our attention, it is far more important that the rest of the story is as equally-compelling.   And that is what truly makes Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon the masterpiece that it is.   Its breath-taking first few moments could have completely overshadowed everything else had the rest of the plot not been just as exciting.    But Moffat is fully aware of this potential pitfall and skirts around it beautifully with a storyline that never stops delivering.   

The whole adventure, for the most part, moves at breakneck speed .  Making only a few brief stops to enjoy wonderful character moments like Rory listening to his wife profess her love to someone and wondering who she's truly talking to.   Or River lamenting the non-linear nature of her relationship with the Doctor.   

It also actually manages to drop a few more bombs along the way. Amy revealing that she's pregnant or the fake deaths of the Ponds and River Song in the pre-titles of Day of the Moon are almost as shocking as that opening sequence at Lake Silencio.  

We also get a new race of creatures that, even though they work in a similar manner to the Weeping Angels, somehow don't feel like a cheap rip-off.   In fact, they are almost as iconic and memorable as the Angels.    And they are definitely just as creepy!  

This is the chief reason Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon ranks so high in my books.   It not only does the most unthinkable thing you can do in Doctor Who - it also remembers to make the rest of plot just as damned good.   If not better.   The fact that it does so for not just one but two full episodes makes me truly stand up and applaud Moffat.    He is the master story-teller that many make him out to be.   And, while Blink and Empty Child/Doctor Dances or even Eleventh Hour all seem to get higher praise from most of fandom, I think this is truly Steven Moffat at his best.    Because he gives himself the greatest challenge as a writer and then lives up to it. And such an act deserves far greater appreciation than it seems to be getting.  

            

But living up to a challenge is not the only positive attribute in this tale that deserves honorable mention in this review.    There's so much more....

            

Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon uses many of the conventions that Moffat is famous for.    We've got a timey-whimey, non-linear central premise.    A monster that plays upon primal fears.    Some naughty double-entendres that almost cause the story to lose its "suitable for family viewing" status.  We've even got another script in which a child has a prominent role in the cast.  While we've seen Moffat play with all these of elements before, he does it most deftly in this tale.    And this is because he needs to make way for a new convention that we haven't really seen him use in Who before - he's actually giving the story a bit of a soap-opera feel.  

            

Soap operas are as popular as they are because they take great time to focus on the relationships between all the characters.  They make those relationships suitably turbulent so that we can't help but become totally engrossed in them.   In most other forms of story-telling - the relationships serve the plot.   But in soaps, we see the reverse: the plot serves the relationships.   

            

And Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon puts far more emphasis on relationships than other Moffat stories have.    Even the underlying story-arch in Series Five of Amy trying to make up her mind over the Doctor or Rory is very much kept in the shadows most of the time.   But, suddenly, Series Six seems to totally change emphasis.    We constantly take breaks to see what's going on between Rory and Amy or the Doctor and River Song.    But never at the expense of the plot.    Unlike the RTD days - where the soap opera element is far too prominent - Moffat knows exactly how to use this device.   Not just in the season opener, but in the rest of the season as well.   But he does this so well in this story that even in the action-packed final minutes of the tale, we are just as excited to hear Amy call Rory "stupid face" as we are to see the Doctor take down the Silence.  

            

Although, let's talk about those final moments a bit more.    The Doctor finally "taking down the bad guy" is often my favorite part of a Who story.   Even in something like Timelash, I still like watching the Doctor cry out "Nobody loves you!    Nobody needs you!   Nobody cares!" as he hurls that nasty Borad into the Kontron Tunnel!   Those sequences in Who where Good triumphs over Evil and rubs its face in it a bit are always enjoyable for me.   In some instances, they're even enough to cause a weaker story to rise a bit in my appreciation of it.    If that climactic scene where the Doctor tells off a bad guy and then hands him his just-desserts is well done - it can really save the whole adventure.  

            

Astronaut/Moon's victorious villain tell-off moment is, without a doubt, the best of its kind.   The Doctor's total confidence as he offers the Silence a chance to surrender is played pitch-perfect by Smith.    The dialogue he's given to create that smugness is perfect, too.    Of course, the way the rest of the TARDIS crew plays off of him just adds to the wonder of it all.    River Song is hilarious as she, somehow, causes her death threats to sound like proclamations of love  for the Doctor.   And I laugh at Amy's "Is this important flirting..." line no matter how many times I watch the episode.    The whole thing is a masterpiece, really.  

            

The fact that the Doctor uses a "hoisted by their own petards" technique to defeat the Silence is the icing on the cake, here.   In fact, this is one of my favorite methods of seeing the villain get taken down.   Sadly, creating this sort of conflict resolution can be a very tricky piece of writing. So we only see it come along so often in the show. On some occasions, it's not even all that well-handled.   The ending of New Earth, for instance, uses a similar principle.    But folks weren't so excited about that one!    But here we have to stand in awe of Moffat's wonderful way of causing the Silence's own powers to bring about their demise.    It's a really brilliant piece of writing.   That Smith and all the other actors in the scene understand that they've got something really good here and play it to absolute perfection just makes it all the more awesome.  

            

But, of course, the brilliant ending of The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon is only one of its many great elements.    There are so many other great things that this story accomplishes.    All those lovely twists and turns in the plot, the super-creepy monsters, the actual death of the Doctor, even the comic relief of Richard Nixon coming along every so often to bail out our protagonists are wonderful attributes to this story.   But let's not forget that this tale also sets up a whole slew of delightful mysteries that will, slowly but surely, get solved throughout the course of the season.   The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon is not only a piece of magnificence, it also lays some wonderful foundations.    Without a doubt, one of the best season openers Doctor Who has ever produced.      

AFTERTHOUGHTS: WHY IT'S NOT AS WELL-APPRECIATED AS IT SHOULD BE

I think that, while Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon is a great thing when it stands up on its own, there's some stuff that occurs after it was shown that has lessened its effectiveness.

Series Six, itself, is very complicated. Even Moff admits he may have made it too contrived. To be honest, I love a really a complex story arch like the one Series Six had, but I can see the point others are trying to make. It is possible to go too far with how you're layering your stories. Which means that the Series Opener gets lumped in with the rest of the season. It may have been brilliant and pretty straightforward in the way it presents itself - but it's now considered just part of the over-complexity. And, because of that, it's not as revered as well as it should be.

The second major factor that depreciates its value is the fact that it involved the Doctor feeling certain that he's going to die. It's the first time we've seen this in the New Series and it's handled magnificently. But, in a short while, we'll see Time of the Doctor roll out. Once more, the Doctor is sure he's going to perish. And then, again, in The Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar, he's convinced he's about to meet his end. The Doctor facing his ultimate demise has happened just a little too frequently over the last few seasons. Again, Astronaut/Moon becomes part of this problem and we remember it less fondly because of it. We shouldn't, really. But, somehow, its shine is dulled.

So, really, if we can just forget what comes afterwards then we can appreciate this story for the gem that it is.

All right. Balance is restored. We can move away from UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION essays for a bit. In fact, let's get ready for Pretentious Doctor Who Essays' Second Anniversary Celebration. 

                  

UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: UNSUNG CLASSICS - PART 1

Well, I wasn't sure how this new category was going to go but the response to it was quite positive. We're nearing the end of the month, again, and my essays have been taking longer than usual to complete (writing that's actually paying me just keeps getting in the way of things!). But spewing out a quick rant takes little or no time time to accomplish so I thought I'd compose another opinion piece. I refer to it as "Part 1" because I will definitely be returning to this topic again... 


UNSUNG CLASSICS:

The stories fandom, sometimes, label as "Classic" can seriously boggle me. Genesis of the Daleks, for instance, is a story that works far better in theory than it does in actual execution (far too many captures and escapes - even by Classic Who Standards!). I've never understood all the fuss about Talons of Weng Chiang, either. I mean, it's a fun story - for the most part (that dumbwaiter sequence is four minutes of my life I'll never get back!). But I certainly don't think it's this amazing piece of television that so many other fans believe it to be. I know it's to be viewed contextually, but it's still pretty hard to get over the fact that they've cast a white person as an Asian. It's a bit like that discomfort you feel when you see old footage of actors performing in blackface. It's awkward.

What confounds me even more is the fact that there are some excellent stories that fandom seems to completely overlook. In some cases, minor quibbles have been found with them ("Kinda is an incredible exploration into the human psyche and an extravaganza of rich subtext - but I don't like it cause the snake looks fake!"). Or, for whatever reason, they just don't seem to resonate with the audience. Even though, to all intents and purposes, they're as well-constructed (or even better) than "classics" like Genesis of the Daleks or Talons of Weng Chiang.

My Unsung Classics Series will explore these stories. I'll not only look at what it is about them that I think makes them so great - I'll also try to figure out why they didn't go over as well as they should have. I'll probably also stun you a bit with what I consider to be a great story. Try not to be too shocked. Remember: The Sixth Doctor is my favorite - so I'm bound to have some weird views!


PART 1: PARADISE TOWERS

Yup, you read that right. I consider Paradise Towers to be an above-par story. How can I believe that?! Don't I know that Season 24 was considered one of the worst seasons in the history of the show and that Paradise Towers is the turd that sits in the middle of it all?!

First of all, let's get this out of the way: Rumors of Season 24's death have been greatly exaggerated. It is bookended by two less-than-stellar tales (Dragonfire is one of my least favorite stories, ever). But Delta and the Bannerman is fairly decent and Paradise Towers is, in my view, quite brilliant. Considering the behind-the-scenes nightmare that was going on as the season went into production, it becomes even more impressive. When it comes to weak seasons, I'm far more disappointed in something like Season 17 - where there weren't a whole lot of obstacles in place but there were some hideously poor choices made throughout most of the stories.

Okay, Negative Stigma About Season 24 is out of the way. Let's move on to Paradise Towers, proper. There's a lovely opening sequence, here. Worthy of any pre-title we see in the New Series, nowadays. Someone gets horrifically murdered - which is a vital ingredient of any good pre-title. But there's a nice sense of intrigue built as we're trying to figure out what's going on with the Yellow Kang and all these other Kangs yelling at her from somewhere off-screen.

I'm particularly in love with the TARDIS scene that then ensues. I had fun watching Sylvester McCoy bumbling about in his introductory adventure, but it was so nice to see that he wasn't just going to be silly and fun. That he also appears to have kept some of the more cantankerous traits from his Sixth Incarnation. He's not in a very pleasant mood in this scene and almost seems to be berating Mel a bit. And that actually delights me. Six and Seven were both quite similar to each other in that they were equal parts Dark and Light. And we see the first real hints of Seven's darkness in that console room sequence. It's gorgeous.

A short while later, we hit the first scene showing the Caretakers. This is the moment that truly sets the tone of the story. The Caretakers' use of over-elaborate coding for everything is completely banal. Particularly in the way they still make it all flow like a normal conversation. There's definitely some campiness happening, here.

This, I think, is the first real roadblock that Paradise Towers puts in the path of fan appreciation. Particularly during the period it was being shown. Many had forgotten that, in its early days, Doctor Who would do comedy episodes from time-to-time (The Romans, The Mythmakers). The New Series would also indulge in similar sorts of bally-hoo (Love and Monsters, The Lodger). But 80s fans wanted their Who to be intense and dramatic. I suppose you can't blame them. The show had taken itself quite seriously throughout the 70s. Even with Tom's piss-taking in the latter part of his era - the stories, themselves, were not meant be comedies. But now, suddenly, Paradise Towers comes along and wants to goof off a bit and be fun. It's not just an actor or two that has decided to take certain liberties - the script is intentionally written to be funny. By no means do I feel it's going too far. But its tongue is very firmly in its cheek.

And thus, Paradise Towers becomes the first of the notorious Oddball Stories.

The first scene with the Red Kangs is where I truly decide that Paradise Towers is a thing of beauty. It's a fairly long sequence, really. It takes up a major chunk of Episode 1. But we don't care one bit. Our interest is held the whole time.

The Red Kangs are fun on all kinds of levels. The actresses portraying them clue in beautifully to the strange mix of savagery and absurdity that their characters are meant to have and play it all to perfection. They're just great to watch. But Stephen Wyatt also does some excellent world-building, here. Lots of expository comes out about Kang culture and the ways of Paradise Towers without having to hit us over the head with it.

And then, finally, there's the lexicon. Figuring out just exactly what the Kangs are tying to say is the real pleasure of these scenes. These teenage gangs express themselves' in a very colorful manner that gets us to pay all the more attention to what they're saying. Which, in turn, gives us some great dialogue to relish. In fact, there is no other story in the history of the show where language becomes a key component of the entertainment value. Again, Mister Wyatt deserves huge kudos for his massive writing skills.

The rest of Part One moves on at a nice smooth pace. We meet the rest of the key characters of the adventure. The Rezzies, Pex and the Chief Caretaker all help solidify the fact that Paradise Towers is meant to be just a bit silly. All these characters are ever-so-slightly chewing up the scenery.

With all the ludicrous players now in place, the next two episodes take on a great little symmetry. Mel and the Doctor just bounce around between the three opposing cultural groups and keep learning more and more about the mysteries of the Towers until things come to a full head at the end of Episode Three. It's all put together quite seamlessly. Hints get dropped here and there of Kroagnon. There's even a red herring or two so that we don't truly figure out that he's the horrible thing in the basement. The narrative is woven together in a near-seamless manner. Instead of being slapped in the face with a central premise, we really just feel like we're given a tour of the Towers. The plot just, sort-of, happens along the way. It's some truly amazing story-telling. I was really glad that Wyatt was commissioned again the next season. He deserved more work.

Of course, we can't get to Episode Four without first mentioning the Doctor's controversial escape from the Caretakers in Part Two. The sequence is completely absurd, of course. It's the moment in the story where we must truly accept that we're watching a bit of a comedy (only a bit, though - not too much). It's probably also the moment where fans that want their Who to be totally serious shut off once and for all.

Personally, I find the sequence delightful, Yes, no guards would truly be that stupid. But that's not really the point of the scene. The point is to have a bit of a laugh and to see the Doctor doing what he does best - outwitting his enemies with the resources they provide him with. It's probably among my top ten favorite scenes in the whole Classic Series (were I to compile a list of favorite scenes in the show, of course - which just might happen, someday). It's also another moment in Season 24 that helps establish that this particular incarnation of the Doctor will use deceit far more frequently than he has in the past. Yes, he doesn't really start becoming a master-manipulator til the next season -but we see the seeds blooming in sequences such as these.

The other big controversial issue of Paradise Towers is the decision Richard Briers takes once he's being possessed by Kroagnon. Yes, if he had played it straight and made Kroagnon horrifying it would have been a fun twist. But I found it just as enjoyable that he went a bit camp with it. It's another aspect to the tale that solidifies the fact that this is something of a comedy.

If you've been paying close attention, you'll have noticed that I've been phrasing myself carefully. I keep using terms like "a bit of a comedy" or "slightly silly". This is one of the key issues that differentiates me from a lot of other fans in the way I appreciate the story. I never felt things went too far with the comedy. Whereas I think a lot of other fans, at the time, did. Admittedly, Time and the Rani had scared a lot of us. McCoy was very silly in that one. So the fact that the entire script of Paradise Towers takes a bit of a silly tone threw a bit of gasoline onto the fire. But even McCoy, himself, becomes more subtle in the way he approaches the humor in this tale. Yes, there's still the occasional prat fall here and there but he's relying more on the way he delivers his lines than on general buffoonery to get his laughs. I love, for instance, the way he completes a sentence for the Kangs during his first confrontation with them. "Who are, of course, the best." - cracks me up every time!

Are there any shortcomings to Paradise Towers? It doesn't handle Mel all that particularly well. Up until Towers, Pip and Jane Baker had written most of the episodes she was in. They were doing their best to keep her interesting. But, sadly, in Wyatt's hands - she reverts to a 60s female companion. She gets into trouble and screams a lot. I'm amazed she doesn't trip and twist her ankle, at some point. Yes, she does manage to take out the mechanical crab in the swimming pool - but even Vicki could be useful once in a while. Just look at how she gets the armory open in Space Museum. It doesn't mean, however, that the character wasn't hugely slated to just react in fear and fall into traps. Mel suffers the same fate during most of her era. Particularly in Paradise Towers.

About the only other issue I might have with the story is that it seems blatantly obvious fairly early on that Pex won't be alive by the time the closing credits of Episode Four start rolling. But that doesn't stop his death from still being very touching. Nor does it reduce the inspirational quality of his final choice to be a hero after a life of cowardice. The words "PEX LIVES" being scrawled on the wall behind the TARDIS after it fades away is a gorgeous final image. While it is, for the most part, a silly story - it still remembers to pluck a few heartstrings on the way out. An excellent ending to a most formidable of tales.

If you were actually around when Paradise Towers first came out and reacted the way most fans did, I recommend you re-visit it. Give it another chance. Just make sure the stick is out of your ass, this time. Enjoy it for what it is: a bit of a comedy that still remembers to be Doctor Who, in the end. You'll see its true brilliance shining through...

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ICE WARRIORS

Slowly but surely, I'm covering the timelines of all recurring baddies. This time, we're looking at the Ice Warriors (or Indigenous Martians for those of the more politically-correct persuasion). 



THE ICE WARRIORS

A race of aliens that Who fans, sometimes, like to compare to Star Trek's Klingons. The Ice Warriors do seem a bit more three-dimensional than most "monsters" that populate the Doctor Who Universe. Unfortunately we have only witnessed the Ice Warriors at work outside of their own native environment. Unlike the Daleks, who we have watched evolve on Skaro, it is difficult to truly grasp what Martian culture must truly be like. Only fragments of dialogue from various episodes have offered any kind of real idea. But, from those fragments, I'm going to try to piece together a coherent timeline.


ANCIENT HISTORY - THE FIRST CATACLYSM

It's entirely possible that Mars had a very different climate during its very distant past. It may have been very similar to Earth's -probably a thinner atmosphere and not as much water - but it was still comparable. This would have been a good Twelve Million or so years ago. At this very early period in the planet's history, several different life forms were starting to evolve.

But then, the Fendahl came by on its way to Earth. Astrologically projecting itself across countless light years, it chose to "take a swipe" at Mars to gather energy before finally embedding itself into the crust of the Third Planet. Most of the species on Mars perished during its feeding. The natural resources of the world were very badly ravaged, too.

On this less hospitable version of Mars, a race of reptiles managed to survive the Fendahl's attack. Over a period of time, they began to evolve - even become somewhat advanced. They were one of those species that chose to rely on a science that was a mixture of electronic and organic. These two forms of technology working so closely together meant it was inevitable that these surviving Martian reptiles would eventually develop into cyborgs of some sort.

The reptile race did their best to make their world more inhabitable. They tried to engineer a thicker atmosphere so they could live more on the surface. But the experiments did not succeed and ended up inducing some nasty climate changes. The planet's mean temperature was rising radically. Being reptiles, they weren't good at maintaining a steady body temperature. They had to fashion themselves' special survival suits to keep themselves' cool.

The reptiles kept a very strict feudalistic system. With various lords ruling over serfs, there was also a great need for a warrior class. It was this group that took the greatest advantage of the shell-like survival suits. They built in all sorts of modifications that made them more efficient killing machines. Because the armor was still, essentially, a coolant system - they became known as Ice Warriors.

One weakness in their armor that the Ice Warriors were unable to ever fix was a certain vulnerability to heat. During these times, it was only a sudden blast of heat that would affect their life-support functions. As conditions on the planet would change, so would the nature of this weakness.


EVOLUTION OF THE ICE WARRIORS

The Ice Warriors served their lords. Which meant the lords were responsible for their philosophies and codes of conduct. Two principal schools of thought began to develop among the lords and the warriors who served them. Both mentalities put heavy emphasis on Right of Conquest. But one believed that conquest could only occur if certain rules were respected. Honor had to be upheld under all circumstances. The other mentality, however, wasn't so interested in respecting such ideologies. There was still some degree of an honor code among this second group - but it could easily be swept aside if there was glory to be had. Before the Second Great Cataclysm (which we'll get to in a moment), these two factions were very evenly matched and constantly battled each other.

On the side of the Honorable Ice Warriors, a great hero arose. Skaldak was the bravest and boldest of all warriors and was so popular that he was promoted to the rank of Grand Marshall. This showed just how revered he was. The title of Grand Marshal was, normally, only given to those of Royal Blood. Skaldak, although a mere warrior, became the exception to the rule.

It was at this point that Martian technology had evolved to a level where they were starting to investigate interstellar travel. Skaldak, hero that he was, elected to travel on the first ship into space. It was going to explore a neighboring planet.

Unfortunately, it never returned.

FOOTNOTE: The Martians, at this time, were also investigating various forms of biological warfare. One thing they created was a sentient weapon that existed in water. They called it The Flood. Their creation raged out of control, however, and tried to conquer the planet. The Flood was frozen in a huge block of ice - to be imprisoned there for all eternity.


THE SECOND GREAT CATACLYSM

The Martian space exploration program wanted to continue in its forays - perhaps, even, try to find out what happened to Skaldak. But another great disaster struck.

Sutekh, mightiest of all the Osirians, chose to stage a huge battle against his brother and his supporting forces on the surface of Mars. Although most of the conflict took place on the Red Planet - it, ultimately concluded on Earth. As Sutekh saw that he was losing, he tried to flee. His enemies cornered him on Earth, though. The Mad Osirian's final defeat took place in ancient Egypt.

In the aftermath of the great battle, a pyramid was left behind to assist in the imprisonment of the Destroyer. So oppressive was the power of the Osirians, that none of the locals dared to go near the structure. To the Martians, the pyramid represented doom and they wanted no part of it. The surviving colonies steered clear of it.

At first, there weren't a lot of locals left to steer clear Sutekh's pyramid, anyway. Most of the Martian population was wiped out in the cross-fire of the war between the two brothers. Some survived in remote locations. Re-building their society was very slow and tedious. It took several thousand years before they were anywhere near the level of technology that they had before the war of the Osirians.

But when they finally returned to that point, they renewed their space program. Again, another prototype ship shot off into space to explore a nearby planet. This one had Commander Varga as its captain. But the results of their initial exploration were the same as Skaldak's. The crew was never heard from again.

But more ships were sent off into space that experienced real success. Always, the warrior class manned these expeditions. Small colonies on other, more hospitable worlds began to be established. The Ice Warriors were expanding into the Universe.

The damage from both the Fendahl and the Osirians ultimately proved to be too devastating. There was no real atmosphere left on Mars and most of its natural resources had been wiped out. The planet was at Death's Door and something needed to be done about it.

Mars' climate had been altered even more as Sutekh and Horus had battled. This also meant radical alterations to their survival suits to compensate for it. Their weakness to heat became even easier to exploit. A sudden intense blast of heat was no longer necessary to play havoc with their life support systems. Simply raise the heat, in general, around Ice Warriors and that would weaken them considerably.

ANOTHER FOOTNOTE: I will admit: there is the slightest of dating problems, here. The Eleventh Doctor says Skaldak has been asleep 5 000 years. The Fourth Doctor claims that the battle of the Osirians took place 7 000 years ago. I like to claim that Skaldak's expedition took place before the Osirians devastated the planet because the Grand Marshal does seem to describe a Mars that was more abundant in resources than the Mars we see, now. So it seems to me that we need another cataclysm that's done even greater damage to the planet after Skaldak has left. (I include the Fendahl's visit to the planet only because it is mentioned in Image of the Fendahl - it doesn't really have a huge bearing on the Martian history that I'm trying to cover, here).

Here's how I reconcile it: the Fouth Doctor is rounding up a bit when he speaks of the War of the Osirians and the Eleventh Doctor is rounding down when he speaks of how long Skaldak was frozen (which especially makes sense - Skaldak does seem very upset about how long he's slept). All these events probably took place around 6 000 years ago.




EARTH IN THE CROSS-HAIRS

While the Ice Warriors are going into deep space, they have chosen to stay away from Earth. The Honorable Faction have respected the fact that it, already, has a civilization on it and are concentrating on other worlds. The Less Honorable Faction has tried to organize invasion campaigns, but their rivals have managed to hold them in check. Thus far, at least.

In 1983, a major hero is recovered. Grand Marshal Skaldak was entombed in ice when his ship crash-landed in a polar region of the Earth. Humans eventually discovered him and thawed him out. The events of Cold War take place, here. Skaldak is returned to his people at the end of the story when a nearby ship picks up his distress beacon.

Although we get the impression that he belonged to the Honorable Faction, Skaldak's experiences on Earth may have fueled the ambition of the Less Honorable Ice Warriors to invade it. He may have spoken too much about the vulnerability of the humans and how easy it is to exploit the various weaknesses within their culture.  While the Cold War on Earth, more or less, resolves itself sometime shortly after Skaldak is revived, the Less Honorable Ice Warriors continue observing the humans secretly. They begin looking for a new sociological Archilles' Tendon to hack at.

We can guess that, over the next few years, there has been some very covert contact between humans and Martians. Most of it has been kept secret from the general population of Earth. But the upper echelons of certain governments are aware of the Ice Warriors' existence. Which is why, when the Sycorax attack in The Christmas Invasion, the British government knows they aren't Martians.

YET ANOTHER FOOTNOTE: There is some debate regarding when, exactly, the Ice Lords started fashioning special armor for themselves'. Both Skaldak and Varga and his crew all hail from quite some time ago. All of them wear the garb of Ice Warriors. Ice Lords, with their Darth Vaderish helmets are nowhere to be seen. Could it be that Ice Lords don't start wearing special armor until sometime around Seeds of Death?

The best evidence to support this idea is in Cold War. Skaldak is referred to as a Grand Marshal - but he still just wears a warrior's armor. Whereas the Grand Marshal we see in Seeds of Death has the Darth Vader helmet. So is it possible the Ice Lord armor didn't exist in Skaldak's day? That all lords wore warrior armor, instead?

It's my belief that Ice Lords always had their special armor. That we just don't see them until Seeds of Death - but they've always been there. The Doctor speaks as though Skaldak was the greatest of all the Ice Warriors. Which is why I claim that he is a rare instance in which a warrior rose to a high status without having any royal blood in him. He is a Grand Marshal in status but, because he isn't high born, he's not allowed to wear an Ice Lord's armor.


FUTURE EARTH:

As we enter the 21st century, more and more of Mars is being evacuated. The Martians are settling into smaller colonies on uninhabited planets. Or living aboard ships in Deep Space. Some still remain in deep underground survival chambers on their homeworld - but most have left. Which is why the Bowie bases that get set up on Mars don't encounter any Ice Warriors. The planet has been evacuated, for the most part. The Martians that do remain are too well-hidden. The very first Bowie base, however, does stumble upon the Flood by accident and has to destroy itself to prevent the ancient weapon from invading Earth.

Those Ice Warriors still living beneath Mars' surface are mainly Less Honorable. Because they are meeting little opposition, these days, they are able to rally a proper invasion against the Earth. The Less Honorable Faction does tend to enjoy biological warfare (it's likely that they were the ones that created the Flood all those years ago) so they hatched a nasty scheme involving specially-designed seed pods that would do the bulk of their work for them. Lord Slaar is put in charge of the attack force that will overpower the small base on Earth's moon. The humans' over-reliance on T-mat technology will be used against them. Seeds of Death plays out at this point.

When the fleet plummets into the sun at the end of the story, it takes the bulk of the Less Honorable Ice Warriors' forces with it. For quite some time after that, the Honorable Ice Warriors dominate the political landscape. Ice Warriors continue moving away from our solar system and eventually find an uninhabited world suitable for mass colonization. They are especially interested in it for its mass deposits of trisilicate - a rare mineral that can be used to facilitate interstellar travel. They begin to adapt their core technology to utilize it better. The planet is christened New Mars. Just like the Daleks with New Skaro, the name is eventually simplified to just Mars.

The Ice Warriors - the story that first introduces the Indigenous Martians to the show - transpires at this point. The script never states anywhere when this story actually takes place. Some like to think that it is another 21st Century story that we saw so frequently in the Patrick Troughton Era. Others are more inclined to believe that it takes place closer to the 30th Century.

I tend to agree with the latter opinion. The members of Brittanicus Ice Base are shocked to find an alien. Yes, this would point towards a 21st Century setting. But it seems they are more intrigued by the fact that the alien has been buried away for so long than the mere fact that it is an alien. Which would indicate to me that humans have had plenty of contact with races from other worlds by this point in time. It's the idea that this is an ancient alien that makes them so keenly interested in it.

Getting The Ice Warriors to take place in the 30th Century also suits the timeline I'm trying to create in this essay all the better. By this point in time, all the Martians have cleared off to New Mars. Twenty First Century Humans were still young in their level of space exploration and missed them entirely. They don't really make any real contact with the Martians until a great while later. Which is why Varga and his team don't get recognized by the humans. With nearly a thousand years transpiring since the events of Seeds of Death, records that humans might have had of the Martians would be extremely scant. Which is another reason why they're not recognized by either humans or the Brittanicus super computer.

The humans giving  the Martians the title of "Ice Warriors" in this story was just a lucky coincidence. That had actually been their name all this time.


THE FEDERATION:

Over the next two thousand years or so, the Honorable Ice Warriors continue to dominate Martian ideology. The Ice Warriors do fight in wars and even partake in the occasional act of conquest - but it is all done within the context of very strict rules. Humans do, eventually, encounter them as they expand their own colonies. Some fighting might have even taken place between the two empires but the skirmishes are limited. New Mars was situated a great distance away and the Human Empire just isn't interested in developing in that particular corner of the cosmos.

But as we approach the 50th Century (the date most fans like to ascribe to the time period in which the Peladon stories take place), an Intergalactic Federation has formed. The reach of the Federation is a long one. But it does still have some opposition. An alliance that simply refers to itself as Galaxy Five is one of its biggest rivals. The Federation is broad enough, however, to include both the Ice Warriors and humans. And many other races, too. Including Alpha Centaurans, Arcturans and the people of the planet Vega (it's just too embarrassing to call them Vegans).

Because the Honorable Ice Warriors are still, very much, in control of things - they cooperate quite nicely with the Federation. Their desire for war makes them ideal as a sort of police force. When negotiations break down, Ice Warriors get called in to deal with the rare instances where brute force must be used. They are often included in diplomatic teams, too, so that it is made clear to everyone that the Federation does have a degree of military strength to back it up.

Which is why Lord Izlyr is part of the diplomatic attachment that is sent to the planet Peladon as it seeks admittance into the Federation. The Doctor, who has mainly been meeting more brutish versions of the Ice Warriors, gets his opinion re-shaped in Curse of Peladon.

The Ice Warriors even become so generous that they begin to share the advantages of trisilicate-based technology with the rest of the Federation. This becomes especially useful as war, finally, breaks out between the Federation and Galaxy Five. Ships running on trisilicate are just so much more efficient that they represent a huge tactical advantage. Mars, itself, has drained most of its supply and a new source is desperately needed to win the war. Fortunately, Peladon possesses the mineral in great abundance.

Those Less Honorable Ice Warriors have not totally disappeared, though. They still exist in small break-away factions that remain covert throughout Martian society. They look for opportunities, though, where they might finally gain enough might to manifest themselves' more overtly. They try to seize one of those moments some fifty years after the experiences of Curse of Peladon.

In Monster of Peladon, Lord Azaxyr secretly allies himself with Galaxy Five to re-route the supply of trisilicate coming from Peladon. Along with the help of a treacherous human who they've corrupted with the promise of wealth, Galaxy Five will gain a huge advantage in the war effort if the plan succeeds. Once more, the Ice Warriors are the baddies in the story and the Doctor must fight them rather than work with them.

In the end, the plans of Azaxyr fail (we also discover that the armor of Ice Lords is more decorative than practical when we see Azaxyr fall to the blade of a knife).

Are the Less Honorable Ice Warriors done for, though?

We doubt it....



CONCLUSION:

While this is a timeline that does, more or less, work well with the five existing Ice Warrior stories that we've seen, we have already heard that they will be returning in Series Ten. Who knows where and when the story will take place. Or what sort of havoc this may all play with what I've written, here. But rather than being filled with dread - I'm actually a bit excited. Because now it means I get to write an appendix....





Like my CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essays? Here's a few more:

Sontarans:

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html


The Time Lords (the first in the series of three - you'll have to dig around for the rest!):

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/10/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html


And the first entry in my multi-part epic: The History of the Daleks:

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-tymecian.html   

UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: WHY WE NEEDED THE WAR DOCTOR

Well, we've reached the end of the month and the entry I've been working on still isn't ready. Once more, I'm going to dip into my reserves and post something I wrote that was intended for something else. This was submitted to someone who was doing a retrospective on Day of the Doctor. It's purely an opinion piece - so it doesn't really suit any of the categories that I've established in this blog. 

Which means it's time to create a new category: the UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION essay. This category makes its first appearance, here. If the readers enjoy it - I might write other entries of this nature from time-to-time. 

WHY WE NEEDED THE WAR DOCTOR

As unfortunate as it was that Christopher Eccleston chose not to be in Day of the Doctor, Steven Moffat found a most ingenious way of overcoming the obstacle. He created a secret incarnation that the Doctor never speaks of. That he almost seems to hide from even himself (which explains why this particular face never seems to appear in the "past incarnation flashback" sequences that we've been seeing in the New Series). This special version of the Doctor even refuses to be called by the name he has carried throughout his other lives. He is, however, given the title of the War Doctor (or Doctor of War). Which, as you can see, still has the word Doctor in it. So, in many ways, he is still very much the Doctor - but he is an incarnation the Time Lord wants to bury away.

            

This invention Moff came up with to work around the problem of Eccleston's unavailability certainly adds a new dimension to the Doctor's past. But does it actually do anything for the story he was trying to tell in the 50th anniversary celebration? Or is this more like the imprisonment in freak time eddies that the First and Fourth Doctors suffered during past anniversary specials? Just a necessary plot contrivance to compensate for a behind-the-scenes complication?

I say the War Doctor was absolutely necessary to the telling of this tale. That, in fact, the story would not have worked half as well if Doctor Nine had starred in the anniversary special instead of him. And I have three principal reasons to support my ridiculous theory:

1: It Suits the Character

            

The Doctor is, ultimately, a man of peace. He chooses only to resort to violence in extreme circumstances. We really only see him using brute force if it's in self-defense or the need to protect others from a harm he cannot defeat through non-violent means. These "extreme circumstances" are always short-lived. The Doctor will do something aggressive very quickly. He'll plant the Dominators' seeding device aboard their ship to blow them up. Or send Solomon's ship into space with a beacon for the Earth missiles to home in on. Such actions take mere moments. Then he's back to being the Doctor. We see only brief flashes of his more ruthless side. It's never something that endures for long.

            

The Doctor participating in the Time Wars is a feat that is beyond him. He is simply not capable of unleashing his bloodthirsty side for such a protracted period of time without completely losing himself in the process. This is especially true of his Eighth Incarnation. While we witnessed very little onscreen evidence of his behavior, we can see that his value for life is  higher than it is in a lot of other incarnations. The best proof of this is seen as the Master is getting sucked into the Eye of Harmony. Regardless of the personal risk involved, this Doctor extends his hand to save his arch enemy from his horrid fate. Other incarnations might have been more prone to pronounce something to the nature of: "Your just desserts" and let him perish.

            

The Doctor's behavior in Night of the Doctor makes perfect sense - particularly for his extra-compassionate Eighth Incarnation. Knowing it's not in him to fight in an ongoing war, he chooses to stay at its fringes and deal where he can with the fall-out. But when he must, at last, give in to the persuasion of the Sisterhood on Karn - he knows he cannot do it as himself. He must make special compensations that will, somehow, allow him to commit the atrocities that lay ahead for him.

            

The creation of the War Doctor very much supports how human psychology works (which, it seems, is not that different from Time Lord psychology). The War Doctor is a great example of compartmentalization. The idea of how we sometimes almost "become someone else" for a brief time to do things we wouldn't normally do.  The War Doctor is an extension of that idea. A special incarnation that allows the Doctor to be someone he isn't for as long as he needs to be. It's even fitting that he almost seems to forget about this incarnation once he regenerates. Oftentimes, when people compartmentalize, the memory of what they did as this "other person" becomes blurry. It's almost like regenerating into the War Doctor is a sort of dissociative schizophrenia that enables him to keep being the man of peace in his other incarnations.

            

To have Doctor Nine be the one who used the Moment would've made things too complicated for the, overall, character of the Doctor. It's much more in keeping with the Doctor's personality to have created a separate incarnation to commit his darkest deeds and then turn into a new man when it was time to stop being a warrior and go back to being a traveler. From a character standpoint, this just seems to work better.

2: It Works For An Anniversary Special

           

A good anniversary special - whether it be Doctor Who or some other show - should shake up the format of the series. A Major Change of some sort needs to happen. In the Tenth Anniversary, the Doctor is liberated from his exile on Earth. In the Twentieth, he accidentally becomes Lord President of the Time Lords and restores his status as a "man on the run from Gallifrey". In the Fiftieth, he ends up saving his homeworld from destruction.

Moff restoring Gallifrey definitely suits the storyline for Day of the Doctor. But this is the 50th anniversary: an event this gigantic needs to pack a bigger punch. To suddenly claim there's a whole part of continuity that we didn't know about is just the sort of thing the Special needed to really deliver that impact. An incarnation that has been kept secret shook canon to its very foundations. This is the sort of thing you write into an episode that is paying tribute to a show that has survived for an entire half-century.

The numbering of the Doctor's lives has been altered and we now have to look at the whole of the show in a very different way. You can only rock the boat like this on just such an occasion. Moff took advantage of the fact and made the 50th anniversary all-the-more memorable for it.

3. Just Plain Pedantic

In the story Rose, the Doctor stops in front of a mirror for a moment and seems to be noticing his new face for the first time. Which insinuates that the Ninth Doctor has just sprung into existence.

           

Had it been the Ninth Doctor who had done all the fighting in the Time Wars, getting this moment to work would've been difficult. The Time Wars seemed to have lasted several years. Did Doctor Nine never look at himself in a mirror during all that time? It seems pretty unlikely. With the inclusion of the War Doctor, we can now assume that Rose takes place only moments after he departed from the Under-Gallery in Day of the Doctor. The Ninth Doctor switched the desktop theme setting of the console room (perhaps the effect of a memory he didn't totally lose when returning to his proper timestream? He saw the Tenth Doctor's console room and altered his own console room accordingly), changed his outfit a bit and then went off to deal with the Nestene Consciousness that he noticed had just warp-shunted onto 21st Century Earth. This works better than living for quite some time and never bothering to look at yourself.  Although, in Doctor Who, this isn't entirely unheard of. We did see someone wear an eye patch for years and never bother to look under it!

            

Again, it is still sad that Chris Eccleston chose not to be in Day of the Doctor. It would have been great for him to reprise the character. But it is difficult to see how well his inclusion in the Special would've worked. I really do feel that the War Doctor serves the story better. So, even if Eccleston had chosen to come back, it would've probably still been better to have the War Doctor dealing with the Time War - not him. The Ninth Doctor would have fit in best by just running around with Ten and Eleven and dealing with Zygons. Which, ultimately, may have made the story too cluttered. 

            

It is great that the need to compensate for a casting problem gave us something better. The War Doctor, in so many ways, just makes more sense. And now we have a whole new period in the show's past for us to speculate about, too. What was the Doctor like in that particular incarnation? Did he become so dark it would even make the Valeyard blush?! Already, we see spin-off fiction coming out that is exploring this era more deeply. May this new secret aspect of the Doctor's life continue to intrigue us throughout the years...

Well, there you are: the very first UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION essay. Did you enjoy it? Feel free to give me some feedback - negative or positive. I do find there are too many blogs out there already that are merely opinion pieces so I never want to go here too often (particularly since my BOOK OF LISTS essays are also, largely, opinion-based). But if you do like hearing me bark at the moon like this - I may re-visit this category now and again. 

Of course, if you check the date that this entry is being posted, you'll know that something very sad just recently happened to our War Doctor. This is my own little way of paying tribute. 

BOOK OF LISTS: DOCTORS - FROM WORST TO BEST - PART 2

And so, the journey continues as we count down to my all-time fave incarnation of the Doctor....

PART 2: BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS THEM (AND A WEEPING ANGEL MIGHT GET YOU)

As we move through this next group, you're probably going to find that my motivation for placing these three Doctors where I have is very silly. These are really good incarnations. But, unfortunately, their reigns ended too quickly. There just wasn't enough time to enjoy them so it's hard to really develop too strong of a fondness for them. So, while they don't belong at the very bottom like our first set of Doctors did, I also can't place them much higher on the list than where they are. For the plain and simple reason that they just weren't around long enough to get to know and truly love them.

Like I said, it's a pretty silly reason. But it's mine!



10. THE WAR DOCTOR

An absolutely brilliant piece of casting. You needed someone with the sort of gravitas that John Hurt possesses to pull off a character like this. There were a lot of layers to the War Doctor that had to come out in a very short period of time. And Hurt did not miss a beat. He recognizes the complexity of the character - a man so tired of the war that he has to wipe out all the combatants - and executes it all with just the right level of subtlety. The War Doctor seems to always be going through several emotions at once. We see each of those multi-faceted feelings expressed clearly and effectively in Hurt's mannerisms and speech. He really is marvelous in the role.

The surprise that gets sprung on us with the introduction of a "secret" incarnation is, of course, part of the appeal of this version of the Doctor. It was the perfect thing to do during an anniversary celebration and it's great that it came about just because Moff's original plans to use Eccleston fell through. I actually think Day of the Doctor wouldn't have worked as well if the original casting choice had happened. The whole mythos of the Time Wars is more appealing with the War Doctor at the center of it.

Sadly, of course, it would be near-impossible to give the War Doctor more stories. We see him near the end of the Time Wars where things have reverted to full-on frontal assault. I would imagine that earlier battles that are more timey-whimey are just too difficult to visualize. Unless we had an actual film budget to work with. But a series of films displaying the Time Wars would probably never happen. Movies need mass-market appeal and the Time Wars are just a bit too fannish to draw in huge audiences.

So we have to be happy with just that one little story and a few cameos to satisfy our curiosity about what the Doctor was like during the darkest period of his life. A pity, really. Cause he seemed really awesome and I would love to see more...


9.  NINTH DOCTOR

Look at that! He's the same number of incarnation as he is his ranking!

Christopher Eccleston is so good as the Doctor that he almost breaks free of the Blink and You'll Miss It (Or A Weeping Angel Might Get You) category. It helps that he did get a whole season and not just one story, of course. But it has just as much to do with strength of his performance and the quality of the stories. To this day, Series One is one of the best seasons New Who has experienced. That brief amount of time we got with Doctor Nine does shine with the most intense of brightness. But, in the end, it really was just one season. If he had gone for a second series, he really would be way higher on this list (you will note that another Doctor that only had two seasons achieved exactly this!).

One of the strongest points to the Ninth Doctor is the growth he goes through. From the deepest pits of survivor guilt to the conscious choice of being a "coward, every time", we love the journey we go on with Doctor Nine (he will, eventually, get featured in my Progressive Doctors Series). Again, this journey works so well because of the strong writing and Eccleston's incredible acting. I'd even go so far to say that there was no better way to re-introduce the series.

Some very brave choices get made in the crafting of Doctor Nine that deserve some applause. On the one hand, the production team took a huge risk by letting Eccleston use his Northern accent and dressing him in a very regular outfit. Generations of Classic Who fans who were accustomed to received pronunciation and Edwardian garb could've been massively turned off. At the same time, they also remembered that William Hartnell (and other "arrogant" Doctors) is lurking about somewhere in the Doctor's soul and remembered to make him tetchy, sometimes. The potential fans that weren't familiar with his past needed a highly accessible Doctor. Having Nine be cranky to people or even downright rude to Rose could've driven them off, too. But the chances that were taken were so carefully engineered that both types of audience were properly satisfied. And the New Series is off to the most beautiful of starts because of it.

It's just a pity Eccleston didn't stay longer. He might be in my Top Five if he had.


8: EIGHTH DOCTOR

Another incarnation that matches his ranking! How wild is this?!

By my own twisted internal logic, Ninth should be beating Eighth in this contest. After all, Nine got a whole season. Surely I should've gotten way more attached to him than I did his predecessor?Particularly since Eight, for many years, didn't even quite get a full story (and still, in many ways, hasn't).

But there is something to McGann's performance that just gets me to love him that bit more. He attacks the role with a sort of wild exuberance that makes it nearly impossible to not to instantly fall in love with him. Between that and his handsome looks - can anyone blame Grace for snogging him so quickly?!

McGann was up against so much pressure, too. His was the first attempt to resurrect a show that had lain dormant for half-a-dozen years or so. So much of our hope was riding on him. And yet, he completely rises to the occasion and delivers a great new version of the Doctor. Yes, Eccleston was under similar pressures. But we had been disappointed once, already. This could just be another false start for the show and we were prepared for that. In my opinion, McGann was under much heavier scrutiny. But he more-than-delivered a quality performance - regardless of the stress he was under to satisfy fans who had been starved of the show for so long.

I love all the hints of past incarnations that he puts into his portrayal. He seems to be totally channeling Troughton when he harasses Gace in the parking lot. And he actually really seems like Old Sixie when Grace won't let him into her home. In many ways, he plays his Doctor very similarly to Peter Davison: very sensitive, gentle and fallible. But even with all those nods to the past - he is also, very much, his own man in the role. There are also lots of new qualities put on display, here. Many of which would influence how New Series Doctors would play the role. The fact that he could pull off all this in less than 90 minutes makes him a total hero.

When he reprises the character many years later in Night of the Doctor, we must marvel even more at McGann's skills. All those traits we see in the 96 Telemovie are brought back but with a slightly more mellow edge to them to show that his Doctor has aged (shorter hair and cooler costume, too!). And it's all accomplished in less than 8 minutes of screen time.

Yes, there were problems with the actual plot of his one and only "true" story, but the backdoor pilot also showed a lot of promise. Doctor Who could have worked in the 90s as a British/American hybrid if we had all been just a bit more patient with it. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. But I still think we could easily bring back McGann and give him a few seasons while we also enjoy our current Doctor. I know none of the Head Writers that produce the show think this - but even Paul said he would come back and do it. So let's see about two seasons of Doctor Eight before the Time Wars start and then another season where they have begun but he refuses to participate in them.

The man totally deserves a three-season run. At least.





Okay, that's another three incarnations covered. We're up to a total of seven, now. As we hit the mid-rangers, we're going to slow things down a bit and only do two at a time. It will give me an opportunity to say more about them and also keep that reality-show-style suspense going for a little bit longer as you wait to see who makes it to the top...





Missed the Bottom Four? Here's the link: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/11/book-of-lists-doctors-from-worst-to.html



I also mentionned some "Progresssive Doctors" series - what's that all about?! Here are the first two installments (I swear, someday, I'll get around to Part Two of the First Doctor!).

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/02/analytical-progressive-doctors-part-1.html

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/04/progressive-doct ors-2-first-doctor-part.html

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES - QUICK FIXES - 3

Beginning the New Year with something light: another exciting episode of Quick Fixes. There are continuity problems that have occurred in the show that can be explained away in a matter of paragraphs rather than needing a full post all on their own. Quick Fixes is meant to address two or three of these issues in one post. 




HOW DID STRAX COME BACK FROM THE DEAD?

I got to thinking about this again because Nardole has been re-introduced into the series during the last Christmas Special. It was nice that we were given a somewhat decent explanation on how he got his body back. Unfortunately, it reminded me of how we never got that with the return of Strax a few Christmas Specials previously. It was most bizarre that a specific mini-sode was even shot that was meant to explain it.  But all we really got was Lady Vashtra waking Strax up from where he'd been laying dead at Demon's Run.

What?!  Strax didn't really die? He'd just been napping?!

My guess is that Jenny and Vashtra had gotten a bit attached to Strax during the brief time that they knew him. Perhaps Vashtra even knew a bit about Sontarans and saw hope in the way Strax was trying to be as much of a healer as a warrior. We do see in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that homo repitilia were capable of intergalactic travel so it's possible they got to know some of the alien races out there. So Vashtra may have decided that this particular thread of Sontaran philosophy needed to keep going on in some way.

The key, here, is that Strax hails from a clone species. So it wouldn't be too hard at all to take some sort of genetic sample from the corpse and use the advanced technology on Demon's Run to create a new version of him. Perhaps some modifications were introduced to make him even more docile than the original. But those variations only worked so well and Strax 2.0 is a bit of a bumbler. Which would account for how we do seem to be seeing a more comical interpretation of the role now that he's part of the Paternoster Gang.

My guess is that even Strax hasn't been given a full explanation of how he's still alive. But he doesn't really question it much, either (that may have actually been part of his genetic re-programming). He's just happy to be Vashtra's butler. He still has war-like tendencies but they're not strong enough to cause any real friction. Particularly now that he's discovered Glasgow....




WHY DO TIME LORDS NOT RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER, SOMETIMES?

During Classic Series Days, it was a popular fan-theory that Time Lords could recognize each other telepathically. So if one of them regenerated, the other would still know who they are. We first saw it happen in The War Games when the War Chief notices the Doctor at a briefing and, immediately, recognizes him. The two had not seen each other since Gallifrey and the Doctor had regenerated after he left his homeworld. But the War Chief still knows who he is. There is a bit of hasty dialogue written to address the fact that the War Lord recognizes him even though his appearance has changed but it doesn't really explain much of anything.

So Fandom comes up with this ideas that, since Time Lords are mildly telepathic, they detect each other on a mental level just as much as they do on a visual. This way, they will always know each other from incarnation to incarnation. We see hints of this concept being re-enforced in stories like Brain of Morbius where the Doctor does claim that he sensed the mind of the evil Time Lord ever-so-briefly in Solon's lab. The Invisible Enemy also speaks of a special neural link that the Doctor has with the Time Lords. Unfortunately, it also claims that the link has been shut down so this may not be the part of his brain that is specifically employed in this telepathic recognition process. But it still helps a bit to support this concept. Something goes on between Time Lords that enables them to share certain thoughts with each other. Logopolis is another story that hints at this as the Master finds the Doctor on Earth before he even gets there because: "He's a Time Lord. In many ways, we share the same mind." (or words to that effect). The New Series starts to really confirm this theory in stories like Dalek where the Doctor claims he would know if there were still Time Lords alive. He would sense it in his head.

At last, the notion is explicitly stated at the beginning of Sound of Drums when the Doctor explains to Martha and Jack how the whole process works. We even learn that the Master has been using a special satellite signal to jam the Doctor's ability to detect him. As a fan, I was just a bit excited to finally hear this explanation given. Once more, the New Series confirms a silly fan theory that was established in the Classic Series but never fully proven. Just like the way they solidify the concept of Gallifreyan Mean Time in The End of Time.

Everything now seems great. Fan theory has been explicitly stated. But there is still one big problem: there have been moments in the show where the process doesn't seem to be working.

The biggest one is in the much-maligned Twin Dilemma. For several long minutes after they first meet, neither the Doctor nor Azmael seem to know who the other is. The Doctor explains it away with: "Forgive me, my friend. I've regenerated twice since our last meeting."  This is one of those succinct moments that, very much, negates the whole idea of telepathic recognition between Time Lords.

But it's not the only one. If we apply this on a broader level, we begin to see another problem. All those clever disguises that Time Lords like the Master and the Rani love to use - shouldn't they fail miserably? Sure, they look like someone else, but shouldn't their brain pattern or whatever it is that the Time Lords sense about each other give them away? Kalid and Sir Gilles Estram should have never had a chance at fooling the Doctor. And our Time Lord hero should have known immediately that it was the Rani standing outside the bath house in Mark of the Rani - not some old crone. Why doesn't the telepathic recognition work in these cases?

Again, we can go to Brain of Morbius to help explain some of this. The Doctor does claim that Morbius is shielding his mind to avoid detection but that the barrier slipped for just a moment and he sensed him. I would suggest that this is something Time Lords can do. It might even take a bit of training and discipline - but they can put up telepathic blocks of some sort. Even in Invasion of Time, Borusa talks of being "transparent as glass" as the Doctor reveals to him his true intents in the Presidential Office.  But the Cardinal still manages to block out the Vardans well enough once he's out of the lead room. The Vardans never learn of the Doctor's treachery against them by reading Borusa's mind. So it's a trick the Time Lords can learn fairly quickly if they set their minds to it.

So when the Master and the Rani are lurking about in one of their clever disguises (or, in the case of Time and the Rani, downright bizarre disguises) they are also shielding themselves' mentally. This way, the Doctor can sit across the table from the Portreeve or stare intently at a scare crow and not realize that it's his arch rival.

But what of that moment in Twin Dilemma? Were the Doctor and Azmael both shielding their minds from each other even though they had no reason to be?

In this case, I'd chalk it up to a side-effect from regeneration. If it's a difficult one (and the one in Twin Dilemma definitely seemed to have a lot of complications), then certain telepathic capacities might shut down or malfunction for a bit. Including the ability to recognize each other from one incarnation to the next. This problem works both ways, too. Because of the Doctor's difficult regeneration, Azmael couldn't sense who the Doctor was. Nor could the Doctor pick up on Azmael. Of course, during that moment, the Doctor was also having memory problems. His old teacher hadn't even actually regenerated since the last time he'd seen him, but he still didn't recognize him right away. It was only after a few minutes that Azmeal's face finally floated upon his memories.

Rough regenerations temporarily shutting down the telepathic recognition ability might also help to explain why the Doctor doesn't immediately realize it's the Master who's come to pick him up at Grace's place during The 96 Telemovie. Although, it's also likely that the Master is trying to mentally shield himself from the Doctor at the same time.

We shouldn't quite abandon this topic, yet, though. There is still one more idea to be explored regarding this whole Time Lord recognition process.

There is a lot of evidence in the New Series that seems to support the idea that even if Time Lords don't see each other they can sense each other. I briefly touched upon a scene in Dalek where the Doctor mentions this. We see something like this happening between the Doctor and the Master in End of Time, too (although, they seem to insinuate that they're also smelling each other - but I'm gonna say it's more a metaphorical thing. Mainly because Time Lords being able to smell each other from great distances is just silly!). Aside from that bit in Brain of Morbius, we don't seem to see much evidence of this sort of thing in the Classic Series. Or, at least, it's never mentioned that the Doctor is sensing other Time Lords around him even though he's not visually perceiving them.

The Morbius incident can easily be explained away by the fact that his brain was in an extremely altered state so it might make him more easily detectable. Otherwise, the Classic Series seems to always suggest that telepathic communion between Time Lords only seems to happen when they are actually standing in front of each other. If this being able to sense each other without seeing each other ability had existed in the Classic Series, then stories like Colony In Space would have played out quite differently. Neither the Doctor nor the Master seem to know that the other is on Uxarieus until they actually run into each other. Since neither knew the other would be there, neither of them would be attempting to shield themselves' telepathically. So shouldn't they have gotten some sort of "ping" off of each other long before they actually meet up? There are several other stories that work this way. The Doctor and Jo surprising the Master in Atlantis during the later episodes of The Time Monster shouldn't have happened, either. The Master should have known the Doctor was there the moment he landed.  So how have the Time Lords become more sensitive to each other in the New Series?

I'm inclined to believe that the Time Lords put themselves' through a few genetic modifications as they began the Time Wars. I discussed one of them, already, in my Weird Regenerations essay (http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/08/analytical-weird-regenerations-it.html). I suggest that they also turned up their telepathic skills a bit, too. This would give them several advantages. If nothing else, they would always have a good idea of the strength of their forces since they would be able to telepathically sense their fellow soldiers around them. But, in general, such sensitivities would give them all sorts of extra advantages in battle. So the Doctor underwent these modifications, too, as he elected to finally fight in the Time Wars. Which explains this special ability that never seems to have existed in the Classic Series. Naturally enough, during those years when he believes Gallifrey to have been properly destroyed - this ability becomes a curse. He always knows that he's truly alone because he cannot sense any other Time Lords out there...




There you go, a few more Quick Fixes for you. Hope you like my warped little theories...




Want some other Quick Fixes? Here they are: 

Part 1:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/08/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes.html

Part 2:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/02/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes-2.html