And so we continue with an examination of what I have affectionately dubbed "the Three Companion Dynamic". We've covered the occasions where the Doctor travelled with three people during the 60s. We now have a long period in the show's history where it's either one or two other companions only. Eventually, of course, we'll hit the 80s and another attempt will be made to crowd up the TARDIS a bit. If I don't ramble on too long about that, we might even look at the companions of the Chibnall era, too, before this entry's over.
In the meantime, however, you should definitely have a look at Part One of this essay. I will be referring to it quite heavily. So, if you haven't read it - here's the link:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/04/analytical-threes-company-what-makes.html
Here's Part Two if you missed it. Not quite as significant of an entry but you might still enjoy it.
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/04/analytical-threes-company-what-makes_7.html
Many fans claim that the only period in the show where the three companion dynamic worked all that well was during those first two seasons of Ian, Barbara and Susan (and, later, Vicki). They tend to find quite a degree of disdain with the attempt in Season Nineteen to try that particular combination again.They maintain that the chemistry between Tegan, Nyssa and Adric just didn't work.
Once more, the Great Contrarian must rear his ugly head. I thought this was a very good TARDIS team. As strong as the one we had in Seasons One and Two? Not quite. But still more-than-passable.
Now I could just end the essay, here, by stating this is purely an opinion issue. That you can feel whatever way you want about this era of the show and I can have my own views on the matter. And we can happily disagree. But that would leave me feeling hollow inside. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I didn't take the time and trouble to thoroughly prove how right I am!
"STYLE FLEXING"
If you've bothered to read Part One of this essay, you'll have seen that I list Five Essential Ingredients for a successful three companion dynamic. I based these components on things we saw over and over again throughout the reign of the TARDIS crew that lasted from Unearthly Child to the final episode of The Chase. In Part Two, I showed how the Jamie, Ben and Polly combination didn't work very well because they often ignored those elements. Or, when they did employ them, they used them poorly.
Nearly twenty years passed until three companions were used again. Television had changed a lot during that time. Its most obvious transformation was a need for a faster pace. In the 60s, it did almost feel like we were watching "a play on TV". The plot would frequently stop for long discussions to take place between characters. Audiences of the 80s, however, had little patience for such moments, anymore. Things needed to feel like they're moving a lot more quickly or our attention would waver.
Doctor Who, itself, was a very different Beast by the 80s. As I had mentioned in Part Two of this essay, the show was putting a stronger emphasis on the Doctor being the protagonist. He was now, most definitely, the central character of the series and was given far more attention than he got during those first two seasons. It would be difficult to go back to a format where three other leads would require some substantial screentime.
The show had also gone through a huge change in episode structure. During those early days, we had lots of six-part stories. An adventure that ran for so long gave plenty of time for the "character moments" that a three-companion dynamic required. By the 80s, however, they were mainly producing four-parters. Finding places in a story to slow down for the sake of characterization was going to represent a challenge.
Naturally enough, the show adapted. It still used those core ingredients I described whenever it could. But it also came up with a new recurring element or two to help the three companion dynamic gel better with the times the program was being made in. For lack of a better term, we'll refer to these special modifications as "style flexing". We'll not only see this going on in Season Nineteen, but the Chibnall era also contains examples of this. As we progress along, I'll try to point these style flexes out wherever possible.
SETTING UP THE SEASON NINETEEN TARDIS TEAM
The first time we see a modification to a three companion combination happens before the crew even comes together. Back in the 60s, two of the three companions tended to climb aboard the TARDIS at the same time. In the first team, it was Ian and Barbara (although we did still get introduced to all three companions at once). During Troughton's first season, it was Ben and Polly (who, technically, first joined when he was still Hartnell).
Having two companions join at once like that had several advantages. With Ian and Barbara, it created a bit of shorthand with chemistry. The two school teachers knew each other quite well already - so this made it easier to bestow them with a sense of familiarity. The writers didn't have to go to the trouble of trying to build a rapport between them over a series of episodes. It was already there. With Ben and Polly, it made introducing the characters easier. If all three companions had joined at once, getting us acquainted with them would have been far more complicated. Instead, we met Ben and Polly first and then Jamie joined later.
But our 80s trio took a very different tact. In fact, I found their approach to be quite brilliant. For the better part of Season Eighteen, Adric was established. We were given quite a few stories to get to know him. Then, as the season neared conclusion, Nyssa was brought in for Keeper of Traken.
But the smartest choice made by the production team of that time was to not have Nyssa join the TARDIS at the end of her introductory story. She's left behind on Traken and only re-unites with the Doctor and Adric towards the end of Part Two of Logopolis. Which gives us two whole episodes to become familiar with Tegan. This was a great way to assemble the team. Rather than have to learn about everyone at once, it's a much more gradual process.
In my opinion, there was no better way to bring three companions together. It's a great bit of style flexing right in the setting up of the dynamic.
THE CORE INGREDIENTS USED BY THE SEASON NINETEEN TEAM
Yes, there is some style flexing going on even before Nyssa, Tegan and Adric assemble. But, once they are together, we do see tonnes of those elements needed for a good three companion dynamic. Even as early as Logopolis, Nyssa and Adric break off on their own a few times during its last two episodes. This continues throughout all of Season Nineteen. Sometimes, the crew is kept together for quite a while. The Visitation, for instance, sees the Doctor and his three friends stay united for all of Episode One. But most stories of that season create a division in the crew within the first few minutes of a new adventure. In many instances, smaller teams are formed rather than solo missions. Four to Doomsday is probably the best example of this. For most of the story, everyone is working in teams of two.
We see a bit of a style flex going on with the idea of giving certain characters some time off. In some cases, it's pretty obvious. It's quite blatant at the beginning of Kinda that Nyssa is getting written out of the story. However, this device is much more subtle in other episodes. If you're watching carefully, Tegan gets a break during Episode Three of that same story. We cut to her once or twice lying unconscious in the jungles of Deva Loka. Otherwise, she's left alone. Adric has a very small presence during the last three episodes of Castrovalva. Most of the time, he is trapped in the Mathematical Web that is hidden behind the Portreeve's Tapestry. He only makes brief appearances here and there. His argument with the Doctor at the start of Earthshock also gets him significantly out of the story for the first two parts. He wants to be alone in the TARDIS while the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan explore the caves they've landed in. These are great examples of a more subtle use of the "giving characters time off" technique. Essentially, it comes to the same results: other characters are given an opportunity to shine more for a bit. But it's considerably less obvious than the examples we saw with the original companion trio. Where a lead would be almost, forcibly, written out of an episode or two (ie: Barbara staying on the spaceship in The Sensorites). Which is why I consider this a bit of a style flex.
Regenerating the Doctor just as the three companions assemble was another great example of the production team using a good sense of timing. Tom Baker was always, very much, the center of attention during his stories. To suddenly have to give him a bit more of a back seat would have been far too jarring. But, since we didn't really know what Peter Davison's interpretation of the role was going to be like, it made it easier to accept a Doctor who was less central. A similar choice would be made with Jodie Whitaker's Doctor.
We do also get a few decent character arcs among the companions. The biggest one being Tegan struggling back and forth with whether or not she truly wants to leave the TARDIS. That very nice scene with Nyssa during the beginning of The Visitation (and the subsequent berating of the Doctor when they've landed three centuries early) really cement the conflict she's going through.
We also get Adric having all sorts of trouble with social awkwardness. Which causes him to butt heads with Tegan's strong personality on several occasions. To the point where she even renders him unconscious during Part Three of Four to Doomsday. But it's not just Tegan that he gets in fights with. Let;s not forget the huge row he has with the Doctor during Earthshock. Or even the smaller battle he has with the Time Lord at the beginning of The Visitation where he's being reprimanded for using the TSS at the end of the previous story.
Nyssa probably gets a bit less attention in this department. But we still see her dealing with the loss of her stepmother and father and then the destruction of her entire homeworld.
A BIT MORE STYLE FLEXING
There is one more adaptation that the production crew makes with this particular situation. I've actually touched upon it a bit, already, in the last section. In order to heighten some of the drama between the companions they were made very argumentative. Certain fans complained about this. Before Season Nineteen, TARDIS crews tended to get along with each other. Suddenly displaying a crew that bickered a lot was probably a bit unsettling for fandom to see after so many years of the "we're all friends who love each other" formula that had existed previous to this era.
Personally, I felt this decision really worked. I actually found all the fighting quite entertaining. It was also very realistic. These were three people who had only gotten to know each other very recently and were now travelling together. It was almost inevitable that they would have problems getting along. Particularly since both Tegan and Adric had pretty strong personalities. It's for that same reason that I think the fights between Sixie and Peri worked. Again, it just seemed realistic. She had started travelling with one version of the Doctor that she found quite agreeable (even "sweet"). But then all that abruptly changes at the end of Caves of Androzani. Once more, two very strong personalities were forced together. In both these situations, it made sense that there would be conflict. So I'm glad these relationships could, on occasion, go in more volatile directions.
MOVING ON TO CHIBNALL...
Well, that's about all we needed to say about Season Nineteen. My word count isn't too high yet so let's move on to the last era that features three companions. One that has also suffered some heavy criticism. I'm sure, however, that my opinion won't surprise you. So I'll just state it nice and clearly:
I absolutely adore Ryan, Yaz and Graham.
In fact, they're my favorite companions in New Who. I really do feel that, overall, they've been handled magnificently. I'll even be controversial enough to claim that they were particularly excellent in Series Eleven.
The character arcs that we're getting these days are what impress me the most. Even though I usually go through the core elements in the order I listed them in Part One, I'll skip ahead a bit this time and get straight to the good stuff.
Ryan actually gets the best treatment in this area. In his first season, he has to deal with the death of his grandmother, the building of a genuine friendship with Graham and reconciling with his father. It's a lot to give one character to do but it all happens quite organically. Particularly the way he deals with Graham. I love that he finally calls him "Grandad" in the penultimate episode but the fist-punch only happens in the season finale.
Graham, of course, is dealing with a lot of the same stuff Ryan is.. His grief over Grace is beautifully depicted during several scenes of Arachnids in the UK and It Takes You Away. People even love to point out that slight look of sadness in his eyes during Praxeus where he's having a discussion with the astronaut's husband about love.
Some have complained that Yaz was handled poorly during Series Eleven. I just think she was written differently. Graham and Ryan had so many arcs going on that it would have felt artificial if Yaz had been give a whole bunch too. Instead, she is treated more like a female companion of the RTD era. We see a lot more of her life outside of the TARDIS. We get to know her family and even dip into her ancestry a bit in Demons of Punjab (in much the same way as a bit of Rose's family history is revealed in Father's Day). We do see some really good growth in her, nonetheless. It's just less apparent. Throughout both of her seasons, we witness how badly impacted Yaz was by bullying. How the experience has moved her towards a career in law enforcement. Travelling with the Doctor has made Yaz even more dedicated to seeing justice carried out. But, as I said, none of this is as blatant as the arcs the other two companions are moving through. It's still there, though. I particularly love how, in The Timeless Children, she charges through the spatial anomaly to Gallifrey far faster than anyone else. Such small gestures say so much about her character.
OTHER THREE COMPANION CONVENTIONS
The other major ingredients from Seasons One and Two that we see in great abundance is the separation of the TARDIS crew (or "fam" as they are more frequently referred to) and the use of smaller teams. It is interesting to note that, because Yaz doesn't get such big blatant arcs, she seems to get more solo missions. This, of course, gets her more attention and screentime. It's a nice way to compensate for the fact that she's being handled differently from Graham and Ryan.
Just like Davison, Whitaker's Doctor appears at the same time as a new three companion dynamic is formed. This time, though, we don't get that gradual introduction like the one that took place over Season Eighteen. We meet Graham, Yaz and Ryan all at once. But Chibnall took a bit of a page from those Early Days by giving all the companions a history with each other before they board the TARDIS. But that adjustment of giving the Doctor more of a back seat in the story can happen more naturally because it takes place at a regeneration. Although, admittedly, the Doctor is pushed much more to the forefront during Series Twelve. This does result in less break ups into separate plot strands. Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror and The Haunting of Villa Diodati both see all three companions sticking together quite a bit. This does create some complicated scenes like the ones we saw during the Ben, Polly and Jamie era. This might be my only valid complaint about this particular group of companions. They do tend to stick together a bit too much in Series Twelve. But, in many ways, it's justifiable. The Doctor really gets put through Hell in this season and she needed the extra attention. And it does result in that really awesome scene during Villa Diodati where the Doctor highlights that the team structure isn't always so flat.
About the only ingredient that gets completely ignored is the "giving characters an episode off here and there" device. Chibnall always wants the fam to be active together. In order to accomplish this, he does some very interesting style flexing.
Which leads us to....
STYLE FLEXING FOR THE FAM
There's two significant adjustments that I see Chibnall make that allows for a modern day version of a three companion dynamic to work:
1) Teamwork makes the Fam work
There's a very nice sequence at the beginning of Rosa that establishes that the Doctor is having a hard time getting Graham, Yaz and Ryan home. Basically, since Ghost Monument, they have taken quite a few trips in the TARDIS to incorrect destinations. This establishes that the three humans currently travelling with her have become familiar with who she is and, more importantly, what she's about. They know the Doctor is always on the side of justice and are happy to assist in any way they can.
This is immediately reflected in the actual adventure that they have in Rosa. They aren't just forced apart - as is often the case when separation occurs in a three companion team - instead, they are sent off on missions. Quite frequently, they are eager to undertake these tasks because they know it will be accomplishing something good.
I don't really think we've ever seen a TARDIS crew that works better as a team than this one. Over and over, they willingly accept special tasks that they know will help to create a solution to the central conflict of the story. Praxeus probably exemplifies this best. The fam is sent all over the world to investigate various problems that will, eventually, present an ultimate solution to the latest doom that is about to befall the Earth. It really shows just how well-oiled of a machine this current TARDIS team is.
There are countless other instances like this throughout both seasons. Look at how well they work together just a few episodes later to set up a defence system against the Cybermen in Ascension of the Cybermen. Or go back to an earlier story like Kerblam! and see how well they gather intel as they work in different departments. We see this sort of teamwork in almost every story. The sense of unity that exists between these three characters really helps us to appreciate them. Such an endearing trait makes a crowded TARDIS like this more pleasant and engaging.
2) Lengthening the episodes
Chibnall made several alterations to Doctor Who when he took the helm. There is one change that, without a doubt, I appreciate the most: giving the episodes a longer run-time.
So often, episodes in the RTD or Moff era felt like they moved too quickly. The stories, in general, felt too "light" because of this. Multiple episode stories didn't have this problem so much - but those one-parters could really seem like they were lacking something, sometimes. I loved the Classic Series as much as I did because they weren't afraid to take some interesting digressions in the writing. There was plenty of time for interesting side-plots, character moments or deeper explorations of certain themes.
Chibbers, bless his heart, chose to reduce the number of episodes but make them several minutes longer. Once more, the stories have time to "breathe". This, I feel, has benefited the show enormously. Particularly when you have a three companion team.
There have been an endless array of moments where two companions stop to have an insightful conversation. Previous to this era, the New Series never had much time to do this. But we now get this type of interaction in great abundance.
There are countless examples: Ryan and Yaz's discussion about racism during Rosa. Graham pointing out to Yaz how incredible it is to be able to travel in time during Demons of Punjab. Graham praising Yaz for her courage during Timeless Children. And my absolute favorite: Ryan admitting to Yaz in Tsuranga Conundrum that he understands a bit better, now, why his Dad acts the way he does.
I absolutely love all these little sidebar conversations that occur. They let us see more vulnerable sides to our lead characters and make them far more three-dimensional than most New Who companions have been.
All because the episodes are just a few minutes longer than they used to be.
FINAL CONCLUSION:
In summary, I will say that the three companion dynamic we had in the first two seasons of Doctor Who was still the best one. All other companion combinations of this type are measured against its standard.
Having said that, however, the only trio that falls viciously short of that standard would be Ben, Polly and Jamie. Other fans may claim that Adric, Nyssa and Tegan and Yaz, Graham and Ryan all have too many problems - but I beg to differ. If you really take the time to examine these eras like I have, you'll see that they're not as strong as Ian, Barbara and Susan (and, later, Vicki) but they still stand up quite well. Should you have an extensive DVD collection like I do (or something else of that nature) go back and watch Keeper of Traken to Earthshock. Then watch Series Eleven and Twelve in one huge binge. You'll see all the nice little nuances that have been worked into the characters.
If you take a proper look, I think you'll find the Three Companion Dynamic works far better than you think.
Nothing feels better than completing a nice multi-part ANALYTICAL essay!
I think what I enjoy most is all the research that has to be done. Watching old episodes over with a special eye for certain details does great things for my Fan Heart. I will even admit that I really do think the Three Companion Dynamic, when properly handled, is the best formula for the show. The stories feel so much richer when you have so many lead characters to deal with. A lesser number of companions just doesn't work as well.
In my opinion, at least.
More ANALYTICAL essays:
Fixed Points in Time (my very first ANALYTICAL essay):
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/03/analytical-robll-fix-it-study-in.html
The Quality of Mercy (a look at the Doctor's sense of compassion)
Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/10/analytical-quality-of-mercy.html
Part 2:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/analytical-quality-of-mercy-honest-look.html
Progressive Doctors 2: The First Doctor -
Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/progressive-doctors-2-first-doctor-part.html
Part 2:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/01/analytical-progressive-doctors-first.html
Monday, 13 April 2020
Tuesday, 7 April 2020
ANALYTICAL: THREE'S COMPANY: WHAT MAKES A TRIO OF COMPANIONS WORK - PART 2: LATER ITERATIONS
Look at that! I'm actually sticking to my intentions and moving on to the second part of my latest topic. For once, I actually appear to have some degree of legitimate focus!
Part One of this essay looked at a three-companion dynamic that, without a doubt, worked enormously well. I tried to pick out a few important elements in that chemistry and highlight their importance.
As we embark upon Part Two, we're going to look at other periods where three companions travelled with the Doctor. We'll see how well they incorporated those core ingredients that I explored in Part One.
Just in case you missed Part One, you should take a look at it. Much of what I say, here, won't make a lot of sense if you don't. And, really, have you got anything better to do?!
Here's a link:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/04/analytical-threes-company-what-makes.html
Before we go too far into these later iterations of three companions and a Doctor, we do need to actually point out a few scenarios that we won't bother to examine. These periods, by technical definition, do have three companions participating in the adventure. Nonetheless, I still feel they don't properly qualify for any substantial dissection.
1) Extremely short periods
Some feel a character doesn't truly become a companion until after they've taken their first proper trip in the TARDIS. While they are still in their introductory story, they're just someone the Doctor has met. It's when the Time Lord invites them aboard at the end of that first story that the transformation into a "proper companion" begins.
I'm more of the persuasion that if we've been told that a character is going to be a new companion in the series, then they are that the moment we see them for the first time. But, if I adhere to that idea, then that means that a story like The War Machines is a three-companion era. Ben, Polly and Dodo are all having an adventure with the Doctor. Dodo does get written out of the story fairly early on, but there is just the briefest of time where all three characters are in the plot together.
The other period where we see "a short burst" like this is with the Fifth Doctor in Season 20. Turlough first gets introduced in Mawdryn Undead when Tegan and Nyssa are already aboard. Nyssa leaves the TARDIS a story later at the end of Terminus. But that does still mean we had three companions for two whole stories (or eight entire episodes if you really want to break it down).
To me, both of these instances are just too short for us to really take all that seriously. So I won't try to analyze the chemistry that was going on during those periods.
2) Robot companions
For the entirety of The E-Space Trilogy of Season Eighteen, the Doctor is travelling with Romana, Adric and K9. This should be considered a three-companion era. It's still pretty short, yes. But not that short.
We also see Kamelion joining the TARDIS near the end of Season Twenty during The King's Demons. He is meant to be wandering around in the time vessel during the better part of Season Twenty-One. We don't actually see him - but he's still about (sure wish they'd kept in that scene that they shot in The Awakening!). He has a presence again during Planet of Fire. But, at the end of the tale, the Doctor is forced to destroy him. While the shapeshifter is not onscreen during The Five Doctors and most of Season Twenty One, this should still all be a three companion era.
Whether a robot is a legitimate companion or not may become a POINT OF DEBATE essay for some time down the road. But, for now, I will just go on record saying that they are more a prop than an actual character. Which means that, for me, they don't qualify as a companion. So these would not be "true" instances of three companions travelling with the Doctor.
With that out of the way, we can now look at eras that do legitimately represent a three companion period. Sadly, this next case is one that I can't heap too much praise on.
BEN, POLLY AND JAMIE - THE WEAKEST LINK
I find it strange that fans will complain about Tegan, Nyssa and Adric or Ryan, Yaz and Graham but don't really go on that much about Ben, Polly and Jamie. More than likely, it's the fact that it's quite hard to actually get any kind of a genuine perspective of their era. There's only a handful of existing episodes that feature them. After that, it's novelisations, telesnaps and animation. All forms of entertainment that only so many fans are interested in indulging in.
But if you do bother to take a solid look at the stories of this period, you will find that most of the conventions that I enumerated in Part One of this essay are barely used. The TARDIS crew being broken up and working in smaller teams, for example, happens much less frequently. If you give a proper look at a lost story like The Macra Terror you'll see the three companions together for the better part of the first two episodes. Then, finally, they start splitting. Not only does such a writing decision rob us of an easier way to explore plot strands, but group scenes with a full three-person TARDIS crew become a struggle for dialogue distribution. Everyone just ends up getting a line here and there and conversations with the Doctor and his companions can become almost disjointed. Inevitably, you get a lot of actors standing around with nothing to say. Which can make for some very weak scenes. Whereas if the team divides quickly, everyone gets much juicier dialogue.
This era also seems to do almost the opposite of giving the Doctor a back seat. Here, the Doctor frequently abandons the rest of his team to work alone. Highlanders, Underwater Menace and Macra Terror all log in quite a bit of time where the Doctor has no companions with him. Instead, he's interacting a lot with supporting characters that only exist in those particular stories.These are, pretty much, the first steps that the show takes in really emphasising the Doctor as the protagonist of the series. Even when the First Doctor was travelling with just Steven and a female companion, he is only put so much to the forefront. But as Troughton takes the reigns, it really does feel like the show is about the Doctor, now.
Focusing more on the Doctor when you've still got three other leads that need attention was probably not the best of choices, though. Ben, Polly and Jamie become almost useless for a large period of time. If you really pay attention, you'll notice that the only real contribution Polly makes to any story occurs in The Moonbase when she comes up with a combination of chemicals that can injure a Cyberman's chestplate. The only time Ben helps to propel the plot in any serious way is at the end of Macra Terror. He diverts a crucial gas flow and blows up the Macra (but is only capable of doing it because the Doctor is shouting instructions to him through a door). Poor 'ole Jamie doesn't really get much of anything to do in most of these episodes. When things get whittled down to just two companions in Seasons Five and Six, placing the Doctor center stage really starts to work well . But Season Four should have adhered to a flatter team structure (see what I did, there?!).
No one tends to disappear for an episode much, either. Even when opportunities for an actor to get written out present themselves. During the early episodes of The Moonbase, for instance, Jamie gets injured whilst playing around in zero gravity. This could have easily worked in a similar manner to the Doctor's injury in Seeds of Death. Throw him on a gurney with his face concealed for an episode and let Frazer Hines visit the tropics for a week. But, instead, we do regular check-ins with him where he's sure an approaching Cybermen is the Phantom Piper. These sequences even become a bit tedious. Over and over, a Cybermen starts heading towards Jamie but then decides to snatch away another patient in the sick bay. The sense of repetition that's created just so Jamie is used enough in the episode feels almost silly. It would have been far better to just write him out for Part Two and give Ben and Polly a bit more to do.
Perhaps the biggest crime of all, though, is the lack of character arcs. There's a bit of an effort here and there to point out that Jamie comes from a very primitive culture and has a harder time understanding the things around him (ie: he calls a jet in Faceless Ones "a flying beastie"). But, otherwise, the companions come across as being fairly generic. Nothing about their past ever seems to really get brought up. Nor do we see them mature much in any kind of way. Every adventure Polly falls into danger.while Jamie and Ben handle a bit of action. Something that's been going on with male and female companions since the show's earliest days. Even though "earliest days" was only three seasons ago, the formula is starting to wear thin. Unless, of course, you "dress up" the characters a bit and make them seem like more than just a plot function. But this cast comes across as somewhat bland because the writers don't seem to be putting much effort into the finer details of any of these individuals. Even references to Ben being a sailor have all but disappeared.
All these devices that we brought up in Part One are not completely chucked to the curb, however. They do get employed from time-to-time. Sadly, though, they often get misused when they are. Jamie and Polly, for instance, do get separated and form a mini-team for a bit during the latter part of Underwater Menace. But all they end up doing is crawling along a ledge together as they try to escape the rising waters of Atlantis. For an entire episode, we just check back with them every few minutes to see them a bit further along in a tunnel as they flee in terror at the approaching flood. Like Jamie in Episode Two of Moonbase, the whole thing just starts feeling really redundant.
SOME BEHIND-THE-SCENES INFLUENCES
Fans like myself who have developed a keen analytical eye for Doctor Who because we have endlessly re-watched it will point out that the show does definitely have some weaker seasons. Many are quick to site Season Twenty-Four as one of them. But, if you really do your homework, Season Four is just as bad (possibly worse!). Again, it's a bit more difficult to examine the evidence - but it's there. Its poor handling of the three-companion dynamic is just one of many sins that the overall season commits.
I mention Season Twenty-Four, however, because much of its onscreen failings were the results of behind-the-scenes problems. First off, Colin Baker was fired and needed to be somewhat-hastily re-cast. This became particularly troublesome since he opted not to come back for a proper "swansong story" that would see him regenerate in the final episode.
But there were more problems than that. The script editor had quit in a huff towards the end of Season Twenty-Three and also needed quick replacing. When a new script editor is hired, the producer tries to get their predecessor to lead them by the hand for a bit. Andrew Cartmel, the man who got the job, was not afforded that grace. Essentially, two people in key positions had to hit the ground, running. And that only went so well.
In a similar fashion, problems with production seem to haunt Season Four. In this case, these issues relate directly to the companions.
It seems that Ben and Polly were created by an outbound production team. The new people filling their posts felt lumbered with these two and were interested in getting rid of Anneke Wills and Michael Craze as quickly as possible. When their contracts expired, they would be written out. This meant, of course, that not a whole lot of focus was put into the development of their characters. Which would account for a lot of their "uselessness" that I mention in the previous section. If the creators of a program have zero interest in their leads, the roles they're portraying probably won't be particularly stimulating. Ben and Polly can feel quite flat in places because of this.
The introduction of Jamie also represented some problems. It seems that he was originally meant to just be in one story. In the first version of the final scene of The Highlanders, he gets the Doctor, Ben and Polly back to the TARDIS and bids them farewell. More than likely, he was going to do that famous "look of bewilderment" that so many stories close on as the Police Box fades away before the eyes of a supporting character. It was decided, somewhat last-minute, that the scene would get re-written and Jamie would join them, after all.
Suddenly including Jamie like this would definitely create consequences for future scripts that weren't expecting him. He would now need to get shoe-horned into the plot. Existing dialogue that may have been meant for Ben and Polly would need to be, at least, partially re-allocated to him. This is why we have those "disjointed moments" I described where the entire TARDIS team is trying to have a discussion together. Quite likely, a lot of writers probably weren't even sure what to do with Jamie. Which is why he really doesn't seem to accomplish much in his first few stories. He tends to tag along with Ben a lot and offers some extra brute force where it might be needed. Otherwise, he does seem fairly superfluous.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do think Jamie is one of the best companions, ever. But a lot of the things that get us to fall in love with him only start happening when he's in the two-companion dynamic with either Victoria or Zoe. It probably would have been better for the production team to place Highlanders later in the season. Maybe just before The Faceless Ones. The lack of interest they were showing Ben and Polly would have still done some damage. But a lot less than what we got because Jamie almost seems to pop up out of nowhere several stories before Ben and Polly are meant to leave.
STARTING TO GET THINGS RIGHT
You may have noticed in my analysis that I haven't given much mention to The Faceless Ones. That's because I wanted to give it its own special section. I do think this adventure is a very nice turning point for this particular TARDIS team. Finally, we start seeing some of those elements I discussed in Part One of this essay being used in earnest.
Within the first few seconds of Episode One, the leads are split up. The Doctor and Jamie become a very definite team throughout the better part of the story. Ben and Polly get a fairly extended period of time off as both have disappeared by the end of Part Two and only really return at the end of the final episode. The Doctor even takes a bit of a back seat as quite a bit of time is devoted to Jamie and his new-found friend, Samantha. All those conventions that I think make a good three-companion dynamic work well are not only on display in this tale, they are well-crafted, too. This isn't Jamie and Polly crawling through water-filling tunnels again. Things are finally starting to look up...
Unfortunately, it's too little, too late. By the end of the adventure, this latest iteration of three companions get split up. Quite cleverly, Ben and Polly have returned to the exact same day that they left with the First Doctor in The War Machines. So they decide to return home and get on with their lives. It's a farewell that's only mildly better than the one Dodo got last season. Which really shows just how little they were cared about by key members of the production team.
Just as things were getting good, this particular three-companion combination is brought to a harsh end.
FINAL ANALYSIS
I've not said a lot of good things about this era. So, before I wrap this up, let me just add that it's not without its charms. Michael Craze and Anneke Wills really do try their best with what they've been served. Of particular note is Ben's struggle with the brainwashing he received during The Macra Terror. Even with the limited visuals that we have of that whole sequence, we get a sense that Craze is really going for it.
There was definitely a potential for this to be another great three companion era.While they are still just a twosome, Ben and Polly do seem quite interesting. Had concentration on their development continued as Jamie was brought in, we could have become very fond of them. If the characters had been better respected,.their departure during Faceless Ones might have packed the same emotional punch as Barbara and Ian leaving at the end of The Chase. And we certainly saw Jamie go on to bigger and better things. If only he'd been introduced at a better point in the season.
This really could have been a great time for the show. Sadly, some poor decisions were made. And several of those bad choices had a very strong bearing on the crafting of all three of these companions.
That's a fair amount of analysis, for now. I had really expected to cover all three periods where we had three companions. But it looks like I had a lot more to say about Ben, Polly and Jamie than I expected. So we'll take another break here and tackle those other two eras soon.
We might be able to look at both of them in just one more entry. Or I might blather on too much again and need to do this in four parts!
We'll see...
Here be a few more ANALYTICAL essays from Days Gone By....
Regeneration Recovery: Common Symptoms
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/01/analytical-regeneration-recovery-part-1.html
Crossing Time Streams - Part 1: Basic Rules
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/11/analytical-crossing-time-streams-part-1.html
Crossing Time Streams - Part 2
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/11/analytical-crossing-time-streams-part-2.html
Part One of this essay looked at a three-companion dynamic that, without a doubt, worked enormously well. I tried to pick out a few important elements in that chemistry and highlight their importance.
As we embark upon Part Two, we're going to look at other periods where three companions travelled with the Doctor. We'll see how well they incorporated those core ingredients that I explored in Part One.
Just in case you missed Part One, you should take a look at it. Much of what I say, here, won't make a lot of sense if you don't. And, really, have you got anything better to do?!
Here's a link:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/04/analytical-threes-company-what-makes.html
Before we go too far into these later iterations of three companions and a Doctor, we do need to actually point out a few scenarios that we won't bother to examine. These periods, by technical definition, do have three companions participating in the adventure. Nonetheless, I still feel they don't properly qualify for any substantial dissection.
1) Extremely short periods
Some feel a character doesn't truly become a companion until after they've taken their first proper trip in the TARDIS. While they are still in their introductory story, they're just someone the Doctor has met. It's when the Time Lord invites them aboard at the end of that first story that the transformation into a "proper companion" begins.
I'm more of the persuasion that if we've been told that a character is going to be a new companion in the series, then they are that the moment we see them for the first time. But, if I adhere to that idea, then that means that a story like The War Machines is a three-companion era. Ben, Polly and Dodo are all having an adventure with the Doctor. Dodo does get written out of the story fairly early on, but there is just the briefest of time where all three characters are in the plot together.
The other period where we see "a short burst" like this is with the Fifth Doctor in Season 20. Turlough first gets introduced in Mawdryn Undead when Tegan and Nyssa are already aboard. Nyssa leaves the TARDIS a story later at the end of Terminus. But that does still mean we had three companions for two whole stories (or eight entire episodes if you really want to break it down).
To me, both of these instances are just too short for us to really take all that seriously. So I won't try to analyze the chemistry that was going on during those periods.
2) Robot companions
For the entirety of The E-Space Trilogy of Season Eighteen, the Doctor is travelling with Romana, Adric and K9. This should be considered a three-companion era. It's still pretty short, yes. But not that short.
We also see Kamelion joining the TARDIS near the end of Season Twenty during The King's Demons. He is meant to be wandering around in the time vessel during the better part of Season Twenty-One. We don't actually see him - but he's still about (sure wish they'd kept in that scene that they shot in The Awakening!). He has a presence again during Planet of Fire. But, at the end of the tale, the Doctor is forced to destroy him. While the shapeshifter is not onscreen during The Five Doctors and most of Season Twenty One, this should still all be a three companion era.
Whether a robot is a legitimate companion or not may become a POINT OF DEBATE essay for some time down the road. But, for now, I will just go on record saying that they are more a prop than an actual character. Which means that, for me, they don't qualify as a companion. So these would not be "true" instances of three companions travelling with the Doctor.
With that out of the way, we can now look at eras that do legitimately represent a three companion period. Sadly, this next case is one that I can't heap too much praise on.
BEN, POLLY AND JAMIE - THE WEAKEST LINK
I find it strange that fans will complain about Tegan, Nyssa and Adric or Ryan, Yaz and Graham but don't really go on that much about Ben, Polly and Jamie. More than likely, it's the fact that it's quite hard to actually get any kind of a genuine perspective of their era. There's only a handful of existing episodes that feature them. After that, it's novelisations, telesnaps and animation. All forms of entertainment that only so many fans are interested in indulging in.
But if you do bother to take a solid look at the stories of this period, you will find that most of the conventions that I enumerated in Part One of this essay are barely used. The TARDIS crew being broken up and working in smaller teams, for example, happens much less frequently. If you give a proper look at a lost story like The Macra Terror you'll see the three companions together for the better part of the first two episodes. Then, finally, they start splitting. Not only does such a writing decision rob us of an easier way to explore plot strands, but group scenes with a full three-person TARDIS crew become a struggle for dialogue distribution. Everyone just ends up getting a line here and there and conversations with the Doctor and his companions can become almost disjointed. Inevitably, you get a lot of actors standing around with nothing to say. Which can make for some very weak scenes. Whereas if the team divides quickly, everyone gets much juicier dialogue.
This era also seems to do almost the opposite of giving the Doctor a back seat. Here, the Doctor frequently abandons the rest of his team to work alone. Highlanders, Underwater Menace and Macra Terror all log in quite a bit of time where the Doctor has no companions with him. Instead, he's interacting a lot with supporting characters that only exist in those particular stories.These are, pretty much, the first steps that the show takes in really emphasising the Doctor as the protagonist of the series. Even when the First Doctor was travelling with just Steven and a female companion, he is only put so much to the forefront. But as Troughton takes the reigns, it really does feel like the show is about the Doctor, now.
Focusing more on the Doctor when you've still got three other leads that need attention was probably not the best of choices, though. Ben, Polly and Jamie become almost useless for a large period of time. If you really pay attention, you'll notice that the only real contribution Polly makes to any story occurs in The Moonbase when she comes up with a combination of chemicals that can injure a Cyberman's chestplate. The only time Ben helps to propel the plot in any serious way is at the end of Macra Terror. He diverts a crucial gas flow and blows up the Macra (but is only capable of doing it because the Doctor is shouting instructions to him through a door). Poor 'ole Jamie doesn't really get much of anything to do in most of these episodes. When things get whittled down to just two companions in Seasons Five and Six, placing the Doctor center stage really starts to work well . But Season Four should have adhered to a flatter team structure (see what I did, there?!).
No one tends to disappear for an episode much, either. Even when opportunities for an actor to get written out present themselves. During the early episodes of The Moonbase, for instance, Jamie gets injured whilst playing around in zero gravity. This could have easily worked in a similar manner to the Doctor's injury in Seeds of Death. Throw him on a gurney with his face concealed for an episode and let Frazer Hines visit the tropics for a week. But, instead, we do regular check-ins with him where he's sure an approaching Cybermen is the Phantom Piper. These sequences even become a bit tedious. Over and over, a Cybermen starts heading towards Jamie but then decides to snatch away another patient in the sick bay. The sense of repetition that's created just so Jamie is used enough in the episode feels almost silly. It would have been far better to just write him out for Part Two and give Ben and Polly a bit more to do.
Perhaps the biggest crime of all, though, is the lack of character arcs. There's a bit of an effort here and there to point out that Jamie comes from a very primitive culture and has a harder time understanding the things around him (ie: he calls a jet in Faceless Ones "a flying beastie"). But, otherwise, the companions come across as being fairly generic. Nothing about their past ever seems to really get brought up. Nor do we see them mature much in any kind of way. Every adventure Polly falls into danger.while Jamie and Ben handle a bit of action. Something that's been going on with male and female companions since the show's earliest days. Even though "earliest days" was only three seasons ago, the formula is starting to wear thin. Unless, of course, you "dress up" the characters a bit and make them seem like more than just a plot function. But this cast comes across as somewhat bland because the writers don't seem to be putting much effort into the finer details of any of these individuals. Even references to Ben being a sailor have all but disappeared.
All these devices that we brought up in Part One are not completely chucked to the curb, however. They do get employed from time-to-time. Sadly, though, they often get misused when they are. Jamie and Polly, for instance, do get separated and form a mini-team for a bit during the latter part of Underwater Menace. But all they end up doing is crawling along a ledge together as they try to escape the rising waters of Atlantis. For an entire episode, we just check back with them every few minutes to see them a bit further along in a tunnel as they flee in terror at the approaching flood. Like Jamie in Episode Two of Moonbase, the whole thing just starts feeling really redundant.
SOME BEHIND-THE-SCENES INFLUENCES
Fans like myself who have developed a keen analytical eye for Doctor Who because we have endlessly re-watched it will point out that the show does definitely have some weaker seasons. Many are quick to site Season Twenty-Four as one of them. But, if you really do your homework, Season Four is just as bad (possibly worse!). Again, it's a bit more difficult to examine the evidence - but it's there. Its poor handling of the three-companion dynamic is just one of many sins that the overall season commits.
I mention Season Twenty-Four, however, because much of its onscreen failings were the results of behind-the-scenes problems. First off, Colin Baker was fired and needed to be somewhat-hastily re-cast. This became particularly troublesome since he opted not to come back for a proper "swansong story" that would see him regenerate in the final episode.
But there were more problems than that. The script editor had quit in a huff towards the end of Season Twenty-Three and also needed quick replacing. When a new script editor is hired, the producer tries to get their predecessor to lead them by the hand for a bit. Andrew Cartmel, the man who got the job, was not afforded that grace. Essentially, two people in key positions had to hit the ground, running. And that only went so well.
In a similar fashion, problems with production seem to haunt Season Four. In this case, these issues relate directly to the companions.
It seems that Ben and Polly were created by an outbound production team. The new people filling their posts felt lumbered with these two and were interested in getting rid of Anneke Wills and Michael Craze as quickly as possible. When their contracts expired, they would be written out. This meant, of course, that not a whole lot of focus was put into the development of their characters. Which would account for a lot of their "uselessness" that I mention in the previous section. If the creators of a program have zero interest in their leads, the roles they're portraying probably won't be particularly stimulating. Ben and Polly can feel quite flat in places because of this.
The introduction of Jamie also represented some problems. It seems that he was originally meant to just be in one story. In the first version of the final scene of The Highlanders, he gets the Doctor, Ben and Polly back to the TARDIS and bids them farewell. More than likely, he was going to do that famous "look of bewilderment" that so many stories close on as the Police Box fades away before the eyes of a supporting character. It was decided, somewhat last-minute, that the scene would get re-written and Jamie would join them, after all.
Suddenly including Jamie like this would definitely create consequences for future scripts that weren't expecting him. He would now need to get shoe-horned into the plot. Existing dialogue that may have been meant for Ben and Polly would need to be, at least, partially re-allocated to him. This is why we have those "disjointed moments" I described where the entire TARDIS team is trying to have a discussion together. Quite likely, a lot of writers probably weren't even sure what to do with Jamie. Which is why he really doesn't seem to accomplish much in his first few stories. He tends to tag along with Ben a lot and offers some extra brute force where it might be needed. Otherwise, he does seem fairly superfluous.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do think Jamie is one of the best companions, ever. But a lot of the things that get us to fall in love with him only start happening when he's in the two-companion dynamic with either Victoria or Zoe. It probably would have been better for the production team to place Highlanders later in the season. Maybe just before The Faceless Ones. The lack of interest they were showing Ben and Polly would have still done some damage. But a lot less than what we got because Jamie almost seems to pop up out of nowhere several stories before Ben and Polly are meant to leave.
STARTING TO GET THINGS RIGHT
You may have noticed in my analysis that I haven't given much mention to The Faceless Ones. That's because I wanted to give it its own special section. I do think this adventure is a very nice turning point for this particular TARDIS team. Finally, we start seeing some of those elements I discussed in Part One of this essay being used in earnest.
Within the first few seconds of Episode One, the leads are split up. The Doctor and Jamie become a very definite team throughout the better part of the story. Ben and Polly get a fairly extended period of time off as both have disappeared by the end of Part Two and only really return at the end of the final episode. The Doctor even takes a bit of a back seat as quite a bit of time is devoted to Jamie and his new-found friend, Samantha. All those conventions that I think make a good three-companion dynamic work well are not only on display in this tale, they are well-crafted, too. This isn't Jamie and Polly crawling through water-filling tunnels again. Things are finally starting to look up...
Unfortunately, it's too little, too late. By the end of the adventure, this latest iteration of three companions get split up. Quite cleverly, Ben and Polly have returned to the exact same day that they left with the First Doctor in The War Machines. So they decide to return home and get on with their lives. It's a farewell that's only mildly better than the one Dodo got last season. Which really shows just how little they were cared about by key members of the production team.
Just as things were getting good, this particular three-companion combination is brought to a harsh end.
FINAL ANALYSIS
I've not said a lot of good things about this era. So, before I wrap this up, let me just add that it's not without its charms. Michael Craze and Anneke Wills really do try their best with what they've been served. Of particular note is Ben's struggle with the brainwashing he received during The Macra Terror. Even with the limited visuals that we have of that whole sequence, we get a sense that Craze is really going for it.
There was definitely a potential for this to be another great three companion era.While they are still just a twosome, Ben and Polly do seem quite interesting. Had concentration on their development continued as Jamie was brought in, we could have become very fond of them. If the characters had been better respected,.their departure during Faceless Ones might have packed the same emotional punch as Barbara and Ian leaving at the end of The Chase. And we certainly saw Jamie go on to bigger and better things. If only he'd been introduced at a better point in the season.
This really could have been a great time for the show. Sadly, some poor decisions were made. And several of those bad choices had a very strong bearing on the crafting of all three of these companions.
That's a fair amount of analysis, for now. I had really expected to cover all three periods where we had three companions. But it looks like I had a lot more to say about Ben, Polly and Jamie than I expected. So we'll take another break here and tackle those other two eras soon.
We might be able to look at both of them in just one more entry. Or I might blather on too much again and need to do this in four parts!
We'll see...
Here be a few more ANALYTICAL essays from Days Gone By....
Regeneration Recovery: Common Symptoms
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/01/analytical-regeneration-recovery-part-1.html
Crossing Time Streams - Part 1: Basic Rules
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/11/analytical-crossing-time-streams-part-1.html
Crossing Time Streams - Part 2
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/11/analytical-crossing-time-streams-part-2.html
Sunday, 5 April 2020
ANALYTICAL: THREE'S COMPANY: WHAT MAKES A TRIO OF COMPANIONS WORK - PART ONE: THE BASIC GROUND RULES
Once more, we continue with our regularly-scheduled posts. Series Twelve Mysteries and Pretentious Essay Anniversary Specials are well and truly out of the way. We've also got a pandemic that's making me stay indoors on top of that. So, really, I've got nothing better to do than to sit at my PC and write my little heart out (ironically, I'm not doing half the writing I could Really, I'm just napping a lot!)
THE THREE COMPANION DYNAMIC - NOT SUCH AN ODDITY
If we look at the overall history of the show (both Classic and New) the most common format that we see for the TARDIS crew is just one companion with the Doctor. This is how things were for the bulk of the 70s and the latter half off the 80s. A good chunk of the first four seasons of the Modern Series and then the end of Matt Smith and most of Capaldi also uses this format.
Occasionally, we get two companions. In New Who, it's usually a boyfriend or a husband who climbs aboard for a bit (or Nardole!). It's actually not seen all that frequently in the Original Series. Season Three is made up of mainly Steven and a female companion. The Second Doctor travels for his latter two seasons with Jamie and a female companion. Season Twelve is Sarah Jane and Harry. Finally, for about a season, the fifth Doctor travels with Tegan and Turlough.
And then of course, there's this wild new concept that Chibnall has introduced during the two seasons of his era: Three actual companions and a Doctor. How crazy is that?!
Not that crazy, of course, if you truly know the history of the show. Doctor Who's first two seasons were mainly made up of this dynamic. It returned to that format again in Season Four. When the show reached the early 80s, the TARDIS was, once more, populated by a Doctor and three companions for a time. So, while this might seem odd to those who are only following New Who, it's far from being a foreign concept to the entire show. It is, in fact, how things began.
NOT AN ODDITY - BUT DOES IT ACTUALLY WORK?
While three companions isn't as much of an oddity as some fans may think, many still argue that it's not a good format for the show. Since Chibnall took the reigns, there are those naysayer fans that are trying to tear his work down in any way they can. And one method they use is to claim that the TARDIS is too crowded with Ryan, Yaz and Graham. That there's just not enough room in a story to give the Doctor and three other leads the proper attention that they deserve.
Even people who do know their Classic Who will argue that three companions just doesn't work that well. They will point out the need to kill off Adric during Season 19 because three was one companion too much. Turlough travelling on the TARDIS with Nyssa and Teagan already on board was also kept mercifully short during Season 20. The production team was not going to make the same mistake twice. Nyssa was written out of the show just one story after Turlough was brought in.
If you've really done your homework, however, this theory falls flat. In the very beginning of Doctor Who - it looked as though three companions was going to be how the show functioned. Even after Susan left near the start of Season Two, Vicki was immediately brought in during the next story. No one had a problem with the concept of four passengers in the TARDIS in those first two seasons because the dynamic was very effective. I would even go so far to say that that this was some of the best TARDIS crews in the entire history of Doctor Who. Which was integral during these early days when the show was still developing an audience. Had we not totally fallen in love with these characters like we did, we might not have a show right now.
It may be possible that later iterations of the three companion dynamic don't work as well. They may have been lacking vital ingredients that existed with the original TARDIS teams.
INGREDIENTS FOR A GOOD THREE COMPANION DYNAMIC
If we go by the Ian, Barbara, Susan (and, subsequently, Vicki) line-up, there are a couple of themes running through the character chemistry that I feel really helped make it such a success. Pedant that I am, I will go to the trouble of enumerating them and giving them a bit of a breakdown:
1) Breaking up the team:
Stories during this period always began with all four members of the TARDIS crew talking together in the console room as they landed. For at least a little time during Episode One, they would explore their new environment together. But then, inevitably, the team would start to separate. Sometimes by choice. Like in The Chase where Vicki wants to go exploring and Ian goes after her to make sure she doesn't get into trouble (surprise, surprise - they do!). But, more often than not, the gang gets forced apart. The Reign of Terror, for instance, sees the Doctor trapped in a room in a safehouse while Ian, Susan and Barbara are hauled off by Robespierre's soldiers. Once more, against their will, the team gets split apart even more at the Consergerie when they are assigned to different cells.
There are many advantages to this sort of convention. The biggest one being that individual plot threads can get explored more thoroughly and we are given a fuller adventure. Longer stories like The Web Planet benefit from this enormously. There are several separations and reunions that take place across the six episodes. These splits can happen quite organically. Right in the first episode, the Doctor and Ian go outside to try to find out what's grounded the TARDIS. Barbara then leaves Vicki to her own devices because her gold bracelet allows the Animus to control her mind. Under deep hypnosis, she exits the console room. A further break-up occurs near the end of the episode when the Doctor races back to the TARDIS to find something to help Ian who has been injured by a trap he fell into. Much to his dismay, the Time Lord returns to where they landed and discovers his ship has been moved. For a brief moment, all four of them are alone. Getting the full crew to part ways like this enables the script writer to explore all kinds of different things that are transpiring on Vortis. Which gives a better overall flow to such an ambitious tale.
But even the shorter four-parters like, say, The Romans or The Crusade (or even a two-parter like The Rescue) benefit from this. When a larger crew breaks up, the story can become richer. We don't quite get this advantage in smaller TARDIS crews. We can still experience it a bit - but not quite to the same extent.
2) It's not just about breaking up - it's about smaller teams
Very rarely is the separation of the TARDIS team absolute. Rather than having all four characters get split up, they tend to form a team or two. Very often, Vicki or Susan would stay with the Doctor so he could watch over them. Ian and Barbara might each get forced into their own individual plot thread for a while or they might stay together as a second team.
Just as interestingly, Susan or Vicki might spend some time with Ian or Barbara. In Planet of Giants, for instance, Susan first starts exploring with Ian. Or Vicki is with both Ian and Barbara for the better chunk of Episode Two of The Space Museum when the Xerons intercept the Doctor.
Creating smaller teams like this does great things for character growth. We see something like this demonstrated effectively with the way the Doctor is often more apologetic to Barbara. So when it's just the two of them interacting, we are quicker to see his softer side. This gives us a very nice moment during the last few minutes of Edge of Destruction.
Another great demonstration of this idea is the speculation that Ian and Barbara might actually be falling very slowly in love. Watching the two of them enjoy some domestic bliss together during The Romans while Vicki and the Doctor part for Rome definitely helps establish this. Who knows what might have happened between these two had those slave-traders not come along...
There are some great opportunities for subplots within the TARDIS crew, itself, to develop when these little teams get created for brief instances. Something that becomes much harder to achieve when there's less people travelling in the time machine. It's more difficult for a companion to reveal things about themselves to supporting characters that they have just met for that story. But when you have teams of people who are familiar with each other, it's easier to bring out subtler nuances about the leads. These subtleties are seen best when the crew works in these smaller teams. With private discussions between less crewmembers, more can be revealed.
3) Full-on "breaks" for certain characters
The rigorous filming schedule during 60s Who meant that the writers would often create some way of making a main character disappear for an episode or two. This enabled the actor playing that role to get a brief rest from all the work. This didn't just happen during three companion situations, it was done throughout the entire black-and-white era. Just look at a story like Seeds of Death in Season Six. The Second Doctor is knocked out by an exploding seed pod and we just see his unconscious body for the better part of an episode. During that section of the story, Patrick Troughton went off on a quick holiday to help refresh him. Seeds of Death, however, featured a Doctor who was only travelling with two companions - not three.
But a three companion dynamic benefited from these breaks the most. The truth of the matter is: it is still tough for a writer to give something to everyone when you have so many leads. If one of them does disappear for a bit, it gives a better opportunity for the remaining characters to shine. The Keys of Marinus demonstrates this very well. The Doctor sets his travel dial to deliver him a few destinations ahead of everyone else. For a while, we get to see just Ian, Barbara and Susan working together. This gets whittled down even more when Barbara falls into a trap in the jungle and Susan goes ahead to the polar region with Altos and Sabetha. Now it's just Ian and Barbara for a bit as they face a perilous adventure. Even after they figure out the location of the hidden key and move on to a cliffhanger, we still enjoy just the two of them for the first few minutes of the next episode.
Something similar happens a few stories later in The Sensorites. Barbara stays on board the space ship for a bit while the rest go down to the Sense-Sphere. The Doctor, Ian and Susan get a better spotlight while Jacqueline Hill gets a nice rest. While these mini-holidays might cause a character to be absent from a story for a bit, it prevented a greater sense of character neglect to occur in the grander scheme of things.
4) The Doctor takes more of a back seat
When a writer is trying to make sure a larger cast all has something to do, this does mean that the Doctor's influence in a story will probably become a bit more reduced. For fans who prefer to see the Doctor as a bit of a superhero who accomplishes everything, this might be a turn off. But I actually feel this works a bit better.
The smaller the TARDIS crew, the more obvious the formula of the show becomes. Particularly when it is just the Doctor and one companion. Basically, it's all about the Doctor solving all the conflicts and the companion asking what he's doing so that things get explained to the audience. A larger amount of companions causes this to become less blatant. In many ways, it also makes the show a bit more realistic.
Just look at the conclusion of Dalek Invasion of Earth. The Doctor is busy up in the Main Control Center of the Daleks trying to liberate Barbara and creating a Robomen Revolution. Susan is with her new boyfriend destroying an important radio beacon. Ian is down in the mineshaft diverting a bomb from reaching the planet's core. If this story had taken place a few years down the road with, say, the Third or Fourth Doctor, he would have probably handled all these crises in rapid succession. With Jo or Sarah Jane trailing after him, requiring an explanation of things. Admittedly, this can make the whole adventure feel a bit more harrowing and increase the thrill factor. But it can also stretch the credulity of things. Can anyone really accomplish so much in so little time? I sincerely believe a moment like this works way better with a larger TARDIS crew dividing the labor and even sharing the heroism. The story just ends better with a prevailing sense of teamwork rather than a celebration of the awesomeness of just one character. Okay, the ending of Dalek Invasion of Earth was still a bit sad because Susan left - but you take my point!
To me, a story is far richer when all the characters seem more useful. This is more likely to happen when a writer has to genuinely concentrate on the issue. During those early days of three companions, a writer had no choice but to make this their priority. If that means the Doctor isn't quite as big of a center of attention, I'm very much okay with that. In fact, I think it makes for a fuller adventure.
5) Better character arcs among the companions
I've touched upon this a bit in some of my previous points, but I think it also should be a point in itself. Splitting up the companions, making them into smaller teams, giving lead actors breaks and putting the Doctor in the back seat all get a writer to pay better attention to the team they are building. This, in turn, creates better ongoing arcs with these characters. Little things going on with the companions get touched upon on a more regular basis. Which gives us a better sense of overall character growth.
We see this with everyone involved in those first two seasons. For the first little while, Ian and Barbara just want to get back home. That is their core motivation at the start of the series. Over time, however, they do become attached to the Doctor and Susan and start to genuinely enjoy their travels. When Susan leaves, they even take on a bit of responsibility with the Doctor - thinking they should actually look after him (something the Doctor quite angrily rebels against in Episode One of The Romans). When, at last, they find an opportunity to return to their proper time and place - there is a degree of reluctance to them. They are happy to make it back, but it is tinged with sadness. They will miss the time they spent aboard the TARDIS.
We see a nice struggle in Susan throughout Season One. She loves her grandfather but also wants to become more independent. To find an identity of her own outside the protective wing he always seems to keep over her. This results in quite the blow-out between them during The Sensorites when she wants to go down to the Sense-Sphere alone. Eventually, of course, Susan does find a life for herself with David Campbell. But, even then, she appears to not have the strength to leave. In a very touching gesture, the Doctor locks her out of the TARDIS and bids her farewell through the scanner screen.
And then, of course, there's the Doctor, himself. An almost narcissistic anti-hero at the beginning of the series who seems ready to actually end a caveman's life simply because he is slowing him down. By the end of Season Two, he has done an almost complete about-face. While still possessing a temper that can send even the bravest opposition fleeing, he is also very warm and compassionate. He has shifted from a mere traveller exploring the Universe to someone who seeks to bring justice to the oppressed and maintain a sense of fairness everywhere he goes.
Even Vicki, who only gets a handful of stories in the three-companion dynamic, goes through a bit of growth. As an orphan, she is struggling with some pretty big abandonment issues. We see her admitting to those fears on several occasions (even as late as The Crusade - which is quite a few episodes in to her time aboard the TARDIS). Slowly but surely, she accepts that the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are her family, now. And they are going to provide her with the stability she needs.
Again, all this great character development happens because a larger TARDIS team like this is better at compelling an author to look after such things. It is, perhaps, the best thing about this many companions. Everyone comes across as more three-dimensional.
Those five points, to me, are what made those first two seasons of Doctor Who so great. At least, from the perspective of how the main characters were handled. There's much to be said about other structural elements that also made it into the show (the scare factor created by effectively-written monsters, the injection of light comedy, etc....) but these are what got us to fall in love with the Doctor and his three intrepid companions that accompanied him in the earliest days of his travels. Future combinations of this nature should be keeping all of these elements in mind as they seek to re-create that dynamic.
Sadly, this is not always what happens. In some instances, these critical factors get largely ignored. This is especially the case with the next time three companions become a regular feature of the show.
With these five basic principles laid down, we'll end Part One here. Part Two will explore those other periods where three companions were travelling with the Doctor. We'll look at how much or how little these five key elements were used.
ANALYTICAL essays are, without a doubt, my favorite type of essay to write. Here are a few others that I've done over the years:
The Psychology Behind Multi-Incarnation Encounters:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/11/analytical-psychology-behind-multi.html
What Lies Beyond the Whoniverse:
Part One:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/10/analytical-going-beyond-guided-tour.html
Part Two:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/10/analytical-going-beyond-guided-tour_31.html
Missions for the Time Lords:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/05/analytical-missions-for-time-lords.html
There are many advantages to this sort of convention. The biggest one being that individual plot threads can get explored more thoroughly and we are given a fuller adventure. Longer stories like The Web Planet benefit from this enormously. There are several separations and reunions that take place across the six episodes. These splits can happen quite organically. Right in the first episode, the Doctor and Ian go outside to try to find out what's grounded the TARDIS. Barbara then leaves Vicki to her own devices because her gold bracelet allows the Animus to control her mind. Under deep hypnosis, she exits the console room. A further break-up occurs near the end of the episode when the Doctor races back to the TARDIS to find something to help Ian who has been injured by a trap he fell into. Much to his dismay, the Time Lord returns to where they landed and discovers his ship has been moved. For a brief moment, all four of them are alone. Getting the full crew to part ways like this enables the script writer to explore all kinds of different things that are transpiring on Vortis. Which gives a better overall flow to such an ambitious tale.
But even the shorter four-parters like, say, The Romans or The Crusade (or even a two-parter like The Rescue) benefit from this. When a larger crew breaks up, the story can become richer. We don't quite get this advantage in smaller TARDIS crews. We can still experience it a bit - but not quite to the same extent.
2) It's not just about breaking up - it's about smaller teams
Very rarely is the separation of the TARDIS team absolute. Rather than having all four characters get split up, they tend to form a team or two. Very often, Vicki or Susan would stay with the Doctor so he could watch over them. Ian and Barbara might each get forced into their own individual plot thread for a while or they might stay together as a second team.
Just as interestingly, Susan or Vicki might spend some time with Ian or Barbara. In Planet of Giants, for instance, Susan first starts exploring with Ian. Or Vicki is with both Ian and Barbara for the better chunk of Episode Two of The Space Museum when the Xerons intercept the Doctor.
Creating smaller teams like this does great things for character growth. We see something like this demonstrated effectively with the way the Doctor is often more apologetic to Barbara. So when it's just the two of them interacting, we are quicker to see his softer side. This gives us a very nice moment during the last few minutes of Edge of Destruction.
Another great demonstration of this idea is the speculation that Ian and Barbara might actually be falling very slowly in love. Watching the two of them enjoy some domestic bliss together during The Romans while Vicki and the Doctor part for Rome definitely helps establish this. Who knows what might have happened between these two had those slave-traders not come along...
There are some great opportunities for subplots within the TARDIS crew, itself, to develop when these little teams get created for brief instances. Something that becomes much harder to achieve when there's less people travelling in the time machine. It's more difficult for a companion to reveal things about themselves to supporting characters that they have just met for that story. But when you have teams of people who are familiar with each other, it's easier to bring out subtler nuances about the leads. These subtleties are seen best when the crew works in these smaller teams. With private discussions between less crewmembers, more can be revealed.
3) Full-on "breaks" for certain characters
The rigorous filming schedule during 60s Who meant that the writers would often create some way of making a main character disappear for an episode or two. This enabled the actor playing that role to get a brief rest from all the work. This didn't just happen during three companion situations, it was done throughout the entire black-and-white era. Just look at a story like Seeds of Death in Season Six. The Second Doctor is knocked out by an exploding seed pod and we just see his unconscious body for the better part of an episode. During that section of the story, Patrick Troughton went off on a quick holiday to help refresh him. Seeds of Death, however, featured a Doctor who was only travelling with two companions - not three.
But a three companion dynamic benefited from these breaks the most. The truth of the matter is: it is still tough for a writer to give something to everyone when you have so many leads. If one of them does disappear for a bit, it gives a better opportunity for the remaining characters to shine. The Keys of Marinus demonstrates this very well. The Doctor sets his travel dial to deliver him a few destinations ahead of everyone else. For a while, we get to see just Ian, Barbara and Susan working together. This gets whittled down even more when Barbara falls into a trap in the jungle and Susan goes ahead to the polar region with Altos and Sabetha. Now it's just Ian and Barbara for a bit as they face a perilous adventure. Even after they figure out the location of the hidden key and move on to a cliffhanger, we still enjoy just the two of them for the first few minutes of the next episode.
Something similar happens a few stories later in The Sensorites. Barbara stays on board the space ship for a bit while the rest go down to the Sense-Sphere. The Doctor, Ian and Susan get a better spotlight while Jacqueline Hill gets a nice rest. While these mini-holidays might cause a character to be absent from a story for a bit, it prevented a greater sense of character neglect to occur in the grander scheme of things.
4) The Doctor takes more of a back seat
When a writer is trying to make sure a larger cast all has something to do, this does mean that the Doctor's influence in a story will probably become a bit more reduced. For fans who prefer to see the Doctor as a bit of a superhero who accomplishes everything, this might be a turn off. But I actually feel this works a bit better.
The smaller the TARDIS crew, the more obvious the formula of the show becomes. Particularly when it is just the Doctor and one companion. Basically, it's all about the Doctor solving all the conflicts and the companion asking what he's doing so that things get explained to the audience. A larger amount of companions causes this to become less blatant. In many ways, it also makes the show a bit more realistic.
Just look at the conclusion of Dalek Invasion of Earth. The Doctor is busy up in the Main Control Center of the Daleks trying to liberate Barbara and creating a Robomen Revolution. Susan is with her new boyfriend destroying an important radio beacon. Ian is down in the mineshaft diverting a bomb from reaching the planet's core. If this story had taken place a few years down the road with, say, the Third or Fourth Doctor, he would have probably handled all these crises in rapid succession. With Jo or Sarah Jane trailing after him, requiring an explanation of things. Admittedly, this can make the whole adventure feel a bit more harrowing and increase the thrill factor. But it can also stretch the credulity of things. Can anyone really accomplish so much in so little time? I sincerely believe a moment like this works way better with a larger TARDIS crew dividing the labor and even sharing the heroism. The story just ends better with a prevailing sense of teamwork rather than a celebration of the awesomeness of just one character. Okay, the ending of Dalek Invasion of Earth was still a bit sad because Susan left - but you take my point!
To me, a story is far richer when all the characters seem more useful. This is more likely to happen when a writer has to genuinely concentrate on the issue. During those early days of three companions, a writer had no choice but to make this their priority. If that means the Doctor isn't quite as big of a center of attention, I'm very much okay with that. In fact, I think it makes for a fuller adventure.
5) Better character arcs among the companions
I've touched upon this a bit in some of my previous points, but I think it also should be a point in itself. Splitting up the companions, making them into smaller teams, giving lead actors breaks and putting the Doctor in the back seat all get a writer to pay better attention to the team they are building. This, in turn, creates better ongoing arcs with these characters. Little things going on with the companions get touched upon on a more regular basis. Which gives us a better sense of overall character growth.
We see this with everyone involved in those first two seasons. For the first little while, Ian and Barbara just want to get back home. That is their core motivation at the start of the series. Over time, however, they do become attached to the Doctor and Susan and start to genuinely enjoy their travels. When Susan leaves, they even take on a bit of responsibility with the Doctor - thinking they should actually look after him (something the Doctor quite angrily rebels against in Episode One of The Romans). When, at last, they find an opportunity to return to their proper time and place - there is a degree of reluctance to them. They are happy to make it back, but it is tinged with sadness. They will miss the time they spent aboard the TARDIS.
We see a nice struggle in Susan throughout Season One. She loves her grandfather but also wants to become more independent. To find an identity of her own outside the protective wing he always seems to keep over her. This results in quite the blow-out between them during The Sensorites when she wants to go down to the Sense-Sphere alone. Eventually, of course, Susan does find a life for herself with David Campbell. But, even then, she appears to not have the strength to leave. In a very touching gesture, the Doctor locks her out of the TARDIS and bids her farewell through the scanner screen.
And then, of course, there's the Doctor, himself. An almost narcissistic anti-hero at the beginning of the series who seems ready to actually end a caveman's life simply because he is slowing him down. By the end of Season Two, he has done an almost complete about-face. While still possessing a temper that can send even the bravest opposition fleeing, he is also very warm and compassionate. He has shifted from a mere traveller exploring the Universe to someone who seeks to bring justice to the oppressed and maintain a sense of fairness everywhere he goes.
Even Vicki, who only gets a handful of stories in the three-companion dynamic, goes through a bit of growth. As an orphan, she is struggling with some pretty big abandonment issues. We see her admitting to those fears on several occasions (even as late as The Crusade - which is quite a few episodes in to her time aboard the TARDIS). Slowly but surely, she accepts that the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are her family, now. And they are going to provide her with the stability she needs.
Again, all this great character development happens because a larger TARDIS team like this is better at compelling an author to look after such things. It is, perhaps, the best thing about this many companions. Everyone comes across as more three-dimensional.
Those five points, to me, are what made those first two seasons of Doctor Who so great. At least, from the perspective of how the main characters were handled. There's much to be said about other structural elements that also made it into the show (the scare factor created by effectively-written monsters, the injection of light comedy, etc....) but these are what got us to fall in love with the Doctor and his three intrepid companions that accompanied him in the earliest days of his travels. Future combinations of this nature should be keeping all of these elements in mind as they seek to re-create that dynamic.
Sadly, this is not always what happens. In some instances, these critical factors get largely ignored. This is especially the case with the next time three companions become a regular feature of the show.
With these five basic principles laid down, we'll end Part One here. Part Two will explore those other periods where three companions were travelling with the Doctor. We'll look at how much or how little these five key elements were used.
ANALYTICAL essays are, without a doubt, my favorite type of essay to write. Here are a few others that I've done over the years:
The Psychology Behind Multi-Incarnation Encounters:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/11/analytical-psychology-behind-multi.html
What Lies Beyond the Whoniverse:
Part One:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/10/analytical-going-beyond-guided-tour.html
Part Two:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/10/analytical-going-beyond-guided-tour_31.html
Missions for the Time Lords:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/05/analytical-missions-for-time-lords.html
Wednesday, 25 March 2020
CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE HISTORY OF THE DALEKS CONTINUES SOME MORE - PART TWO
Finally! We're back to our regularly-scheduled entries! No need to try to figure out some of those mysteries Chibnall set up for us in the most recent season or create something celebratory for the latest anniversary of the blog. We can just get back to what I was trying to write about before all these extenuating circumstances occurred!
When things were normal, I was trying to put a handful of new Dalek stories into my existing timeline. I'd dealt with Resolution first and felt like the entry had gone on long enough. It needed a Part Two. At long last, we're able to do the sequel.
Since it's been a while, here's the link to Part One:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html
It is quite fitting that we divide this particular entry into two separate installments. Part One discussed Resolution: a "proper" Dalek story. The central conflict of Resolution is about dealing with a Dalek. The threat it poses to humanity and the need to eliminate it is the main thrust of the tale.
In Part Two, we are dealing with Dalek cameos. These are adventures where the Doctor's attention was focused on something else entirely for most of the episode. But a Dalek or two briefly gets introduced into the plot for a bit. Their involvement in the story is minimal, though. Once they are no longer needed, they disappear.
Dalek cameos can seem almost negligible, sometimes (I actually forgot to try to figure out a timeframe for when a Dalek briefly appears in Hell Bent and didn't even really deal with the whole thing til I was trying to work out a chronology for the Weeping Angels). But, as fleeting as they can be, it is still fun to try to figure out where they might fit in the overall history of the species.
The Pilot and the Possible Confusion It Can Create
So we're back to handling things in order of transmission. Before Part One of this latest Appendix, we looked at where Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar sits in Dalek History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html). The next time a Dalek appears on the show would be near the end of The Pilot.
Where and when this cameo happens is actually somewhat difficult to determine. Details about the whole moment seem purposely vague. It's almost like Moffat is having fun with pathetic little pedants like me who try to make everything fit in its own little place. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a shot at this:
Let's start with the geographical rather than temporal location of the story. As the Doctor is trying to lead the Pilot to the Daleks, we see Nardole looking at the TARDIS console and proclaiming something to the effect of: "Not there! I hate going there!" He is, obviously, looking at a screen of some sort that is displaying the coordinates of their destination. I actually believe that Nardole is seeing that they are bound for Skaro.
The set of corridors they are running around in certainly look like this could be in the Great Dalek City that we first saw in the last Capaldi Dalek story. The conflict they are having with the Movellans appears to be a land-based battle. So either this is Skaro or just a planet the Daleks have occupied and the Movellans are trying to drive them off of it. I'm more inclined to believe it's Skaro.
Which gets me to think that the time Pilot takes place in would be shortly after the events of Apprentice/Familiar. Missy came up with some clever plan to save the Daleks from their revolting sewers (I just can't get enough of that pun) and the Daleks of Skaro are back on their feet. We are only on the Dalek homeworld for a few minutes- but I do believe Davros was probably lurking about somewhere. The TARDIS crew just isn't there long enough to see or hear from him.
Now there are some things that happen in The Pilot that renders the dating process a bit confusing. The first being that we see Movellans. This leads some to believe that the story is taking place around Destiny of the Daleks and/or Resurrection of the Daleks. Since this is when conflicts with the Movellans happened. If this were the case, this would put The Pilot at sometime around the 27th or 28th Century. I'm more inclined to believe that The Pilot takes place shortly after Apprentice/Familiar - which would put it closer to the 50th Century.
To get this to work with the timeline I prefer means that this has to be a second war that we're seeing with this android species. It helps that the Movellans appear to be acting very differently than they did last time we saw them. I believe that they have upgraded themselves since Destiny/Resurrection and now seem to have some level of emotional capacity. So these are Movellans that are much further down the road from the ones we saw in the 27th/28th Century.
Skaro was hidden from the Universe for quite some time. But, since the events of Apprentice/Familiar, the whereabouts of the planet have become widely known. The Movellans have chosen to resurrect their old feud and have taken the fight to the Dalek homeworld. The fact that we are seeing bronze-liveried Daleks is another visual cue to help re-enforce this. Destiny and Resurrection are pre-Time War stories. We only see bronze Daleks after the Time Wars. So this story must be from a second clash with the Movellans.
The other element of confusion is created by something the Doctor says to Bill as they are running around in corridors trying to evade Daleks. Bill asks if they are still in the future and the Doctor says they are now in the past. This would lead one to believe that the whole incident is taking place in some time period before Bill lived. Which would mean some time before the 21st Century. If this is the case, we would even have to disqualify Destiny and Resurrection. It is made quite clear in those tales that we are in a time period far into Earth's future. Apprentice/Familiar, by my reckoning, is at an even later time period.
So then, when is The Pilot taking place? If it is meant to be "in the past" - as the Doctor puts it, then where does it fit in Dalek History?
I would be inclined to believe that when the Doctor says they are now in the past he is speaking in relation to their last destination. The Doctor wants to see if the Pilot can time travel. So they leave modern-day Australia and go several million years into the future. Sure enough, the Pilot finds them within a few minutes. So now the Doctor wants to lead her to the Daleks. There are probably some Daleks kicking about in the time period that is several million years in the future, but he might have a harder time finding them. He wants to visit a time where he definitely knows where the Daleks are. This causes him to have to go back into the past.
So when he is saying: "We're in the past." to Bill. He is actually meaning: "We were millions of years into the future. Now, we're only thousands of years into the future."
This is considerably easier than trying to come up with a war with the Movellans that we never knew about that takes place sometime between The Daleks and the backstory of Resolution!
Twice Upon A Time - Considerably Easier to Work Out
And so, we continue with the transmission order. Which brings us to one last Dalek cameo before Moffat and Capaldi finally bow out. I'm speaking, of course, of the Triumphant Return of Rusty the Dalek in Twice Upon A Time.
Dating this one is considerably easier than The Pilot. Moff has the Doctor establish a timeline with just one bit of dialogue. However, that dialogue might not be entirely accurate.
After persuading Rusty to get naked, the Doctor claims it's been a few million years since their first meeting during Into the Dalek (which would take place sometime in the mid-to-late 40th Century). However, the mention of New Earth in the video Rusty digs up of the Glass Woman would suggest an even later period. Something more akin to a billion years or so.
This puts the appearance of Rusty as being one of the most far-flung into the future. Rusty is probably not the last of his kind, either. We see that other Daleks come to Villengard on a regular basis to try to kill him. He's happy to just destroy their casings and let the mutants within scamper about. I get the impression that the occasional lone Dalek chooses to undertake the mission to kill Rusty. All those Kaled Mutants running around is an accumulation of many solo attempts that have been made on Rusty's life. Which indicates to me that there are tonnes of other Daleks out there that just can't be bothered to come to the ruins of the weapons factory and try to kill him. Which indicates that, even a billion or so years into the future, the Daleks are still thriving.
The only appearance later than this would be the Dalek cameo during Hell Bent. Which is, technically, taking place near the end of the Universe. We don't know, however, if the Dalek we see captured in the Cloisters is the last of its kind. By my reckoning, that Dalek would have first been trapped in the Matrix some time after the Ravalox Incident involving the Andromedans. Which, according to a vague dating we're given in Mysterious Planet, is several million years into the future. That one Dalek ends up at the Death of the Universe because Gallifrey, itself, goes there to hide for a bit. The Dalek is transported there rather than being something that has properly survived all that time. So it could be that, sometime between Twice and Hell, the Daleks do finally die out. Rusty might have even been the one to do that job. But there's really not enough for us to go on. It's equally possible that the Daleks make it all the way to the end of the Universe.
In many ways, however, Rusty's cameo in Twice Upon a Time does represent the latest period in Dalek History. The cameo in Hell Bent is a bit of a cheat since there's some time travel involved.
A Bit More Predicting That Will, More Than Likely, Prove Wrong...
Once more, we are current on placing the latest Dalek appearances in some kind of chronological order. Yes, another Dalek story is scheduled to come out over the Holidays. I didn't feel like waiting that long to do this, though.
Doing this chronology now also allows me to make a few more unsuccessful predictions about what that Holiday Dalek Story might be about.
The title of the episode has been released. As have a few pics from the filming of the story. The name Revolution of the Daleks and images of two different models of the Daleks does seem to insinuate that a hope of mine might be coming true: we may be getting another Dalek Civil War of some sort.
If you bothered to read my Appendix that places Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar in a timeline, you'll have seen that I was already entertaining the idea that there might be two distinct factions that were developing. I called one the Spacefaring Faction and the other the Skarosian Natives (or something like that). I was hoping that these two groups might clash against each other in a future story.
Could something of this nature actually be happening? They might not quite be the schisms that I described. I postulated that Davros and the Supreme Dalek would be running the Skarosian Natives while the Spacefarers might be lead by someone like the Dalek Prime Minister that we saw in Assylum of the Daleks. But it might not quite be that power structure.
Still, it does look like we will be seeing Dalek fighting Dalek. Which, for some odd reason, I find greatly exciting. Truth be told, it makes for some generally static visuals. But, somehow, that's highly entertaining for me!
Appendix to Dalek History is now complete. Let's see if my latest prediction is even close to being vaguely accurate....
Once more, if you're feeling brave (God knows you've got some time on your hands, right now, with this pandemic). Here is everything I have ever written on Dalek History:
Original Entries:
Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-tymecian.html.
Part 2:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-part-2-of.html
Part 3:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode.html
Part 4:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-4-of.html
Part 5:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-5-of.html
First Appendix:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html.
Second Appendix - Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html
When things were normal, I was trying to put a handful of new Dalek stories into my existing timeline. I'd dealt with Resolution first and felt like the entry had gone on long enough. It needed a Part Two. At long last, we're able to do the sequel.
Since it's been a while, here's the link to Part One:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html
It is quite fitting that we divide this particular entry into two separate installments. Part One discussed Resolution: a "proper" Dalek story. The central conflict of Resolution is about dealing with a Dalek. The threat it poses to humanity and the need to eliminate it is the main thrust of the tale.
In Part Two, we are dealing with Dalek cameos. These are adventures where the Doctor's attention was focused on something else entirely for most of the episode. But a Dalek or two briefly gets introduced into the plot for a bit. Their involvement in the story is minimal, though. Once they are no longer needed, they disappear.
Dalek cameos can seem almost negligible, sometimes (I actually forgot to try to figure out a timeframe for when a Dalek briefly appears in Hell Bent and didn't even really deal with the whole thing til I was trying to work out a chronology for the Weeping Angels). But, as fleeting as they can be, it is still fun to try to figure out where they might fit in the overall history of the species.
The Pilot and the Possible Confusion It Can Create
So we're back to handling things in order of transmission. Before Part One of this latest Appendix, we looked at where Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar sits in Dalek History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html). The next time a Dalek appears on the show would be near the end of The Pilot.
Where and when this cameo happens is actually somewhat difficult to determine. Details about the whole moment seem purposely vague. It's almost like Moffat is having fun with pathetic little pedants like me who try to make everything fit in its own little place. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a shot at this:
Let's start with the geographical rather than temporal location of the story. As the Doctor is trying to lead the Pilot to the Daleks, we see Nardole looking at the TARDIS console and proclaiming something to the effect of: "Not there! I hate going there!" He is, obviously, looking at a screen of some sort that is displaying the coordinates of their destination. I actually believe that Nardole is seeing that they are bound for Skaro.
The set of corridors they are running around in certainly look like this could be in the Great Dalek City that we first saw in the last Capaldi Dalek story. The conflict they are having with the Movellans appears to be a land-based battle. So either this is Skaro or just a planet the Daleks have occupied and the Movellans are trying to drive them off of it. I'm more inclined to believe it's Skaro.
Which gets me to think that the time Pilot takes place in would be shortly after the events of Apprentice/Familiar. Missy came up with some clever plan to save the Daleks from their revolting sewers (I just can't get enough of that pun) and the Daleks of Skaro are back on their feet. We are only on the Dalek homeworld for a few minutes- but I do believe Davros was probably lurking about somewhere. The TARDIS crew just isn't there long enough to see or hear from him.
Now there are some things that happen in The Pilot that renders the dating process a bit confusing. The first being that we see Movellans. This leads some to believe that the story is taking place around Destiny of the Daleks and/or Resurrection of the Daleks. Since this is when conflicts with the Movellans happened. If this were the case, this would put The Pilot at sometime around the 27th or 28th Century. I'm more inclined to believe that The Pilot takes place shortly after Apprentice/Familiar - which would put it closer to the 50th Century.
To get this to work with the timeline I prefer means that this has to be a second war that we're seeing with this android species. It helps that the Movellans appear to be acting very differently than they did last time we saw them. I believe that they have upgraded themselves since Destiny/Resurrection and now seem to have some level of emotional capacity. So these are Movellans that are much further down the road from the ones we saw in the 27th/28th Century.
Skaro was hidden from the Universe for quite some time. But, since the events of Apprentice/Familiar, the whereabouts of the planet have become widely known. The Movellans have chosen to resurrect their old feud and have taken the fight to the Dalek homeworld. The fact that we are seeing bronze-liveried Daleks is another visual cue to help re-enforce this. Destiny and Resurrection are pre-Time War stories. We only see bronze Daleks after the Time Wars. So this story must be from a second clash with the Movellans.
The other element of confusion is created by something the Doctor says to Bill as they are running around in corridors trying to evade Daleks. Bill asks if they are still in the future and the Doctor says they are now in the past. This would lead one to believe that the whole incident is taking place in some time period before Bill lived. Which would mean some time before the 21st Century. If this is the case, we would even have to disqualify Destiny and Resurrection. It is made quite clear in those tales that we are in a time period far into Earth's future. Apprentice/Familiar, by my reckoning, is at an even later time period.
So then, when is The Pilot taking place? If it is meant to be "in the past" - as the Doctor puts it, then where does it fit in Dalek History?
I would be inclined to believe that when the Doctor says they are now in the past he is speaking in relation to their last destination. The Doctor wants to see if the Pilot can time travel. So they leave modern-day Australia and go several million years into the future. Sure enough, the Pilot finds them within a few minutes. So now the Doctor wants to lead her to the Daleks. There are probably some Daleks kicking about in the time period that is several million years in the future, but he might have a harder time finding them. He wants to visit a time where he definitely knows where the Daleks are. This causes him to have to go back into the past.
So when he is saying: "We're in the past." to Bill. He is actually meaning: "We were millions of years into the future. Now, we're only thousands of years into the future."
This is considerably easier than trying to come up with a war with the Movellans that we never knew about that takes place sometime between The Daleks and the backstory of Resolution!
Twice Upon A Time - Considerably Easier to Work Out
And so, we continue with the transmission order. Which brings us to one last Dalek cameo before Moffat and Capaldi finally bow out. I'm speaking, of course, of the Triumphant Return of Rusty the Dalek in Twice Upon A Time.
Dating this one is considerably easier than The Pilot. Moff has the Doctor establish a timeline with just one bit of dialogue. However, that dialogue might not be entirely accurate.
After persuading Rusty to get naked, the Doctor claims it's been a few million years since their first meeting during Into the Dalek (which would take place sometime in the mid-to-late 40th Century). However, the mention of New Earth in the video Rusty digs up of the Glass Woman would suggest an even later period. Something more akin to a billion years or so.
This puts the appearance of Rusty as being one of the most far-flung into the future. Rusty is probably not the last of his kind, either. We see that other Daleks come to Villengard on a regular basis to try to kill him. He's happy to just destroy their casings and let the mutants within scamper about. I get the impression that the occasional lone Dalek chooses to undertake the mission to kill Rusty. All those Kaled Mutants running around is an accumulation of many solo attempts that have been made on Rusty's life. Which indicates to me that there are tonnes of other Daleks out there that just can't be bothered to come to the ruins of the weapons factory and try to kill him. Which indicates that, even a billion or so years into the future, the Daleks are still thriving.
The only appearance later than this would be the Dalek cameo during Hell Bent. Which is, technically, taking place near the end of the Universe. We don't know, however, if the Dalek we see captured in the Cloisters is the last of its kind. By my reckoning, that Dalek would have first been trapped in the Matrix some time after the Ravalox Incident involving the Andromedans. Which, according to a vague dating we're given in Mysterious Planet, is several million years into the future. That one Dalek ends up at the Death of the Universe because Gallifrey, itself, goes there to hide for a bit. The Dalek is transported there rather than being something that has properly survived all that time. So it could be that, sometime between Twice and Hell, the Daleks do finally die out. Rusty might have even been the one to do that job. But there's really not enough for us to go on. It's equally possible that the Daleks make it all the way to the end of the Universe.
In many ways, however, Rusty's cameo in Twice Upon a Time does represent the latest period in Dalek History. The cameo in Hell Bent is a bit of a cheat since there's some time travel involved.
A Bit More Predicting That Will, More Than Likely, Prove Wrong...
Once more, we are current on placing the latest Dalek appearances in some kind of chronological order. Yes, another Dalek story is scheduled to come out over the Holidays. I didn't feel like waiting that long to do this, though.
Doing this chronology now also allows me to make a few more unsuccessful predictions about what that Holiday Dalek Story might be about.
The title of the episode has been released. As have a few pics from the filming of the story. The name Revolution of the Daleks and images of two different models of the Daleks does seem to insinuate that a hope of mine might be coming true: we may be getting another Dalek Civil War of some sort.
If you bothered to read my Appendix that places Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar in a timeline, you'll have seen that I was already entertaining the idea that there might be two distinct factions that were developing. I called one the Spacefaring Faction and the other the Skarosian Natives (or something like that). I was hoping that these two groups might clash against each other in a future story.
Could something of this nature actually be happening? They might not quite be the schisms that I described. I postulated that Davros and the Supreme Dalek would be running the Skarosian Natives while the Spacefarers might be lead by someone like the Dalek Prime Minister that we saw in Assylum of the Daleks. But it might not quite be that power structure.
Still, it does look like we will be seeing Dalek fighting Dalek. Which, for some odd reason, I find greatly exciting. Truth be told, it makes for some generally static visuals. But, somehow, that's highly entertaining for me!
Appendix to Dalek History is now complete. Let's see if my latest prediction is even close to being vaguely accurate....
Once more, if you're feeling brave (God knows you've got some time on your hands, right now, with this pandemic). Here is everything I have ever written on Dalek History:
Original Entries:
Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-tymecian.html.
Part 2:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-part-2-of.html
Part 3:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode.html
Part 4:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-4-of.html
Part 5:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-5-of.html
First Appendix:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/11/chronologies-and-time-lines-history-of.html.
Second Appendix - Part 1:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html
Thursday, 19 March 2020
BOOK OF LISTS - FIVE UNPOPULAR OPINIONS I HAVE ABOUT DOCTOR WHO
Five years. I can't believe I'm still writing this thing! More importantly, I can't believe people are still reading it! I've tried to do something a bit different to celebrate the anniversary every year. Admittedly, I'm running out of ideas! Here's a bit of an opinion piece for this one. It gets you to understand me a bit better.
Having been involved with any number of fan groups over the years has made me some legitimate friends. Familiarity, as always, breeds just a little bit of contempt. Some of these fans who have genuinely gotten to know me a bit have given me a nickname: The Great Contrarian.
It's a suitable title. There are any number of Popular Fan Opinions that I openly disagree with. I don't just feel this way to be contradictory. I genuinely seem to go to the show for very different reasons than a lot of other people do.
There are, of course, some tastes that a lot of fans have that I do actually share. But there are many more that I just can't get my head around. I don't understand why fandom loves the things they do. Here are five of the bigger issues involving Fan Opinion that I don't particularly agree with (one for each year that my blog has existed!)
1: 70s Who Kinda Sucked
Strong words, I know. I will confess: I wanted a title that grabbed your attention.
I don't think Doctor Who in the 1970s is completely horrible. But I do think it is the show at one of its lowest points. Whereas many fans consider this to be the Golden Age of the program.
I think the Jon Pertwee stuff is probably the worst. Season Seven is magnificent and I wish they had continued making the sort of stories we got during that period. But the show became horrifically paint-by-numbers after that. Which always strikes me as some pretty weak writing. And those of you that complain of the "preachiness" of Chibnall-era Who need to go back and watch the Pertwee stuff. We get end-of-story sermons (or even middle-of-the-story or beginning-of-the-story sermons) all over the place. I also didn't enjoy the screeching halts stories came to just so Jon Pertwee could tool around for a bit in a new vehicle he was dying to try out!
Yes, things got considerably better with Doctor Four and the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. But I also think the era is a bit on the overrated side. There were some definite duds that we all seem to try to gloss over. The Android Invasion is one of the worst stories ever (seriously, who wears an eyepatch for three years and never looks under it?!). Aside from Sarah Jane's final scene, Hand of Fear is completely awful, too. But no one seems to want to say this.
Later Tom Baker stuff also seems to go a bit formulaic. The basic formula is that Tom just goes around and takes the piss out of everything he can. Never has the show mocked itself this much. Some of the comedy is legitimately blissful. A lot of it is really bad. Some even offensive (ie: Jewish aliens in Creature from the Pit).
Again, I don't completely despise this decade. But I find it to be pretty weak, overall. I'm a notorious "re-watcher" of the show. DVDs of 70s Who are the ones that go in my player the least.
2. Not All Classics Are Classics
There are certain stories that fans seem to foam at the mouth over. Some I agree with. Others, I'm just not sure what the fuss is about. A few examples:
Caves of Androzani
Considered by many to be the best story of them all. I can agree with about 75% of that opinion. Those first three episodes are amazing. Particularly the cliffhanger of Part Three. But that final episode goes a bit pear-shaped. Right from the first few seconds where the Doctor finally seems to find retro-thrusters or something of that nature (it's never specified) - the "fix" seems pretty anti-climactic. Then we just move in to yet-another end-of-story slaughterfest that we see far-too-often in Seasons Twenty-One and Twenty-Two. I'm sorry, but you can't resolve a plot by just killing off 95% of its characters. You need to actually find a better way to end a story. And, for this reason, I can't quite love Androzani the way other folks do.
Genesis of the Daleks
My God, do fans go nuts over this one! It has a great introduction, I'll admit. It's totally cool when the Doctor meets that Time Lord in dark robes and they talk about how evil Daleks are and all that. But, after that, this story develops a lot of problems very quickly. It's biggest being that it doesn't have enough plot to fill the six episodes. So we get lots of captures-and-escapes. There's the absolute worst cliffhanger resolution in the history of the show (Sarah on the scaff-holding). Davros seems to drone on for ever and ever in places that fans seem to see as "great monologues" but I see more as just padding. Having said that, the Doctor's "Have I the right?" is a great monologue, yes. But after so many bad writing choices, it comes across as too little, too late. I'm sorry folks. But Genesis works far better in theory than it does in execution.
Talons of Weng-Chiang
Here's one that I really don't get. Some of the period drama of the tale is quite entertaining. There's a nice homage to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. But there's really not much else to this story. For the most part, it's kinda boring. Even the double-act stuff with Jago and Lightfoot seems forced. Again, there's not enough there for six parts. The ending also just seems to peter out. There's a bit of a gunfight and Tom Baker wrestles with an over-sized doll and then it's all over. The yellow-face acting is sooo painful to look at, too. Leela getting wet in a white slip is enjoyable, I suppose. But only to a certain demographic. Otherwise, I actually think this is one of the weaker stories Robert Holmes wrote. I would love to spend a day in the head of a fan who loves this to see what they see. Otherwise, I'm at a loss.
3. Late 80s Who Rocked
It is very sad that Doctor Who died as the 80s reached their conclusion. But I can't agree with those people who claim the show was "at a creative low point" when it went off the air. In fact, I kinda want to punch fans who say that!
We're all aware of the "duds" of the 80s (Timelash, Time and the Rani etc...). But, as I just pointed out about the Hinchliffe period, every era has misfires. Late 80s Who had any number of strong stories and then quite a few amazing ones, too. The ratio of good-to-bad stories is no different from any other era of the show. If fans removed their rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, they would see this quite clearly.
I particularly hate how low poor 'ole Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy end up in the fan rankings because they were the Doctors stuck in those dying days. Both of them brought a great "edge" to their portrayals by exploring some of the darker aspects of the character. McCoy, in particular, nearly transformed into the monsters he was fighting. Giving the Doctor some teeth and making him both vindictive and manipulative are traits that carried over into New Series Doctors. Which speaks volumes of what Colin and Sly achieved.
What I loved best about late 80s Who was how hard it pushed the boundaries of the show and came up with television that was legitimately ahead of its time. Trial of a Time Lord, for instance, was doing one long story that took an entire season to tell way before anyone else was. It is now commonplace for shows to do this. But late 80s Who did it way back in ... well .... the late 80s! And I actually still don't think TV has caught up with the complexities on display during Season 26. A lot of that content required intelligence and sophistication from an audience that just wasn't ready, at the time, to think that deeply. And I'm not just talking about Ghostlight!
So why do some fans like to crap on those last few seasons so much? Well, they do have the right to complain a bit about Season 24 - there were some troubled spots, there (in its defense, there was a behind-the-scenes nightmare going on while it was being made!). But I think many of the complaints of this period have more to do with the fact that fandom works in cycles. Part of these cycles is to eventually become super-critical with a franchise. Don't get me wrong, in some cases, bad content is being made (I'm lookin' at you Disney Star Wars!). But, other times, I really do believe fandom just can't be satisfied. They have suddenly decided that only they know what's best for what they love. Like the only way things could be good is if they made the content themselves! Even though most of them don't work anywhere near the entertainment industry.
Which leads me neatly to....
4. Chibnal-Era Who Also Rocked
I am almost tempted to do an entire entry on how baseless a lot of the criticism of these last two seasons has been (and I just might!). Seriously, a lot of fans are complaining without giving much thought to what it is they're complaining about!
Case in Point: A friend of mine claimed after Praxeus that Chibnall was talking too much about LGBTQ culture. He was referring to the fact that two of the supporting characters in that story were in a same-sex marriage. Admittedly, if you're paying careful attention, you will also notice incidental characters in two other episodes mention they are in relationships with someone of the same gender. Because of this, he feels Chibnall is pushing an agenda too hard.
"You do realize," I responded, "That RTD had a bisexual character who was a companion for a bit and then became a recurring character. And Moff had a lesbian companion for an entire season. Compared to them, Chibnall practically looks like a gay-basher!"
And this is what I keep seeing about this era. You're entitled to your opinion, of course. You're even entitled to express it. But you should also realize that if you're opinion seems stupid - I'm entitled to tell you how dumb you sound! And a lot of what the fans have been complaining about has not been thought out very well before it was expressed.
I actually think Chibnall has done really well with both of his seasons. It made sense to make Series 11 about a lot of small stakes and fairly simple stories. This made the epic quality of Series 12 all the more heightened. And I do legitimately think that Series 12 is one of the best seasons the show has ever made in its entire 38 seasons-and-a-telemovie!
But, again, fandom has moved into the ultra-critical stage. Any recently-produced content is deemed terrible even before it has a chance to be properly watched.Which is sad, of course. Because it probably means the show is going to get laid to rest again.
However, since we're on the topic of unpopular showrunners....
5. JNT Was Probably The Best Showrunner Ever
Technically, of course, his title was "Producer" back when he was in charge. He is, in many ways, the equivalent of a showrunner by modern-day standards. He didn't write any material like RTD, Moff or Chibnall did - but the Creative Buck still stopped at him. Just like the Head Writers of New Who, he was responsible for every second that we saw onscreen. As were any number of other producers before John Nathan Turner that many fans consider to be better.
In my opinion, however, I do really believe he did the best job of running the show. I'm almost reluctant to put this in print since I know so many will think this ludicrous. But JNT was all about trying to do new and different things with the format. Let's remember that I thought a lot of 70s Who was getting very tired. So John Nathan Turner very much came in like a breath of fresh air for me. He immediately got a better budget for the show. Yes, it still looked very cheap, in places. But it looked less very cheap than it had before!
What I liked best about this producer is how he really got out of the way of the writers and let them do their thing. Yes, that allowed Eric Saward to, perhaps, take too many liberties. But it was still cool how much he did his best not to stifle creativity. Instead, he tried to support it as much as he could by finding money and publicity for the show under rocks that most producers would never look. Because he actually understood that his real job was to do exactly that. Let the artists be artists while he took care of the finances.
Was JNT perfect? Of course not! He made bad choices. Every producer did. But, even then, I loved how open he was to admitting to his mistakes. Some of the bad things he believes he did I don't even agree with (ie: Colin's coat is awesome - but JNT has admitted in several interviews that it may have been a wrong move). In many ways, I had great respect for the man for being so open about his fallibility. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't own up to them.
Of course, what I respect most about John Nathan Turner is how hard he fought for the show as it reached its final seasons. I don't think anyone would have held on as long and hard as he did. Particularly since he wanted to move on to something new but was aware that if he left Who that no one else was probably going to keep it alive. Rather than advance his career, he stayed where he was in an effort to keep breathing life into the series. That's actually quite noble of him.
And yet, he never seems to get the respect he deserves. Do people dislike Hawaiian shirts that much?!
Well, that turned into a bit of a rant! Sometimes, you just gotta get stuff off your chest. What better time to do it than during an anniversary!
Officially, the blog celebrates its anniversary on March 15th. Sorry this entry came a bit late. I've been experiencing some technical difficulties with my server. Hopefully, we can squeeze in one more entry before the month is over. And, if this pandemic continues, I'll have plenty of time for blogging during April!!
Other Anniversary Specials:
First:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/03/first-anniversary-special-something.html
Second:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/03/second-anniversary-special.html
Third:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/03/book-of-lists-top-5-one-time-only.html
Fourth:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/03/complete-and-utter-silliness-was.html
Having been involved with any number of fan groups over the years has made me some legitimate friends. Familiarity, as always, breeds just a little bit of contempt. Some of these fans who have genuinely gotten to know me a bit have given me a nickname: The Great Contrarian.
It's a suitable title. There are any number of Popular Fan Opinions that I openly disagree with. I don't just feel this way to be contradictory. I genuinely seem to go to the show for very different reasons than a lot of other people do.
There are, of course, some tastes that a lot of fans have that I do actually share. But there are many more that I just can't get my head around. I don't understand why fandom loves the things they do. Here are five of the bigger issues involving Fan Opinion that I don't particularly agree with (one for each year that my blog has existed!)
1: 70s Who Kinda Sucked
Strong words, I know. I will confess: I wanted a title that grabbed your attention.
I don't think Doctor Who in the 1970s is completely horrible. But I do think it is the show at one of its lowest points. Whereas many fans consider this to be the Golden Age of the program.
I think the Jon Pertwee stuff is probably the worst. Season Seven is magnificent and I wish they had continued making the sort of stories we got during that period. But the show became horrifically paint-by-numbers after that. Which always strikes me as some pretty weak writing. And those of you that complain of the "preachiness" of Chibnall-era Who need to go back and watch the Pertwee stuff. We get end-of-story sermons (or even middle-of-the-story or beginning-of-the-story sermons) all over the place. I also didn't enjoy the screeching halts stories came to just so Jon Pertwee could tool around for a bit in a new vehicle he was dying to try out!
Yes, things got considerably better with Doctor Four and the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. But I also think the era is a bit on the overrated side. There were some definite duds that we all seem to try to gloss over. The Android Invasion is one of the worst stories ever (seriously, who wears an eyepatch for three years and never looks under it?!). Aside from Sarah Jane's final scene, Hand of Fear is completely awful, too. But no one seems to want to say this.
Later Tom Baker stuff also seems to go a bit formulaic. The basic formula is that Tom just goes around and takes the piss out of everything he can. Never has the show mocked itself this much. Some of the comedy is legitimately blissful. A lot of it is really bad. Some even offensive (ie: Jewish aliens in Creature from the Pit).
Again, I don't completely despise this decade. But I find it to be pretty weak, overall. I'm a notorious "re-watcher" of the show. DVDs of 70s Who are the ones that go in my player the least.
2. Not All Classics Are Classics
There are certain stories that fans seem to foam at the mouth over. Some I agree with. Others, I'm just not sure what the fuss is about. A few examples:
Caves of Androzani
Considered by many to be the best story of them all. I can agree with about 75% of that opinion. Those first three episodes are amazing. Particularly the cliffhanger of Part Three. But that final episode goes a bit pear-shaped. Right from the first few seconds where the Doctor finally seems to find retro-thrusters or something of that nature (it's never specified) - the "fix" seems pretty anti-climactic. Then we just move in to yet-another end-of-story slaughterfest that we see far-too-often in Seasons Twenty-One and Twenty-Two. I'm sorry, but you can't resolve a plot by just killing off 95% of its characters. You need to actually find a better way to end a story. And, for this reason, I can't quite love Androzani the way other folks do.
Genesis of the Daleks
My God, do fans go nuts over this one! It has a great introduction, I'll admit. It's totally cool when the Doctor meets that Time Lord in dark robes and they talk about how evil Daleks are and all that. But, after that, this story develops a lot of problems very quickly. It's biggest being that it doesn't have enough plot to fill the six episodes. So we get lots of captures-and-escapes. There's the absolute worst cliffhanger resolution in the history of the show (Sarah on the scaff-holding). Davros seems to drone on for ever and ever in places that fans seem to see as "great monologues" but I see more as just padding. Having said that, the Doctor's "Have I the right?" is a great monologue, yes. But after so many bad writing choices, it comes across as too little, too late. I'm sorry folks. But Genesis works far better in theory than it does in execution.
Talons of Weng-Chiang
Here's one that I really don't get. Some of the period drama of the tale is quite entertaining. There's a nice homage to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. But there's really not much else to this story. For the most part, it's kinda boring. Even the double-act stuff with Jago and Lightfoot seems forced. Again, there's not enough there for six parts. The ending also just seems to peter out. There's a bit of a gunfight and Tom Baker wrestles with an over-sized doll and then it's all over. The yellow-face acting is sooo painful to look at, too. Leela getting wet in a white slip is enjoyable, I suppose. But only to a certain demographic. Otherwise, I actually think this is one of the weaker stories Robert Holmes wrote. I would love to spend a day in the head of a fan who loves this to see what they see. Otherwise, I'm at a loss.
3. Late 80s Who Rocked
It is very sad that Doctor Who died as the 80s reached their conclusion. But I can't agree with those people who claim the show was "at a creative low point" when it went off the air. In fact, I kinda want to punch fans who say that!
We're all aware of the "duds" of the 80s (Timelash, Time and the Rani etc...). But, as I just pointed out about the Hinchliffe period, every era has misfires. Late 80s Who had any number of strong stories and then quite a few amazing ones, too. The ratio of good-to-bad stories is no different from any other era of the show. If fans removed their rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, they would see this quite clearly.
I particularly hate how low poor 'ole Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy end up in the fan rankings because they were the Doctors stuck in those dying days. Both of them brought a great "edge" to their portrayals by exploring some of the darker aspects of the character. McCoy, in particular, nearly transformed into the monsters he was fighting. Giving the Doctor some teeth and making him both vindictive and manipulative are traits that carried over into New Series Doctors. Which speaks volumes of what Colin and Sly achieved.
What I loved best about late 80s Who was how hard it pushed the boundaries of the show and came up with television that was legitimately ahead of its time. Trial of a Time Lord, for instance, was doing one long story that took an entire season to tell way before anyone else was. It is now commonplace for shows to do this. But late 80s Who did it way back in ... well .... the late 80s! And I actually still don't think TV has caught up with the complexities on display during Season 26. A lot of that content required intelligence and sophistication from an audience that just wasn't ready, at the time, to think that deeply. And I'm not just talking about Ghostlight!
So why do some fans like to crap on those last few seasons so much? Well, they do have the right to complain a bit about Season 24 - there were some troubled spots, there (in its defense, there was a behind-the-scenes nightmare going on while it was being made!). But I think many of the complaints of this period have more to do with the fact that fandom works in cycles. Part of these cycles is to eventually become super-critical with a franchise. Don't get me wrong, in some cases, bad content is being made (I'm lookin' at you Disney Star Wars!). But, other times, I really do believe fandom just can't be satisfied. They have suddenly decided that only they know what's best for what they love. Like the only way things could be good is if they made the content themselves! Even though most of them don't work anywhere near the entertainment industry.
Which leads me neatly to....
4. Chibnal-Era Who Also Rocked
I am almost tempted to do an entire entry on how baseless a lot of the criticism of these last two seasons has been (and I just might!). Seriously, a lot of fans are complaining without giving much thought to what it is they're complaining about!
Case in Point: A friend of mine claimed after Praxeus that Chibnall was talking too much about LGBTQ culture. He was referring to the fact that two of the supporting characters in that story were in a same-sex marriage. Admittedly, if you're paying careful attention, you will also notice incidental characters in two other episodes mention they are in relationships with someone of the same gender. Because of this, he feels Chibnall is pushing an agenda too hard.
"You do realize," I responded, "That RTD had a bisexual character who was a companion for a bit and then became a recurring character. And Moff had a lesbian companion for an entire season. Compared to them, Chibnall practically looks like a gay-basher!"
And this is what I keep seeing about this era. You're entitled to your opinion, of course. You're even entitled to express it. But you should also realize that if you're opinion seems stupid - I'm entitled to tell you how dumb you sound! And a lot of what the fans have been complaining about has not been thought out very well before it was expressed.
I actually think Chibnall has done really well with both of his seasons. It made sense to make Series 11 about a lot of small stakes and fairly simple stories. This made the epic quality of Series 12 all the more heightened. And I do legitimately think that Series 12 is one of the best seasons the show has ever made in its entire 38 seasons-and-a-telemovie!
But, again, fandom has moved into the ultra-critical stage. Any recently-produced content is deemed terrible even before it has a chance to be properly watched.Which is sad, of course. Because it probably means the show is going to get laid to rest again.
However, since we're on the topic of unpopular showrunners....
5. JNT Was Probably The Best Showrunner Ever
Technically, of course, his title was "Producer" back when he was in charge. He is, in many ways, the equivalent of a showrunner by modern-day standards. He didn't write any material like RTD, Moff or Chibnall did - but the Creative Buck still stopped at him. Just like the Head Writers of New Who, he was responsible for every second that we saw onscreen. As were any number of other producers before John Nathan Turner that many fans consider to be better.
In my opinion, however, I do really believe he did the best job of running the show. I'm almost reluctant to put this in print since I know so many will think this ludicrous. But JNT was all about trying to do new and different things with the format. Let's remember that I thought a lot of 70s Who was getting very tired. So John Nathan Turner very much came in like a breath of fresh air for me. He immediately got a better budget for the show. Yes, it still looked very cheap, in places. But it looked less very cheap than it had before!
What I liked best about this producer is how he really got out of the way of the writers and let them do their thing. Yes, that allowed Eric Saward to, perhaps, take too many liberties. But it was still cool how much he did his best not to stifle creativity. Instead, he tried to support it as much as he could by finding money and publicity for the show under rocks that most producers would never look. Because he actually understood that his real job was to do exactly that. Let the artists be artists while he took care of the finances.
Was JNT perfect? Of course not! He made bad choices. Every producer did. But, even then, I loved how open he was to admitting to his mistakes. Some of the bad things he believes he did I don't even agree with (ie: Colin's coat is awesome - but JNT has admitted in several interviews that it may have been a wrong move). In many ways, I had great respect for the man for being so open about his fallibility. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't own up to them.
Of course, what I respect most about John Nathan Turner is how hard he fought for the show as it reached its final seasons. I don't think anyone would have held on as long and hard as he did. Particularly since he wanted to move on to something new but was aware that if he left Who that no one else was probably going to keep it alive. Rather than advance his career, he stayed where he was in an effort to keep breathing life into the series. That's actually quite noble of him.
And yet, he never seems to get the respect he deserves. Do people dislike Hawaiian shirts that much?!
Well, that turned into a bit of a rant! Sometimes, you just gotta get stuff off your chest. What better time to do it than during an anniversary!
Officially, the blog celebrates its anniversary on March 15th. Sorry this entry came a bit late. I've been experiencing some technical difficulties with my server. Hopefully, we can squeeze in one more entry before the month is over. And, if this pandemic continues, I'll have plenty of time for blogging during April!!
Other Anniversary Specials:
First:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/03/first-anniversary-special-something.html
Second:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/03/second-anniversary-special.html
Third:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/03/book-of-lists-top-5-one-time-only.html
Fourth:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2019/03/complete-and-utter-silliness-was.html
Wednesday, 4 March 2020
UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: A SERIES TWELVE DE-BRIEF
Yes, yes, I know. I said I would get back to finishing my latest appendix to the Dalek timeline. I swore I was done discussing Series Twelve. But, really, Chibnall is giving us such an interesting show, these days. It's hard to not discuss what he's doing.
If you look back, you'll notice I even did quite a few entries concerning Series Eleven. Something I was never doing before Chibnall took the helm. Those other guys were making some pretty good Who - don't get me wrong. But I really do enjoy what Chibbers (officially, the nickname I've given him) is doing and feel the need to make specific entries that discuss his work directly.
If you look back, you'll notice I even did quite a few entries concerning Series Eleven. Something I was never doing before Chibnall took the helm. Those other guys were making some pretty good Who - don't get me wrong. But I really do enjoy what Chibbers (officially, the nickname I've given him) is doing and feel the need to make specific entries that discuss his work directly.
At the time that I started writing this, it has been less than a day since I watched The Timeless Children for the first time (have already re-watched it, too!). This episode had more to live up to than most season finales. There were some really big questions that needed answering. Other season finales over the years have been known to occasionally fall a bit flat. Sometimes, the Head Writer has just built up so much expectations that it's impossible to produce a final episode of the season that lives up to them. In other instances, they have created mysteries that need solving and then don't give us thorough enough answers.
Chris Chibnall, in my opinion, did not commit any of those sins as he finished up Series Twelve. The Timeless Children, as far as I am concerned, was magnificent. A very fitting conclusion to everything that he's been setting up this season. The changes he has made to established canon don't bother me in the slightest. This whole season is probably the best one we've gotten in New Who. It might even be the best season of Doctor Who ever.
Having heaped on all this praise, I want to stress that this entry won't be a review (or much of one, at least). One of the things I liked best about Timeless Children was that it answered just enough questions that had been raised throughout the season. There's still a few mysteries left. Or things that need to be explained just a little bit more clearly. And I'm okay with that. It gives us something to explore in future seasons.
What I am going to do with this entry is speculate on some of these issues. More than likely, these speculations will be totally wrong. So far, any predictions I've made about the Series Twelve Mysteries have been waaayyy off! I'm guessing that this tradition will continue as I try to anticipate what might lay beyond this current season.
Do I care that I will probably keep being wrong about everything? Hell no! I am having far too much fun with this to give a damn about the damage it's doing to my credibility!
PRE-HARTNELL DAYS AND THE QUESTIONS THEY RAISE
I really do love the fact that, in many ways, Series Twelve was just trying to get one little scene in Brain of Morbius to make sense! I'm sure that wasn't Chris Chibnall's only motivation, of course. But it was a beautifully fannish gesture. I'll have to retract what I once said about that particular scene in a FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES entry (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/08/fixing-continuity-glitches-quick-fixes.html) - but I don't mind!
I am totally okay with versions of the Doctor existing before Hartnell. I know some fans will be outraged and claim that this is just one more way that Chibnall is specifically killing the show. Such accusations almost seem to imply that this was only ever his idea and no one else's. Which then makes a Chib-basher look just a bit silly. Andrew Cartmel was totally weaving a similar plot into the show during its final seasons. He was just never able to finish the arc before the show was put on extended hiatus.
As many people who approve of this concept have pointed out: the lore of the show needs to change direction from time-to-time. The fact that Cartmel was attempting this at an earlier time supports this quite nicely (technically, you can say that Philip Segal was trying something similar with The 96 Telemovie by claiming the Doctor was half-human). Chibnall was just giving the show what it needed. These alterations to established canon also give a more plausible reason for why the Doctor is different from all other Time Lords. Something else that I feel really helps with the whole premise of the show.
However, some important questions do get raised by making this move. The biggest one being: Has the Doctor been immortal all this time? Did he, essentially, have nothing to worry about at the end of Time of the Doctor? Were the extra regenerations granted to him by the Time Lords a sham?
What we've learnt, so far, of the Timeless Child is that she regenerates over and over without any limitation on those regenerations. Which would indicate that the Doctor did have nothing to worry about at the end of Time of the Doctor. He would have turned into Twelve even if Clara hadn't delivered her touching speech to a glowing crack in the wall. It even gets smaller inconsistencies - like the fact that Eleven could give River some regeneration energy to fix her hand in Angels Take Manhatten - to make sense. One would think that, on his last incarnation, he would have no more regeneration energy to give. But if he's been the Timeless Child all this time, then he would always have some of that energy lying around.
It also gets how reckless Twelve has been with regeneration energy to make sense too. He gave some to Davros on Skaro and used some just to prank Bill when they were fighting the Monks' invasion of Earth. Perhaps, somewhere in the depths of his memory, he knows it's okay to do this.
I would like to think, however, that the Doctor has been an actual Time Lord for the last little while and that the powers he/she has had as the Timeless Child were finally taken away just before the William Hartnell Days. Quite naturally, I will explain where this theory comes from.
THE BRENDAN MYSTERY WAS ONLY ANSWERED SO WELL FOR A REASON
One of the questions I see buzzing about the fan groups is: "I am still a bit confused about Brendan" (or words to that effect). I actually think the somewhat scant information we were given about him in The Timeless Children was the result of smart writing. Chibnall had a lot to cover in that final episode and realized the info dump had gotten big enough before delving too deeply into Brendan's full story. He gave us just enough info to understand that Brendan is, somehow, a previous incarnation of the Doctor. And that was all we needed, for now. A more extensive explanation will be given in the future.
We were supplied with several strong visual clues to indicate that there is something different about this particular incarnation. The biggest one being the shot of Brendan falling to his apparent death in Ascension of the Cybermen. That sequence was duplicated with the very first incarnation of the Timeless Child in the next episode. Note how differently things play out with this in the next scene. For the Original Timeless Child, she induces her first regeneration. But Brendan does more of a Captain-Jack-Style recovery. He just suddenly starts breathing again. The variation on how they recover from their death plummets seems quite intentional to me.
To me, it indicates that there is something very different going on with the Brendan incarnation. I believe that Brendan is part of a very complex Chameleon Arch conversion.
If you're trying to turn a Time Lord into something with a simpler biology like, say, a human - that's nothing too complicated. Just put on the silly hat that hangs from the TARDIS ceiling, writhe in pain for a few minutes and then: Boom! You're a human, now.
But to go from something complex like the Timeless Child to something almost equally complicated like a Time Lord is a more protracted process. One that seems to involve getting the Timeless Child to live the life of a human who is resistant to injury but still ages to death. As Brendan reaches the end of his life, the Time Lords can then execute the last part of the Chameleon Arch Conversion. This is what we see happening in "the back office scene" during the final two episodes of the season. This is not just a memory wipe happening. The Timeless Child is also completing the process of getting her biology re-written. She will regenerate into Baby Hartnell and grow up thinking she is now just a Time Lord. Her physiology will, quite naturally, confirm this.
Aside from a few fragmented memories, all traces of her past lives are gone now. She is, to all intents and purposes, a roguish Gallifreyan who pretentiously calls himself the Doctor. He will eventually go to the Academy and just barely manage to graduate. Whereupon he will receive various biological advantages that turn him into a true Time Lord. Ironically enough, he was the one responsible for first creating those biological advantages. He just no longer knows this because the Time Lords changed the nature of who he is and erased his memory in the process.
So, yes, Eleven would have died at the end of Time of the Doctor had he not been bestowed with a new regeneration cycle. Because now he is just a Time Lord. The immortality of the Timeless Child has been taken away from him.
THE RUTH DOCTOR TIE-IN
The big question is: why did the Time Lords choose to do this to the Timeless Child? What crime did she commit to get them this irritated with her?
Again, the answer is given to us if we're willing to look for it. In the season finale, we are shown a flashback sequence where the Timeless Child is being invited to join the Division. I'm guessing the Division will later come to be known as the Celestial Intervention Agency that first gets mentioned in Deadly Assassin. Alternatively, the Division might be a deep covert branch of the CIA. We can't say for sure, but I think it's safe to guess they are the same organization.
The Timeless Child accepts the offer and works for a while in the Division. She is, more than likely, an excellent operative. Sometime during her service, she induces a regeneration that gets her to become the Ruth Doctor.
The Ruth Doctor is given some sort of task by the Division that she can't quite stomach. She decides to quit. Of course, you can't truly quit the Division. You know too much and they would never let you return to a normal life on Gallifrey. So she has to hide. Another agent of the Division has also become disgusted with his work and hides with her. They steal a faulty TARDIS and hide on Earth for a while. Until, eventually, the Division catch up with them. The events of Fugitive of the Judoon transpire.
Naturally enough, the Division will apprehend the Ruth Doctor. She can only run away for so long. When the Division does catch her, they know they have to do something radical to get her to forget all the dirty work she has done for them. A simple memory wipe won't be enough. Or, perhaps they're so mad at her for what she did that they feel she deserves something worse than just being forced to forget this part of her lives. Whatever the case, the very complicated Chameleon Arch Conversion is first induced. The Ruth Doctor is changed into this strange unkillable human known as Brendan. He ekes out his existence as a human which can enable the second stage of the Conversion Process. Brendan is then transformed into the Hartnell Doctor.
It's entirely possible that the Division was so angry with the Ruth Doctor that they didn't even need to make the conversion so complicated. Perhaps they just wanted to punish the Timeless Child by turning her into a human for a bit before finally changing her into a Time Lord. From what we've seen, they certainly seem sadistic enough to do it.
SOME INTERESTING THREADS ARE GETTING TIED
So the real lesson we learn here is: don't piss off the Division! If you're an immortal being, they do have it within their power to take that away from you.
But if we're willing to dig a bit deeper, we can see that Chibnall has actually done some even more brilliant writing than we realize. He hasn't just answered the Question of the Timeless Child and gotten that scene in Brain of Morbius to finally work. He's reconciled, at least, two other continuity issues:
1) Those Matrix predictions regarding the Hybrid have become true. The Master with the Cyberium in his head and his merry band of Cyber-Masters are the combination of two warrior races. They stood within the ruins of Gallifrey. That's, pretty much, what the Prophecy said.
The Matrix strongly implied that the Hybrid was a single creature, of course. But, as they said in Hell Bent, the prophecy is fairly vague. Perhaps. because the Cyber-Masters do almost seem to be more of an extension of the Cyberium-infested Master rather than separate beings onto themselves, we can almost count them as being just one entity manifested in several forms. It's all pretty subjective. But the basic essence of the Prophecy of the Hybrid does play out in The Timeless Children. Which is pretty cool.
However, there is something even cooler:
2) The idea of how the Doctor is half-human is also finally explained. He has just the vaguest memories of his time as Brendan still floating around. Which means he was, to all intents and purposes, a human for a while. Aspects of Brendan's physiology might even re-manifest themselves from time-to-time. Which is why the Master sees a human retina when examining the image of Doctor Eight. If you really want to dig deep, this may also account for the Doctor having only one heart during his first two incarnations. Another trace of Brendan.
"I'm half human - on my mother's side!" even makes a sort of sense. Brendan's adopted father does seem to be a Time Lord waiting for him to live out his life before torturing him in the back office. Whereas his adopted mother appears to be a human.
This second point, to me, is super-duper-ultra-mega cool. I'm not sure if this was all intentional on Chibber's behalf. But it just might be. Look at all the work he went to just to get Brain of Morbius to make sense. He might have also been working on the half-human issue at the same time. If he was, this makes him a pretty awesome writer.
Chib-bashers should take note of this. You may have severely underestimated this man's greatness.
JUST A FEW MORE QUESTIONS....
One of the questions I see buzzing about the fan groups is: "I am still a bit confused about Brendan" (or words to that effect). I actually think the somewhat scant information we were given about him in The Timeless Children was the result of smart writing. Chibnall had a lot to cover in that final episode and realized the info dump had gotten big enough before delving too deeply into Brendan's full story. He gave us just enough info to understand that Brendan is, somehow, a previous incarnation of the Doctor. And that was all we needed, for now. A more extensive explanation will be given in the future.
We were supplied with several strong visual clues to indicate that there is something different about this particular incarnation. The biggest one being the shot of Brendan falling to his apparent death in Ascension of the Cybermen. That sequence was duplicated with the very first incarnation of the Timeless Child in the next episode. Note how differently things play out with this in the next scene. For the Original Timeless Child, she induces her first regeneration. But Brendan does more of a Captain-Jack-Style recovery. He just suddenly starts breathing again. The variation on how they recover from their death plummets seems quite intentional to me.
To me, it indicates that there is something very different going on with the Brendan incarnation. I believe that Brendan is part of a very complex Chameleon Arch conversion.
If you're trying to turn a Time Lord into something with a simpler biology like, say, a human - that's nothing too complicated. Just put on the silly hat that hangs from the TARDIS ceiling, writhe in pain for a few minutes and then: Boom! You're a human, now.
But to go from something complex like the Timeless Child to something almost equally complicated like a Time Lord is a more protracted process. One that seems to involve getting the Timeless Child to live the life of a human who is resistant to injury but still ages to death. As Brendan reaches the end of his life, the Time Lords can then execute the last part of the Chameleon Arch Conversion. This is what we see happening in "the back office scene" during the final two episodes of the season. This is not just a memory wipe happening. The Timeless Child is also completing the process of getting her biology re-written. She will regenerate into Baby Hartnell and grow up thinking she is now just a Time Lord. Her physiology will, quite naturally, confirm this.
Aside from a few fragmented memories, all traces of her past lives are gone now. She is, to all intents and purposes, a roguish Gallifreyan who pretentiously calls himself the Doctor. He will eventually go to the Academy and just barely manage to graduate. Whereupon he will receive various biological advantages that turn him into a true Time Lord. Ironically enough, he was the one responsible for first creating those biological advantages. He just no longer knows this because the Time Lords changed the nature of who he is and erased his memory in the process.
So, yes, Eleven would have died at the end of Time of the Doctor had he not been bestowed with a new regeneration cycle. Because now he is just a Time Lord. The immortality of the Timeless Child has been taken away from him.
THE RUTH DOCTOR TIE-IN
The big question is: why did the Time Lords choose to do this to the Timeless Child? What crime did she commit to get them this irritated with her?
Again, the answer is given to us if we're willing to look for it. In the season finale, we are shown a flashback sequence where the Timeless Child is being invited to join the Division. I'm guessing the Division will later come to be known as the Celestial Intervention Agency that first gets mentioned in Deadly Assassin. Alternatively, the Division might be a deep covert branch of the CIA. We can't say for sure, but I think it's safe to guess they are the same organization.
The Timeless Child accepts the offer and works for a while in the Division. She is, more than likely, an excellent operative. Sometime during her service, she induces a regeneration that gets her to become the Ruth Doctor.
The Ruth Doctor is given some sort of task by the Division that she can't quite stomach. She decides to quit. Of course, you can't truly quit the Division. You know too much and they would never let you return to a normal life on Gallifrey. So she has to hide. Another agent of the Division has also become disgusted with his work and hides with her. They steal a faulty TARDIS and hide on Earth for a while. Until, eventually, the Division catch up with them. The events of Fugitive of the Judoon transpire.
Naturally enough, the Division will apprehend the Ruth Doctor. She can only run away for so long. When the Division does catch her, they know they have to do something radical to get her to forget all the dirty work she has done for them. A simple memory wipe won't be enough. Or, perhaps they're so mad at her for what she did that they feel she deserves something worse than just being forced to forget this part of her lives. Whatever the case, the very complicated Chameleon Arch Conversion is first induced. The Ruth Doctor is changed into this strange unkillable human known as Brendan. He ekes out his existence as a human which can enable the second stage of the Conversion Process. Brendan is then transformed into the Hartnell Doctor.
It's entirely possible that the Division was so angry with the Ruth Doctor that they didn't even need to make the conversion so complicated. Perhaps they just wanted to punish the Timeless Child by turning her into a human for a bit before finally changing her into a Time Lord. From what we've seen, they certainly seem sadistic enough to do it.
SOME INTERESTING THREADS ARE GETTING TIED
So the real lesson we learn here is: don't piss off the Division! If you're an immortal being, they do have it within their power to take that away from you.
But if we're willing to dig a bit deeper, we can see that Chibnall has actually done some even more brilliant writing than we realize. He hasn't just answered the Question of the Timeless Child and gotten that scene in Brain of Morbius to finally work. He's reconciled, at least, two other continuity issues:
1) Those Matrix predictions regarding the Hybrid have become true. The Master with the Cyberium in his head and his merry band of Cyber-Masters are the combination of two warrior races. They stood within the ruins of Gallifrey. That's, pretty much, what the Prophecy said.
The Matrix strongly implied that the Hybrid was a single creature, of course. But, as they said in Hell Bent, the prophecy is fairly vague. Perhaps. because the Cyber-Masters do almost seem to be more of an extension of the Cyberium-infested Master rather than separate beings onto themselves, we can almost count them as being just one entity manifested in several forms. It's all pretty subjective. But the basic essence of the Prophecy of the Hybrid does play out in The Timeless Children. Which is pretty cool.
However, there is something even cooler:
2) The idea of how the Doctor is half-human is also finally explained. He has just the vaguest memories of his time as Brendan still floating around. Which means he was, to all intents and purposes, a human for a while. Aspects of Brendan's physiology might even re-manifest themselves from time-to-time. Which is why the Master sees a human retina when examining the image of Doctor Eight. If you really want to dig deep, this may also account for the Doctor having only one heart during his first two incarnations. Another trace of Brendan.
"I'm half human - on my mother's side!" even makes a sort of sense. Brendan's adopted father does seem to be a Time Lord waiting for him to live out his life before torturing him in the back office. Whereas his adopted mother appears to be a human.
This second point, to me, is super-duper-ultra-mega cool. I'm not sure if this was all intentional on Chibber's behalf. But it just might be. Look at all the work he went to just to get Brain of Morbius to make sense. He might have also been working on the half-human issue at the same time. If he was, this makes him a pretty awesome writer.
Chib-bashers should take note of this. You may have severely underestimated this man's greatness.
JUST A FEW MORE QUESTIONS....
Okay, so I have tried to extrapolate and come up with some solutions to the mysteries Series Twelve has not fully solved. I do believe we will get fuller explanations in the days to come. Some of what I've posed here might even line up with what Chibnall will eventually reveal.
There are, however, two more points I wish to ponder:
1) I did absolutely love The Lone Cyberman. He was one of the most awesome villains the show ever created. To me, he was as great as the Cyber Leader in Earthshock. I don't say that too much about any villain.
I loved The Lone Cyberman so much that I was really sad to see he got killed. I was hoping for a return appearance some time down the road. I get why he had to go, though. It sets up the solution to the problem the Master creates with his Cyber-Masters. Is it just me, by the way, or did that final confrontation with the Master and the Doctor feel just a little bit like when the Doctor faced down Stor in Invasion of Time?
Probably just me!
Here's my real point: we may not actually be done with The Lone Cyberman. He is, most definitely destroyed - so he has no future. But his origins are still not entirely clear. Particularly since the "Brendan is Ashad" theory didn't ring true. We did get enough information on him that if he is never touched upon again, I feel satisfied. But might it be possible that we do get a story sometime in the future that looks more thoroughly into his past?
It may just get explored. There seems to be enough teases in those last three episodes of the season to indicate Chibnall is not done with him, yet. It would create some interesting conflict if the Doctor, somehow, finds herself meeting Ashad before his conversion (or, more appropriately, half-conversion). She knows she can do nothing to stop it happening. The future has already been written.
I think there is still more to come, here. Or, more accurately, I'm hoping there is more to come. I really do love that Lone Cyberman and need to see him again!
2) The Master really does seem to be in a really inescapable situation. Is he finally done for? To this, I say: "The man got burnt to a crisp on Sarn and still lived to fight another day! He's coming back. He's indestructible - the whole Universe knows that!"
More than likely, he made it to another TARDIS lying around at the Citadel. The Doctor and the Dhawan Master will probably clash a few more times before Jodie bows out. I'm even hoping Dhawan keeps going like Ainley did and fights a few other incarnations after her. I think he might already be my new fave Master. He is so damned fun to watch!
The fact that the Master now has the Cyberium in his head does create some complications. Perhaps, after his escape, he starts having second thoughts about this decision. The Cyberium might even be trying to control him so he now wants to extract it. My guess is: our next Master story might bear some resemblance to Survival. Where the central thrust of the story is the Master trying to undo a process that has changed his physiology.
We'll have to wait and see. But I'm pretty sure the Master is far from dead. And I think Sacha Dhawan will be doing, at least, a few more turns in the role.
All right. Seriously, I am done with my Series Twelve speculations. I will get back to my real intentions, now. Some more Dalek stories will get reconciled.
Oh wait. The Blog's anniversary is just around the corner. I usually do a special entry that day....
Damn it!
There are, however, two more points I wish to ponder:
1) I did absolutely love The Lone Cyberman. He was one of the most awesome villains the show ever created. To me, he was as great as the Cyber Leader in Earthshock. I don't say that too much about any villain.
I loved The Lone Cyberman so much that I was really sad to see he got killed. I was hoping for a return appearance some time down the road. I get why he had to go, though. It sets up the solution to the problem the Master creates with his Cyber-Masters. Is it just me, by the way, or did that final confrontation with the Master and the Doctor feel just a little bit like when the Doctor faced down Stor in Invasion of Time?
Probably just me!
Here's my real point: we may not actually be done with The Lone Cyberman. He is, most definitely destroyed - so he has no future. But his origins are still not entirely clear. Particularly since the "Brendan is Ashad" theory didn't ring true. We did get enough information on him that if he is never touched upon again, I feel satisfied. But might it be possible that we do get a story sometime in the future that looks more thoroughly into his past?
It may just get explored. There seems to be enough teases in those last three episodes of the season to indicate Chibnall is not done with him, yet. It would create some interesting conflict if the Doctor, somehow, finds herself meeting Ashad before his conversion (or, more appropriately, half-conversion). She knows she can do nothing to stop it happening. The future has already been written.
I think there is still more to come, here. Or, more accurately, I'm hoping there is more to come. I really do love that Lone Cyberman and need to see him again!
2) The Master really does seem to be in a really inescapable situation. Is he finally done for? To this, I say: "The man got burnt to a crisp on Sarn and still lived to fight another day! He's coming back. He's indestructible - the whole Universe knows that!"
More than likely, he made it to another TARDIS lying around at the Citadel. The Doctor and the Dhawan Master will probably clash a few more times before Jodie bows out. I'm even hoping Dhawan keeps going like Ainley did and fights a few other incarnations after her. I think he might already be my new fave Master. He is so damned fun to watch!
The fact that the Master now has the Cyberium in his head does create some complications. Perhaps, after his escape, he starts having second thoughts about this decision. The Cyberium might even be trying to control him so he now wants to extract it. My guess is: our next Master story might bear some resemblance to Survival. Where the central thrust of the story is the Master trying to undo a process that has changed his physiology.
We'll have to wait and see. But I'm pretty sure the Master is far from dead. And I think Sacha Dhawan will be doing, at least, a few more turns in the role.
All right. Seriously, I am done with my Series Twelve speculations. I will get back to my real intentions, now. Some more Dalek stories will get reconciled.
Oh wait. The Blog's anniversary is just around the corner. I usually do a special entry that day....
Damn it!
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