Classic!Who s8-The Claws of Axos
Hello! *waves* Here is a review!
WThe Claws of Axos was a pretty good ep. It had fun secondary characters working as an addition to the usual team: random American agent Bill Filer, who was a bit action-y, friendly with Jo and the outsider to side-eye the Master and the Doctor working together all like "you sure about those two?", and government arsehole Chinn who just served as obnoxious agent with cue comic relief. Chinn was thoroughly and delightfully despicable-annoying, narrow-minded, greedy, overly ambitious yet highly mediocre, and getting very nicely trolled by his own superior, who was not above reminding him he was nothing. Then he ran off to play little head of things and soothe his wounded ego. Bless XD He was fun.
The plot was nice; the Axons were interesting aliens, the idea of axonite as a thinking molecule capable of recreating any given item was quite fascinating. Naturally it appealed hugely to human greed, whereas the Doctor was like "wait, wait, stop that. Can you seriously not smell the trap? …no?". It was a no.
So, good plot. Who am I kidding, mostly we all care about the Master here ^_^ The Master was both a prisoner and an ally of the Axons, only to turn against them as promptly as possible, which was very nice; obviously he only serves his own interests, and that of trolling the Doctor, which is only to be expected of him. The way the episode unfolded in that regard was interesting, as in, for a rather long part the Master and the Doctor never ran into each other and were each doing their thing. They were in the Axon ship together, but never saw each other, left at different times, and by the time the Master got captured by UNIT, the Doctor was off again. That involved the Master being directly confronted to the Brigadier, which had never happened before, so the clashing of those two characters and will was rather interesting. They had to work together against the Axons-common interests ftw. There was the most hilarious part in which the Master was working with the aid of the TARDIS and copiously badmouthing it.
Then the Doctor came back, and we had more Master/Doctor working together! It seriously happens all the time, and don't tell me they don't love it! (If s9 makes Twelve and Missy work together in a good way I'll be crowing with joy, but that is another question.) Others were faintly uncomfortable; Filer is downright not liking the look of them. Jo is like "Oh, no, stop it". Then the Doctor leaves with the Master, making everybody else believe he's abandoning them to save the skins of the two Time Lords present-only telling Jo he will miss her. He also plays the game with the Master: cue very interesting, delightfully edgy scene I could quote three quarters of, mostly for the parts about being allies and their fates being united, yadda yadda can it get any more shippy? I doubt it. It has a lot of tension, the Doctor being unhappy and the Master assessing him, but the subtext seriously. Then the Doctor carries on to make the Axons think he can ally himself with them for the sake of siding with the winning side. He is just playing the cynic through and through, and the most delightful thing about this is the way you can tell the Master is not quite buying any of it, yet he plays along with the Doctor's game up until his own security goes on the line. Then the Doctor does Da Clever Trick and gets everyone trapped in a time loop with a Dramatic Sacrifice to go with it-just in time to avoid UNIT getting butchered by the Axons'… servant creatures? Which seriously looked so freaking terrible by the way. Except that naturally, the Doctor himself miraculously escaped, and the Master also did because he just does that. Also, the dramatic effect was completely ruined by the shot of the Doctor crammed in the console room with a bunch of the servant creatures whose costumes were just really that bad-looking XD
Then it was Return of the Prodigal Time Lord on Earth, because the Master might have got the TARDIS to work again, but the Time Lords had still set it to automatically return to Earth. Woe, stuck to one little planet!
Next up is Colony in Space, with TIME LORDS, the TARDIS working again and super-tense first trip in space for Jo! I've only seen like ten minutes of it but I'm a gleeful mess.
Epic lines:
Three: "Yes, tremendous material advantages, but I doubt if even Axonite could increase the growth of human common sense."
Chinn: "Minister? Will you scramble, or shall I, sir?"
Minister: "Just your report, Chinn. I'm sure that will be quite garbled enough."
Minister: "Just remember, it's your head on the block, Chinn, not mine"
Chinn [to Winser, five minutes later]: "But understand, the slightest hint of delay or sabotage, it's your head on the block, not mine!"
Hardiman: "Are you trying to tell me you can absorb the total output of this complex in a police box?"
Master [pauses]: "Yes."
Master: "Oh, I suppose you can take the normal precautions against nuclear blast, like, er, sticky tape on the windows and that sort of thing."
Master: "My dear Brigadier, I promised to help you, not sort out all your problems."
Master [in the TARDIS]: "Oh, hopeless! Overweight, under-powered old museum piece! / You may as well try to fly a second hand gas stove!"
[later] "Now then, you old antique, keep working!"
Three [with cue hand gestures]: "Well, it's perfectly simple, Brigadier. A time loop is, er. Well, it's a time loop. One passes continually through the same points in time. Passes through the same. Yes." (Wibbly wobbly timey wimey?
Brigadier: "This time loop…" [pulls a face] "…thing."
Three [with all the perfect last lines]: "It seems that I'm some kind of a galactic yo-yo!"
WThe Claws of Axos was a pretty good ep. It had fun secondary characters working as an addition to the usual team: random American agent Bill Filer, who was a bit action-y, friendly with Jo and the outsider to side-eye the Master and the Doctor working together all like "you sure about those two?", and government arsehole Chinn who just served as obnoxious agent with cue comic relief. Chinn was thoroughly and delightfully despicable-annoying, narrow-minded, greedy, overly ambitious yet highly mediocre, and getting very nicely trolled by his own superior, who was not above reminding him he was nothing. Then he ran off to play little head of things and soothe his wounded ego. Bless XD He was fun.
The plot was nice; the Axons were interesting aliens, the idea of axonite as a thinking molecule capable of recreating any given item was quite fascinating. Naturally it appealed hugely to human greed, whereas the Doctor was like "wait, wait, stop that. Can you seriously not smell the trap? …no?". It was a no.
So, good plot. Who am I kidding, mostly we all care about the Master here ^_^ The Master was both a prisoner and an ally of the Axons, only to turn against them as promptly as possible, which was very nice; obviously he only serves his own interests, and that of trolling the Doctor, which is only to be expected of him. The way the episode unfolded in that regard was interesting, as in, for a rather long part the Master and the Doctor never ran into each other and were each doing their thing. They were in the Axon ship together, but never saw each other, left at different times, and by the time the Master got captured by UNIT, the Doctor was off again. That involved the Master being directly confronted to the Brigadier, which had never happened before, so the clashing of those two characters and will was rather interesting. They had to work together against the Axons-common interests ftw. There was the most hilarious part in which the Master was working with the aid of the TARDIS and copiously badmouthing it.
Then the Doctor came back, and we had more Master/Doctor working together! It seriously happens all the time, and don't tell me they don't love it! (If s9 makes Twelve and Missy work together in a good way I'll be crowing with joy, but that is another question.) Others were faintly uncomfortable; Filer is downright not liking the look of them. Jo is like "Oh, no, stop it". Then the Doctor leaves with the Master, making everybody else believe he's abandoning them to save the skins of the two Time Lords present-only telling Jo he will miss her. He also plays the game with the Master: cue very interesting, delightfully edgy scene I could quote three quarters of, mostly for the parts about being allies and their fates being united, yadda yadda can it get any more shippy? I doubt it. It has a lot of tension, the Doctor being unhappy and the Master assessing him, but the subtext seriously. Then the Doctor carries on to make the Axons think he can ally himself with them for the sake of siding with the winning side. He is just playing the cynic through and through, and the most delightful thing about this is the way you can tell the Master is not quite buying any of it, yet he plays along with the Doctor's game up until his own security goes on the line. Then the Doctor does Da Clever Trick and gets everyone trapped in a time loop with a Dramatic Sacrifice to go with it-just in time to avoid UNIT getting butchered by the Axons'… servant creatures? Which seriously looked so freaking terrible by the way. Except that naturally, the Doctor himself miraculously escaped, and the Master also did because he just does that. Also, the dramatic effect was completely ruined by the shot of the Doctor crammed in the console room with a bunch of the servant creatures whose costumes were just really that bad-looking XD
Then it was Return of the Prodigal Time Lord on Earth, because the Master might have got the TARDIS to work again, but the Time Lords had still set it to automatically return to Earth. Woe, stuck to one little planet!
Next up is Colony in Space, with TIME LORDS, the TARDIS working again and super-tense first trip in space for Jo! I've only seen like ten minutes of it but I'm a gleeful mess.
Epic lines:
Three: "Yes, tremendous material advantages, but I doubt if even Axonite could increase the growth of human common sense."
Chinn: "Minister? Will you scramble, or shall I, sir?"
Minister: "Just your report, Chinn. I'm sure that will be quite garbled enough."
Minister: "Just remember, it's your head on the block, Chinn, not mine"
Chinn [to Winser, five minutes later]: "But understand, the slightest hint of delay or sabotage, it's your head on the block, not mine!"
Hardiman: "Are you trying to tell me you can absorb the total output of this complex in a police box?"
Master [pauses]: "Yes."
Master: "Oh, I suppose you can take the normal precautions against nuclear blast, like, er, sticky tape on the windows and that sort of thing."
Master: "My dear Brigadier, I promised to help you, not sort out all your problems."
Master [in the TARDIS]: "Oh, hopeless! Overweight, under-powered old museum piece! / You may as well try to fly a second hand gas stove!"
[later] "Now then, you old antique, keep working!"
Three [with cue hand gestures]: "Well, it's perfectly simple, Brigadier. A time loop is, er. Well, it's a time loop. One passes continually through the same points in time. Passes through the same. Yes." (Wibbly wobbly timey wimey?
Brigadier: "This time loop…" [pulls a face] "…thing."
Three [with all the perfect last lines]: "It seems that I'm some kind of a galactic yo-yo!"