Classic Who round-up: the Third Doctor
Whoo, I vowed to finish off the Third Doctor's run before the end of the year and I made it!
Despite the fact that the Third Doctor was the first Classic Who Doctor I was introduced to I’d actually hadn’t seen too much of his run; just a few serials here and there, but never a whole season. And there’s a lot to get through when you remember his tenure was the second longest, after Four. It also doesn't help when most of the serials were six or seven episodes long. How they managed to sustain a plot over seven episodes is beyond me.
Before I started on this epic quest to watch every Classic Who episode, I didn't mind Three that much. In my mind, he was the Doctor with the velvet jackets and the frilly shirts, who used Venusian aikido, and who said "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" or variations thereof more times than I could count. He wasn't a favourite of mine and now that I'm done his run, he still isn't. Actually, I came to realize that Three was, well, a bit of a jerk. Not a jerk like One, who was cranky and impatient, but a jerk in that Three was always acting like he was the smartest guy who ever lived and everyone around him were fools. I suppose that under the circumstances - exiled on Earth with a broken TARDIS and blocks in his memory - that Three had every right to be annoyed, but you'd think he would learn some manners as time went on. I think he did manage to be kinder towards his last season, but everything else before that was sort of aggravating.
And he was too action-y! If there was one thing I couldn't stand about Three, it was that damn Venusian aikido. For a character who’s all about using his smarts against his enemies, Three was suddenly very active, physically. Okay, I guess you could argue this incarnation was younger than the first two so he was more able to do stuff like aikido, but it got very annoying very fast. Especially because every time he did a move he had to do the karate chop yell. And it was only something this incarnation did; aikido hasn't come up since. Three seemed very obsessed with Venus for no apparent reason. All of his gadgets bugged me too, especially the second car that showed up in his last season, but it occurred to me that building all of this stuff was how Three coped with being stuck on Earth. He couldn't travel properly, at least for a few seasons, so he made little gadgets for Bessie, his yellow roadster, or made an entirely new car that could freakin' fly!
I think Three is at a disadvantage compared to the other Doctors. With most of his stories set on Earth, there were only so many plots you could come up with, but more about that in a second.
Third Doctor round-up:
-Companions: Across five seasons, Three had three official Companions along with a cast of semi-regulars. That's one thing Three has over the other Doctors: recurring characters who weren't quite Companions but they still supported him. Anyway, first up was Liz. She sort of falls into the category of Companion which I neither liked nor disliked; she was just there. It doesn't help that she was only around for one season and she never got to travel in the TARDIS. I think the problem with Liz was she was smart. Not that a Companion should be dumb, but with the Doctor around, it's hard for intelligent characters to shine. They handled it nicely with Zoe, who was super smart but ignorant about the greater world. Liz didn't have any flaws of the sort so she was mostly forced to stand around while Three figured everything out and that didn't allow her to be a great character. It's no wonder the character decided to leave; she was tired of handing the Doctor test tubes and telling him how great he was. And poor Liz never got a good-bye scene. And then there was Jo. On the scale of Companion likability, Jo lands somewhere near the bottom. She didn't impress me either, though that might be because of how she was written. In contrast to Liz, Jo wasn't the sharpest knife on the kitchen. Oh sure, she was feisty, but she mostly just followed the Doctor around, screamed at things, fell over things, wandered off and was kidnapped (though that's sort of a given if you're going to be a Doctor's Companion), and, unintentionally, flashed her knickers here and there. It also doesn't help that Three treated Jo, well, like she was an idiot. He could go from insulting her to patting her on the cheek and Jo never said a thing. That was what bugged me the most about Three; how he could treat a Companion so unfairly. Jo is also the kind of Companion that could have travelled with the Doctor for the rest of her life and as we all know, that only leads to trouble. I like to think Jo had enough smarts to realize this. She was chatted up by an alien not once, but twice, during her tenure but she always turned them down in favour of travelling with the Doctor. So when she met a guy and fell in love with him, she took a chance and left the Doctor. Because if she hadn't, I doubt she would have had a proper life. That's how I see it anyway. Jo liked travelling with the Doctor, but it wasn't exactly her thing.
So that leaves Sarah Jane and the Brig, two of the most endearing Companions from Classic Who. The Brig has to be the multi-Doctor Companion; he's practically worked with all of the classic Doctors. I think the interesting thing about the Brig was that he was a military man. Protecting people was his main objective and he would do anything to accomplish that task, which inevitably led to conflict with the Doctor. The best example has to be from "The Silurians", when the Brig blows up the Silurians' cave, essentially killing all of them, and it all happens behind the Doctor's back. But you can't deny they have a deep respect for each other, even while the Brig had to put up with Three's crazy shenanigans. The Brig also has one of the greatest lines ever: "Chap with the wings there. Five rounds rapid." Sums him up nicely. If it's threatening the planet, shoot at it, even if you know bullets won't work. :-D
And while I equate Sarah Jane with being a Fourth Doctor Companion, she was introduced in Three's last season as Jo's replacement. After Jo left, I think the Doctor realized he had been a bit unfair with her so he tried to be kinder. Or so it seems to me anyway, when I look at the interaction between Three and Sarah Jane (or Sarah if you prefer; Three never actually called her "Sarah Jane"). He's a lot nicer to her; like, whenever she had questions, he never dismissed them as stupid. You could argue, Three was on the "rebound". After Jo, he needed a friend and just latched onto Sarah Jane, who was quite awesome. She only met the Doctor because she was impersonating her aunt to get a story, which is the interesting thing about Sarah Jane. She wasn't looking to travel in time and space when she met the Doctor, but she really took to it. I think the writers were trying their hardest to make Sarah Jane completely different from Jo. Sarah Jane was more inquisitive, more willing to do things her own way instead of being told to do. Three had an annoying habit of telling Sarah Jane to stay behind where it was safe, but she always ended up getting into trouble anyway. And while Sarah Jane did scream at things, I noticed she was like Victoria. She screamed but then she actually did something afterwards, like run away or beat an alien with a crank or jump on the back of a guy from Crusade times who was trying to attack the Doctor. You can also see the beginnings of the Doctor and Sarah Jane's sort of blasé attitude to trouble, which also leads into "travel with the Doctor forever" territory, but that's more of a thing to discuss for Four's era.
Oh, shout outs to Benton and Mike Yates, two recurring characters who weren't quite Companions, but who were around a lot.
-Enemies: The biggie for this era has to be the Master, everyone's favourite rogue Time Lord. They overused him during Three's second season, but the concept of him clearly works. He's the opposite of the Doctor but he also has a begrudging respect for him, too. I like to think the Master kept attacking Earth because he knew the Doctor would stop him and that's the way he wanted it. The Doctor was the only person in the universe who could come close to his intelligence; it was all a big game for him. The Master's next scheme was always about trying to outsmart the Doctor and if it failed, well, he would always come up with something else. Compared to the Master of now, the Master of old was much more subtle and I kind of miss that. Also introduced this season: Autons, Silurians, Sea Devils, and Sontarans. The first three didn't make huge impacts, but the Silurians and the Sea Devils made repeat appearances later on and the Autons had the honour of kicking off New Who. The Sontarans were a bit more enduring, even if they do look like a potato. :-) Oh, and the Daleks showed up a few times, too. Joy. Have I mentioned I don't like the Daleks?
-Stories: Right, exiled on Earth. For the first three seasons, Three couldn't travel in the TARDIS and if he did, it was because the Time Lords, those cheeky Time Lords, sent him on a mission. The premise of the Doctor being stuck on Earth probably helped the budget, but it made the stories so boring. With the Doctor on Earth, all of the villains had to come to Earth so it seemed like the planet was being invaded every other week by hostile aliens. First off, that just seemed unlikely, and secondly, it made UNIT look incompetent. There was some line from Three about how Earth was drawing attention to itself with its probes and such, which kind of justifies all of these alien visitors, but the universe is a big place and there are other planets to attack you know. That's probably why they had the Time Lords send the Doctor off on so many missions; to take the action away from 20th century Earth. And my god, I couldn't stand that idea either. The Time Lords exiled the Doctor to Earth because he meddled and that's against the rules, and yet, they have no problem sending him off to other planets and interfering? I was so glad when Three got his memory back and a new dematerialization circuit. Yay, freedom! Though, interestingly, Three always went back to Earth in the end. With Jo, she wanted to go back home, but with Sarah Jane, they just sort of ended up back there after finishing off an adventure. And it was during Three's run that we had our first multi-Doctor story! In fact, "The Three Doctors" was the first Classic Who story I ever watched. It definitely made more sense now, after making my way through the First and Second Doctors. And it doesn't suffer from having too many characters running around, which is always nice.
Watching Three regenerate last night, it just raises my anxiety about Ten regenerating tomorrow. And it was interesting to note that Three equated regeneration to death, too. Actually, now that I think about it, that notion has been there from the start. One didn't want to regenerate; dialogue suggests he had held on to his first body for too long, that he probably should have regenerated much sooner. And Two was forced to regenerate. This isn't something a Time Lord does lightly. It may save his life but he loses a part of himself in the process.
So it's on to Four. I've actually seen a majority of his run, but for posterity, I think I'll re-watch most of the serials. But it'll have to wait until later into the New Year. It's time to say good-bye to another Doctor tomorrow.
Despite the fact that the Third Doctor was the first Classic Who Doctor I was introduced to I’d actually hadn’t seen too much of his run; just a few serials here and there, but never a whole season. And there’s a lot to get through when you remember his tenure was the second longest, after Four. It also doesn't help when most of the serials were six or seven episodes long. How they managed to sustain a plot over seven episodes is beyond me.
Before I started on this epic quest to watch every Classic Who episode, I didn't mind Three that much. In my mind, he was the Doctor with the velvet jackets and the frilly shirts, who used Venusian aikido, and who said "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" or variations thereof more times than I could count. He wasn't a favourite of mine and now that I'm done his run, he still isn't. Actually, I came to realize that Three was, well, a bit of a jerk. Not a jerk like One, who was cranky and impatient, but a jerk in that Three was always acting like he was the smartest guy who ever lived and everyone around him were fools. I suppose that under the circumstances - exiled on Earth with a broken TARDIS and blocks in his memory - that Three had every right to be annoyed, but you'd think he would learn some manners as time went on. I think he did manage to be kinder towards his last season, but everything else before that was sort of aggravating.
And he was too action-y! If there was one thing I couldn't stand about Three, it was that damn Venusian aikido. For a character who’s all about using his smarts against his enemies, Three was suddenly very active, physically. Okay, I guess you could argue this incarnation was younger than the first two so he was more able to do stuff like aikido, but it got very annoying very fast. Especially because every time he did a move he had to do the karate chop yell. And it was only something this incarnation did; aikido hasn't come up since. Three seemed very obsessed with Venus for no apparent reason. All of his gadgets bugged me too, especially the second car that showed up in his last season, but it occurred to me that building all of this stuff was how Three coped with being stuck on Earth. He couldn't travel properly, at least for a few seasons, so he made little gadgets for Bessie, his yellow roadster, or made an entirely new car that could freakin' fly!
I think Three is at a disadvantage compared to the other Doctors. With most of his stories set on Earth, there were only so many plots you could come up with, but more about that in a second.
Third Doctor round-up:
-Companions: Across five seasons, Three had three official Companions along with a cast of semi-regulars. That's one thing Three has over the other Doctors: recurring characters who weren't quite Companions but they still supported him. Anyway, first up was Liz. She sort of falls into the category of Companion which I neither liked nor disliked; she was just there. It doesn't help that she was only around for one season and she never got to travel in the TARDIS. I think the problem with Liz was she was smart. Not that a Companion should be dumb, but with the Doctor around, it's hard for intelligent characters to shine. They handled it nicely with Zoe, who was super smart but ignorant about the greater world. Liz didn't have any flaws of the sort so she was mostly forced to stand around while Three figured everything out and that didn't allow her to be a great character. It's no wonder the character decided to leave; she was tired of handing the Doctor test tubes and telling him how great he was. And poor Liz never got a good-bye scene. And then there was Jo. On the scale of Companion likability, Jo lands somewhere near the bottom. She didn't impress me either, though that might be because of how she was written. In contrast to Liz, Jo wasn't the sharpest knife on the kitchen. Oh sure, she was feisty, but she mostly just followed the Doctor around, screamed at things, fell over things, wandered off and was kidnapped (though that's sort of a given if you're going to be a Doctor's Companion), and, unintentionally, flashed her knickers here and there. It also doesn't help that Three treated Jo, well, like she was an idiot. He could go from insulting her to patting her on the cheek and Jo never said a thing. That was what bugged me the most about Three; how he could treat a Companion so unfairly. Jo is also the kind of Companion that could have travelled with the Doctor for the rest of her life and as we all know, that only leads to trouble. I like to think Jo had enough smarts to realize this. She was chatted up by an alien not once, but twice, during her tenure but she always turned them down in favour of travelling with the Doctor. So when she met a guy and fell in love with him, she took a chance and left the Doctor. Because if she hadn't, I doubt she would have had a proper life. That's how I see it anyway. Jo liked travelling with the Doctor, but it wasn't exactly her thing.
So that leaves Sarah Jane and the Brig, two of the most endearing Companions from Classic Who. The Brig has to be the multi-Doctor Companion; he's practically worked with all of the classic Doctors. I think the interesting thing about the Brig was that he was a military man. Protecting people was his main objective and he would do anything to accomplish that task, which inevitably led to conflict with the Doctor. The best example has to be from "The Silurians", when the Brig blows up the Silurians' cave, essentially killing all of them, and it all happens behind the Doctor's back. But you can't deny they have a deep respect for each other, even while the Brig had to put up with Three's crazy shenanigans. The Brig also has one of the greatest lines ever: "Chap with the wings there. Five rounds rapid." Sums him up nicely. If it's threatening the planet, shoot at it, even if you know bullets won't work. :-D
And while I equate Sarah Jane with being a Fourth Doctor Companion, she was introduced in Three's last season as Jo's replacement. After Jo left, I think the Doctor realized he had been a bit unfair with her so he tried to be kinder. Or so it seems to me anyway, when I look at the interaction between Three and Sarah Jane (or Sarah if you prefer; Three never actually called her "Sarah Jane"). He's a lot nicer to her; like, whenever she had questions, he never dismissed them as stupid. You could argue, Three was on the "rebound". After Jo, he needed a friend and just latched onto Sarah Jane, who was quite awesome. She only met the Doctor because she was impersonating her aunt to get a story, which is the interesting thing about Sarah Jane. She wasn't looking to travel in time and space when she met the Doctor, but she really took to it. I think the writers were trying their hardest to make Sarah Jane completely different from Jo. Sarah Jane was more inquisitive, more willing to do things her own way instead of being told to do. Three had an annoying habit of telling Sarah Jane to stay behind where it was safe, but she always ended up getting into trouble anyway. And while Sarah Jane did scream at things, I noticed she was like Victoria. She screamed but then she actually did something afterwards, like run away or beat an alien with a crank or jump on the back of a guy from Crusade times who was trying to attack the Doctor. You can also see the beginnings of the Doctor and Sarah Jane's sort of blasé attitude to trouble, which also leads into "travel with the Doctor forever" territory, but that's more of a thing to discuss for Four's era.
Oh, shout outs to Benton and Mike Yates, two recurring characters who weren't quite Companions, but who were around a lot.
-Enemies: The biggie for this era has to be the Master, everyone's favourite rogue Time Lord. They overused him during Three's second season, but the concept of him clearly works. He's the opposite of the Doctor but he also has a begrudging respect for him, too. I like to think the Master kept attacking Earth because he knew the Doctor would stop him and that's the way he wanted it. The Doctor was the only person in the universe who could come close to his intelligence; it was all a big game for him. The Master's next scheme was always about trying to outsmart the Doctor and if it failed, well, he would always come up with something else. Compared to the Master of now, the Master of old was much more subtle and I kind of miss that. Also introduced this season: Autons, Silurians, Sea Devils, and Sontarans. The first three didn't make huge impacts, but the Silurians and the Sea Devils made repeat appearances later on and the Autons had the honour of kicking off New Who. The Sontarans were a bit more enduring, even if they do look like a potato. :-) Oh, and the Daleks showed up a few times, too. Joy. Have I mentioned I don't like the Daleks?
-Stories: Right, exiled on Earth. For the first three seasons, Three couldn't travel in the TARDIS and if he did, it was because the Time Lords, those cheeky Time Lords, sent him on a mission. The premise of the Doctor being stuck on Earth probably helped the budget, but it made the stories so boring. With the Doctor on Earth, all of the villains had to come to Earth so it seemed like the planet was being invaded every other week by hostile aliens. First off, that just seemed unlikely, and secondly, it made UNIT look incompetent. There was some line from Three about how Earth was drawing attention to itself with its probes and such, which kind of justifies all of these alien visitors, but the universe is a big place and there are other planets to attack you know. That's probably why they had the Time Lords send the Doctor off on so many missions; to take the action away from 20th century Earth. And my god, I couldn't stand that idea either. The Time Lords exiled the Doctor to Earth because he meddled and that's against the rules, and yet, they have no problem sending him off to other planets and interfering? I was so glad when Three got his memory back and a new dematerialization circuit. Yay, freedom! Though, interestingly, Three always went back to Earth in the end. With Jo, she wanted to go back home, but with Sarah Jane, they just sort of ended up back there after finishing off an adventure. And it was during Three's run that we had our first multi-Doctor story! In fact, "The Three Doctors" was the first Classic Who story I ever watched. It definitely made more sense now, after making my way through the First and Second Doctors. And it doesn't suffer from having too many characters running around, which is always nice.
Watching Three regenerate last night, it just raises my anxiety about Ten regenerating tomorrow. And it was interesting to note that Three equated regeneration to death, too. Actually, now that I think about it, that notion has been there from the start. One didn't want to regenerate; dialogue suggests he had held on to his first body for too long, that he probably should have regenerated much sooner. And Two was forced to regenerate. This isn't something a Time Lord does lightly. It may save his life but he loses a part of himself in the process.
So it's on to Four. I've actually seen a majority of his run, but for posterity, I think I'll re-watch most of the serials. But it'll have to wait until later into the New Year. It's time to say good-bye to another Doctor tomorrow.