Utopia Reaction Reaction Post
I missed participating in the original discussions following Utopia but having read some very divergent views I thought a meta-post might be interesting discussing those views and my reaction to them
Derek Jacobi: Everyone agrees Derek Jacobi was very good. Mind you it would appear to be the only thing everyone agrees on.
John Simm: daniel_saunders ( Daniel's main post here) and I appear to be alone in our dislike of John Simm's performance. We would also appear to be alone in never having seen Life on Mars which makes me wonder if others are projecting something from that performance on to this. Where the performance is discussed it seems generally to be acknowledged as OTT but deliberately so: "That John Simm ... chews the scenery with gusto might have struck a wrong note, but it's obviously intended to mirror Tennant's post-regeneration whirl" (from sixstreets - sixstreet's post here); "And by the end you'll get a Master who's carefully shaped to be a mirror image of this Doctor: re-energized, manic, gleeful, ..." (jblum - jblum's post here)) so it looks like the general reading is that this is intended to be a "mirror" Master for the Tenth Doctor - things will therefore presumably (meaning they had better) become clearer in the coming weeks.
Why did the Master Regenerate? (as in "was this a good idea?", "what was the plot function") frankly who knows. Maybe Derek Jacobi was too expensive for more than one episode. Maybe its important that the Doctor not recognise the Master next time they meet. Maybe its prejudice against older actors. I doubt that it was to convince the audience that he was really a Time Lord but its a thesis offered by some. I'm not actually terribly interested, but I'm interested that some people (primarily on the JadePagodaTV mailing list) are so interested, and in some cases upset, about it. It would have been nice to keep Jacobi though...
Was bringing back the Master a good Idea? Well we all agree (with the honourable exceptions of daniel_saunders and Steve Kitson over on JadePagodaTV) that it pleased our inner fan-boy and some were won over despite deep misgivings (jblum). I think the jury is out. Are we in for a run of rather lame Doctor v. Master stories in the manner of the Pertwee and JNT eras? Can the production team overcome the obvious shortcomings of the Master: motivationless, cardboard cut-out villian, becomes increasingly laughable each time the Doctor defeats him. I'm not convinced he's shown as motivationless here parrot_knight gives an interesting justification for why he might have had it in for Chanthro (although I'm not sure that was his intention) and several people feel that the Master/Doctor interaction was well characterised at the end (e.g. neadods - neadod's post is here but you'll need to look in the comments). I imagine the Master's demand that the Doctor address him by his name and the Doctor's capitulation have sent slashers the length and breadth of LJ into a frenzy. Ultimately we're going to have to see how this plays out over the couple of weeks (mindless Daleks v. Cybermen style nostalgia fan-pleasing or interesting character exploration?)
Captain Jack: The return of Captain Jack seems to be welcomed in direct proportion to how much you like Captain Jack. Mind you, I've not seen anyone suggest he was better in Torchwood than here.
World-building: Continuing to complain about the lack of interesting world-building in New Who begins to seem a bit pointless. The production team have made it clear this is a deliberate stylistic choice (not incompetence) so we're just going to have to live with it. At least this new world wasn't a satire on the early 21st century as pretty much all the other futures have been. Where it's discussed it's widely considered a Blake's 7 rip-off.
Futurekind and Utopia (dangling plot threads): My guess would be that we won't learn more about who the futurekind are or what the Master was up to with the whole Utopia thing until next year but it will be followed up on then. These plot threads were way too explicitly dangled for it not to have been deliberate (surely? surely?) so I don't think the lack of explanation or resolution can really be held against Utopia.
Pointlessness of building a launch mechanism outside a rocket that can only be operated manually and, in particular, building it within a chamber full of deadly radiation: This is whirling fans territory again and this type of plotting is a flaw in much New Who, in particular Russell T. Davies' episodes. sixstreets has an interesting comparison of Davies and Terry Nation in his Whotopia post "decent dialogue, hung upon a bare bones plot". Discussion on JadePagodaTV has degenerated into an argument about whether a throw-away explanation for this would have improved the episode significantly or only a bit (though at least no one has raised the subjectivity/objectivity debate* - sometime tomorrow I predict) while others are more interested in the plot logic requirement. Plot-logic wise I think it was important to provide an opportunity where the Doctor had to make use of Captain Jack's immortality in order to force a proper discussion between him and Jack about said immortality.
Plot versus Character: No one, so far as I can see, is defending the plot here. But there seems to be a lot of discussion on the individual character based scenes. Was the "swearing scene" pointless (someone on JadePagodaTV) or "genuinely funny" (sixstreets again). Was the running Captain Jack flirting joke stupid (can't find who)? I rather liked all this, but maybe that's just me. JadePagodaTV is almost had a rather intersting discussion on the comparison of human Master and human Doctor noting that the human Master appears more "genuinely good" than the John Smith or, at the very least, not inherently evil. It would be nice, as usual, if that went somewhere
YANA: was pretty stupid even as acronyms for the Master's name goes and is widely derided although sixstreets seems to have enjoyed it for the moment. There is interesting speculation in the comments of someone's post that the Face of Boe might have been instrumental in naming the Professor Yana (apparently both come from/believe they come from the Silver Devastation). If this is turns out to be correct then you may see a lot of us eating our words.
Theme/Connections/Arc Plot: Was this another mix-n-match episode? Captain Jack! End of Time! the Master! or something more coherent? Henry Potts on JadePagodaTV was hoping that the abandoment of Jack would turn out to have, in some fashion, triggered the sequence of events leading up to Utopia. I personally thought we had a thematic, but not plot link (especially given Davies' dislike of "arcs"). The thematic link being surviving in particular the surviving the logical end of our species (Chanthro, the Doctor, the Master, the last Humans and, presumably, Jack) and discussions touched on whether surviving was a good thing (Doctor/Jack) and of course the final confrontation hinges around the horror of finding out you are not, in fact, the last. There's a lot more could have been mined out of that theme but probably not in 45 minutes.
*subjectivity/objectivity is pretty much the curse of the Jade Pagoda in all its forms, especially JPPhilosophyChat (which may be defunct these days).
Derek Jacobi: Everyone agrees Derek Jacobi was very good. Mind you it would appear to be the only thing everyone agrees on.
John Simm: daniel_saunders ( Daniel's main post here) and I appear to be alone in our dislike of John Simm's performance. We would also appear to be alone in never having seen Life on Mars which makes me wonder if others are projecting something from that performance on to this. Where the performance is discussed it seems generally to be acknowledged as OTT but deliberately so: "That John Simm ... chews the scenery with gusto might have struck a wrong note, but it's obviously intended to mirror Tennant's post-regeneration whirl" (from sixstreets - sixstreet's post here); "And by the end you'll get a Master who's carefully shaped to be a mirror image of this Doctor: re-energized, manic, gleeful, ..." (jblum - jblum's post here)) so it looks like the general reading is that this is intended to be a "mirror" Master for the Tenth Doctor - things will therefore presumably (meaning they had better) become clearer in the coming weeks.
Why did the Master Regenerate? (as in "was this a good idea?", "what was the plot function") frankly who knows. Maybe Derek Jacobi was too expensive for more than one episode. Maybe its important that the Doctor not recognise the Master next time they meet. Maybe its prejudice against older actors. I doubt that it was to convince the audience that he was really a Time Lord but its a thesis offered by some. I'm not actually terribly interested, but I'm interested that some people (primarily on the JadePagodaTV mailing list) are so interested, and in some cases upset, about it. It would have been nice to keep Jacobi though...
Was bringing back the Master a good Idea? Well we all agree (with the honourable exceptions of daniel_saunders and Steve Kitson over on JadePagodaTV) that it pleased our inner fan-boy and some were won over despite deep misgivings (jblum). I think the jury is out. Are we in for a run of rather lame Doctor v. Master stories in the manner of the Pertwee and JNT eras? Can the production team overcome the obvious shortcomings of the Master: motivationless, cardboard cut-out villian, becomes increasingly laughable each time the Doctor defeats him. I'm not convinced he's shown as motivationless here parrot_knight gives an interesting justification for why he might have had it in for Chanthro (although I'm not sure that was his intention) and several people feel that the Master/Doctor interaction was well characterised at the end (e.g. neadods - neadod's post is here but you'll need to look in the comments). I imagine the Master's demand that the Doctor address him by his name and the Doctor's capitulation have sent slashers the length and breadth of LJ into a frenzy. Ultimately we're going to have to see how this plays out over the couple of weeks (mindless Daleks v. Cybermen style nostalgia fan-pleasing or interesting character exploration?)
Captain Jack: The return of Captain Jack seems to be welcomed in direct proportion to how much you like Captain Jack. Mind you, I've not seen anyone suggest he was better in Torchwood than here.
World-building: Continuing to complain about the lack of interesting world-building in New Who begins to seem a bit pointless. The production team have made it clear this is a deliberate stylistic choice (not incompetence) so we're just going to have to live with it. At least this new world wasn't a satire on the early 21st century as pretty much all the other futures have been. Where it's discussed it's widely considered a Blake's 7 rip-off.
Futurekind and Utopia (dangling plot threads): My guess would be that we won't learn more about who the futurekind are or what the Master was up to with the whole Utopia thing until next year but it will be followed up on then. These plot threads were way too explicitly dangled for it not to have been deliberate (surely? surely?) so I don't think the lack of explanation or resolution can really be held against Utopia.
Pointlessness of building a launch mechanism outside a rocket that can only be operated manually and, in particular, building it within a chamber full of deadly radiation: This is whirling fans territory again and this type of plotting is a flaw in much New Who, in particular Russell T. Davies' episodes. sixstreets has an interesting comparison of Davies and Terry Nation in his Whotopia post "decent dialogue, hung upon a bare bones plot". Discussion on JadePagodaTV has degenerated into an argument about whether a throw-away explanation for this would have improved the episode significantly or only a bit (though at least no one has raised the subjectivity/objectivity debate* - sometime tomorrow I predict) while others are more interested in the plot logic requirement. Plot-logic wise I think it was important to provide an opportunity where the Doctor had to make use of Captain Jack's immortality in order to force a proper discussion between him and Jack about said immortality.
Plot versus Character: No one, so far as I can see, is defending the plot here. But there seems to be a lot of discussion on the individual character based scenes. Was the "swearing scene" pointless (someone on JadePagodaTV) or "genuinely funny" (sixstreets again). Was the running Captain Jack flirting joke stupid (can't find who)? I rather liked all this, but maybe that's just me. JadePagodaTV is almost had a rather intersting discussion on the comparison of human Master and human Doctor noting that the human Master appears more "genuinely good" than the John Smith or, at the very least, not inherently evil. It would be nice, as usual, if that went somewhere
YANA: was pretty stupid even as acronyms for the Master's name goes and is widely derided although sixstreets seems to have enjoyed it for the moment. There is interesting speculation in the comments of someone's post that the Face of Boe might have been instrumental in naming the Professor Yana (apparently both come from/believe they come from the Silver Devastation). If this is turns out to be correct then you may see a lot of us eating our words.
Theme/Connections/Arc Plot: Was this another mix-n-match episode? Captain Jack! End of Time! the Master! or something more coherent? Henry Potts on JadePagodaTV was hoping that the abandoment of Jack would turn out to have, in some fashion, triggered the sequence of events leading up to Utopia. I personally thought we had a thematic, but not plot link (especially given Davies' dislike of "arcs"). The thematic link being surviving in particular the surviving the logical end of our species (Chanthro, the Doctor, the Master, the last Humans and, presumably, Jack) and discussions touched on whether surviving was a good thing (Doctor/Jack) and of course the final confrontation hinges around the horror of finding out you are not, in fact, the last. There's a lot more could have been mined out of that theme but probably not in 45 minutes.
*subjectivity/objectivity is pretty much the curse of the Jade Pagoda in all its forms, especially JPPhilosophyChat (which may be defunct these days).