More Doctor Who Reviews and Some Meta
I’ve been watching Doctor Who episodes again, the amount of them out there I could be at this all year. One thing I’ve noticed is that Pyramids of Mars gets better on repeat viewings and I really noticed how The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit has essentially the same plot owes a lot to it.
Okay, now onto episodes I hadn’t seen before.
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Once you make it past the European actor trying to playing Chinese character (why? Why? Did they not realise that future generations would not be able to watch without cringing) and the rather lame gigantic rat special effects, this is awesome. While Leela is really amusing and Four’s four, it’s Litefoot and Jago that really make this. Oh, they deserve their own show. Bit late for spin-off no. 5 now though.
I did get rather confused with the plot at times. That pig-brained manikin thing was really spooky. Confirmed my suspicions that ventriloquist dummies are evil. And like most other episodes I’ve seen, I really love the historical setting. Mixing sci-fi, horror and history works really well. It is such a shame the moral campaigners got their way and the gothic horror element was removed.
Horror of Fang Rock
It’s an old school Tooth and Claw. Except better. Having a horror plot set on a lighthouse is a brilliant idea being both different and claustrophobic and the smile Ruben the Rutan makes before electrocuting people was genuinely creep. Though what I had heard about the serial had a lot to do with the high death count. Yes, while everyone did die, it wasn’t really any different from Pyramids of Mars or the The Parting of Ways in which everyone pretty much died in those as well.
What I did miss was that I never really got attached to any of the characters that died other than the younger keeper. You don’t really get attached to the characters themselves and Four and Leela never get attached and so there was no emotional resonance to the deaths, which made it rather boring. And thinking about this problem prompted me to come up with my grand companion/doctor theory.
The Grand Companion/Doctor Theory
Starting with Four, he lacks humanity. He’s very clearly alien and does not react to pretty much anything the same way a view would. Now Nine is a different Doctor. You can say he’s very alien, but I don’t think so. I think the way Nine has reacted to the death of his people is very human, he’s become cold, bitter and guarded.
As for Ten, he lacks maturity. Take his “no second chances” philosophy for example. It’s a very childlike and simple way to lead life. Imagine if no-one in the world ever gave a second chance to anyone else: at best we would all be isolated and alone, at worst humanity would have become extinct years ago. As we get older we realises that sometimes we have to give people/things etc a second chance because everyone screw up. It’s essential to the world going around.
So my grand theory based on three Doctors is that the companions that really work, the ones that really gel and make the show something special are the ones that provide what the Doctor lacks. Sarah Jane provided the humanity. She would get upset when something tragic would happen, like the two brothers in Pyramids, but she would also constantly take a more down-to-earth pragmatic approach over the Doctor’s morality. Rose worked with Nine because she was his heart. She wasn’t bitter or guarded; she was willing to give people a go, to talk to the characters that the Doctor would otherwise ignore and willing to disobey the Doctor and cause rips in time in order to save someone she loved.
Ten on the other hand does not need Rose to act as his heart. She’s lost that role. Further than that, I think Rose and Ten did not work so well was that Rose seemed to exacerbate the problem of Ten’s immaturity. They bounced off each other in a way that was both cute and entertaining at times and eye-gougingly annoying at others. I goes the same for Leela. I quite like Leela, I think she is very endearing and could probably kick Xena’s arse. But what Leela lacks is humanity. She’s the hunter that does not get attached and she reacts to things such as death in the way a viewer would. But again, like Rose did with Ten, it makes the Doctor’s lack of humanity more of a problem when the supporting characters do not provide it either.
But if you really think about it, it’s the episodes which had a character there to force Ten to grow up that were the best of last season. Harriet Jones questioned his authority, Sarah Jane made him to understand the emotional ramifications of his actions, Reinette forced him to act like an adult by treating him as an emotionally mature person and seeming to not to accept his childishness. Even Jackie, Pete and Donna had their moments.
This, for me, means that if Martha is truly going to be more than a just good companion but a great companion, she has provide the Doctor with maturity. How on earth she is supposed to do that I don’t know, but I can’t wait till we see what the writers will do with her.
Okay, now onto episodes I hadn’t seen before.
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Once you make it past the European actor trying to playing Chinese character (why? Why? Did they not realise that future generations would not be able to watch without cringing) and the rather lame gigantic rat special effects, this is awesome. While Leela is really amusing and Four’s four, it’s Litefoot and Jago that really make this. Oh, they deserve their own show. Bit late for spin-off no. 5 now though.
I did get rather confused with the plot at times. That pig-brained manikin thing was really spooky. Confirmed my suspicions that ventriloquist dummies are evil. And like most other episodes I’ve seen, I really love the historical setting. Mixing sci-fi, horror and history works really well. It is such a shame the moral campaigners got their way and the gothic horror element was removed.
Horror of Fang Rock
It’s an old school Tooth and Claw. Except better. Having a horror plot set on a lighthouse is a brilliant idea being both different and claustrophobic and the smile Ruben the Rutan makes before electrocuting people was genuinely creep. Though what I had heard about the serial had a lot to do with the high death count. Yes, while everyone did die, it wasn’t really any different from Pyramids of Mars or the The Parting of Ways in which everyone pretty much died in those as well.
What I did miss was that I never really got attached to any of the characters that died other than the younger keeper. You don’t really get attached to the characters themselves and Four and Leela never get attached and so there was no emotional resonance to the deaths, which made it rather boring. And thinking about this problem prompted me to come up with my grand companion/doctor theory.
The Grand Companion/Doctor Theory
Starting with Four, he lacks humanity. He’s very clearly alien and does not react to pretty much anything the same way a view would. Now Nine is a different Doctor. You can say he’s very alien, but I don’t think so. I think the way Nine has reacted to the death of his people is very human, he’s become cold, bitter and guarded.
As for Ten, he lacks maturity. Take his “no second chances” philosophy for example. It’s a very childlike and simple way to lead life. Imagine if no-one in the world ever gave a second chance to anyone else: at best we would all be isolated and alone, at worst humanity would have become extinct years ago. As we get older we realises that sometimes we have to give people/things etc a second chance because everyone screw up. It’s essential to the world going around.
So my grand theory based on three Doctors is that the companions that really work, the ones that really gel and make the show something special are the ones that provide what the Doctor lacks. Sarah Jane provided the humanity. She would get upset when something tragic would happen, like the two brothers in Pyramids, but she would also constantly take a more down-to-earth pragmatic approach over the Doctor’s morality. Rose worked with Nine because she was his heart. She wasn’t bitter or guarded; she was willing to give people a go, to talk to the characters that the Doctor would otherwise ignore and willing to disobey the Doctor and cause rips in time in order to save someone she loved.
Ten on the other hand does not need Rose to act as his heart. She’s lost that role. Further than that, I think Rose and Ten did not work so well was that Rose seemed to exacerbate the problem of Ten’s immaturity. They bounced off each other in a way that was both cute and entertaining at times and eye-gougingly annoying at others. I goes the same for Leela. I quite like Leela, I think she is very endearing and could probably kick Xena’s arse. But what Leela lacks is humanity. She’s the hunter that does not get attached and she reacts to things such as death in the way a viewer would. But again, like Rose did with Ten, it makes the Doctor’s lack of humanity more of a problem when the supporting characters do not provide it either.
But if you really think about it, it’s the episodes which had a character there to force Ten to grow up that were the best of last season. Harriet Jones questioned his authority, Sarah Jane made him to understand the emotional ramifications of his actions, Reinette forced him to act like an adult by treating him as an emotionally mature person and seeming to not to accept his childishness. Even Jackie, Pete and Donna had their moments.
This, for me, means that if Martha is truly going to be more than a just good companion but a great companion, she has provide the Doctor with maturity. How on earth she is supposed to do that I don’t know, but I can’t wait till we see what the writers will do with her.