(& all along the Watchtower the night horses & the black mares ready themselves for the outcome)
Here we go! Here I am, kicking off my fabulous Sixth Doctor rewatch, AKA the technicolour dreamcoat extravaganza 2011! We're starting this rewatch-athon off not with the Sixth Doctor, exactly, but the Fifth Doctor serial Arc of Infinity which features Colin Baker in a pre-Doctor role & in fact, is what helped him land the role of the Sixth Doctor after Peter Davison's departure. I myself have never seen it prior to planning this rewatch-athon, so it should be quite an experience for me as well.
Following this serial, I'll be recapping Peri's recent Companion Chronicle, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, which features her travels with Five, just before our third serial, The Caves of Androzani, Five's final story.
- Ah, a story set on Gallifrey! I must say, their clothes look a bit better than they did when I saw them last in The Deadly Assassin.
- Temporal grace - what a lovely turn of phrase.
- I LOVE how Nyssa's prodding Five about doing more repair work on the TARDIS. Five, you really SHOULD listen to her, you know.
- Two travellers staying the night in a crypt . . . well, it IS cheap. & quiet. But yes, it would be a bit eerie. Erm.
- & we have our first onscreen murder! Poor Time Lord.
- O, it appears that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit is working for a bit - WHAT THE FUCK JUST WALKED OUT OF THERE?!
- Five, you are such a Dormouse.
- O, hello there, Time Lords! Goodness, you all look RIDICULOUS.
- & helloooooo, Colin Baker! Ooo, he looks rather resplendent in all of that armour.
- nentari was quite right, Maxil IS a bit of a bastard. But he interests me, yes indeed.
- I'm really enjoying how fairly hands-on Nyssa is with the TARDIS & with the data coming through. She's so wonderfully proactive as a companion. She was always such a great fit as a companion, though I've not seen very many of her stories.
- 'Colin Frazer'. Teehee!
- Michael Gough was in part one! The Celestial Toymaker himself has infiltrated the High Council of Time Lords, it would appear.
- MAXIL, NO! ::screams:: O, you are an evil one, aren't you!
- Well, at least Celly ONE of the Time Lords feels that a more gentler approach should have been used instead of armed guards.
- Did Nyssa give Five orange juice & put him up in her own room? Aww, how sweet.
- O. It's Tegan. Erm. (I don't care for Tegan, I should point out. But I'll try not to be too vicious towards her!) She's got her pixie hair, I see!
- I like Hedin. He's much warmer than any of those other stuffy Time Lords.
- Hello, Borusa.
- Poor Tegan. It seems she's fallen on a bit of hard times, sadly.
- The Time Lords seem quite a bit on the trigger-happy side in this serial, don't they? At least Nyssa's being rational & logical in the face of the Time Lords & their irrational conclusion-jumping!
- I really like Hedin. He's warm, sensible, calm & rational. He's what I rather wish Time Lords WERE, rather than the exception.
- Mentions of both Leela & Romana in the same serial! My smile is HUGE at such mentions.
- Ooo, I see what you're doing there Nyssa . . .
- Maxil, WHY must your helmet have such a silly-looking plume on top of it? You look like a peacock!
- Nyssa just fired on two Time Lords in one go. I KNEW I HAS MORE REASONS TO LOVE YOU NYSSA.
- Five being so amazingly calm & collected when taling Nyssay down from killing anyone to save him . . . that was a rather powerful moment for him, I felt. I don't even particularly care for Five at all, but I deeply admire the way he handled such a delicate situation, even though it arose from Nyssa wanting to save his life. It was very powerful & admirable.
- Ooo, having some Castrovalva flashbacks with Five in the Matrix.
- Gallifrey really is just made up of secrets & lies & betrayals, isn't it?
- Aww, Nyssa's all excited to see her girlfriend again! ::waves her Nyssa/Tegan shipper flag::
- I TOLD YOU THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKER HAD INFILTRATED THE HIGH COUNCIL!
- O, Hedin . . . how could you betray your own like this? How could you betray ME like this? ::sniffles::
- Good ol' Omega, how lovely to see you again! Still as insane & bitter as the last time we saw you, I see! Well, we'll fix that soon enough, promise.
- I liked how the Doctor entered the Matrix much more in The Deadly Assassin. This time, it's just terribly silly I feel.
- I think this last half of the story should be fairly interesting, now that Nyssa & Five are away from Gallifrey.
- I think I preferred Omega's first form - this one just looks DISGUSTING. All oozy & sticky & bulbous & just - gross!
- O! Omega had a TARDIS of his own! Ah, I see now.
- I saw how you enjoyed that, Nyssa!
- What the fuck . . . TWO of Five?!
- Peter Davison doesn't look half-bad in that dark outfit, I have to say. ::nods::
- Eww, someone's starting to decay a little bit . . .
- I kind of have to question the logic of looking for someone in a city like Amsterdam, but I'll just try to suspend my disbelief here . . .
- You know, even if Omega is insane & deadly, I kind of feel really badly for him, somewhat - he just wants to have the life that was denied to him when he helped make time travel possible for Gallifrey. He did all of that dangerous & complicated work only to be cheated out of enjoying his achievements or even of being able to live & see what was accomplished with his engineering. It just strikes me how sad it is that no matter what, he can never exist alongside others. I just find his story a very tragic one, & watching him slowly decay like this makes it even sadder to me.
- There is just nothing that's not sad about Omega's sort-of death. Not one thing. Insane & deadly, yes, but my heart still manages to break a bit for him.
- Oooo, more of Five with a gun.
- Aww, a happy ending for Tegan & Nyssa! & Tegan's back to travelling with Five & Nyssa!
All in all, I have to say that this was a fairly nice serial to watch, mostly for Nyssa & to see Colin in his pre-Doctor role. I tend to be very bored by Fifth Doctor serials & don't like Tegan, but still, I liked some aspects of this serial as well. It was great to see Nyssa being a total HBIC & being so brave in order to save Five, as well as seeing her in a more scientific capacity at the beginning of this. Nyssa's a companion that I actually do like, but I like so little about her era that I very rarely watch her stories, so this was a nice treat for me.
- 'Everyone runs away. Usually it's not for long - a holiday, a gap year. Sometimes I just lock myself in a room and play records by rockstars who died in their bathtubs.'
Peri loves The Doors. Peri, m'dear, you have EXCELLENT taste in music.
- I totally love how this audio opens - Peri reflecting on why people run away, why she ran away in the first place & on her life pre-Doctor. I think it gives Peri a good dimension to her character & motives that I feel she didn't really have in the series, personally. I have always liked Peri, both in audios & serials, but at the same time, she's always felt a bit like a cypher to me, or a non-sequiter companion to me - just a lucky girl from the States that got to go travelling with the Doctor. (Though that could be because I've never really seen many of her serials!) But this audio, I feel, adds to her character in some very good ways.
- O, Peri. I can totally relate.
- She's a Cal State student!! HOW CAN I NOT LOVE YOU, DEAREST?
- 'You mean some monster's stupid enough too reveal his evil schemes on a computer? That's just weird!'
'You'd be surprised at what some lifeforms are willing to let slip when they're sitting behind a keyboard.'
Okay, a) Peri REALLY needs to see Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog & b) I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE BIG FINISH. Just saying.
- Ooo, mentions of the Pescatons! Apparently, our Piscons are a bit like the Pescatons, it would seem.
- Welcome to 2009 Los Angeles, Peri! Now PLEASE go shopping for some awesome, less-eighties-looking clothes, love.
- 'We emerged from the mall and stood blinking in the sunlight and I breathed in the heady scent of carbon monoxide. Wow. I was nearly home. Nearly the right place. Nearly the right time! I could feel it. Taste it! 2009. I wondered if they had bases on the moon by now. I wondered if Frankie Goes to Hollywood was still at the top of the European charts with that damn song. I wondered if my mom was still alive. Was Howard? My dog would definitely be long gone. Poor little Whiskey. I wondered what Davy was doing now.
. . .
All of a sudden, we're dashing along the bay, dodging skateboarding transsexuals . . . culture shock doesn't even come close. How did people get so fat? How did people get so thin? I couldn't believe the billboards for movies and T.V. shows - they all featured skeletal actresses, tiny lollipop-shaped girls with stick bodies and huge heads! How could they be considered normal, let alone attractive? Then I remembered with a cold shudder: when I left Earth in the eighties, there was a lot of panic about diseases. Obviously, there was an epidemic in the twenty-first century. They must have been forced to used these actresses because there were no healthy ones left.'
I love Peri's perspective on the twenty-first century, I really do. & I somehow feel that if you want to visit a really alien culture, or get shocked by something via time-travel, then you should visit your own planet a century or so forward in time. Watch as everything you know & hold as normal for yourself is completely twisted about on its head & sides, to the point where you can only imagine that some horrible catastrophe must have taken place for the madness you see then to be taken as normal & everyday by that century's standards.
- Peri's beating up a Piscon with a mannequin's arm! GO, PERI, GO!
- Peri describes Five's personality as excitable, P.G. Wodehouse stuff'. I can buy that!
- & the mysterious woman Peri observed earlier when she arrived . . . it's Peri herself! Older, but still . . . it's Peri meeting Peri!
- Older!Peri is checking out younger!Peri's boobs. I . . . what. ::giggles::
- Apparently, Older!Peri is a secret agent of some sort - kind of like a Stateside version of UNIT. Neat!
- Trying to hide stuff from your future self is, apparently, an exercise in futility.
- 'I would have kept on gawping like a fish, if a fish hadn't crashed through the coffeeshop window.'
WHAT.
- 'I ran, wobbling in my unsuitable shoes - my 'optimism' shoes. Everywhere I arrive, I leave the TARDIS in heels, optimistically expecting not to be chased by monsters. And every time, I end up running for my life, hot alien breath on my neck, my ankles screaming out for flats.'
O, Peri, dearest. JUST WEAR GO-GO BOOTS! That's a good shoe in the middle, right?
- I'm not sure, but think Nicola Bryant's played about . . . four or five characters in this audio so far, & she's made them all sound distinctive, even when they have Stateside accents. I am very impressed indeed!
- Ah, I wondered when we'd get to mentioning that ol' Blinovitch effect . . . yes, Five, note that whole lack of explosion between the Peris.
- Peri's becoming rapidly jealous of herself. Jealous & suspicious.
- Peri reflecting on what she may become after she leaves the Doctor . . . well, needless to say, it breaks my heart.
- Huh! Peri knows Dolly Parton songs.
- Five, WHAT ARE YOU DOING CARRYING HANDCUFFS IN YOUR POCKETS? You kinky little chiorboy you.
- Zarl the Piscon has a to-do list of evil deeds in his pocket! ::dies of laughter::
- I should really keep count of each of Peri's Britishisms, shouldn't I?
- Peri refers to her older self as Barbarella. Yay, I have a usable icon after all! ::points to her Barbarella icon::
- Peri & Peri are off to catch a fish-thing!
- & now . . . Peri & Peri are having a fight! In the mud, no less!
- Older!Peri just shot Zarl - & an acquaintance of her own, without even blinking. How can this even be the same miss Peri?
- The way this first half of this audio ends, with them on their way to Androzani Minor & Peri wondering how their relationship will turn out due to this . . . it makes me very sad, I must admit. For obvious reasons, I suppose, but there are other reasons that I can't quite put a name on yet. But they're there, I know.
- Okay, on to the second half of this audio! This half opens exactly the same as the first half did, but with Future!Peri telling the story. Yet I find that it doesn't feel repetitive or dull - there's enough laid out about Future!Peri to make it new & fresh.
- I like how Nicola manages to distingush between Future!Peri & our Peri - just enough so that you know that this an older version of Peri, but still managing to give her a vocal tone of her own. Say what you want about her accent, but I like it, whether it's so obviously false or not. SO THERE.
- Future!Peri's a proper doctor of botany!
- Future!Peri's a doctor of botany who masquerades as a television marriage therapist. Um, okay?
- One of Future!Peri's sobriquets is 'The Worrier Queen'. ORLYNAO.
- HEY, IT'S SIX! ::WAVES::
- & yet . . . she doesn't recognise him. ::headtilt::
- Or . . . any of their adventures.
- She remembers Five & the TARDIS, but not Six.
- LOLOLOLOL SIX NOTICES HER NEW NOSE! ::gigglesnorts::
- Future!Peri likening Six's regeneration to Madonna. O, FUTURE!PERI.
- So . . . Future!Peri remebers her first adventure with Five, but not their visit to Androzani, or his regeneration, or any of her time with Six.
- I have to say, I think Six is actually handling this very well. He's actually very tactful & gentle when he says that Future!Peri isn't supposed to be in this century & explaining that they used to travel together & that she eventually left him. Very gentle & tactfully indeed.
- Six remembers his fifth regeneration's adventure with Peri wherein they met Future!Peri! Good or bad?
- O, DEAR. They . . . they just killed Zarl accidentally. O dear.
- The Piscon paradox - Six killing Zarl before Five can defeat him, apparently. Eeek, Six, you're confusing me!
- Heehee! clever Six - he's going to dress up as Zarl & show up to let Five deal with him. Not such a bad idea, I think.
- & of course, Five's not going to make this easy, is he? ::sighs:: Five, stop being so reasonable!
- 'My God! What was I wearing?! Heels with cutoff shorts? With a leotard?! I looked like I'd been dressed by a committee formed on an Internet chat room.'
FUTURE!PERI HAS FAR BETTER FASHION SENSE OMG YAY.
- Poor Six! He HATES wearing that fishy suit & can't even drink any water! ::hugs Six::
- 'I'm dressed as a fish and I'm fighting with an even wetter fish!' SIX I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
- So, Future!Peri came up with the whole idea of Zarl wanting to kill himself to reunite with a lost love & her involvement in it - huh. Future!Peri's pretty quick on the uptake.
- Future!Peri explains our Peri's being with her as her long-lost daughter & our Peri plays along BRILLIANTLY. ♥
- Teehee! Six is a friend of Oscar Wilde. SO not surprised!
- SIX, WHY ARE YOU WEARING YOUR COAT INSIDE THE FISH-SUIT?!
'I like the coat.'
::SIGHS::
- Future!Peri refers to our Peri as 'TARDIS Barbie'.
- You know, I must ask, WHERE ARE ALL THE GUMBLEJACK REFERENCES IN THIS AUDIO?! Six, you're missing a great opportunity here . . .
- You know, I think I like Future!Peri's retelling of the fight between both of her. Not sure why, but I do.
- Interestingly enough - if that's the correct word - our younger Peri seems most upset by the fact that her future self lied about having children, than by anything else. Not even upset - more like enraged & hurt by the fact that her future self lied about having any children. & that . . . it just makes me so sad.
- But I think the second thing in this story that breaks my heart is the fact that Future!Peri reveals by her narration that her high school sweetheart of sorts, whom she married, was a violent & abusive jerk, who, among other things, caused Future!Peri to have to get a new nose after he broke her old one. It's an incredibly painful revelation, made even more painful by the fact that Future!Peri can't even tell her younger self any of that & has to just let her face that as a possible future. It hurts so very much.
- & now comes a Time Lord to explain the Peri paradox, as Six put it. It's a bit hard to explain, but it goes like this: during Six's trial, for whatever reason (reasons I'm not too clear on, since I have yet to see that series), Peri was assassinated, as she was seen as superfluous to whatever plans were created at the time for dealing with Six. Then, after that, some felt that such a solution was too drastic (out of the possible fear that Six would eventually find them) & 'adjusted' her fate, allowing her to live as a warrior queen, as we know her fate to have been in the end. However, after that, another decision was made to follow a sort of 'Doctor protocol' - to save Peri, erase her memories beyond her first adventure with Five & return her to Earth. Like Jamie & Zoe. & that's our Older!Peri.
- In the end, Peri was taken out of time several times, leading to the creation of five different timelines for Peri. Five of Peri.
- But Peri who became a warrior queen - she was blessed with children. Two boys & a girl. Just like she'd always wanted.
- O, Six. Six, Six, Six. You're absolutely & completely breaking my heart by asking her to come with you. Just how much you love her is so clear - how can anyone not think you loved Peri, even if you didn't shy away from arguing with her?
- 'Funny about that title. I wonder if it's just coincidence, or if maybe all the Peris' fates have echoes of each other.'
I can't even explain how much the idea of Peri suffering the same fate as Jamie & Zoe makes me cry. Even if I know there are other versions of her, ones that have all of their memories of travelling with him before, the idea that even one of her was forced to forget the Doctor . . . it's absolutely heartbreaking. Even if I don't love Peri as much as I do Jamie & Zoe, it still makes me so, so sad. Really, this whole audio is a bit of a heartbreaker at times, I feel. It's good, even if it wasn't what I was expecting from a Peri Companion Chronicle at first. It's good, but just so sad in places.
- O! I hadn't known that this was a Robert Holmes serial! Maybe it won't be a total snoozefest after all?
- Nicola Bryant looks a little like Teri Hatcher here . . . yummy.
- 'I tried keeping a diary once. Not chronologically, of course, but the trouble with time travel is one never seems to find the time.'
O, Five, you're so cute sometimes. ::ruffles his hair::
- Five, your reasoning behind your celery is oddly precious. At least the bit about it being good for your teeth is. ::giggles::
- The way some of these early scenes are shot remind me oddly of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I'm not sure why, but they really do.
- Peri, you are just so precious. May I hug you?
- Five & Peri are going to their exectuion very bravely, I think.
- Peri looks like she's applying for the Sybilline Sisterhood in that red garment.
- O, Robert Holmes, you KNOW how to end your serials!
- Androids of Five & Peri! Clever, that.
- Eww, creepy bastard, get your paws off of Peri!
- I have to say, some of these scenes with Jek have a very sexual undertone to them - his menacing of Peri definitely seems very sexual in nature to me, not to mention the fact that his garments have a very strong BDSM element to them, especially his facial mask - masks like those are occasionally worn by people involved in BDSM, I believe. It's extremely unsettling.
- Ooo, look at Five getting physical with someone! Five does have a streak of fire under that sweet choirboy exterior, it seems.
- Jek genuinely frightens me - he is so rageful & menacing that he scares me rather well.
- Also, I noticed that he has a bit of a sort of Phantom of the Opera aspect to him - his mask, why he wears it & his obsession with Peri. He's like the Phantom of the Opera gone absolutely insane with rage, you could say.
- & WHAT is that silly-looking thing that ended episode two? Come on now, that thing just ruined a decent serial with how fake it looks!
- O, dear, Peri & Five are getting worse . . .
- Peter Davison, you are looking mighty fine during the chain-cutting scene. ::replays::
- Is Jek meant to be so Phantom of the Opera-esque? By kidnapping Peri like that, he really, really is.
- Okay, at this point, Jek is making me feel very uncomfortable now, with his aggressiveness towards Peri.
- Wow . . . Five, you are a bit of a badass, aren't you?
- You know, I'm almost a little sad that I'm up to the final part of this serial - Five's not so boring in this serial & I love Peri in it!
- Ugh, Peter, stop looking so unfairly sexy at sudden moments! IT'S VERY DISTRACTING YOU KNOW.
- Okay, Robert Holmes, I can see your obsession with The Phantom of the Opera showing - Jek's mask finally comes off & shocks the hell out of the fellow who pulled it off!
- O, my word - Jek's face . . . eeek.
- Peri sure recovered fast after she took the antidote!
- WHOA, PERI BOSOM. ::stares shamelessly::
- O, dear, here we go . . .
- SURPRISE!MASTER OHAI
- How is it that I can know that I don't care for Five at all, yet I - I don't want him to go? I DON'T WANT HIM TO GO & I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY.
- O . . . hello, Six. I think . . .
- 'Change, my dear. And not a moment too soon.'
Well . . . Six has a point, I suppose. But I - I kind of want Five back. ::looks confused::
Well, THAT was a story! It was a pretty good one, & even made me like Five in it, which can be a bit hard to do, honestly. Though I don't see why it's so popular a serial, to be frank - at least, that's what DWM said about it.
I have to admit, though, I'm glad I don't have to watch any more Five serials! Yawnville if you ask me.
& that wraps up the Five-era serials for the technicolour dreamcoat extravaganza 2011! Next week, I'll be watching The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen & Vengeance on Varos! & next week, I should have my recaps up on Saturday, as per usual - this week was a bit of an anomaly, time-wise!
Following this serial, I'll be recapping Peri's recent Companion Chronicle, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, which features her travels with Five, just before our third serial, The Caves of Androzani, Five's final story.
- Ah, a story set on Gallifrey! I must say, their clothes look a bit better than they did when I saw them last in The Deadly Assassin.
- Temporal grace - what a lovely turn of phrase.
- I LOVE how Nyssa's prodding Five about doing more repair work on the TARDIS. Five, you really SHOULD listen to her, you know.
- Two travellers staying the night in a crypt . . . well, it IS cheap. & quiet. But yes, it would be a bit eerie. Erm.
- & we have our first onscreen murder! Poor Time Lord.
- O, it appears that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit is working for a bit - WHAT THE FUCK JUST WALKED OUT OF THERE?!
- Five, you are such a Dormouse.
- O, hello there, Time Lords! Goodness, you all look RIDICULOUS.
- & helloooooo, Colin Baker! Ooo, he looks rather resplendent in all of that armour.
- nentari was quite right, Maxil IS a bit of a bastard. But he interests me, yes indeed.
- I'm really enjoying how fairly hands-on Nyssa is with the TARDIS & with the data coming through. She's so wonderfully proactive as a companion. She was always such a great fit as a companion, though I've not seen very many of her stories.
- 'Colin Frazer'. Teehee!
- Michael Gough was in part one! The Celestial Toymaker himself has infiltrated the High Council of Time Lords, it would appear.
- MAXIL, NO! ::screams:: O, you are an evil one, aren't you!
- Well, at least Celly ONE of the Time Lords feels that a more gentler approach should have been used instead of armed guards.
- Did Nyssa give Five orange juice & put him up in her own room? Aww, how sweet.
- O. It's Tegan. Erm. (I don't care for Tegan, I should point out. But I'll try not to be too vicious towards her!) She's got her pixie hair, I see!
- I like Hedin. He's much warmer than any of those other stuffy Time Lords.
- Hello, Borusa.
- Poor Tegan. It seems she's fallen on a bit of hard times, sadly.
- The Time Lords seem quite a bit on the trigger-happy side in this serial, don't they? At least Nyssa's being rational & logical in the face of the Time Lords & their irrational conclusion-jumping!
- I really like Hedin. He's warm, sensible, calm & rational. He's what I rather wish Time Lords WERE, rather than the exception.
- Mentions of both Leela & Romana in the same serial! My smile is HUGE at such mentions.
- Ooo, I see what you're doing there Nyssa . . .
- Maxil, WHY must your helmet have such a silly-looking plume on top of it? You look like a peacock!
- Nyssa just fired on two Time Lords in one go. I KNEW I HAS MORE REASONS TO LOVE YOU NYSSA.
- Five being so amazingly calm & collected when taling Nyssay down from killing anyone to save him . . . that was a rather powerful moment for him, I felt. I don't even particularly care for Five at all, but I deeply admire the way he handled such a delicate situation, even though it arose from Nyssa wanting to save his life. It was very powerful & admirable.
- Ooo, having some Castrovalva flashbacks with Five in the Matrix.
- Gallifrey really is just made up of secrets & lies & betrayals, isn't it?
- Aww, Nyssa's all excited to see her girlfriend again! ::waves her Nyssa/Tegan shipper flag::
- I TOLD YOU THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKER HAD INFILTRATED THE HIGH COUNCIL!
- O, Hedin . . . how could you betray your own like this? How could you betray ME like this? ::sniffles::
- Good ol' Omega, how lovely to see you again! Still as insane & bitter as the last time we saw you, I see! Well, we'll fix that soon enough, promise.
- I liked how the Doctor entered the Matrix much more in The Deadly Assassin. This time, it's just terribly silly I feel.
- I think this last half of the story should be fairly interesting, now that Nyssa & Five are away from Gallifrey.
- I think I preferred Omega's first form - this one just looks DISGUSTING. All oozy & sticky & bulbous & just - gross!
- O! Omega had a TARDIS of his own! Ah, I see now.
- I saw how you enjoyed that, Nyssa!
- What the fuck . . . TWO of Five?!
- Peter Davison doesn't look half-bad in that dark outfit, I have to say. ::nods::
- Eww, someone's starting to decay a little bit . . .
- I kind of have to question the logic of looking for someone in a city like Amsterdam, but I'll just try to suspend my disbelief here . . .
- You know, even if Omega is insane & deadly, I kind of feel really badly for him, somewhat - he just wants to have the life that was denied to him when he helped make time travel possible for Gallifrey. He did all of that dangerous & complicated work only to be cheated out of enjoying his achievements or even of being able to live & see what was accomplished with his engineering. It just strikes me how sad it is that no matter what, he can never exist alongside others. I just find his story a very tragic one, & watching him slowly decay like this makes it even sadder to me.
- There is just nothing that's not sad about Omega's sort-of death. Not one thing. Insane & deadly, yes, but my heart still manages to break a bit for him.
- Oooo, more of Five with a gun.
- Aww, a happy ending for Tegan & Nyssa! & Tegan's back to travelling with Five & Nyssa!
All in all, I have to say that this was a fairly nice serial to watch, mostly for Nyssa & to see Colin in his pre-Doctor role. I tend to be very bored by Fifth Doctor serials & don't like Tegan, but still, I liked some aspects of this serial as well. It was great to see Nyssa being a total HBIC & being so brave in order to save Five, as well as seeing her in a more scientific capacity at the beginning of this. Nyssa's a companion that I actually do like, but I like so little about her era that I very rarely watch her stories, so this was a nice treat for me.
- 'Everyone runs away. Usually it's not for long - a holiday, a gap year. Sometimes I just lock myself in a room and play records by rockstars who died in their bathtubs.'
Peri loves The Doors. Peri, m'dear, you have EXCELLENT taste in music.
- I totally love how this audio opens - Peri reflecting on why people run away, why she ran away in the first place & on her life pre-Doctor. I think it gives Peri a good dimension to her character & motives that I feel she didn't really have in the series, personally. I have always liked Peri, both in audios & serials, but at the same time, she's always felt a bit like a cypher to me, or a non-sequiter companion to me - just a lucky girl from the States that got to go travelling with the Doctor. (Though that could be because I've never really seen many of her serials!) But this audio, I feel, adds to her character in some very good ways.
- O, Peri. I can totally relate.
- She's a Cal State student!! HOW CAN I NOT LOVE YOU, DEAREST?
- 'You mean some monster's stupid enough too reveal his evil schemes on a computer? That's just weird!'
'You'd be surprised at what some lifeforms are willing to let slip when they're sitting behind a keyboard.'
Okay, a) Peri REALLY needs to see Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog & b) I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE BIG FINISH. Just saying.
- Ooo, mentions of the Pescatons! Apparently, our Piscons are a bit like the Pescatons, it would seem.
- Welcome to 2009 Los Angeles, Peri! Now PLEASE go shopping for some awesome, less-eighties-looking clothes, love.
- 'We emerged from the mall and stood blinking in the sunlight and I breathed in the heady scent of carbon monoxide. Wow. I was nearly home. Nearly the right place. Nearly the right time! I could feel it. Taste it! 2009. I wondered if they had bases on the moon by now. I wondered if Frankie Goes to Hollywood was still at the top of the European charts with that damn song. I wondered if my mom was still alive. Was Howard? My dog would definitely be long gone. Poor little Whiskey. I wondered what Davy was doing now.
. . .
All of a sudden, we're dashing along the bay, dodging skateboarding transsexuals . . . culture shock doesn't even come close. How did people get so fat? How did people get so thin? I couldn't believe the billboards for movies and T.V. shows - they all featured skeletal actresses, tiny lollipop-shaped girls with stick bodies and huge heads! How could they be considered normal, let alone attractive? Then I remembered with a cold shudder: when I left Earth in the eighties, there was a lot of panic about diseases. Obviously, there was an epidemic in the twenty-first century. They must have been forced to used these actresses because there were no healthy ones left.'
I love Peri's perspective on the twenty-first century, I really do. & I somehow feel that if you want to visit a really alien culture, or get shocked by something via time-travel, then you should visit your own planet a century or so forward in time. Watch as everything you know & hold as normal for yourself is completely twisted about on its head & sides, to the point where you can only imagine that some horrible catastrophe must have taken place for the madness you see then to be taken as normal & everyday by that century's standards.
- Peri's beating up a Piscon with a mannequin's arm! GO, PERI, GO!
- Peri describes Five's personality as excitable, P.G. Wodehouse stuff'. I can buy that!
- & the mysterious woman Peri observed earlier when she arrived . . . it's Peri herself! Older, but still . . . it's Peri meeting Peri!
- Older!Peri is checking out younger!Peri's boobs. I . . . what. ::giggles::
- Apparently, Older!Peri is a secret agent of some sort - kind of like a Stateside version of UNIT. Neat!
- Trying to hide stuff from your future self is, apparently, an exercise in futility.
- 'I would have kept on gawping like a fish, if a fish hadn't crashed through the coffeeshop window.'
WHAT.
- 'I ran, wobbling in my unsuitable shoes - my 'optimism' shoes. Everywhere I arrive, I leave the TARDIS in heels, optimistically expecting not to be chased by monsters. And every time, I end up running for my life, hot alien breath on my neck, my ankles screaming out for flats.'
O, Peri, dearest. JUST WEAR GO-GO BOOTS! That's a good shoe in the middle, right?
- I'm not sure, but think Nicola Bryant's played about . . . four or five characters in this audio so far, & she's made them all sound distinctive, even when they have Stateside accents. I am very impressed indeed!
- Ah, I wondered when we'd get to mentioning that ol' Blinovitch effect . . . yes, Five, note that whole lack of explosion between the Peris.
- Peri's becoming rapidly jealous of herself. Jealous & suspicious.
- Peri reflecting on what she may become after she leaves the Doctor . . . well, needless to say, it breaks my heart.
- Huh! Peri knows Dolly Parton songs.
- Five, WHAT ARE YOU DOING CARRYING HANDCUFFS IN YOUR POCKETS? You kinky little chiorboy you.
- Zarl the Piscon has a to-do list of evil deeds in his pocket! ::dies of laughter::
- I should really keep count of each of Peri's Britishisms, shouldn't I?
- Peri refers to her older self as Barbarella. Yay, I have a usable icon after all! ::points to her Barbarella icon::
- Peri & Peri are off to catch a fish-thing!
- & now . . . Peri & Peri are having a fight! In the mud, no less!
- Older!Peri just shot Zarl - & an acquaintance of her own, without even blinking. How can this even be the same miss Peri?
- The way this first half of this audio ends, with them on their way to Androzani Minor & Peri wondering how their relationship will turn out due to this . . . it makes me very sad, I must admit. For obvious reasons, I suppose, but there are other reasons that I can't quite put a name on yet. But they're there, I know.
- Okay, on to the second half of this audio! This half opens exactly the same as the first half did, but with Future!Peri telling the story. Yet I find that it doesn't feel repetitive or dull - there's enough laid out about Future!Peri to make it new & fresh.
- I like how Nicola manages to distingush between Future!Peri & our Peri - just enough so that you know that this an older version of Peri, but still managing to give her a vocal tone of her own. Say what you want about her accent, but I like it, whether it's so obviously false or not. SO THERE.
- Future!Peri's a proper doctor of botany!
- Future!Peri's a doctor of botany who masquerades as a television marriage therapist. Um, okay?
- One of Future!Peri's sobriquets is 'The Worrier Queen'. ORLYNAO.
- HEY, IT'S SIX! ::WAVES::
- & yet . . . she doesn't recognise him. ::headtilt::
- Or . . . any of their adventures.
- She remembers Five & the TARDIS, but not Six.
- LOLOLOLOL SIX NOTICES HER NEW NOSE! ::gigglesnorts::
- Future!Peri likening Six's regeneration to Madonna. O, FUTURE!PERI.
- So . . . Future!Peri remebers her first adventure with Five, but not their visit to Androzani, or his regeneration, or any of her time with Six.
- I have to say, I think Six is actually handling this very well. He's actually very tactful & gentle when he says that Future!Peri isn't supposed to be in this century & explaining that they used to travel together & that she eventually left him. Very gentle & tactfully indeed.
- Six remembers his fifth regeneration's adventure with Peri wherein they met Future!Peri! Good or bad?
- O, DEAR. They . . . they just killed Zarl accidentally. O dear.
- The Piscon paradox - Six killing Zarl before Five can defeat him, apparently. Eeek, Six, you're confusing me!
- Heehee! clever Six - he's going to dress up as Zarl & show up to let Five deal with him. Not such a bad idea, I think.
- & of course, Five's not going to make this easy, is he? ::sighs:: Five, stop being so reasonable!
- 'My God! What was I wearing?! Heels with cutoff shorts? With a leotard?! I looked like I'd been dressed by a committee formed on an Internet chat room.'
FUTURE!PERI HAS FAR BETTER FASHION SENSE OMG YAY.
- Poor Six! He HATES wearing that fishy suit & can't even drink any water! ::hugs Six::
- 'I'm dressed as a fish and I'm fighting with an even wetter fish!' SIX I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
- So, Future!Peri came up with the whole idea of Zarl wanting to kill himself to reunite with a lost love & her involvement in it - huh. Future!Peri's pretty quick on the uptake.
- Future!Peri explains our Peri's being with her as her long-lost daughter & our Peri plays along BRILLIANTLY. ♥
- Teehee! Six is a friend of Oscar Wilde. SO not surprised!
- SIX, WHY ARE YOU WEARING YOUR COAT INSIDE THE FISH-SUIT?!
'I like the coat.'
::SIGHS::
- Future!Peri refers to our Peri as 'TARDIS Barbie'.
- You know, I must ask, WHERE ARE ALL THE GUMBLEJACK REFERENCES IN THIS AUDIO?! Six, you're missing a great opportunity here . . .
- You know, I think I like Future!Peri's retelling of the fight between both of her. Not sure why, but I do.
- Interestingly enough - if that's the correct word - our younger Peri seems most upset by the fact that her future self lied about having children, than by anything else. Not even upset - more like enraged & hurt by the fact that her future self lied about having any children. & that . . . it just makes me so sad.
- But I think the second thing in this story that breaks my heart is the fact that Future!Peri reveals by her narration that her high school sweetheart of sorts, whom she married, was a violent & abusive jerk, who, among other things, caused Future!Peri to have to get a new nose after he broke her old one. It's an incredibly painful revelation, made even more painful by the fact that Future!Peri can't even tell her younger self any of that & has to just let her face that as a possible future. It hurts so very much.
- & now comes a Time Lord to explain the Peri paradox, as Six put it. It's a bit hard to explain, but it goes like this: during Six's trial, for whatever reason (reasons I'm not too clear on, since I have yet to see that series), Peri was assassinated, as she was seen as superfluous to whatever plans were created at the time for dealing with Six. Then, after that, some felt that such a solution was too drastic (out of the possible fear that Six would eventually find them) & 'adjusted' her fate, allowing her to live as a warrior queen, as we know her fate to have been in the end. However, after that, another decision was made to follow a sort of 'Doctor protocol' - to save Peri, erase her memories beyond her first adventure with Five & return her to Earth. Like Jamie & Zoe. & that's our Older!Peri.
- In the end, Peri was taken out of time several times, leading to the creation of five different timelines for Peri. Five of Peri.
- But Peri who became a warrior queen - she was blessed with children. Two boys & a girl. Just like she'd always wanted.
- O, Six. Six, Six, Six. You're absolutely & completely breaking my heart by asking her to come with you. Just how much you love her is so clear - how can anyone not think you loved Peri, even if you didn't shy away from arguing with her?
- 'Funny about that title. I wonder if it's just coincidence, or if maybe all the Peris' fates have echoes of each other.'
I can't even explain how much the idea of Peri suffering the same fate as Jamie & Zoe makes me cry. Even if I know there are other versions of her, ones that have all of their memories of travelling with him before, the idea that even one of her was forced to forget the Doctor . . . it's absolutely heartbreaking. Even if I don't love Peri as much as I do Jamie & Zoe, it still makes me so, so sad. Really, this whole audio is a bit of a heartbreaker at times, I feel. It's good, even if it wasn't what I was expecting from a Peri Companion Chronicle at first. It's good, but just so sad in places.
- O! I hadn't known that this was a Robert Holmes serial! Maybe it won't be a total snoozefest after all?
- Nicola Bryant looks a little like Teri Hatcher here . . . yummy.
- 'I tried keeping a diary once. Not chronologically, of course, but the trouble with time travel is one never seems to find the time.'
O, Five, you're so cute sometimes. ::ruffles his hair::
- Five, your reasoning behind your celery is oddly precious. At least the bit about it being good for your teeth is. ::giggles::
- The way some of these early scenes are shot remind me oddly of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I'm not sure why, but they really do.
- Peri, you are just so precious. May I hug you?
- Five & Peri are going to their exectuion very bravely, I think.
- Peri looks like she's applying for the Sybilline Sisterhood in that red garment.
- O, Robert Holmes, you KNOW how to end your serials!
- Androids of Five & Peri! Clever, that.
- Eww, creepy bastard, get your paws off of Peri!
- I have to say, some of these scenes with Jek have a very sexual undertone to them - his menacing of Peri definitely seems very sexual in nature to me, not to mention the fact that his garments have a very strong BDSM element to them, especially his facial mask - masks like those are occasionally worn by people involved in BDSM, I believe. It's extremely unsettling.
- Ooo, look at Five getting physical with someone! Five does have a streak of fire under that sweet choirboy exterior, it seems.
- Jek genuinely frightens me - he is so rageful & menacing that he scares me rather well.
- Also, I noticed that he has a bit of a sort of Phantom of the Opera aspect to him - his mask, why he wears it & his obsession with Peri. He's like the Phantom of the Opera gone absolutely insane with rage, you could say.
- & WHAT is that silly-looking thing that ended episode two? Come on now, that thing just ruined a decent serial with how fake it looks!
- O, dear, Peri & Five are getting worse . . .
- Peter Davison, you are looking mighty fine during the chain-cutting scene. ::replays::
- Is Jek meant to be so Phantom of the Opera-esque? By kidnapping Peri like that, he really, really is.
- Okay, at this point, Jek is making me feel very uncomfortable now, with his aggressiveness towards Peri.
- Wow . . . Five, you are a bit of a badass, aren't you?
- You know, I'm almost a little sad that I'm up to the final part of this serial - Five's not so boring in this serial & I love Peri in it!
- Ugh, Peter, stop looking so unfairly sexy at sudden moments! IT'S VERY DISTRACTING YOU KNOW.
- Okay, Robert Holmes, I can see your obsession with The Phantom of the Opera showing - Jek's mask finally comes off & shocks the hell out of the fellow who pulled it off!
- O, my word - Jek's face . . . eeek.
- Peri sure recovered fast after she took the antidote!
- WHOA, PERI BOSOM. ::stares shamelessly::
- O, dear, here we go . . .
- SURPRISE!MASTER OHAI
- How is it that I can know that I don't care for Five at all, yet I - I don't want him to go? I DON'T WANT HIM TO GO & I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY.
- O . . . hello, Six. I think . . .
- 'Change, my dear. And not a moment too soon.'
Well . . . Six has a point, I suppose. But I - I kind of want Five back. ::looks confused::
Well, THAT was a story! It was a pretty good one, & even made me like Five in it, which can be a bit hard to do, honestly. Though I don't see why it's so popular a serial, to be frank - at least, that's what DWM said about it.
I have to admit, though, I'm glad I don't have to watch any more Five serials! Yawnville if you ask me.
& that wraps up the Five-era serials for the technicolour dreamcoat extravaganza 2011! Next week, I'll be watching The Twin Dilemma, Attack of the Cybermen & Vengeance on Varos! & next week, I should have my recaps up on Saturday, as per usual - this week was a bit of an anomaly, time-wise!