Doctor Who "The Timeless Children"
Still very crowded by rl. Now I've seen the last two DW episodes, and alas:
Look, I never liked what I heard about the Cartmel Masterplan - as far as I know, this involved the Doctor turning out to be "The Other", one of the three big mytho-historical figures of Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega - and was glad it didn't get put on screen. And while I could take or leave Chibnall using that bit form Brain of Moebius - the hint that there have been many pre-Hartnell regenerations - per se, and definitely appreciate the first few ones being female, along with the proto-Gallifreyan explorer who discovers the child - I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
Incidentally, I was going to add "no wonder the Master is pissed but I still don't buy this as his reason to go from Missy to CyberGallfrey", but then I saw on twitter people interpreting the entire thing as the Master as really burning the place down because of millennia long abuse of the Doctor (no one hurts the Doctor but me, etc.) and disguising it as something other because, well, he's him, which I could also buy.
None of which, however, made it feel a lot of the Doctor/Master stuff here less like a cheap replay of things we got more effectively elsewhere. I mean: the Doctor (not) killing the Master? Both the s8 finale and the mid s10 reveal flashback, hell, even the "get out of the way" in "End of Time" did it better. The Master using the Cybermen? Moffat did it twice so effectively that if I were Chibnall, I'd really have gone for another villain. Doctor broken/not broken, no, reaffirmed in identity after questioning "who am I?" Again, s8 finale says hello.
And yes, so diminishing returns about destroying/not destroying Gallifrey. Original RTD s1 reveal when Nine first tells the tale? Moving. Moffat "Day of the Doctor" retcon? Also moving and fitting completion of cycle. Doctor after subjective millenia of abuse arriving at Gallifrey half mad and realising it was his people who did this to him in the s9 finale? Awesome. This? I felt nothing at all. Don't get me started on the resistance fighter ex machina being the one to blow the place up with the ultimate evil weapon (again) so that the Doctor doesn't have to. I was hoping he'd at least turn out to be a future regeneration of the Master which would have fit thematically again, but no such luck.
On the positive side is just that neither Yaz nor Graham were killed. After that speech by Graham, I was seriously worried. Oh, and I liked the return of Jo Martin!Doctor. As I said, the basic idea that there were many pre-Hartnell regenerations which the Doctor has been made to forgot so that as Hartnell, they started anew from scratch is fine by me, and it also means no future writer has to justify more regenerations anymore. I just wish it had been done in a way that kept the "road not taken" ness with the Master (i.e. they both had been made to forget earlier lives but were still of the same age and origin), and without making the Doctor basically the biological origin of the Time Lord species as we know it.
What the whole thing reminds me of: Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files when every new one made it even more glaringly apparant he should have stuck to case by case episodes because he really wasn't good at big myth arcs.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1387606.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Look, I never liked what I heard about the Cartmel Masterplan - as far as I know, this involved the Doctor turning out to be "The Other", one of the three big mytho-historical figures of Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega - and was glad it didn't get put on screen. And while I could take or leave Chibnall using that bit form Brain of Moebius - the hint that there have been many pre-Hartnell regenerations - per se, and definitely appreciate the first few ones being female, along with the proto-Gallifreyan explorer who discovers the child - I really prefer my Doctor having started as just a normal, random Gallifreyan like any otherr. Not someone who starts out special to begin with. I also prefer my Doctor and my Master as each other's "What if?"'s , which isn't possible anymore if one of them really did start out completely different to begin with.
Incidentally, I was going to add "no wonder the Master is pissed but I still don't buy this as his reason to go from Missy to CyberGallfrey", but then I saw on twitter people interpreting the entire thing as the Master as really burning the place down because of millennia long abuse of the Doctor (no one hurts the Doctor but me, etc.) and disguising it as something other because, well, he's him, which I could also buy.
None of which, however, made it feel a lot of the Doctor/Master stuff here less like a cheap replay of things we got more effectively elsewhere. I mean: the Doctor (not) killing the Master? Both the s8 finale and the mid s10 reveal flashback, hell, even the "get out of the way" in "End of Time" did it better. The Master using the Cybermen? Moffat did it twice so effectively that if I were Chibnall, I'd really have gone for another villain. Doctor broken/not broken, no, reaffirmed in identity after questioning "who am I?" Again, s8 finale says hello.
And yes, so diminishing returns about destroying/not destroying Gallifrey. Original RTD s1 reveal when Nine first tells the tale? Moving. Moffat "Day of the Doctor" retcon? Also moving and fitting completion of cycle. Doctor after subjective millenia of abuse arriving at Gallifrey half mad and realising it was his people who did this to him in the s9 finale? Awesome. This? I felt nothing at all. Don't get me started on the resistance fighter ex machina being the one to blow the place up with the ultimate evil weapon (again) so that the Doctor doesn't have to. I was hoping he'd at least turn out to be a future regeneration of the Master which would have fit thematically again, but no such luck.
On the positive side is just that neither Yaz nor Graham were killed. After that speech by Graham, I was seriously worried. Oh, and I liked the return of Jo Martin!Doctor. As I said, the basic idea that there were many pre-Hartnell regenerations which the Doctor has been made to forgot so that as Hartnell, they started anew from scratch is fine by me, and it also means no future writer has to justify more regenerations anymore. I just wish it had been done in a way that kept the "road not taken" ness with the Master (i.e. they both had been made to forget earlier lives but were still of the same age and origin), and without making the Doctor basically the biological origin of the Time Lord species as we know it.
What the whole thing reminds me of: Chris Carter's myth arc episodes on the X-Files when every new one made it even more glaringly apparant he should have stuck to case by case episodes because he really wasn't good at big myth arcs.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1387606.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.