My fandom has time travelling Buddhist monks.
Just finished "Planet of the Spiders", which is the end of the era of the Third Doctor. Yes, the spiders, despite being laughably cheap puppets in true Old Skool Doctor Who style, set off my spider fear. Not the actual spider themselves, but the anchoring on people's backs to control their minds, and cocooning people for feeding. Ack, ack. Thanks, BBC, for those wonderful images my subconscious is sure to summon up at a later date.
I knew most of what was going to happen, but it was still a tight story, which brought together storylines from throughout Three's era. I was even more thrilled by K'anpo then I thought I would be. Who isn't awesome in the usual heroic sense of awesome, obviously, because he's a Time Lord turned Buddhist monk who went native in Tibet. He quietly bitchslaps the Doctor, and sets on the right path with, like, three lines! And the Doctor humbly accepts the old teacher's advice and calmly walks into death to correct his mistakes.
Is this the only time we see the Doctor accept another Timelord's judgement as morally superior to his? He sometimes makes admiring comments on others intelligence, technical knowledge, or political cunning, but is otherwise usefully scornful of his people's ability to make use of these gifts wisely. (Who can blame him after the massive cruelty of "The War Games"?)
1970's BBC fails by having two white dudes play Cho Je/K'anpo, who everyone seems to accept as Tibetan refugees without blinking. But since they are not actually natives of Tibet, or even human, I'll handwave that. I did think it was clever that the K'anpo had clearly set up his cover story for his regeneration way in advance. Cho Je, who everyone already knows at the meditation center merely takes over as abbot after the K'anpo's "death".
Anyways, I nominate K'anpo for the running list of Timelords fans hope found a way to survive the Time War and may come back. 'Cause really, if anyone can get away with calling Ten on his moral greyness, it's him. Also, time travelling Buddhist monks, man. Awesome.
I knew most of what was going to happen, but it was still a tight story, which brought together storylines from throughout Three's era. I was even more thrilled by K'anpo then I thought I would be. Who isn't awesome in the usual heroic sense of awesome, obviously, because he's a Time Lord turned Buddhist monk who went native in Tibet. He quietly bitchslaps the Doctor, and sets on the right path with, like, three lines! And the Doctor humbly accepts the old teacher's advice and calmly walks into death to correct his mistakes.
Is this the only time we see the Doctor accept another Timelord's judgement as morally superior to his? He sometimes makes admiring comments on others intelligence, technical knowledge, or political cunning, but is otherwise usefully scornful of his people's ability to make use of these gifts wisely. (Who can blame him after the massive cruelty of "The War Games"?)
1970's BBC fails by having two white dudes play Cho Je/K'anpo, who everyone seems to accept as Tibetan refugees without blinking. But since they are not actually natives of Tibet, or even human, I'll handwave that. I did think it was clever that the K'anpo had clearly set up his cover story for his regeneration way in advance. Cho Je, who everyone already knows at the meditation center merely takes over as abbot after the K'anpo's "death".
Anyways, I nominate K'anpo for the running list of Timelords fans hope found a way to survive the Time War and may come back. 'Cause really, if anyone can get away with calling Ten on his moral greyness, it's him. Also, time travelling Buddhist monks, man. Awesome.