(no subject)
Here are some thoughts on "Last the Time Lords", as well as some of my half-baked theories and some future spoilers.
I really don't know why the episode had such bad reviews (especially at Behind the Sofa - it never fails to beat me as to why people who blog on a website dedicated to a show they presumably are "fans" of, mostly seem to do nothing but rip every episode to pieces in the most insulting ways imaginable - if you don't like Doctor Who, don't blimming watch it!) - I loved every second of it.
1. The song at the beginning was a great touch, some probably thought it was silly, but I agreed with RTD in Confidential - The Master is the kind of bonkers power-mad individual who, so full of self-satisfaction at ruling the world and having everybody bowing and scraping at his every word he probably would spend his mornings dancing about and mouthing to his favourite songs, and if he irritates everybody around him at the same time, what are they gonna do about it, huh?
Thought it was a good choice of song anyway, the lyrics are very apt:
Oh I could throw you in the lake
Feed you poison birthday cake
I won't deny I'm going to miss you when you're gone
Oh I could bury you alive
But you might come back with a knife
And kill me when I'm sleeping
That's why
I can't decide
Whether you should live or die
Oh, you'll probably go to heaven
Please don't hang your head and cry
No wonder why
My heart feels dead inside
It's cold and hard and petrified
Lock the doors and close the blinds
We're going for a ride
(is it coincidence that the song wasn't even in the Scissor Sister's top 10 on letssingit.com at the weekend, yet today it's risen to no. 2?!)
2. The revelation that a whole year had passed since the conclusion of "The Sound of Drums" completely took me aback. In fact, for the first half-hour of the show I kept whispering to myself "A YEAR?!" in a traumatised manner. I'm not sure why it disturbed me so much, but the thought of the Master keeping our darling Doctor like some sort of animal in a filthy tent in the corner for a whole year was utterly horrifying. (Hands up though - who laughed at the sight of the "dog" bowl and then immediately felt guilty?). I have never thought the Doctor could be humiliated to such a terrible degree, I even winced at the sight of the Master hitting "an old man". Not nice.
All of that, and not to mention the thought of Jack being held upright in chains for the same period of time. My immediate thought must have been "my God, he must stink by now!" not to mention the thought of how painful this must have been for him.
(Nitpick: should Jack not have lost a whole lot of weight by being on a "cold mashed swede" diet for a whole year?
(I think too much about this kind of stuff, don't I? It's the same with soap operas when I'm shouting at characters on a TV screen - it's not real, dear, remember...)
On the other hand, the thought of Jack chained up and at the Master's um... disposal... at any time, day or night, takes my thoughts into tangents best expressed in a different community altogether *cough*
Anyway, yes, a very striking start to the episode. Not to mention the thought of Martha travelling the world alone - who'd have thought she'd have the kind of stamina to do all of that? Could Rose have done all that - and be taken seriously by those she tried to educate, I wonder?
4. The Toclafane = the future humans. If I'd have thought about this more, I probably could have worked that out for myself. But I didn't. The scene where the squishy head in the sphere repeated his "the sky is made of diamonds" line and they showed the flashback of the cute Blue Peter competition winner (how chuffed must he have been?) was a really freaky moment.
5. Prof. Docherty - I loved her! The actress was in Bad Girls, I remember. I thought her acting was exemplary, especially the scene where she felt forced to pass information to the Master to protect her son. She had a look of genuine fear and resentment on her face.
My theory: The fact that they made a bit of a fuss of showing her again at the end of the episode makes me wonder if they intend to use her again - after all the rumour is that Tom Milligan will become the new companion for season 4 and that makes me think that this is why, again, they made a point of Martha checking up on him at the end of the episode. Would they necessarily have bothered with all of that, otherwise? (I am in RTD thought mode here).
Wouldn't it be cool to her appear now and again in season 4 to lend a scientific hand (a bit, I suppose, like Mickey's "tin dog" role in the early part of series 2...)
6. The Doctor at 900 years old looks like Dobby the House Elf. That is all I will say on the matter, it's all way too freaky for me...
7. The Master sneaking up to Gollum's the Doctor's cage in his pyjamas and just-woke-up messed hair. That was pretty adorable, actually.
Question: If the Master is a Timelord, to all intents and purposes just like the Doctor but in evil mode, then why does he act so differently? He snogs/marries and presumably has sex with his companion, and when he's not doing that he's flirting with other women, getting all horny during massages with said other women and making a (rather thinly veiled) suggestion of partaking in a threesome with his wife and another woman? You might argue that as he's evil, he has no respect for humans/women and takes his pleasure where he can get it, whereas the Doctor, on the path of righteousness, might love his companions (or even be in love with them, and my Doctor/Rose shipping head will argue the toss) but he wouldn't desecrate such a relationship with a human by taking sexual pleasure from them.
Which is a fair enough point. But, the Master drinks wine... dresses in jim-jams and goes to bed at night, and judging by the hair, presumably sleeps. Or has wild enough sex to mess his hair up, anyway. When did we ever see the Doctor winding up his alarm clock, putting on his jammies and going to bed like a human? ("Human Nature" not counting, obviously). Not often.
Maybe being evil is just more tiring than being good?
I'm always knackered, come to think of it...
8. I'm very amused by the whole "The Doctor is Jesus, the Master is Satan" metaphor running through the episode. Did anybody pick up on the Master's line "What would the Doctor do?" (as an aside, was he meant to be doing an impression of the Doctor when he said that, because he sounded quite a lot like him!) being a parody of the phrase "What Would Jesus Do" found on many a Christian's wristband, perchance?
Not to mention the Doctor rising from... well, not quite the dead, but the scene where the Doctor regained his youth and floated across the room had a very angelic born-again imagery to it, didn't it? The Doctor, reborn and the image of good triumphing over evil, all because of the people's faith? The people of the world all chanting "Doctor" like the flock praying to their saviour... and then, the Doctor putting his arms around the fallen angel figure of the Master and solemnly declaring "I forgive you". Very funny, Russell. I like it.
As yet another aside, hands up if you found yourself chanting "Doctor" in your head, just in case it helped? My two kids went so far as to close their eyes and chant it out loud!
Clap your hands and say, "I do believe in the Doctor, I do, I do..."
9. The scene where the Master dies in the Doctor's arms, just to spite him... or was it? (I'll come to my theory on this in a moment). It was just... arrrghh, wasn't it? I was desperate to see slashy overtones in it (you can find them anywhere if you look hard enough) but mostly it was just so very sad. I never thought I'd see the Doctor that distraight! It's these rare bursts of very human emotion that makes me love the programme just so very, very much. David Tennant is just... magnificent. He just is, alright? Although at the time I made a flippant comment about him only crying out of one eye... was he only half-sad? The final clutching of the Master to his bosom and the Doctor's oh-so-frustrated scream at the end just about finished me off...
Once more the lonely angel. Or is he?
We all saw the Master's ring being picked out of the ashes at the end, right? Heard the chuckle... I knew something like that was going to happen.
Theory: Many people have said it was picked up by a "mysterious woman"'s hand. It's not rocket science to work out that it was Mrs Saxon - see the red nail varnish? Which makes me wonder - during the end she was chanting Doctor along with everybody else, as if she wanted the whole madness to end. So much so that she shot her husband dead... because it was the right thing to do? Or because it was a preconceived plan between her and The Master - if all goes wrong, kill me. Does it seem feasible that this was his escape plan - that is why he didn't regenerate. Not to spite the Doctor, not to get out of being the Doctor's prisoner until the end of eternity - but because he had the chance and the power to transfer his life force into the ring in his dying moments. Then he had to make sure his wife knew to collect the ring afterwards, and all is saved - now to work out how he gets a new body.
Wouldn't it be interesting if he took over Mrs Saxon's body (willingly or unwillingly on her part, I wonder) and the Master returned next season as a woman?
10. Jack is the Face of Boe... I'm not sure whether this is a canon fact or a just a joke on RTD's behalf to set the forums buzzing. After all, it could just be a coincidence, all Jack said was that he was known as the Face of Boe in his youth because he was a poster boy for... some place name with Boe in it that I didn't quite catch. A pretty tenuous connection, if you ask me.
It would explain how he knew to tell the Doctor "you are not alone" and how he seemed to be inordinately fond of him after only really meeting him a so-called three times, but how would Jack, supposing he lived to be a billion years old or whatever, end up looking quite so different? The Face of Boe is a big head with dreadlock-type thingies in his hair, with a British accent, and the ability to give birth?! (Remember how in The Long Game the news announced that The Face Boe was pregnant, as I remember) - none of that sounds like like something Jack could feasibly turn into, no matter how he might evolve over the millennia, if you ask me.
Although take a look at Jack's chin cleft... and then check out the Face of Boe's. Hee.
11. Finally - Martha leaving for a short while. I actually thought this was a good idea, in the circumstances. Would it really be realistic for her to just up and leave her family after the trauma they've suffered? It's not in Martha's character to be that selfish and it's good that they've acknowledged that. Plus, do we really want her mooning over the Doctor for the next full season, when we know full well he's not letting go of Rose in his hearts for a long while yet. Besides, bitch, forget him, he's mine...
I am quite happy with the thought of her splitting her time between the TARDIS and Torchwood, to be honest. I'll be very interested to see how her character works in a more adult setting (are we taking bets on (a) whether she swears within her first dozen lines of dialogue and (b) how long it takes for her to experience her first bisexual encounter... by episode 2, I'm betting *grin*)
Ooh, I heard that Owen was getting a new love interest next season. Hmm. Very Interestink. Would Martha be his type? (She has a pulse, right?)
Besides, if this paves the way for more DW/TW crossovers, then I'm all for it.
It's funny but it was like mentioning that naughty Torchwood programme anywhere near where children might be listening appeared to be taboo last year and now they seem to be trying to shoehorn it into the Doctor Who universe as much as possible. I hope this doesn't mean TW will be watered down next year in case more children decide to try and watch it.
I still want to see a full-on Jack/Ianto naked sex scene, dammit!
I really don't know why the episode had such bad reviews (especially at Behind the Sofa - it never fails to beat me as to why people who blog on a website dedicated to a show they presumably are "fans" of, mostly seem to do nothing but rip every episode to pieces in the most insulting ways imaginable - if you don't like Doctor Who, don't blimming watch it!) - I loved every second of it.
1. The song at the beginning was a great touch, some probably thought it was silly, but I agreed with RTD in Confidential - The Master is the kind of bonkers power-mad individual who, so full of self-satisfaction at ruling the world and having everybody bowing and scraping at his every word he probably would spend his mornings dancing about and mouthing to his favourite songs, and if he irritates everybody around him at the same time, what are they gonna do about it, huh?
Thought it was a good choice of song anyway, the lyrics are very apt:
Oh I could throw you in the lake
Feed you poison birthday cake
I won't deny I'm going to miss you when you're gone
Oh I could bury you alive
But you might come back with a knife
And kill me when I'm sleeping
That's why
I can't decide
Whether you should live or die
Oh, you'll probably go to heaven
Please don't hang your head and cry
No wonder why
My heart feels dead inside
It's cold and hard and petrified
Lock the doors and close the blinds
We're going for a ride
(is it coincidence that the song wasn't even in the Scissor Sister's top 10 on letssingit.com at the weekend, yet today it's risen to no. 2?!)
2. The revelation that a whole year had passed since the conclusion of "The Sound of Drums" completely took me aback. In fact, for the first half-hour of the show I kept whispering to myself "A YEAR?!" in a traumatised manner. I'm not sure why it disturbed me so much, but the thought of the Master keeping our darling Doctor like some sort of animal in a filthy tent in the corner for a whole year was utterly horrifying. (Hands up though - who laughed at the sight of the "dog" bowl and then immediately felt guilty?). I have never thought the Doctor could be humiliated to such a terrible degree, I even winced at the sight of the Master hitting "an old man". Not nice.
All of that, and not to mention the thought of Jack being held upright in chains for the same period of time. My immediate thought must have been "my God, he must stink by now!" not to mention the thought of how painful this must have been for him.
(Nitpick: should Jack not have lost a whole lot of weight by being on a "cold mashed swede" diet for a whole year?
(I think too much about this kind of stuff, don't I? It's the same with soap operas when I'm shouting at characters on a TV screen - it's not real, dear, remember...)
On the other hand, the thought of Jack chained up and at the Master's um... disposal... at any time, day or night, takes my thoughts into tangents best expressed in a different community altogether *cough*
Anyway, yes, a very striking start to the episode. Not to mention the thought of Martha travelling the world alone - who'd have thought she'd have the kind of stamina to do all of that? Could Rose have done all that - and be taken seriously by those she tried to educate, I wonder?
4. The Toclafane = the future humans. If I'd have thought about this more, I probably could have worked that out for myself. But I didn't. The scene where the squishy head in the sphere repeated his "the sky is made of diamonds" line and they showed the flashback of the cute Blue Peter competition winner (how chuffed must he have been?) was a really freaky moment.
5. Prof. Docherty - I loved her! The actress was in Bad Girls, I remember. I thought her acting was exemplary, especially the scene where she felt forced to pass information to the Master to protect her son. She had a look of genuine fear and resentment on her face.
My theory: The fact that they made a bit of a fuss of showing her again at the end of the episode makes me wonder if they intend to use her again - after all the rumour is that Tom Milligan will become the new companion for season 4 and that makes me think that this is why, again, they made a point of Martha checking up on him at the end of the episode. Would they necessarily have bothered with all of that, otherwise? (I am in RTD thought mode here).
Wouldn't it be cool to her appear now and again in season 4 to lend a scientific hand (a bit, I suppose, like Mickey's "tin dog" role in the early part of series 2...)
6. The Doctor at 900 years old looks like Dobby the House Elf. That is all I will say on the matter, it's all way too freaky for me...
7. The Master sneaking up to Gollum's the Doctor's cage in his pyjamas and just-woke-up messed hair. That was pretty adorable, actually.
Question: If the Master is a Timelord, to all intents and purposes just like the Doctor but in evil mode, then why does he act so differently? He snogs/marries and presumably has sex with his companion, and when he's not doing that he's flirting with other women, getting all horny during massages with said other women and making a (rather thinly veiled) suggestion of partaking in a threesome with his wife and another woman? You might argue that as he's evil, he has no respect for humans/women and takes his pleasure where he can get it, whereas the Doctor, on the path of righteousness, might love his companions (or even be in love with them, and my Doctor/Rose shipping head will argue the toss) but he wouldn't desecrate such a relationship with a human by taking sexual pleasure from them.
Which is a fair enough point. But, the Master drinks wine... dresses in jim-jams and goes to bed at night, and judging by the hair, presumably sleeps. Or has wild enough sex to mess his hair up, anyway. When did we ever see the Doctor winding up his alarm clock, putting on his jammies and going to bed like a human? ("Human Nature" not counting, obviously). Not often.
Maybe being evil is just more tiring than being good?
I'm always knackered, come to think of it...
8. I'm very amused by the whole "The Doctor is Jesus, the Master is Satan" metaphor running through the episode. Did anybody pick up on the Master's line "What would the Doctor do?" (as an aside, was he meant to be doing an impression of the Doctor when he said that, because he sounded quite a lot like him!) being a parody of the phrase "What Would Jesus Do" found on many a Christian's wristband, perchance?
Not to mention the Doctor rising from... well, not quite the dead, but the scene where the Doctor regained his youth and floated across the room had a very angelic born-again imagery to it, didn't it? The Doctor, reborn and the image of good triumphing over evil, all because of the people's faith? The people of the world all chanting "Doctor" like the flock praying to their saviour... and then, the Doctor putting his arms around the fallen angel figure of the Master and solemnly declaring "I forgive you". Very funny, Russell. I like it.
As yet another aside, hands up if you found yourself chanting "Doctor" in your head, just in case it helped? My two kids went so far as to close their eyes and chant it out loud!
Clap your hands and say, "I do believe in the Doctor, I do, I do..."
9. The scene where the Master dies in the Doctor's arms, just to spite him... or was it? (I'll come to my theory on this in a moment). It was just... arrrghh, wasn't it? I was desperate to see slashy overtones in it (you can find them anywhere if you look hard enough) but mostly it was just so very sad. I never thought I'd see the Doctor that distraight! It's these rare bursts of very human emotion that makes me love the programme just so very, very much. David Tennant is just... magnificent. He just is, alright? Although at the time I made a flippant comment about him only crying out of one eye... was he only half-sad? The final clutching of the Master to his bosom and the Doctor's oh-so-frustrated scream at the end just about finished me off...
Once more the lonely angel. Or is he?
We all saw the Master's ring being picked out of the ashes at the end, right? Heard the chuckle... I knew something like that was going to happen.
Theory: Many people have said it was picked up by a "mysterious woman"'s hand. It's not rocket science to work out that it was Mrs Saxon - see the red nail varnish? Which makes me wonder - during the end she was chanting Doctor along with everybody else, as if she wanted the whole madness to end. So much so that she shot her husband dead... because it was the right thing to do? Or because it was a preconceived plan between her and The Master - if all goes wrong, kill me. Does it seem feasible that this was his escape plan - that is why he didn't regenerate. Not to spite the Doctor, not to get out of being the Doctor's prisoner until the end of eternity - but because he had the chance and the power to transfer his life force into the ring in his dying moments. Then he had to make sure his wife knew to collect the ring afterwards, and all is saved - now to work out how he gets a new body.
Wouldn't it be interesting if he took over Mrs Saxon's body (willingly or unwillingly on her part, I wonder) and the Master returned next season as a woman?
10. Jack is the Face of Boe... I'm not sure whether this is a canon fact or a just a joke on RTD's behalf to set the forums buzzing. After all, it could just be a coincidence, all Jack said was that he was known as the Face of Boe in his youth because he was a poster boy for... some place name with Boe in it that I didn't quite catch. A pretty tenuous connection, if you ask me.
It would explain how he knew to tell the Doctor "you are not alone" and how he seemed to be inordinately fond of him after only really meeting him a so-called three times, but how would Jack, supposing he lived to be a billion years old or whatever, end up looking quite so different? The Face of Boe is a big head with dreadlock-type thingies in his hair, with a British accent, and the ability to give birth?! (Remember how in The Long Game the news announced that The Face Boe was pregnant, as I remember) - none of that sounds like like something Jack could feasibly turn into, no matter how he might evolve over the millennia, if you ask me.
Although take a look at Jack's chin cleft... and then check out the Face of Boe's. Hee.
11. Finally - Martha leaving for a short while. I actually thought this was a good idea, in the circumstances. Would it really be realistic for her to just up and leave her family after the trauma they've suffered? It's not in Martha's character to be that selfish and it's good that they've acknowledged that. Plus, do we really want her mooning over the Doctor for the next full season, when we know full well he's not letting go of Rose in his hearts for a long while yet. Besides, bitch, forget him, he's mine...
I am quite happy with the thought of her splitting her time between the TARDIS and Torchwood, to be honest. I'll be very interested to see how her character works in a more adult setting (are we taking bets on (a) whether she swears within her first dozen lines of dialogue and (b) how long it takes for her to experience her first bisexual encounter... by episode 2, I'm betting *grin*)
Ooh, I heard that Owen was getting a new love interest next season. Hmm. Very Interestink. Would Martha be his type? (She has a pulse, right?)
Besides, if this paves the way for more DW/TW crossovers, then I'm all for it.
It's funny but it was like mentioning that naughty Torchwood programme anywhere near where children might be listening appeared to be taboo last year and now they seem to be trying to shoehorn it into the Doctor Who universe as much as possible. I hope this doesn't mean TW will be watered down next year in case more children decide to try and watch it.
I still want to see a full-on Jack/Ianto naked sex scene, dammit!