total war in season three of doctor who, revisited

[tlr3]

quite a while back, i speculated (with spoilers) about the theme of total war in the third season of newdoctorwho.

the themes didn't play out quite the way i expected, so i thought i might revisit them.
(spoilers for like everything.)

i had thought the master would be in human form--that is, not a timelord, but his essence or whatnot in charge of a

Comments

[astrogirl2]

You know, I hadn't thought about war as a theme at all, beyond the "lingering guilt from the Time War" thing, but of course it's there.

maybe there were too many themes to juggle.

Personally, I think that is exactly the case. There's a sense that the basic idea, thematically, is sort of right... You don't fight fire with fire, you fight it with its opposite, that sort of thing. It's mainly the execution that's flawed, and I think it is in large part because too many themes are getting jumbled up together. (Including RTD's favorite -- and utterly unnecessary -- theme of "Doctor Who is great!")

[tlr3]

(Including RTD's favorite -- and utterly unnecessary -- theme of "Doctor Who is great!")

yeah. . . which is especially ouchy when paul cornell (imho, anyway) did the "doctor who is great!" bit, too, but did it much better.

would it really not have been better if the doctor had started to trap the master in a mirror or something and martha had to tell him to stop? or, better yet, martha's mother?

[astrogirl2]

I don't know... As I've said elsewhere, I do like the way the Doctor chose to handle the Master, even if I had problems with the episode as a whole. And even if, as other people have observed, the Master may have regarded being forgiven as far more cruel than anything else the Doctor might have done to him.

Actually, I suppose one might profitably debate the differences and similarities between trapping someone in a mirror for eternity and locking them up in your TARDIS for an indefinite chunk of it... There may well be a blurry line between cruelty and kindness. :)

[tlr3]

There may well be a blurry line between cruelty and kindness. :)

especially for the doctor!

no, i definitely get that the end should involve the doctor forgiving the master and trying to be kind. i'm just not sure it made the most dramatic sense to "see" the doctor apparently seething for a year and then have him turn around and forgive the master without any expression of anger at all.

dunno. possibly i just wanted to see the ending i had in my head!

Re: Survival and hiding

[tlr3]

ooo, you're right. there's a lot of hiding in this season. that is, we see a lot of hiding. whereas, just running through the season in my head, season two seemed to be more about hidden things becoming revealed, not the hiding per se. . .

[big_n_happy]

Isn't The Doctor's strategy a total war of sorts? If not war, atleast total. As in, the resources Saxon took control of were humanity (Toclafane, worldwide faith) and the TARDIS, which allows him control over time and space. To win, The Doctor takes these resources back - nabbing the TARDIS & gaining worldwide psychic support. (gods that is a cheesy plot device)

So, as Martha points out, she uses words, but she uses words to gain absolute control. Mebbe kind of a "words are reality, control the words, you control the reality" thing?

[tlr3]

. . . i think a key part of "total war" in the sense i mean it is that one's entire efforts are devoted to destroying the enemy even though destroying the enemy also destroys what makes your own survival worthwhile. (this is perhaps a nicer way to interpret the doctor's near suicidality in the past season: he needs to be willing to die for other people's freedom if we're to avoid the implication that he is just as much a survive-at-all-costs kinda guy.)

the word thing is definitely there, too. it's also perilously close to "the doctor wins because he's the doctor." which is a nice tautology, but not good drama, i think.

[sashajwolf]

Very interesting.

[tlr3]

thanks!