Doctor Who IV - Everything Whovian - Would you like a jelly baby?

[Steel Inquisitor]

- And now for the elephant in the room: my major attraction to the Doctor as a character is the fact that they weren't anything special at first, but rather that they were actually less than special and built themself up to this status of adventurer, that anyone can have a chance to be great with hope, empathy, curiosity, good faith, and a *lot* of cleverness, with those traits actually being preferably to status and power. Being 'The Chosen One' really robs that mystique and appeal of the character.

But I'd like to push that one bit further, with one minor tweak: I think the Timeless Child should have been the Master. It would give way more justification for the Master to blow up Gallifrey if he found out that the Time Lords wiped his memory to control him (something others have brought up, only for the Time War), but it would also mean taking revenge on Time Lords for being his progeny and rebelling against him, much like an inverse of how God wrought vengeance upon Lucifer. Likewise, it would also mean a special kind of enmity for the Doctor since they keep thwarting him using the very same DNA against him (this time, almost like Silver Surfer thwarting Galactus). It would thus further reinforce the classic DW trope since Pertwee vs. Delgado all the way to Capaldi vs. Gomez, that the Doctor and the Master really are two sides of the same coin and one simple difference is all it takes to turn savior into destroyer, or vice versa. But the big difference here, then, is that this deeply personal force that upends all our expectations and knowledge about the mighty Time Lords, and the history of the universe itself since the Time Lords are the oldest race, is that the Master is the Chosen One, but being the Chosen One isn't always the best way to go, that the origin of the Time Lords is the greatest mystery the Doctor has ever faced, and that their opponent isn't just deeply personal, but now almost omnisciently knowledgeable thanks to regaining a mind almost as old as the universe itself.

It has the makings of laying the groundwork for the greatest Doctor vs. Master match up ever, one that surpasses even the Time War itself, but by getting the fundamental roles wrong, it just comes across as more pointless mystery and yet the Doctor paradoxically losing their much of their mystique. It's a mess.

Then again, it could be that the Master, like the Doctor, lies, and hence why there's gaps in the Matrix's memory banks. That would be preferable, but that's after the fact; I feel like the damage has been done.

Wish this was canon.

The good news is that eventually someone's going to retcon Chibnall's idea away. Thirteen deserves so much more from a show runner.

[Somecrazyaussie]

It is what it is. Besides, it can always be tweaked or retconned later that The Master lied or The Matrix has been tampered with. For the most part, it is fairly similar to The Cartmel Masterplan. Plus it has added benefit of sorting out the Doctor's Regeneration cycle. But we need to see where Chibnall goes with it next series.

[ChrisIII]

So it's certainly possible that the Doctor could've been involved with Omega and Rassilon somehow, as the Seventh Doctor era seemed to indicate. Perhaps some of his old memories surfaced.

[Nate Grey]

I don't see how this is part of the Cartmel Masterplan or whatever it's called. Reading up on it, the point seems to be to make the Doctor mysterious again, right? Mysterious = unknown. I can see them saying "Everything we knew about the Doctor isn't true, and we may never know the truth!" Original origin swapped out for questions, and each season going forward is a clue to that puzzle. But swapping out origin #1, for origin #2, is counter to that. He/she is still not mysterious, or returned to mysterious roots.

But I don't think that's Chibnall's intention anyway, that "Masterplan" thing. Someone said in the comments of one of the review videos for this very ep, something I figured out about Chibnall about by the end of his first series as showrunner: he doesn't like Doctor Who. He likes the IDEA of Doctor Who, but not the show itself. So he's trying to fit the show to his own ideas instead of fitting his ideas to the show. And if people are enjoying it anyway, that's great, seriously it is. But make no mistake his intended audience is himself.

[ChrisIII]

Some have pointed out that the "hybrid standing in the ruins of Gallifrey" kind of makes a lot of sense now, with the Master/Cyberium and the Cyber-Masters/Time Lords technically being hybrids.

[protege]

I haven’t seen the episode, but read the recaps. I think my only problem with it was why they had to make the doctor some kind of CIA spook, and wiper their memory after every mission. Was that even necessary?

[ChrisIII]

It's something that kind of happened in the classic series a few times-The time lords sent him on missions a few times although they didn't wipe his memory. It's also part of the "Season 6B" theory used to explain some of the weird discontinuity in Two and Five Doctors.


Basically despite non-intervention, it's been implied that there's always been a secret agency on Gallifrey doing stuff, kind of similar to Star Trek's Section 31.

[ChrisIII]

A few thoughts after finishing this one:


1) Wonder if Graham will settle down with Ravio?

2) I'm guessing the Master could escape using the Missy technique-absorbing some of the destructive force of the particle to teleport. After all it appears the new TCE has a few other 'apps' on it as well as this episode showed.

3)Well, that explains the Dalek filming last year. Kind of interesting that they've filmed a lot of it over a year in advance, maybe because filming for season 13 isn't supposed to start until September and they want to get one more special out.

[Vworp Vworp]

- And now for the elephant in the room: my major attraction to the Doctor as a character is the fact that they weren't anything special at first, but rather that they were actually less than special and built themself up to this status of adventurer, that anyone can have a chance to be great with hope, empathy, curiosity, good faith, and a *lot* of cleverness, with those traits actually being preferably to status and power. Being 'The Chosen One' really robs that mystique and appeal of the character.

See, I didn't get any particular 'chosen one' vibes from the episode. Certainly for me, I saw nothing in the episode which suggested the Doctor was anything special, beyond having the ability to regenerate. And even if there had been, how are any of the Doc's qualities or achievements diminished by an origin that she knows nothing about?

All we know for sure('ish) is that the Doctor was from somewhere else and she had an ability that nobody else had. Other than that, the Doc was just a kid. And when they grew up and did whatever they did in the Division, they had their memory zapped and were presumably plonked back into Gallifreyan society as a child, where his origin picked up from from what we know and what she always believed to be true.

Also, I feels like you're kinda retconning the Doctor's original origin a little here too. When has the show ever suggested the Doctor was 'ordinary' or 'less than special'? OK, at a push, there were a couple of comments about his exam results in the classic series, and that little flashback to him being scared before Clara gave him a pep talk in the barn. But at the end of the day, the Doctor was still this renegade Time Lord who, out of AAAALLLL the other Time Lords, decided to leg it and go see the universe. Frankly, the Doc was a 'chosen one' long before any of last night's revelations occurred.

One thing I despise in writing is when a creative team changes and tears down what was previously built up, just so they they can set up their own vision.
Vendeitti did it over in Green Lantern (the Emotional entities and the various Corps were jettisoned ASAP) and it's just been done here in Doctor Who.
It's lazy and unimaginative.
And that left a huge dirty stain on what was trying to be achieved here, and just ruined whatever the actual goal may have been.

Except this hasn't torn down anything. What was still is, just with a bit more was before it.

And certainly as far as Doctor Who is concerned, writers and producers have been changing what was established from pretty much the second story, when we got our first 'bug eyed monsters', explicitly against the wishes of Sidney Newman. And they worked out OK.

Frankly, I thought last night was genius. It put a little "Who?" back in Doctor Who, without contradicting any aspect of the Doc's life that either we knew about as an audience or she knew about as a character. The first Doctor is certainly no less the first Doctor than he ever was. All that's changed is that we now know a little more about his earlier life than we did already... which beyond the usual standard bio of "Time Lord who got bored on Gallifrey" had always been pretty vague anyway.

[ChrisIII]

One thing I'm curious about is the Doctor's real original species, apparently from another universe.

Also was the regeneration limit placed on the Doctor at some point? Smith apparently needed that extra energy, but perhaps maybe would've just regenerated into Capaldi regardless had he died.

Kind of makes you wonder about the Valeyard too."Somewhere between your twelfth and final regeneration" suddenly has a whole more leg room than it used to even with the new cycle. For all we know the Valeyard actually was a past Doctor working for the division.


On the memory thing, apart from the Chameleon arc and the Doctor's own mind-wipes of Donna and the historical women, time lords also erased or supressed the memory of Jaime and Zoe, and also blocked aspects of the Doctor's memory about how the TARDIS worked during his exile. So keeping whole lives hidden isn't exactly something that's outside their modis operandi.

[Vegeta]

So when the Doctor was revealed to be half-human people had a huge problem with it but when it's revealed the Doctor isn't even an actual native of Gallifrey everyone is like, this is brilliant!!!

[shades of eternity]

Let's go through it.



k I'm ultimately disappointed with this doctor who episode and the season as a whole.

But to be fair, it's more of a stepped on my foot, then ruined my dreams sort of thing.

Not a fan of the new Master. He's not even chewing the scenery properly and I have a benchmark for quality in this regard (Neal Mcdonough). He was just annoying. Not as bad as Paul Simms, but nowhere near as good as Missy.

Plus seriously cheesed that I heard Ace was supposed to be making a cameo this season and her lack of Ace will knock down my score.

But comparatively, I thought the acting was good, and watching the humans deal with cyberman was descent. Jodie Whittaker is doing a great job with the doctor and, Yaz is actually allowed to do things, and Graham is the greatest companion since the Pond's.

Now only they could could get somebody from big finish to write the scripts.

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Events that annoyed me more in doctor who:

1. Let's go kill Hitler. You don't title this and then make it a river song focus peace. It made me hate the character with a passion and it's not her fault at all.

2. Clara - She was a mary sue upon mary sue character that was the third and worst version with two other examples that were way better concepts. She couldn't even die properly like Aldric (and worse followed up with a crappy galafrey episode).

3. The golden age destroyed by the 10th doctor - Prime Minister Harriet Jones is the greatest hero of nuwho and if Tennant's character hadn't been such a whiny person, we might actually have something interesting happening. Then he makes fun of queen victory in the next episode. There is a reason tennant annoys me as the doctor. Donna Noble with a rolled up newspaper couldn't come soon enough.

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So yet another bad Galafrey episode that makes Trial of a Time Lord look amazing.

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Last time I was mad when they took 18 months off (heck I think I even got a warning).

This time, I'm kinda glad we have the time.

Chibnall, stand in the corner and think long and hard of what you have done.

[Anthony W]

I hate to say this, but I'm kind of bored with the season. Instead of telling good stories, the show seems more interested in "watch how we change what's been history for the show for 50 plus years just so we can be what we think is cool".

So...it's Doctor Who if it was done by Marvel Comics? I hated the chosen vibe that was created around the Doctor as well. Did anyone find Graham's talk with Yaz weird? You would think that he would tell Yaz that if he didn't make it back to deliver a message to his son, not tell Yaz how wonderful she is.

[protege]

A few thoughts after finishing this one:


1) Wonder if Graham will settle down with Ravio?

2) I'm guessing the Master could escape using the Missy technique-absorbing some of the destructive force of the particle to teleport. After all it appears the new TCE has a few other 'apps' on it as well as this episode showed.

3)Well, that explains the Dalek filming last year. Kind of interesting that they've filmed a lot of it over a year in advance, maybe because filming for season 13 isn't supposed to start until September and they want to get one more special out.

I’d actually be okay with graham settling down and the companions going back to their old lives, as opposed to meeting some bizarre end because of traveling with the doctor. I’d be sorry to see Bradley Walsh go, but nothing lasts forever. I just wonder what sort of companion the doctor could have after this.

[Indian Ink]

Sometimes I think we, and I mean we in the collective sense, are being bedazzled by our own intelligence. Joining the dots; sometimes just finding order and patterns in the chaos. Like those old astronomers seeing canals on mars from the craters and ice caps. These stories should be plain as day to someone of average IQ. Someone with an general IQ of 95 should be able to watch this without needing to unduly filling in the gaps or making presumptions of what apparent shown illogicalness must really mean.

IT'S POOR WRITING!

We shouldn't need to be going; "Ah yes, Dr Who was a deep, deep cover agent placed into the matrix of time, living out his role as a policeman to butterfly future events, and that he was found as a baby (The condition of which Time Lords must be able to induce some how, but we will never speak of it, no we won't) by a fellow agent who really knew he would be found in the lane, but had to act out as though he didn't know he would be there. And take him home to his wife whom may or may not be a human but they will always act as though they are. (And of course we are able as Time Lords to induce human type aging in one of our agents, but we will never show or speak of this ever) And when he has lived out his life they will naturally will wipe his memory, not by taking him to another secret location, but by taking him back inside the police station. It all makes perfect sense!!"

IT'S COMPLETE RUBBISH! It should be perfectly comprehensible to the average viewer and I sorry, but it's not. No wonder the viewer figures are dropping. The final episode had the second lowest overnight rating in the UK. Only 3.78 million, barely up from the last one.