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so here it comes
And now, an End of Time screencap recap! (Yes, both parts, because I'm shallow thorough like that.) This is not idle capping in vain, though, oh no. Well, mostly it is; I love staring at David Tennant and John Simm. But besides that, I have also suddenly rediscovered the crazy fever that takes hold when I have new Doctor Who food for thought and am seized with the desperate urge to write. I need to organize my thoughts; for that, I have to rewatch; and, in order to rewatch without someone holding my hand, I must pause every five seconds to take a screencap and say something about it.
In the process of this write-up -- which took literally all day, I might add; oh, the ridiculous labors of love I do for Doctor Who -- I discovered that I actually adore these episodes. To teeny tiny ridiculous flawed pieces.
This is mostly a Doctor/Master recap; to do the whole thing would be insane. Er, allons-y.
We open with the Doctor learning from the Ood that the Master had a backup plan. Doctor. The Master always has a backup plan. This is what the Doctor looks like when he remembers this.
Here, meanwhile, is the Master! He is naked and full of glowy blue light, like Tinkerbelle Jesus but demonic. OR SOMETHING. He comes back gasping "Never dying, never dying," which those of you playing along at home will know is both sort of his shtick and also the thematic core of these episodes. None of the Time Lords want to die, and it is Problematic. Happily, Lucy Saxon knows it is Problematic, and she has a mumblepotionoflifecounteractionhandwaaaave to stop the Master from resurrecting properly! The Master, inexplicably misogynistic in this incarnation, should remember that it's always the women. This is what the Master looks like when he remembers this.
It's probably worth noting that he was finally allowed to say "You will obey me!" but I think he used up all his ability to hypnotize Lucy a long time ago. Sorry, Master.
So now the Master is rather badly disguised as an emo hoodie kid because otherwise he'd be recognized as Harold Saxon. One wonders why he couldn't have somehow taken advantage of the Harold Saxon persona, or indeed whether his entire Cult of Saxon were killed in his botched resurrection. But one would be wise to quickly give up wondering, because questioning plot validity is a quick way to a headache. And anyway, if one is me, one is irrationally fond of the hoodie-and-bleach look on Simm and isn't complaining anyway.
The Master senses the Doctor, and wants to play a nice game of chase! He knocks four times, repeatedly. "He will knock four times," is sort of Schrödinger's red herring, because this whole last adventure both is and is not fatal because of the Master. Don't think about it too hard.
Incidentally, the Master hitting the barrel is strangely beautiful in motion. It doesn't quite translate. The Doctor's crinkly-eyed face of "What has happened to you?" on the other hand, does.
YOU TWO SHOULD HAVE A STANDOFF A LITTLE CLOSER TOGETHER.
"Please, let me help!" the Doctor cries.
EXACTLY, MASTER. You'd think the Doctor would have learned better by now. On the other hand, I have this theory that the Master is always a little less far gone than the Doctor believes, and I think that the Doctor has finally come to this conclusion too, because, to my great delight, in this episode he just doesn't let up. Unlike last time, when Lucy shot him and the Master refused to regenerate, I think this time the relentless reaching out to the Master actually turns real results. But I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
We now interrupt our Doctor/Master broadcast for the Doctor being unhappy in a café. First I find the "What are you?" portion of the conversation interesting on a rewatch, because obviously now it's clunky foreshadowing that Wilf is the Doctor's doom -- but I feel like that sort of writing spectacularly misses every single possible point. So, moving on: I love the following little bit of conversation;
DOCTOR. I'm going to die.
WILF. Well, so am I, one day.
DOCTOR. No, don't you dare.
WILF. All right, I'll try not to.
Because that is exactly the awful subtle sort of thing that I love best, and both of them play it so well. Ten is so pretty and scared.
Okay, now comes the first really excellent Doctor/Master bit. In anticipation of this, the Master blows things up, burning his life force in the process, while the Doctor walks through raging fire with suicidal calm. We understand implicitly that these crazy kids have Issues.
Of course, the second the Doctor stumbles and falls, the Master forgets all about his cunning plan to fry the Doctor with lightning, and automatically runs to help him. It's not exactly the pure symmetry of the Doctor dying in the Master's arms, but it still has all the delightful symmetry of seeing clearly that when one of them falls, the other one, without a second's thought, will dart out to catch him.
Then the Master reminisces about how he used to have estates back home and they would go frolicking through the red grass. Because Rusty hates puppies and Christmas and all goodness, or more likely had a few budget constraints what with spending lots of his CGI money on the Gallifrey that we see later in the episode, we don't get any hilarious visual flashbacks to this. But we still have more telly canon childhood BFF lines to add to Three's "You might almost say we were at school together," so that's excellent.
I am still not entirely sure what to do with the Master's botched resurrection making him insatiably hungry and obsessed with hot flesh &c &c, and I imagine it all made us kind of squirmy and uncomfortable, aside from which he does a really good Gollum impression for those bits, but I'm not sure I dislike it. I'm just not sure what to do with it. I kind of like the literal take on the Master's insatiable desire to possess and consume, though.
Then, for what must be for the Master seemingly out of nowhere, the Doctor says, "What if I ask you for help?"
It's like the opposite of his "bitch please" face when Ten was the one offering the help! Simm can pull the most amazingly expressive faces.
Meanwhile, I love how they think they're having different conversations, but really they aren't.
DOCTOR. There's more at work tonight than you and me.
MASTER. Oh yeah?
DOCTOR. I've been told: something is returning.
MASTER. And here I am!
DOCTOR. No, something more.
MASTER. But it hurts --
DOCTOR. I was told -- the end of time --
MASTER. -- it hurts -- Doctor, the noise -- the noise in my head, Doctor -- one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, stronger than ever before!
Yeah, this scene is wonderful. First they have a moment of communication without knowing they do, and then, when the Master finally initiates conscious communication, the Doctor panics and gets the hell out. Because, as we know now, the drums are a tangible thing with a tangible origin, and they are both allowed the revelation that perhaps the Master is slightly less insane than either of them estimated.
Their reactions to this news are ... mixed.
Then the Master rockets off to be picked up by the Plot Device Helicopter, and I am very sad because their one really lovely intimate scene for this half of the episode is done with, and far too short at that.
Next we see the Master, he is all tied up, but he seems to be enjoying himself anyway, because people appear to be paying attention to him, and they even know that he's the Master.
Confession: bondage!Master makes me want to throw out all serious fic considerations and write reams of awful self-indulgent stuff where Ten has gone off the deep end and keeps a pet Master. Alas, it is only a passing fancy and not the thing that is currently nagging at my brain.
Back to the story at hand:
Sorry, no, that's not the story at hand, is it? Look, I told you that half the reason I'm doing this recap is that I am really shallow for John Simm. (Raise your hand if you spend way too much time wanting to lick his neck. No? Just me?)
Anyway.
The Naismiths explain to the Master that they want him to repair their alien tech, so that Abigail can become immortal. I'm not sure whether I'm giving RTD more or less credit than he deserves when I say with some surprise that there really is a clear thematic thread to track here: Immortality Is Bad, kids! It was bad back in Five Doctors when Borusa, who had been SO AWESOME back in The Deadly Assassin, decides he wants true immortality and falls prey to the Mousetrap of Rassilon. It's bad when the Time Lords decide they want to fuck over the universe and ascend a la Ancients, although I'm getting ahead of myself. It's bad when foolish humans try for it, whether they're the Naismiths or Lazarus from s3. And of course the Master has wanted it forever, so he finds their ambitions amusing. That, or this is his "I just got a brilliant plan" face.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, having learned what happens when you leave your TARDIS unattended with the Master running loose, decides that locking it like a car isn't good enough, and instead sets it a second out of synch with surrounding reality.
One would think that, having introduced this slightly-out-of-phase concept, one would do something awesome like apply it to the Time Lock. But that's obviously just crazy talk.
Meanwhile, as the Doctor and Wilf run about a big old brick house for all the world as though they're old school and think it's still the late 1970s, the Master is busy being a total BAMF despite the fact that he's still dressed in a collar. "Now! Please don't imagine I'm a slave-driver," Mr. Naismith says. "We can resume work on Boxing Day, Mr. Saxon." And, "My name," says the Master, "is the Master," and promptly fixes the Immortality Gate, complete with his own specs. Because he's stone-cold brilliant, he is, and even though I think his SIX-BILLION MASTERS!! plan leaves something to be desired, he did think it up in half an hour while rigging alien tech.
The Doctor, meanwhile, realizes what the Master's up to.
The Master is so pleased that the Doctor has worked out what's going on! Everything becomes at least a hundred times more satisfying when the Doctor is around to be audience to his triumph, you see.
Sdkdfsjgdf;l RADIATION CHAMBER OF DOOM.
Then everyone turns into the Master. This is forgivable first because "Six billion people all triangulating the origin of the drumming" is actually a fairly awesome concept, not to mention that it's a rather clever mirror of "Six billion people all thinking of the Doctor at once in order to defeat the Master's rule;" also, I don't think John Simm in the hot pink dress will ever get old. Ever.
The narrative dwells on this insanity for far too long, as though dressing poor Simm up in a million outfits and making him laugh evilly for five minutes straight was even remotely terrifying instead of just utterly ridiculous. Happily, Timothy Dalton rescues us with his dramatic narrative.
But even then, the Master had no concept of his greater role in events, for this was far more than humanity's end. This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever. This was the day the Time Lords returned. For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of Time itself!
HOSHITTIMELORDS.
I am way fond of the fact that his whole narrative is in fact his speech to the Gallifreyan political body at large. It's appropriately dramatic and destiny-ridden, and while part of me does think that it's funny that this was his lead-up to "Guys, let's go to Earth and fuck over the universe," most of me is busy going HOSHITTIMELORDS.
Gallifrey location shot! I want a stupid spinoff about baby Theta purely so that I can stare at Gallifreyan CGI for hours, no lie.
Here we have the High Council, complete with useless seeress! I'm not even going to get into the fact that the concept of Time Lord-generated prophecies bends the mind; I'll stick to the part where foreshadowing or moving the plot along using a sort of mystical As You Don't Know Yet But Are About To, Bob, is just plain lazy.
There are plenty of interesting things about this scene, though! First, the Doctor has vanished, but still possesses a moment that he can use to destroy the Daleks and the Time Lords; it sounds a lot more premeditated than anything I'd previously envisioned, ie that he found himself in the possession of a crazy single million-to-one chance and took it before everything was doomed. Second, one of the women on the High Council (I am going to pretend it is Flavia even if she dies ten seconds later, because Flavia is awesome, yo) thinks that the destruction of the Time Lords is a reasonable price to pay for the end of the War; this implies that, yes, the majority of the Time Lords or at least their leader were fairly evil by that point, but the Doctor had to destroy the Time Lords not just because of what they'd become, but because of the whole War they bring with them.
Perhaps it's time. This is only the furthest edge of the Time War, but at its heart, millions die every second, lost in bloodlust and insanity, with Time itself resurrecting them, to find new ways of dying, over and over again, a travesty of life. Isn't it better to end it at last?
It gives me shivers. YEAH FLAVIA! (I love the Time Lord sitting next to her. He's obviously preoccupied wondering whether he left the stove on.)
I am vastly easy for the mythos of the War, which I'm sure no one is surprised about, so I apologize for the fact that I'm going to keep excitedly going on about it. Without screencaps, even! But what I really love is that Rusty keeps throwing little tidbits of SHEER EPIC about the Time War at us (more on this later) without actually explaining it. If he explained it, it would lose all the epic and the terror.
"I WILL NOT DIE!" the Lord President howls. "A billion years of Time Lord history riding on our backs!" I can't decide whether it's more excellent if he is actualfax Rassilon or not. On the one hand, my god, if he is it ups the personal investment stakes by a factor of a billion; this is his planet we're talking about, his history about to be locked away and burn -- but on the other hand, what he has is a psychopathic evacuation plan, not the blueprints for a Matrix Preservation Society. IDK.
Meanwhile part of the Plot Device Prophecy names the Enmity of Ages, which makes me cackle with glee, because they know it's the Doctor and the Master instantly. WORST BREAKUP EVER, GUYS. And mm, Gallifreyan writing.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, our two favourite renegade Time Lords are busy enacting their Enmity of the Ages in a way that hasn't been seen with such proper excellence since around Mind of Evil.
The Master is so very pleased at being in charge of everything! He gives Wilf a cheerful wink. I melt a tiny bit and can't stop grinning, because his delight is incredibly infectious.
The Doctor is happy too! Because, thank fuck, he built a failsafe into Donna's headsplosion. ("But really, do you think I'd leave my best friend without a defense mechanism?" BEST FRIEND. <3) And now he's giving the Master an insolent little now-in-this-small-way-I'm-winning smirk, and I start losing a few of my higher brain functions.
And now we come to the bit that everyone has quoted a million times. Permit me to join them.
MASTER. Tell me. Where's your TARDIS?
DOCTOR. You could be so wonderful.
MASTER. Where is it?
DOCTOR. You're a genius. You're stone-cold brilliant, you are, I swear, you really are. But you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. With a mind like that, we could travel the stars. It would be my honor. Cos you don't need to own the universe, just see it. To have the privilege of seeing the whole of time and space -- that's ownership enough.
MASTER. Would it stop, then? The noise in my head?
DOCTOR. I can help.
MASTER. I don't know what I'd be without that noise.
DOCTOR. Wonder what I'd be without you.
MASTER. Yeah.
"What does he mean?" Wilf calls. "What noise?"
And I love Wilf, bless him, but that look on the Master's face was about the look I had on mine. YOU INTERRUPTED THEIR MOMENT. >:(
More seriously, I love this exchange because -- the Doctor meant it on their last encounter, too, all the Just stop, just think, just let me help you but he did it with an edge of frantic desperation that signaled 'I don't want to be alone in the universe' without having a personal touch; he only got around to actually trying a proper connection when the Master was already dying and went through with it to spite him. Now they're in a place where the Master knows that he means something to the Doctor, because the Doctor sobbed over his dying body, so from the word go he's a lot more willing to be open. Now that he's got world domination out of the way, the Master has time to actually see if the Doctor might help him, and for fuck's sake, be vulnerable enough to get a little teary himself. I love it more than words can say.
So the Master takes a moment to corroborate the Doctor's sad story about the Master's childhood, looking into the Untempered Schism and first hearing the drums -- which makes me sort of wonder how the Doctor found out about this. Actually, everyone seems to know about it. I suppose the young Master was taken in for psych evaluations and somehow it became common knowledge -- although only in this iteration of the universe. Because in old school, the Time War hadn't yet happened, and they had no need to send the Master a signal. Now they do, and so he's always had the drums. It makes fun wacky paradox sense!
I love how intently the Doctor listens to the Master tell this story, and how he steps in to explain the Untempered Schism when the Master needs a moment. You can see into the Time Vortex itself. And it hurts.
Baby Koschei is flipping adorable, and looks slightly like a penguin.
The Master suddenly realizes that he can triangulate the drums using all six billion of himself, and is so excited that he goes momentarily skeletal again. "This body was born out of death," he says, angry but unsurprised. "All it can do is die." One wonders, then, whether it was a resurrection flaw or an integral flaw of the body, one he knew would happen when he chose to die rather than regenerate. Either way, I love this little confirmation that the Master does think of bodies as receptacles; here we've got the Doctor talking about his own death as Ten as a real death, because someone else with his memories walks away, and meanwhile the Master treats his current body like a faulty suit. Mm the politics of regeneration.
Meanwhile, the Master is still self-centered, if not entirely wrong. The something coming out of the dark isn't him, but he's pretty damn integral. Say it with me: self-fulfilling prophecies! Even if they are mostly nonsensical they're still awesome.
"Actually," the Doctor says, "the most impressive thing about you is that after all this time you're still bone-dead stupid." And strangely this is one of my favourite lines; I may wax poetical about them getting teary-eyed and longing at each other, but I still also love it when the Master smacks the Doctor upside the head and the Doctor insults the Master's intelligence; it's a different kind of stupid intimate comfort they have with one another.
What follows is the WORST. RESCUE. EVER. I am actually slightly grateful for it, because it's RTD at his slapstick wackiest without being truly obnoxious, and there needed to be at least one of those moments. Anyway, the Doctor and co. escape to the Vinvocci spaceship, where the Doctor and Wilf settle down for some damn fine-quality angst.
Wilf hopes that the Doctor has a trick up his sleeve, some of the old flim-flam, sort of thing. The Doctor doesn't. It's probably on account of, oh, he lost Rose and Martha left him and the Master died on him and he lost Rose again and Donna's mind borked and the Master is crazyface and he thinks he's going to die. One suspects there is a limit to "does well in adversity."
"Oh blimey," Wilf says, realizing this.
The Doctor spots a falling plot point! It makes no sense at all -- like, really, you can just chuck a diamond out of the time lock? jolly good then! -- but it makes a pretty screencap, so whatever.
And I don't think I've mentioned the lady in white yet, so here she is. Originally I thought she was Romana, but I am so incredibly fond now of the idea that she's Susan instead, particularly with the Doctor glancing from Wilf to Donna when he asks later. Anyway, hello, lady in white! You are pointless but poignant.
I won't transcribe the entire conversation that the Doctor and Wilf have on the bridge, but I love all of it: Wilf the astronaut, Wilf the widower, Wilf the skinny little idiot soldier; I love his astonishment that the Doctor's older than him, and his understanding of what that must mean ("We must look like insects to you") and the Doctor saying, "I would be proud. If you were my dad." I wish they'd let Ten play off older companions more, because honestly most of the time the young seemingly-ordinary girls weren't my 'in' to the show anyway, and Ten just shines with Wilf.
And then, of course, there's the bit where Wilf realizes that if the Doctor kills the Master, he'll be saving his own life and the lives of the entire human race. But the Doctor can't do it. Say it with me: his unwillingness to kill the Master is greater than his fear of death and his love of humanity combined. Fucking hell.
Then the Master -- in a very cappable shot, I might add -- announces that he found a Gallifreyan Plot Point. And suddenly the Doctor is perfectly happy to take Wilf's gun, thank you very much.
When Timothy Dalton yells "GALLIFREY RISES!" and they echo it back, I get chills. Mm. Meanwhile the Doctor is panicked and explains the time lock as being like a bubble, but I like my beach-ball-with-a-pin-puncture metaphor better, and I think Wilf would too, because he's confused. Ah well.
The Master decides they can take the Doctor out with missiles because any second now they'll have Time Lords to spare. I figure that this is actually like every other plan he's ever had to kill the Doctor: he just throws things at the Doctor for the joy of seeing the Doctor foil them. After all, he's the Master and his boyfriend had better still be the bestest cleverest person in the universe. In any case, they're both really epic in their own way.
HOSHITTIMELORDS.
The Master, as you may observe, is actually a little annoyed that the Lord President is interrupting his confused concern for the Doctor, who has, by the way, just crashed through the roof.
I feel so awful for the Master in all of this, actually. First he wants to take over the Time Lords! Then he gets pointed at by the Glove of Rassilon and loses all of humanity, but hey, he was still the Time Lords' salvation, don't forget that! Anyway, he did this! He gets the credit! He's on the Time Lords' side! And the Doctor is so furious that he never listens, but oh, wait for it, they're going to connect something fierce before this episode is over.
In the meantime: GALLIFREY OMGWTFBBQ SQUEEEE.
What's that? Defies the laws of physics, you say? Look, Doctor Who has always defied the laws of physics. Just roll with it. It's GALLIFREY. It's AWESOME. I love how Gallifrey is absolutely beautiful and also looks like it's burning, because -- yes, yes, exactly; Gallifrey is the ultimate visual metaphor for itself.
I think this is the most concentrated hatred the Doctor has ever shot the Master in a single glance. Good goddamn.
You weren't there, in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born. But if the time lock's broken, then everything's coming through -- not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degredations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could've-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres, the War turning to Hell: and that's what you've opened, right above the Earth. Hell is descending!
HELLO, this is what I mean about loving the Time War. Deep down I still picture the Nightmare Child as some colossal version of the Test Card Girl from Life On Mars (I swear, every time she appears in the final episode -- EVERY TIME, even when I'm expecting her -- I nearly have a fucking heart attack, and THE MASTER SHOULD BE SCARED TOO); but it all sounds like it's on the brink of a fairytale, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and I love it, I love it with all my heart. I love also the Master's response, "My kind of world!" because it is a response of deliberate frightened ignorance, and it's played perfectly.
The Lord President's plan has really good Time Lord merit, too. They will ascend, and be free of these bodies, and free of Time -- it's the ultimate in noninterference, the ultimate in studied contemplation away from the wrack and ruin and chaos of corporeal form. Again, Time Lord body politics: Ten is ultimately very human, because he's attached to this form and sees in their plan the same sort of horror that we do. The Master, though, he of a disdainful this body -- this is his reaction:
"Then," says the Master, "let me ascend, into glory!" But he says it with tears back in his eyes, because he is beginning to understand: all the ways he's been used, and that the clinging to life he's done through the centuries is a clinging to bodies, to cause and effect and all sorts of messy things. Here's one of the many places the Doctor and the Master overlap.
AND THEN THE DOCTOR POINTS HIS GUN AT THE LORD PRESIDENT TO STOP HIM FROM KILLING THE MASTER. Actually, I think I need to be quiet for this whole scene and just let the screencaps talk. First, though, I figure I should point out that [a] the Master is just awful at figuring out what the right thing is to say to the Doctor, and [b] I love the Doctor's awful back-and-forth wavering in exactly the same way I like the Master's trying-to-be-on-every-winning-side.
Here's Susan/Romana/his mum again! I like the idea that, whoever she is, seeing her there reminded the Doctor that there's always a third option.
"Get out of the way."
The actual communication they do! No crossed wires. The Master's delighted; the Doctor is astonished. Because I don't think the Doctor was expecting it, but the Master's missed the two of them just as much as the Doctor has, and here, finally, he has something to fight besides the Doctor, something that's done both of them a hundred personal wrongs, and here we have, in however small a way, his redemption.
Yeah, I'm a sap. I cried.
So the Master's gone, technically along with the Time Lords and Gallifrey, although I have no doubt that if Moffat wishes to use any of those things he certainly can. In the meantime, the Master went out with a bang and, while I said and really meant that I'd only forgive Rusty everything if Ten died in the Master's arms, the way the Master left for the time being was excellent. Meanwhile it is time for Ten to die. Not really with a bang. With many whimpers, in fact.
First, we have his one small moment of horrified realization as he hears Wilf tentatively knock on the radiation chamber's glass.
Then we have him realize that after all this, all this, his death is going to be a tiny awful insignificant moment. And he could choose to leave, because it is a choice, but for the Doctor it's never any choice at all, because even though he wants to stay this man who he is, Ten is the sort of person who will save Wilf and sacrifice himself. So he has his small rage against the universe, and I feel awful and shaky and pause to cap things every five seconds because otherwise I wouldn't get through it.
So that bit breaks me. So does this.
And I admit that, had he died alone in that radiation chamber, I would have bawled my fucking eyes out.
Instead he lives for another twenty minutes, slowly dragging my grief into numbness, so we'll skip right to the third part that made me tear up.
Cos really, after all that, this should be his last reward. I love Ten and I love Rose, without ever having liked Ten/Rose, but to my astonishment I retroactively love it because I've suddenly had it slot into my head in a way that makes sense -- it was codependence of the highest mad order, and that was Ten's last little moment to take in Rose's thousand-watt smile and reflect a little happiness. The really awful part of his regeneration is that he's alone, and while visiting all his other Ten-companions and then slinking off to die undermines that, seeing Rose again underlines it. This is the great gap between who he would like to be and who he is.
(If you don't like Ten/Rose, I apologize for having gotten Ten/Rose in your Doctor/Master.)
Anyway, Ten stumbles off to his TARDIS, falls in the door, staggers up to the console, and has some last lines that I have heard called pathetic, which is certainly a valid way of looking at it. Me personally, I wish that Ten had found closure, and I wish fiercely that he'd been able to die with someone there to bear witness and to promise to keep loving him even when he's new; but I don't wish that he'd died stoic and noble and resigned. That was never, ever Ten's way. Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light: I don't want to go.
Incidentally, I love the TARDIS going up in flames. That's the way you do it when you're Ten: go down burning.
And then we have this fellow.
He's got arms! Legs! Fingers, lots of fingers! He's not a girl, and he's not ginger, and I'm not entirely ready for him yet, but I will be! The Doctor is dead; long live the Doctor. :D
In the process of this write-up -- which took literally all day, I might add; oh, the ridiculous labors of love I do for Doctor Who -- I discovered that I actually adore these episodes. To teeny tiny ridiculous flawed pieces.
This is mostly a Doctor/Master recap; to do the whole thing would be insane. Er, allons-y.
We open with the Doctor learning from the Ood that the Master had a backup plan. Doctor. The Master always has a backup plan. This is what the Doctor looks like when he remembers this.
Here, meanwhile, is the Master! He is naked and full of glowy blue light, like Tinkerbelle Jesus but demonic. OR SOMETHING. He comes back gasping "Never dying, never dying," which those of you playing along at home will know is both sort of his shtick and also the thematic core of these episodes. None of the Time Lords want to die, and it is Problematic. Happily, Lucy Saxon knows it is Problematic, and she has a mumblepotionoflifecounteractionhandwaaaave to stop the Master from resurrecting properly! The Master, inexplicably misogynistic in this incarnation, should remember that it's always the women. This is what the Master looks like when he remembers this.
It's probably worth noting that he was finally allowed to say "You will obey me!" but I think he used up all his ability to hypnotize Lucy a long time ago. Sorry, Master.
So now the Master is rather badly disguised as an emo hoodie kid because otherwise he'd be recognized as Harold Saxon. One wonders why he couldn't have somehow taken advantage of the Harold Saxon persona, or indeed whether his entire Cult of Saxon were killed in his botched resurrection. But one would be wise to quickly give up wondering, because questioning plot validity is a quick way to a headache. And anyway, if one is me, one is irrationally fond of the hoodie-and-bleach look on Simm and isn't complaining anyway.
The Master senses the Doctor, and wants to play a nice game of chase! He knocks four times, repeatedly. "He will knock four times," is sort of Schrödinger's red herring, because this whole last adventure both is and is not fatal because of the Master. Don't think about it too hard.
Incidentally, the Master hitting the barrel is strangely beautiful in motion. It doesn't quite translate. The Doctor's crinkly-eyed face of "What has happened to you?" on the other hand, does.
YOU TWO SHOULD HAVE A STANDOFF A LITTLE CLOSER TOGETHER.
"Please, let me help!" the Doctor cries.
EXACTLY, MASTER. You'd think the Doctor would have learned better by now. On the other hand, I have this theory that the Master is always a little less far gone than the Doctor believes, and I think that the Doctor has finally come to this conclusion too, because, to my great delight, in this episode he just doesn't let up. Unlike last time, when Lucy shot him and the Master refused to regenerate, I think this time the relentless reaching out to the Master actually turns real results. But I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
We now interrupt our Doctor/Master broadcast for the Doctor being unhappy in a café. First I find the "What are you?" portion of the conversation interesting on a rewatch, because obviously now it's clunky foreshadowing that Wilf is the Doctor's doom -- but I feel like that sort of writing spectacularly misses every single possible point. So, moving on: I love the following little bit of conversation;
DOCTOR. I'm going to die.
WILF. Well, so am I, one day.
DOCTOR. No, don't you dare.
WILF. All right, I'll try not to.
Because that is exactly the awful subtle sort of thing that I love best, and both of them play it so well. Ten is so pretty and scared.
Okay, now comes the first really excellent Doctor/Master bit. In anticipation of this, the Master blows things up, burning his life force in the process, while the Doctor walks through raging fire with suicidal calm. We understand implicitly that these crazy kids have Issues.
Of course, the second the Doctor stumbles and falls, the Master forgets all about his cunning plan to fry the Doctor with lightning, and automatically runs to help him. It's not exactly the pure symmetry of the Doctor dying in the Master's arms, but it still has all the delightful symmetry of seeing clearly that when one of them falls, the other one, without a second's thought, will dart out to catch him.
Then the Master reminisces about how he used to have estates back home and they would go frolicking through the red grass. Because Rusty hates puppies and Christmas and all goodness, or more likely had a few budget constraints what with spending lots of his CGI money on the Gallifrey that we see later in the episode, we don't get any hilarious visual flashbacks to this. But we still have more telly canon childhood BFF lines to add to Three's "You might almost say we were at school together," so that's excellent.
I am still not entirely sure what to do with the Master's botched resurrection making him insatiably hungry and obsessed with hot flesh &c &c, and I imagine it all made us kind of squirmy and uncomfortable, aside from which he does a really good Gollum impression for those bits, but I'm not sure I dislike it. I'm just not sure what to do with it. I kind of like the literal take on the Master's insatiable desire to possess and consume, though.
Then, for what must be for the Master seemingly out of nowhere, the Doctor says, "What if I ask you for help?"
It's like the opposite of his "bitch please" face when Ten was the one offering the help! Simm can pull the most amazingly expressive faces.
Meanwhile, I love how they think they're having different conversations, but really they aren't.
DOCTOR. There's more at work tonight than you and me.
MASTER. Oh yeah?
DOCTOR. I've been told: something is returning.
MASTER. And here I am!
DOCTOR. No, something more.
MASTER. But it hurts --
DOCTOR. I was told -- the end of time --
MASTER. -- it hurts -- Doctor, the noise -- the noise in my head, Doctor -- one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, stronger than ever before!
Yeah, this scene is wonderful. First they have a moment of communication without knowing they do, and then, when the Master finally initiates conscious communication, the Doctor panics and gets the hell out. Because, as we know now, the drums are a tangible thing with a tangible origin, and they are both allowed the revelation that perhaps the Master is slightly less insane than either of them estimated.
Their reactions to this news are ... mixed.
Then the Master rockets off to be picked up by the Plot Device Helicopter, and I am very sad because their one really lovely intimate scene for this half of the episode is done with, and far too short at that.
Next we see the Master, he is all tied up, but he seems to be enjoying himself anyway, because people appear to be paying attention to him, and they even know that he's the Master.
Confession: bondage!Master makes me want to throw out all serious fic considerations and write reams of awful self-indulgent stuff where Ten has gone off the deep end and keeps a pet Master. Alas, it is only a passing fancy and not the thing that is currently nagging at my brain.
Back to the story at hand:
Sorry, no, that's not the story at hand, is it? Look, I told you that half the reason I'm doing this recap is that I am really shallow for John Simm. (Raise your hand if you spend way too much time wanting to lick his neck. No? Just me?)
Anyway.
The Naismiths explain to the Master that they want him to repair their alien tech, so that Abigail can become immortal. I'm not sure whether I'm giving RTD more or less credit than he deserves when I say with some surprise that there really is a clear thematic thread to track here: Immortality Is Bad, kids! It was bad back in Five Doctors when Borusa, who had been SO AWESOME back in The Deadly Assassin, decides he wants true immortality and falls prey to the Mousetrap of Rassilon. It's bad when the Time Lords decide they want to fuck over the universe and ascend a la Ancients, although I'm getting ahead of myself. It's bad when foolish humans try for it, whether they're the Naismiths or Lazarus from s3. And of course the Master has wanted it forever, so he finds their ambitions amusing. That, or this is his "I just got a brilliant plan" face.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, having learned what happens when you leave your TARDIS unattended with the Master running loose, decides that locking it like a car isn't good enough, and instead sets it a second out of synch with surrounding reality.
One would think that, having introduced this slightly-out-of-phase concept, one would do something awesome like apply it to the Time Lock. But that's obviously just crazy talk.
Meanwhile, as the Doctor and Wilf run about a big old brick house for all the world as though they're old school and think it's still the late 1970s, the Master is busy being a total BAMF despite the fact that he's still dressed in a collar. "Now! Please don't imagine I'm a slave-driver," Mr. Naismith says. "We can resume work on Boxing Day, Mr. Saxon." And, "My name," says the Master, "is the Master," and promptly fixes the Immortality Gate, complete with his own specs. Because he's stone-cold brilliant, he is, and even though I think his SIX-BILLION MASTERS!! plan leaves something to be desired, he did think it up in half an hour while rigging alien tech.
The Doctor, meanwhile, realizes what the Master's up to.
The Master is so pleased that the Doctor has worked out what's going on! Everything becomes at least a hundred times more satisfying when the Doctor is around to be audience to his triumph, you see.
Sdkdfsjgdf;l RADIATION CHAMBER OF DOOM.
Then everyone turns into the Master. This is forgivable first because "Six billion people all triangulating the origin of the drumming" is actually a fairly awesome concept, not to mention that it's a rather clever mirror of "Six billion people all thinking of the Doctor at once in order to defeat the Master's rule;" also, I don't think John Simm in the hot pink dress will ever get old. Ever.
The narrative dwells on this insanity for far too long, as though dressing poor Simm up in a million outfits and making him laugh evilly for five minutes straight was even remotely terrifying instead of just utterly ridiculous. Happily, Timothy Dalton rescues us with his dramatic narrative.
But even then, the Master had no concept of his greater role in events, for this was far more than humanity's end. This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever. This was the day the Time Lords returned. For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of Time itself!
HOSHITTIMELORDS.
I am way fond of the fact that his whole narrative is in fact his speech to the Gallifreyan political body at large. It's appropriately dramatic and destiny-ridden, and while part of me does think that it's funny that this was his lead-up to "Guys, let's go to Earth and fuck over the universe," most of me is busy going HOSHITTIMELORDS.
Gallifrey location shot! I want a stupid spinoff about baby Theta purely so that I can stare at Gallifreyan CGI for hours, no lie.
Here we have the High Council, complete with useless seeress! I'm not even going to get into the fact that the concept of Time Lord-generated prophecies bends the mind; I'll stick to the part where foreshadowing or moving the plot along using a sort of mystical As You Don't Know Yet But Are About To, Bob, is just plain lazy.
There are plenty of interesting things about this scene, though! First, the Doctor has vanished, but still possesses a moment that he can use to destroy the Daleks and the Time Lords; it sounds a lot more premeditated than anything I'd previously envisioned, ie that he found himself in the possession of a crazy single million-to-one chance and took it before everything was doomed. Second, one of the women on the High Council (I am going to pretend it is Flavia even if she dies ten seconds later, because Flavia is awesome, yo) thinks that the destruction of the Time Lords is a reasonable price to pay for the end of the War; this implies that, yes, the majority of the Time Lords or at least their leader were fairly evil by that point, but the Doctor had to destroy the Time Lords not just because of what they'd become, but because of the whole War they bring with them.
Perhaps it's time. This is only the furthest edge of the Time War, but at its heart, millions die every second, lost in bloodlust and insanity, with Time itself resurrecting them, to find new ways of dying, over and over again, a travesty of life. Isn't it better to end it at last?
It gives me shivers. YEAH FLAVIA! (I love the Time Lord sitting next to her. He's obviously preoccupied wondering whether he left the stove on.)
I am vastly easy for the mythos of the War, which I'm sure no one is surprised about, so I apologize for the fact that I'm going to keep excitedly going on about it. Without screencaps, even! But what I really love is that Rusty keeps throwing little tidbits of SHEER EPIC about the Time War at us (more on this later) without actually explaining it. If he explained it, it would lose all the epic and the terror.
"I WILL NOT DIE!" the Lord President howls. "A billion years of Time Lord history riding on our backs!" I can't decide whether it's more excellent if he is actualfax Rassilon or not. On the one hand, my god, if he is it ups the personal investment stakes by a factor of a billion; this is his planet we're talking about, his history about to be locked away and burn -- but on the other hand, what he has is a psychopathic evacuation plan, not the blueprints for a Matrix Preservation Society. IDK.
Meanwhile part of the Plot Device Prophecy names the Enmity of Ages, which makes me cackle with glee, because they know it's the Doctor and the Master instantly. WORST BREAKUP EVER, GUYS. And mm, Gallifreyan writing.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, our two favourite renegade Time Lords are busy enacting their Enmity of the Ages in a way that hasn't been seen with such proper excellence since around Mind of Evil.
The Master is so very pleased at being in charge of everything! He gives Wilf a cheerful wink. I melt a tiny bit and can't stop grinning, because his delight is incredibly infectious.
The Doctor is happy too! Because, thank fuck, he built a failsafe into Donna's headsplosion. ("But really, do you think I'd leave my best friend without a defense mechanism?" BEST FRIEND. <3) And now he's giving the Master an insolent little now-in-this-small-way-I'm-winning smirk, and I start losing a few of my higher brain functions.
And now we come to the bit that everyone has quoted a million times. Permit me to join them.
MASTER. Tell me. Where's your TARDIS?
DOCTOR. You could be so wonderful.
MASTER. Where is it?
DOCTOR. You're a genius. You're stone-cold brilliant, you are, I swear, you really are. But you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. With a mind like that, we could travel the stars. It would be my honor. Cos you don't need to own the universe, just see it. To have the privilege of seeing the whole of time and space -- that's ownership enough.
MASTER. Would it stop, then? The noise in my head?
DOCTOR. I can help.
MASTER. I don't know what I'd be without that noise.
DOCTOR. Wonder what I'd be without you.
MASTER. Yeah.
"What does he mean?" Wilf calls. "What noise?"
And I love Wilf, bless him, but that look on the Master's face was about the look I had on mine. YOU INTERRUPTED THEIR MOMENT. >:(
More seriously, I love this exchange because -- the Doctor meant it on their last encounter, too, all the Just stop, just think, just let me help you but he did it with an edge of frantic desperation that signaled 'I don't want to be alone in the universe' without having a personal touch; he only got around to actually trying a proper connection when the Master was already dying and went through with it to spite him. Now they're in a place where the Master knows that he means something to the Doctor, because the Doctor sobbed over his dying body, so from the word go he's a lot more willing to be open. Now that he's got world domination out of the way, the Master has time to actually see if the Doctor might help him, and for fuck's sake, be vulnerable enough to get a little teary himself. I love it more than words can say.
So the Master takes a moment to corroborate the Doctor's sad story about the Master's childhood, looking into the Untempered Schism and first hearing the drums -- which makes me sort of wonder how the Doctor found out about this. Actually, everyone seems to know about it. I suppose the young Master was taken in for psych evaluations and somehow it became common knowledge -- although only in this iteration of the universe. Because in old school, the Time War hadn't yet happened, and they had no need to send the Master a signal. Now they do, and so he's always had the drums. It makes fun wacky paradox sense!
I love how intently the Doctor listens to the Master tell this story, and how he steps in to explain the Untempered Schism when the Master needs a moment. You can see into the Time Vortex itself. And it hurts.
Baby Koschei is flipping adorable, and looks slightly like a penguin.
The Master suddenly realizes that he can triangulate the drums using all six billion of himself, and is so excited that he goes momentarily skeletal again. "This body was born out of death," he says, angry but unsurprised. "All it can do is die." One wonders, then, whether it was a resurrection flaw or an integral flaw of the body, one he knew would happen when he chose to die rather than regenerate. Either way, I love this little confirmation that the Master does think of bodies as receptacles; here we've got the Doctor talking about his own death as Ten as a real death, because someone else with his memories walks away, and meanwhile the Master treats his current body like a faulty suit. Mm the politics of regeneration.
Meanwhile, the Master is still self-centered, if not entirely wrong. The something coming out of the dark isn't him, but he's pretty damn integral. Say it with me: self-fulfilling prophecies! Even if they are mostly nonsensical they're still awesome.
"Actually," the Doctor says, "the most impressive thing about you is that after all this time you're still bone-dead stupid." And strangely this is one of my favourite lines; I may wax poetical about them getting teary-eyed and longing at each other, but I still also love it when the Master smacks the Doctor upside the head and the Doctor insults the Master's intelligence; it's a different kind of stupid intimate comfort they have with one another.
What follows is the WORST. RESCUE. EVER. I am actually slightly grateful for it, because it's RTD at his slapstick wackiest without being truly obnoxious, and there needed to be at least one of those moments. Anyway, the Doctor and co. escape to the Vinvocci spaceship, where the Doctor and Wilf settle down for some damn fine-quality angst.
Wilf hopes that the Doctor has a trick up his sleeve, some of the old flim-flam, sort of thing. The Doctor doesn't. It's probably on account of, oh, he lost Rose and Martha left him and the Master died on him and he lost Rose again and Donna's mind borked and the Master is crazyface and he thinks he's going to die. One suspects there is a limit to "does well in adversity."
"Oh blimey," Wilf says, realizing this.
The Doctor spots a falling plot point! It makes no sense at all -- like, really, you can just chuck a diamond out of the time lock? jolly good then! -- but it makes a pretty screencap, so whatever.
And I don't think I've mentioned the lady in white yet, so here she is. Originally I thought she was Romana, but I am so incredibly fond now of the idea that she's Susan instead, particularly with the Doctor glancing from Wilf to Donna when he asks later. Anyway, hello, lady in white! You are pointless but poignant.
I won't transcribe the entire conversation that the Doctor and Wilf have on the bridge, but I love all of it: Wilf the astronaut, Wilf the widower, Wilf the skinny little idiot soldier; I love his astonishment that the Doctor's older than him, and his understanding of what that must mean ("We must look like insects to you") and the Doctor saying, "I would be proud. If you were my dad." I wish they'd let Ten play off older companions more, because honestly most of the time the young seemingly-ordinary girls weren't my 'in' to the show anyway, and Ten just shines with Wilf.
And then, of course, there's the bit where Wilf realizes that if the Doctor kills the Master, he'll be saving his own life and the lives of the entire human race. But the Doctor can't do it. Say it with me: his unwillingness to kill the Master is greater than his fear of death and his love of humanity combined. Fucking hell.
Then the Master -- in a very cappable shot, I might add -- announces that he found a Gallifreyan Plot Point. And suddenly the Doctor is perfectly happy to take Wilf's gun, thank you very much.
When Timothy Dalton yells "GALLIFREY RISES!" and they echo it back, I get chills. Mm. Meanwhile the Doctor is panicked and explains the time lock as being like a bubble, but I like my beach-ball-with-a-pin-puncture metaphor better, and I think Wilf would too, because he's confused. Ah well.
The Master decides they can take the Doctor out with missiles because any second now they'll have Time Lords to spare. I figure that this is actually like every other plan he's ever had to kill the Doctor: he just throws things at the Doctor for the joy of seeing the Doctor foil them. After all, he's the Master and his boyfriend had better still be the bestest cleverest person in the universe. In any case, they're both really epic in their own way.
HOSHITTIMELORDS.
The Master, as you may observe, is actually a little annoyed that the Lord President is interrupting his confused concern for the Doctor, who has, by the way, just crashed through the roof.
I feel so awful for the Master in all of this, actually. First he wants to take over the Time Lords! Then he gets pointed at by the Glove of Rassilon and loses all of humanity, but hey, he was still the Time Lords' salvation, don't forget that! Anyway, he did this! He gets the credit! He's on the Time Lords' side! And the Doctor is so furious that he never listens, but oh, wait for it, they're going to connect something fierce before this episode is over.
In the meantime: GALLIFREY OMGWTFBBQ SQUEEEE.
What's that? Defies the laws of physics, you say? Look, Doctor Who has always defied the laws of physics. Just roll with it. It's GALLIFREY. It's AWESOME. I love how Gallifrey is absolutely beautiful and also looks like it's burning, because -- yes, yes, exactly; Gallifrey is the ultimate visual metaphor for itself.
I think this is the most concentrated hatred the Doctor has ever shot the Master in a single glance. Good goddamn.
You weren't there, in the final days of the War. You never saw what was born. But if the time lock's broken, then everything's coming through -- not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degredations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could've-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres, the War turning to Hell: and that's what you've opened, right above the Earth. Hell is descending!
HELLO, this is what I mean about loving the Time War. Deep down I still picture the Nightmare Child as some colossal version of the Test Card Girl from Life On Mars (I swear, every time she appears in the final episode -- EVERY TIME, even when I'm expecting her -- I nearly have a fucking heart attack, and THE MASTER SHOULD BE SCARED TOO); but it all sounds like it's on the brink of a fairytale, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and I love it, I love it with all my heart. I love also the Master's response, "My kind of world!" because it is a response of deliberate frightened ignorance, and it's played perfectly.
The Lord President's plan has really good Time Lord merit, too. They will ascend, and be free of these bodies, and free of Time -- it's the ultimate in noninterference, the ultimate in studied contemplation away from the wrack and ruin and chaos of corporeal form. Again, Time Lord body politics: Ten is ultimately very human, because he's attached to this form and sees in their plan the same sort of horror that we do. The Master, though, he of a disdainful this body -- this is his reaction:
"Then," says the Master, "let me ascend, into glory!" But he says it with tears back in his eyes, because he is beginning to understand: all the ways he's been used, and that the clinging to life he's done through the centuries is a clinging to bodies, to cause and effect and all sorts of messy things. Here's one of the many places the Doctor and the Master overlap.
AND THEN THE DOCTOR POINTS HIS GUN AT THE LORD PRESIDENT TO STOP HIM FROM KILLING THE MASTER. Actually, I think I need to be quiet for this whole scene and just let the screencaps talk. First, though, I figure I should point out that [a] the Master is just awful at figuring out what the right thing is to say to the Doctor, and [b] I love the Doctor's awful back-and-forth wavering in exactly the same way I like the Master's trying-to-be-on-every-winning-side.
Here's Susan/Romana/his mum again! I like the idea that, whoever she is, seeing her there reminded the Doctor that there's always a third option.
"Get out of the way."
The actual communication they do! No crossed wires. The Master's delighted; the Doctor is astonished. Because I don't think the Doctor was expecting it, but the Master's missed the two of them just as much as the Doctor has, and here, finally, he has something to fight besides the Doctor, something that's done both of them a hundred personal wrongs, and here we have, in however small a way, his redemption.
Yeah, I'm a sap. I cried.
So the Master's gone, technically along with the Time Lords and Gallifrey, although I have no doubt that if Moffat wishes to use any of those things he certainly can. In the meantime, the Master went out with a bang and, while I said and really meant that I'd only forgive Rusty everything if Ten died in the Master's arms, the way the Master left for the time being was excellent. Meanwhile it is time for Ten to die. Not really with a bang. With many whimpers, in fact.
First, we have his one small moment of horrified realization as he hears Wilf tentatively knock on the radiation chamber's glass.
Then we have him realize that after all this, all this, his death is going to be a tiny awful insignificant moment. And he could choose to leave, because it is a choice, but for the Doctor it's never any choice at all, because even though he wants to stay this man who he is, Ten is the sort of person who will save Wilf and sacrifice himself. So he has his small rage against the universe, and I feel awful and shaky and pause to cap things every five seconds because otherwise I wouldn't get through it.
So that bit breaks me. So does this.
And I admit that, had he died alone in that radiation chamber, I would have bawled my fucking eyes out.
Instead he lives for another twenty minutes, slowly dragging my grief into numbness, so we'll skip right to the third part that made me tear up.
Cos really, after all that, this should be his last reward. I love Ten and I love Rose, without ever having liked Ten/Rose, but to my astonishment I retroactively love it because I've suddenly had it slot into my head in a way that makes sense -- it was codependence of the highest mad order, and that was Ten's last little moment to take in Rose's thousand-watt smile and reflect a little happiness. The really awful part of his regeneration is that he's alone, and while visiting all his other Ten-companions and then slinking off to die undermines that, seeing Rose again underlines it. This is the great gap between who he would like to be and who he is.
(If you don't like Ten/Rose, I apologize for having gotten Ten/Rose in your Doctor/Master.)
Anyway, Ten stumbles off to his TARDIS, falls in the door, staggers up to the console, and has some last lines that I have heard called pathetic, which is certainly a valid way of looking at it. Me personally, I wish that Ten had found closure, and I wish fiercely that he'd been able to die with someone there to bear witness and to promise to keep loving him even when he's new; but I don't wish that he'd died stoic and noble and resigned. That was never, ever Ten's way. Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light: I don't want to go.
Incidentally, I love the TARDIS going up in flames. That's the way you do it when you're Ten: go down burning.
And then we have this fellow.
He's got arms! Legs! Fingers, lots of fingers! He's not a girl, and he's not ginger, and I'm not entirely ready for him yet, but I will be! The Doctor is dead; long live the Doctor. :D
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…and then they kiss…
DOCTOR. Wonder what I'd be without you.
MASTER. Yeah.
AND THEN THEY KISS!
Ten is My Doctor. I think he'll always be My Doctor. He's not my first Doctor, but I can't imagine him not being my favourite. I didn't even see that much of Who, really. I just got used to him, I suppose. *wibble*
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How much Who have you seen, then? I mean, which episodes? Inquiring minds want to talk about this show!
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Looking forward to the kissing.
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I am looking forward to the kissing too! I just have to actually write it, heh.
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I personally spend a great deal of time inconvenienced by my desire to lick John Simm's neck.
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(If you don't like Ten/Rose, I apologize for having gotten Ten/Rose in your Doctor/Master.)
I have a great deal of love for both, actually :D
Oh, hey. We're on DW. I have no DW icons here. :(
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Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well, now, suddenly everything makes a lot more sense, and...holy **** this was actually good! Like, not just "I don't care about the bad parts because look at that chair!" but in the "this actually hangs together" sort of way!
Still not flawless, but a lot more cohesive than I realized, in the themes of fighting death and the back-and-forth between the Doctor and the Master and even in the ending, which does drag on (and I agree him dying in that booth would've torn my heart out) but is devastatingly lonely and as fiercely grab-on-and-don't-let-go as Ten always was.
Also I haven't seen anybody mention it, but I love how the Master is all "your prophecy is totally about ME!" every time the Doctor mentions it, like he's determined that in this as in all things the Doctor (not to mention the universe) must revolve around him.
Also I'd never thought about it much, but Time Lord body politics has just become a new fascination for me.
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And YES, re: the Master's determination that the Doctor and the universe should revolve around him. Oh Master, be careful what you ask for.
Time Lord body politics is like my favourite thing ever. They're so delightfully messed-up (the Master especially; thinking about the way he deals with bodies makes it easier to stand things like goosnake!Master and crispy!Master).
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The Master decides they can take the Doctor out with missiles because any second now they'll have Time Lords to spare. I figure that this is actually like every other plan he's ever had to kill the Doctor: he just throws things at the Doctor for the joy of seeing the Doctor foil them.
I actually thought he sounded really bitter in this, which, considering Ten is all "let me help you, we could travel together" and then RUNS AWAY AND DISAPPEARS before the Master really has a chance to respond, which makes it all look a little. Faked to escape? Mmm?
Also also is is Meenwars? I heard Meanwhiles and Never-weres which sound pretty Time Lordy to me.
I love the Doctor's awful back-and-forth wavering in exactly the same way I like the Master's trying-to-be-on-every-winning-side.
YES YES I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. I was getting really sick of holding my breath waiting to see who Ten'd shoot, as he swung back and forth, but the Master oscillating mercurially between sides and emotions is just glorious.
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I actually thought he sounded really bitter in this, which, considering Ten is all "let me help you, we could travel together" and then RUNS AWAY AND DISAPPEARS before the Master really has a chance to respond, which makes it all look a little. Faked to escape? Mmm?
Oooh, yes, that's a good point. I have this occasional tendency to assign old school!Master(s) motivation to Simm!Master, but that's not always the right impulse -- I like your reading there a lot. It really was more lashing out in anger than just idly poking at the Doctor.
I ran the Doctor's speech about the War through a couple of times, but it probably is Meanwhiles; it makes a lot more sense that way. *edits accordingly*
Poor Master. It's so hard to figure out what the winning side is when there are Time Lords everywhere. XD
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You've grabbed some incredibly expressive caps. Mind if I use them at some point for icon-making? (Odds that this will actually happen are vanishing given that I go back to work tomorrow.)
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And absolutely feel free to make icons with those! I'd love to see them if you ever do, of course, because I'm basically pants at making good icons.
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(If you don't like Ten/Rose, I apologize for having gotten Ten/Rose in your Doctor/Master.)
I've always felt that there was a great deal of sense made in the fact that the series with the Master was also the first series without Rose - there needed to be that powerful emotional connection for Ten to focus on. And there's a certain amount of co-dependence in common as well.
So, I was vastly amused that the Master in this episode had bleached-blond hair, wore a hoodie, and the shirt under his hoodie was red/pink.
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Oh, wow. Great catch. I think you've got something there...
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And it cleared a few things up! The whole radiation scene: I was thinking, 'Wilf, can't you have knocked another way? Doctor, that's just Wilf knocking to get out. Stop looking devestated and go help him.' But no! He couldn't knock another way! Because "he will knock four times" was not the Master, it was always Wilf! And the Doctor is realizing this! And I did not realize it until you made this post, so thank you so much for clearing it up for me! <3
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ARIAAAAAAAA. God. Oh god. If you don't do it, I will.
I alternately flailed and giggled my way through this recap. Legit, this was almost as fun as watching the episode. I love youuuuu. ♥ I can't wait to watch it again with you and flail more and write fic.
AND THEN THEY CRY AT EACH OTHER.
Aria, I have so many ~~~feelings about this fandom; it's a little ridiculous. I just want to sit there with my chin in my hands and watch people say smart things about it.
Bah, your stupid recap made me cry in one bit. I have been up since six in the morning and am RIDICULOUS. I will stop babbling on your journal now.
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I have ~~~feelings about this fandom also! It is ridiculous. /o\
Which bit made you cry?? This is important to me!
My god I cannot WAIT to watch it again with you. <333
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2. You know this means you should write a million words of Time Lord body politics, right? ... Again?
3. Which you know isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with Sherlock Holmes fic, right?
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2. Oh you say this like I haven't already started. I have a fic in my head (& a little bit written) that is pretty much the direct thematic descendant of naming of things. So there.
3. flskdkdfgfj oh the sheer amazingness of 221B Baker TARDIS. I have hearts in my eyes.
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*totally gonna bookmark this and look at it all the time*
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No but really the Doctor/Master bits surpassed my wildest dreams.
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Also, about immortality: what about "the song never ends"?
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And wasn't the quote something about how this Doctor's song might end but the story goes on? That mostly read to me like a crumb of hope: don't worry, Ten's leaving but it's still Doctor Who! sort of thing.
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The shot of the Master hitting the barrel is gorgeous.
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There are so many fics I want to write now. So many. Starting with a fix-it for these episodes where I will tidy up the plot and hopefully make the whole thing coherent. :D?
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But... I shall try to comment a bit, because rambling is my speciality. :)
I actually adore these episodes. To teeny tiny ridiculous flawed pieces.
You know, I almost love them *because* of the crack and the plotholes. Because RTD wouldn't be RTD without them.
I am still not entirely sure what to do with the Master's botched resurrection making him insatiably hungry and obsessed with hot flesh &c &c
I think in part it's a commentary on 'the season'... "That's human Christmas out there!" the Master says, and at Christmas what do we do? We consume and consume and consume. Whilst part of the planet is continually starving. It's rather dark, and I'm not sure it's a point that comes across very well. From a 'plot' POV it does make sense that a body that is literally coming apart will need constant fuel. (And I have this completely *insane* idea that the Master disappears into the Time War and eats it. I think RTD has broken my brain... *worries*)
Because, as we know now, the drums are a tangible thing with a tangible origin, and they are both allowed the revelation that perhaps the Master is slightly less insane than either of them estimated.
It's a *stunning* moment!
Confession: bondage!Master makes me want to throw out all serious fic considerations and write reams of awful self-indulgent stuff where Ten has gone off the deep end and keeps a pet Master.
I think that's what RTD writes in his spare time. Honestly, he totally set it up back in LotT!
And, "My name," says the Master, "is the Master," and promptly fixes the Immortality Gate, complete with his own specs. Because he's stone-cold brilliant, he is, and even though I think his SIX-BILLION MASTERS!! plan leaves something to be desired, he did think it up in half an hour while rigging alien tech.
My biggest kink of all is competence, and this whole thing pretty much killed me with awesome. (Also I got my friend kathyh to make me this icon!)
The Master is so pleased that the Doctor has worked out what's going on! Everything becomes at least a hundred times more satisfying when the Doctor is around to be audience to his triumph, you see.
*draws hearts* I also love how - later, with the Timelords - he's all 'Hush - don't tell them!', because of course the Doctor has worked out what he's up to... The way they understand each other is a thing of beauty!
I want a stupid spinoff about baby Theta purely so that I can stare at Gallifreyan CGI for hours, no lie.
The BBC actually asked RTD to do this, but he refused. It'd lose the magic...
Meanwhile part of the Plot Device Prophecy names the Enmity of Ages, which makes me cackle with glee, because they know it's the Doctor and the Master instantly. WORST BREAKUP EVER, GUYS. And mm, Gallifreyan writing.
Amen! This OTP is EPIC! It's written in the stars! *profound love*
BEST FRIEND. <3
I love how EVERYONE (even those who dislike the ep) adore Wilf, and the fact that the Doctor called Donna his best friend!
One wonders, then, whether it was a resurrection flaw or an integral flaw of the body, one he knew would happen when he chose to die rather than regenerate.
I presume it was Lucy's portion of mumblemumbledeath that screwed him up...
here we've got the Doctor talking about his own death as Ten as a real death, because someone else with his memories walks away, and meanwhile the Master treats his current body like a faulty suit. Mm the politics of regeneration.
I love it. :)
it's a different kind of stupid intimate comfort they have with one another.
Oh yeah. I'm right there with you!
Say it with me: his unwillingness to kill the Master is greater than his fear of death and his love of humanity combined. Fucking hell.
Gives me shivers of the best possible kind! I think it's partly that the Doctor wants to find another way - a way where he can keep the Master and save humanity, but even so... ("I've got one thing to say to you!") Also, Timelords returning = grabbing gun is TOTALLY awesome.
but it all sounds like it's on the brink of a fairytale, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and I love it, I love it with all my heart.
This!
AND THEN THE DOCTOR POINTS HIS GUN AT THE LORD PRESIDENT TO STOP HIM FROM KILLING THE MASTER
I could watch that scene over and over and over forever. *has goosebumps*
So that bit breaks me. So does this.
*sniff* You and me both.
I love Ten and I love Rose, without ever having liked Ten/Rose, but to my astonishment I retroactively love it because I've suddenly had it slot into my head in a way that makes sense -- it was codependence of the highest mad order, and that was Ten's last little moment to take in Rose's thousand-watt smile and reflect a little happiness.
Exactly!!! I'm so glad that you can articulate my thoughts so beautifully. :)
but I don't wish that he'd died stoic and noble and resigned. That was never, ever Ten's way. Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light: I don't want to go.
Absolutely. *loves Ten entirely too much* Also, yay for fire!
He's got arms! Legs! Fingers, lots of fingers! He's not a girl, and he's not ginger, and I'm not entirely ready for him yet, but I will be! The Doctor is dead; long live the Doctor. :D
That's it.
Thank you SO SO MUCH for this post, which just infuses everything with such love and affection that it makes me smile. And this is probably the longest comment EVER and I should go.
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And I have this completely *insane* idea that the Master disappears into the Time War and eats it. I think RTD has broken my brain... *worries*
RTD has broken your brain in the BEST POSSIBLE WAY. When I read those sentences I'm not sure whether I should giggle at the absurdity or just stare because it ... sounds frighteningly plausible. (I feel like the Nightmare Child would give the Master indigestion.)
The BBC actually asked RTD to do this, but he refused. It'd lose the magic...
Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't actually want a spinoff about baby Theta. I just want to see lots more Gallifrey. XD
And those are my only specific responses, but yay, I'm glad this post brought you joy. :D
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I never made it to numbness for the last goodbyes, I just bawled throughout the entire thing.
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I think I envy you a little re: bawling through the entire thing, although maybe that's crazy. XD
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