Doctor Who: The Sound of Drums
Jun. 24th, 2007 05:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carmen_ljNo bulletpoints this week, no, for something that rivals me love to The Time Monster, it's a full-blown commentary. Featuring numerous TLDR paragraphs, horrific amounts of Old Skool connections, and unreasonably mad!love of a crazy psychopath.
Refs the Confidential and a tiny bit of spec for next week.
Right, so this is what I think happened: Russell T. Davies went into my brain and discovered my very favourite things about Doctor Who. Which are mostly to do with season 8 and The Sea Devils and The Time Monster (yes, you might have thought it was Romana or Two or Jamie or Barbara, well, now you know better, and shutup, I'm not proud.) Then he took all the good bits of the Delgado!Master and then he did Something Vaguely (Very) Resembling A Plot (which was not included in my brain) and then he made him as scary as he has been in Terror of the Autons, but for completely different reasons. In Autons, he casually kills of lots of people without any sort of reaction and it's bloody scary. Here he's really freakin enjoying it and the juxtaposition of I Is Having Fun Time Now (sorry, I refuse to do the bad spelling as well) and mass-murder makes me all a-feart. It is perfectly, completely awesome, entirely unlike certain other times the same character went on mass-murder sprees for lols and it was just silly. Anyways, yeah, I do find him funny and charming and OMG HE IS SCARY. I blame John Simm mostly.
And now, a commentary:
"All hands on the Time Ring!" Hurrah! Return to Earth conveniently gives a nice break for all those Jack/Ten/Martha fanfics cause, heh, they didn't have to get the jump right first time did they? And they're all sitting about bonding and stuff and it's quite great, and hurrah, now everyone knows about regeneration and "I'll know him, if I see him, Time Lords always do." YEAH DOCTOR THAT ABILITY WOULD HAVE COME IN REAL HANDY ON TRAKEN AND THAT TIME YOU MET KING JOHN.
But I'm waiting for Saxon. Waiting Precious Seconds of runtime. Where is he? WHERE IS HE? THERE HE IS. God, he's a right smug bastard. How many of those reporters want to slog him I wonders?
I would, course. Not slog him, the other thing. As would Mrs Saxon obviously. And the Doctor's voice at "the Master and his wife" is a little bit wonderful though given the amount of times he's cheated on the Master, he hardly has grounds for jealousy, yo. "This country needs a doctor," says Saxon. "BORED NOW. Where are you Doctor? Hurry the fuck up please." And the really great thing is the complete lack of empty threats. Not once does he imply he wants to kill the Doctor, cause he really, really really doesn't, and admitting that in the script for a change is rather jazzy. And this is restrained!Public!Saxon, which is probably the most disguisiest of the various personas he displays through the episode. I want to write some sort of meta on that, so that's being noted for my benefit mostly, yes.
Mostly I love how bored he is with all the files. It must be a real downer to get to be Prime Minister and then have to do lots of tediously dull WORK. And it's the first bit of the contempt for the society he's busy being in charge of now, because even if he does like bits of it, there's a lot of contempt (and OH IT'S A TENACIOUS LINK, but they totally nabbed this from The Sea Devils and the Master's vague annoyance at all the pointless formality of saluting in the navy probably because it's a bit like all that pointless formality on Gallifrey.)
"Well, Tish, you just stand there and look gorgeous." Last time he said something like that, he got a verbal smackdown from a very irritated scientist and apologised y'know. Sadly, Tish is somewhat more overwhelmed.
Ah, Cabinet Office! I love this scene, because this is the first scene that illustrates exactly what Simm!Master is alls abouts: it's got him mocking everyone around him and behaving like an arse for his own amusement, and that switching instantly to the dark calm that is probably closest to What He's Actually Like when he's managing to keep both His Insanity and His Temper under control.
And yes, I laughed. Because it's funny dammit. Er, well, as funny as gratuitously murdering the entire British Cabinet is likely to get, anyway. "It's a gas mask." "Oh really, what's that for then?" OH YOU POOR SOD. Incidently, I think that the Master means every word he says here, because if there's one thing he hates, it's traitors (or what he would define as traitors) and anyone who does betray him does tend to end up rather dead. And since this lot have already betrayed their parties and probably done some rather awful double-crossing and such, he really doesn't like them at all. He probably figures he's doing everyone a favour. And, heh, it's fun for him, and, this bit especially, feels like a more modern take on the Delgado!Master.
And I think this was the first bit I was a bit scared, the "You're insane" and the thumbs-up, grinning, nodding reply. I don't know why, I just found that really very disturbing. In the same sort of way as Big Tommy B's disbelieving realisation "You're mad! You're utterly mad!" when he gets his boyfriend back in a nice body in Logopolis.
"Jack, who're you phoning?" "Just some friends of mine, but there's no reply." OH GOOD PLAN JACK, GOOD PLAN. I bet they forgot to pay the sodding phone bill, because that's the level of competance we're talking about there.
The reporter lady! Oh, I love her quite a bit. Mostly cause of her acting like a twit and then being all clever. She and Saxon would get on great, in another universe, WHERE HE DOESN'T MURDER HER. I was spoilered for this, btw, by a bleedin' article that had a Spoilers For Utopia warning and then proceeded to tell me a reporter got murdered in tSoD. Mostly I am just happy it is not Sarah, cause that would be awfulness. I kind of like Lucy, I was hoping to love her, but no, still, at least she knows what she's getting into. And the parallels drawn with Rose are lol. "I made my choice." "So," says reporter lady, "You're a bit of a thickie but quite nice." Nice example of tact there.She's Jo! Then, course, Lucy = Jo = Rose Oh, the insanity is so near the surface whenever the Master talks about the drums, and I have questions about those, and goshdarnit, I want them answered in part two (When did they start? Are you trying to tell me he's been hearing them since he was Delgado? Are you sure? What the hell do they symbolise? Because there darn well better be something more concrete than Unimaginative Percussionist In My Head to create a raging egomanical psychopath, yo. [I didn't say they were good questions.])
(Also, Cambridge. Romana reference! Obv! It could have been Oxford, but noes, all good Time Lords go to Cambridge. Or Edinburgh.)
Lucy's apology seems genuine enough, and she's kinda grossed out by the murder. Even though the Master is having a lol at opening and closing the door and YES I WAS GREATLY AMUSED and somewhat in love with the facial expressions Simm was pulling. Also, Time Monster! "You promised, you said Archangel was one hundred percent." Yeah, last time he promised a woman he was sleeping with something shiny, it was power and he didn't lie then either really but she wasn't too happy about him killing her husband so then he destroyed her city. OOPS. And, lo, I do love how he revises his estimate down a few percentage points in an unsubtle parallel of Ten speech. I am cheap, yo. The hug is rather lovely, as it does seem both tender and genuine and why not? She's pretty and adores him, flatters his ego, and is okay with murder, megalomania and bringing the apocalypse.
And it feels like there's more to this ("my faithful companion," pinching Three's coat, the jelly babies) than simply wanting to draw parallels between the Doctor and Master - that's easy enough without all the accoutrements. It's more like, he's trying to be more like the Doctor, or maybe taunt the Doctor? Or some sort of weird Galifreyan flirtation?
"Nice work by the way." "Oh thanks." Oh, way to encourage the hubris, Jack. It's not like he went a bit OFF THE SODDING RAILS on Christmas Eve, is it? JACK MAKES THEM ALL TEA. This I love. because the making of tea or coffee in times of world crisis is a time-honoured Doctor Who tradition and IS NOT BLOODY DEMEANING IN ANY WAY (cf. Polly, The Moonbase.)
Y'know what would have made that broadcast Even Better? If he'd mentioned some of the seventies invasions that were HIS FAULT ENTIRELY. "What? exclaims the Doc, with a facial expression of win. Heh-heh. "I don't know...every...medical student?" I love the Doctor's insta-response there. Also it was a bit like the explosives under the table in Fenric. But Jack/Martha/Ten did not get to do a cool jump at the end, or lick each others' faces. FORSHAME RTD. "I'll do what I like!" snarls Martha, one hand extended as though she could strangle the Doctor. Oh Martha. I got a bit bored during this telephone conversation actually, but it got saved by Martha's dad being all heroic. Go Martha's Dad! Go Martha's Mad Driving Skills! Go Martha's Mum! Go Martha's Mad Driving Skills! Again!
SAXON'S ON THE PHONE! Oh, oh, oh, I love this scene, I love it like magic!candy, which it is, obviously, like woah. There's so, so much Stuff. The humour and tragedy and brilliance and love and hate and IT MAKE ME HAPPY. "I'm here." Oh, god, the look on the Master's face, the anticipation, the hurried removal of the phone. "Doctor?" That husky whisper of almost-disbelief. "Master." And he closes his eyes and there's a slight smile and he's clearly so, damn, happy. "I like it when you use my name." WHY THANK YOU RUSTY. THANK YOU. He never used it to his face when he was Three, y'know, but Five used it all the time. I'm sure that tells us... something. And here, here is the Master, the actual Master, the way he actually is, when he's not mucking about or playing a part, because he doesn't need anything else to amuse or distract himself with here. And it's all calm and dangerous and just as good as anything what they did in season 8, yo. "How can Gallifrey be gone?" OH GOD. I LOVE THE WAY HE SAYS THAT. I love that he is hardly gleeful about it and sort of angry. "And the Time Lords?" "Dead." And that tiny eyebrow raise, as though he's actually impresed that the Doctor could do that, that he could follow through with doing something like that. (Obviously he forgot about the other times when the Doctor did genocide, but I suppose it's a bit different on your own people.) "I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform (?)" Is that what he says? What is that? Or is it like Arcadia and we're just meant to imagine the SHEER DREADFULNESS of being there? And they are being all confessional at each other and it is quite great and that is just adding an extra layer of tragic to the Master with the "I was so scared" admission and it's not as though he hasn't been scared before (hello, Azal! And that bit of a panic when the Doctor admitted they were most likely going to get blown-up in The Sea Devils) but the Doctor has admitted Genocide Of His Own People so I think it's only fair he gets some emo-ammo in return really, yes. "I know." Of course he does, because he was terrified too and they are both quite cowards in slightly different ways and THE DOCTOR DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LONELY ANY MORE (that's right, folks, he's been lonely ever since his planet blew-up, as if that point hadn't been hammered home enough already, but here it is again because I'm aware some people did manage to miss it.)
"All of them!" And there, the mask is back in place, as he switches to humour. "I was the only one who could end it." Why? What makes the Doctor different? "What did it feel like though?" And he is curious, as well as messing with the Doctor's head, because that's the sort of power he craves, and possibly he'd get some lols from all the pretty devastation too. And he sounds pretty turned on by it, and the Doctor's obviously not wanting phone-sex just that minute. OR IS HE? Because the next second he's begging him to stop the awfulness so they can run away into space together and have fights and sex just like old times. Oh, his sheer desperation to make everything okay between them again...but, course, it went way, way past all that centuries ago. "All we've got is each other." "Are you asking me out on a date?" NO YOU FOOL HE'S ASKING YOU FOR A LIFETIME COMMITTMENT OF JAPES AND LOLS ACROSS THE COSMOS. SAY YES, DAMMIT. P.S. I love Rusty a bit now. Sorry 'bout that.
And, oh, god, he does consider the Doctor's jolly offer. But "too late", of course it is. And there's the percussion what drives you mad, apparently. "Please let me help." OH GOD.
"Oh, look, you're on tv!" "Stop it, answer me." "No, really, you're on telly." And it's like he's got his distraction from the drums now so he can fall back into a shiny old pattern of taunts and threats and I am mostly wanting to know More About The Damn Drums. "Oh, and you can tell Handomse!Jack (for that is his true name) that I've sent his little gang on a wild goose chase off to the Himalayas." Gosh, I wonder how tricky that was to arrange. "Oh, you...public menace!" He! Again, I am cheap. Control of everything, what do we do, oh, it's scary because it's the claustrophobia. Generally the Doctor does have some room to manouever: there is UNIT, there is Random Guest Star Helping Out, there is Oppressed Population Wanting Freedom, there's the TARDIS. There's almost always something. But he's got nothing here, except himself and Jack and Martha. That's scary, man.
"The President is said to be furious...about unilateral action" He! Ahem. Sorry. But I've got Fox News on the telly, and they so would. Cheap for laughs at the current American administration and media. Sorry. Again. And then it's Tellytubby time! Which was nicked from The Sea Devils when the Master's all amused at The Clangers. Obv, Clangers > Teletubbies. Also, teh drinking, which is what the Master does when he's all confident and relaxing (The Mind of Evil; The Time Monster) but no cigar this time around. Clearly cigars no longer a symbol of Ultimate Evil.
Oh, Martha/Doctor/Jack doing gritty urban hiding out, sort of! And Martha & Jack having non-verbal signals for Your Turn To Drag The Exposition Out Of Him Now, Dude. All very nice, and then there is backstory. About which I am marginally conflicted. Y'see there are certain things we can't find out, such as why the Doctor really left Gallifrey, or what his his real name is. These things can be hinted at, sure, but an exact, precise explanation? Never. And, for me, the Master also has some of these rules too, so the origin thing, I have conflict. It's not that I don't like it, cause I do (it reminds me of that thing where if you were able to see the whole of the universe in size and time and scope and yourself in comparision, you'd go mad cause of your sheer insginificance) it's just...I think it definitely pushed at my boundaries for How Much Backstory You Give Iconic Characters. Also it means there was an incarnation before the Delgado one, as young!Master has very bright blue eyes.
But, that said, it was very, very shiny. TIME LORDS IN SILLY HATS! THE CITADEL! THE SEAL OF RASSILON! ME SWEARING QUITE A LOT AT THOSE SHOTS OF GALLIFREY AND HOW I COULD HAVE USED THEM IN MY TIME WAR VID! And though we saw no female Time Lords, points for showing the first black Time Lord on the telly. And for squishing LOOOOOOMS. And for families on Gallifrey and anything else that means I can now ignore the bloody NAs Even More. (Oh, yes, and "I thought he was going to say he was your secret brother or something," thank you Rusty, VERY MUCH for winding up fandom ALL THE LIVE LONG SEASON. I guess that means Brax is the brother in my head, about which I have no strong feelings, so meh.) I did lol at The Continent Of Wild Endeavour cause, well, I've seen Time Lords on Gallifrey and 'wild endeavour' are not two of the words that spring to mind.
Also *handwave* this is already depressingly long-winded, but the origin thing does lend a big dollop of Nurture points in the Nurture v Nature, Doctor and Master and their human counterparts type thing. Again, meta I want to do.
"I did it for you, in your honour." Oh, Jack, you have to stop - the ego's gonna need its own credit soon enough. I do like how he doesn't mention the whole "Also we almost destroyed the world" thing, never mind the weekly fuck-ups.
"And we can fight back!" "Oh yes!" And now I make you shiny tech with random things, IN MANNER OF ME IN THE TIME MONSTER WHEN I DID TWENTY MINUTES POINTLESS PADDING WITH TEA LEAVES AS A VITAL COMPONENT. I love The Time Monster. Happily, this time the tech's actually useful for more than seven seconds, hurrah!
"It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist." How would you know, Doctor? Is it because Romana only used your eighth incarnation for sex and never really paid attention to you otherwise? Oh, I think it is, yes.
Far, far, far too amused at the Master's mockery of the President. Again, I am cheap for the laughs, and I love it greatly, yes. "The British army will stand down, from now on UNIT has control of this operation." OH YEAH. And for added value it's ANOTHER FUN FACT FOR UNIT DATING! The first contact protocols were done in '68, which heavily suggests that either the Yeti in the Underground or the Cybermen in the sewers were the catalyst. Therefore indicating one or other of those adventures was set in 1968 (presumably the former, as the latter is set several years after the first one in-universe) thus shoving UNIT dating forward by a few years and, lo, once more we curse Sarah Jane and her 1980-girl line.
"So America is completely in charge?" "Since Britain elected an ass, yes!" Mwhahaha! Sorry, sorry, I can't help it. IT AMUSES ME SO MUCH. And as soon as the President is offskies, he cuts it out. (There's a reason I keep going on about this, and it's the idea that somehow Simm is playing the Master as a joker or some such, and he's not; the Master is playing a joker when it amuses him.) Then as soon as the Jones' turn up, it's back on to taunt Martha & co. ("Don't move...don't," and she doesn't, UNLIKE ACE, thus proving Martha > Ace, hurrahs! No killin' o me, Acefen.)
"I'm not here to kill him; I'm here to save him." Oh, yeah, he loves him. Just incase we hadn't got that already.
So that Valiant's a UNIT ship, eh? Things really have taken off since the Brig's day, haven't they? Mostly I'm thrilled at every little UNIT mention and assume they will be helping save the Earth next week and then the Brig will appear at the end and give Martha a medal. IT COULD HAPPEN. "All hands on the Time Ring! Again!"
They've gone and buggered this right up and jumped into 42! (Or not, but the commentary track did confirm they are the same set-thingummies, incase you're blind or have no memory and didn't notice all by yourself.)
Hehe! The Master totally nicked Colonel White's Cloudbase (actually, given his penchant for kids' telly, I wouldn't be surprised if he really had watched Captain Scarlett and thought it was cool enough to pinch.) "Anything I can do? I can make the tea, or isn't that American enough?" Okay, corruption, murder and mind control, I'm okay with, but MOCKING THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THE TEA IS NOT ON. Shocking stuff. Boo. Also, what are grits? I haven't the foggiest. And then he rolls his eyes and makes a face. "Misery guts." Which is nicked from Sea Devils and the Master's boredom at Trenchard who also completely lacked any sense of humour.
The TARDIS! I had a thrill of yay when I first saw this, then they went inside and oh the Cloister Bell! Dudes! And it's all red and red is bad even though it should be mauve though I was a bit sad at A Paradox Machine as that sounded a bit like Deus Ex Machina. Oh, hero shot! And they're running! They're running! They're still running folks! Run, little heroes, run!
La, and the American address is all very nice and completely unsubtle but mostly it's the Master's amusement at the show and the Doctor's rubbish sneakiness that is entertaining and the "Oh, all right, it's me," is the closest it got to being OTT for self, so there's that. But then there's the switch-y thing again with "I'm taking control" because he really, really don't like the President. Oh, yes, and this is where it's made a teeny bit obvious that Lucy Saxon is completely fecking nuts. I love her dancing.
"Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully." HEHEHEHE! One of the more obscure old skool refs, but when the Master manages to destroy great swathes of the universe, then tries to blackmail the remainder with a, er, cassette recorder, his first words are, "Peoples of the universe, please attend carefully..."
And then the Doctor gets thrown to his knees in front of the Master, just incase everyone's minds hadn't already gone to thegood bad good place, and the Master is perfectly delighted to see his ex, hurrah! Nice to see he's still got the phallic weaponary. And the killing over and over again of Jack? That's scary, because that's divine punishment, save here it's just for kicks.
OH GOD and the Doctor is trying so hard with the Deep Deep Down Some Part Of You See This A Bit Mad, Yes? IT HURTS MAN. And he just wants to save him and not be alone anymore and the Master is enjoying all the winning and attention way to much and then we make a segue into The Leisure Hive, thus Romana is referenced YET AGAIN. Oh yeah. (So the Master has a wee immortality device, yeah? Or did he only do that bit later and really the point of those experiments was so he could be a right sadistic bastard at the Doctor?)
OH GOODIES ANOTHER CGI INVASION. Never mind, at least they have sharp knives and horrible ways of killing people. Lucy clearly bit more okay with murder when she can't see the results as she seems to be wanting the sex quite badly at the end. AND THEN THE MASTER BLOWS THE DOCTOR A KISS BECAUSE THEY ARE CANON NOW.
"Down you go, kids." Literally? Are these children of Gallifrey or summin'? Tennant did mention in the commentary that Saxon wanted to create a new Gallifreyan Empire or something, I think. Nice to have a motive and all.
And then we have Martha, The Best Of Them All, seriously trying to take Babs' Crown really very, very hard indeed. We get a tear and her pulling away from the Doctor and her terrified and brave and listening as the reports of devastation come in and she transmats away because she can't help them on the Valiant and arrives to see London under attack and looks up and says: "I'm coming back."
It pains me to say it, it does, but quite possibly that is the single best companion moment ever.
Next week, Martha Jones Saves The World, without the help of magic fairy dust.
So, yeah, had to get all that out. Not in my head anymore. Much nicer. It was rather brilliant really, yes.
But what the hell do I know? My favourite story's still the bleedin' Time Monster after all.
Refs the Confidential and a tiny bit of spec for next week.
Right, so this is what I think happened: Russell T. Davies went into my brain and discovered my very favourite things about Doctor Who. Which are mostly to do with season 8 and The Sea Devils and The Time Monster (yes, you might have thought it was Romana or Two or Jamie or Barbara, well, now you know better, and shutup, I'm not proud.) Then he took all the good bits of the Delgado!Master and then he did Something Vaguely (Very) Resembling A Plot (which was not included in my brain) and then he made him as scary as he has been in Terror of the Autons, but for completely different reasons. In Autons, he casually kills of lots of people without any sort of reaction and it's bloody scary. Here he's really freakin enjoying it and the juxtaposition of I Is Having Fun Time Now (sorry, I refuse to do the bad spelling as well) and mass-murder makes me all a-feart. It is perfectly, completely awesome, entirely unlike certain other times the same character went on mass-murder sprees for lols and it was just silly. Anyways, yeah, I do find him funny and charming and OMG HE IS SCARY. I blame John Simm mostly.
And now, a commentary:
"All hands on the Time Ring!" Hurrah! Return to Earth conveniently gives a nice break for all those Jack/Ten/Martha fanfics cause, heh, they didn't have to get the jump right first time did they? And they're all sitting about bonding and stuff and it's quite great, and hurrah, now everyone knows about regeneration and "I'll know him, if I see him, Time Lords always do." YEAH DOCTOR THAT ABILITY WOULD HAVE COME IN REAL HANDY ON TRAKEN AND THAT TIME YOU MET KING JOHN.
But I'm waiting for Saxon. Waiting Precious Seconds of runtime. Where is he? WHERE IS HE? THERE HE IS. God, he's a right smug bastard. How many of those reporters want to slog him I wonders?
I would, course. Not slog him, the other thing. As would Mrs Saxon obviously. And the Doctor's voice at "the Master and his wife" is a little bit wonderful though given the amount of times he's cheated on the Master, he hardly has grounds for jealousy, yo. "This country needs a doctor," says Saxon. "BORED NOW. Where are you Doctor? Hurry the fuck up please." And the really great thing is the complete lack of empty threats. Not once does he imply he wants to kill the Doctor, cause he really, really really doesn't, and admitting that in the script for a change is rather jazzy. And this is restrained!Public!Saxon, which is probably the most disguisiest of the various personas he displays through the episode. I want to write some sort of meta on that, so that's being noted for my benefit mostly, yes.
Mostly I love how bored he is with all the files. It must be a real downer to get to be Prime Minister and then have to do lots of tediously dull WORK. And it's the first bit of the contempt for the society he's busy being in charge of now, because even if he does like bits of it, there's a lot of contempt (and OH IT'S A TENACIOUS LINK, but they totally nabbed this from The Sea Devils and the Master's vague annoyance at all the pointless formality of saluting in the navy probably because it's a bit like all that pointless formality on Gallifrey.)
"Well, Tish, you just stand there and look gorgeous." Last time he said something like that, he got a verbal smackdown from a very irritated scientist and apologised y'know. Sadly, Tish is somewhat more overwhelmed.
Ah, Cabinet Office! I love this scene, because this is the first scene that illustrates exactly what Simm!Master is alls abouts: it's got him mocking everyone around him and behaving like an arse for his own amusement, and that switching instantly to the dark calm that is probably closest to What He's Actually Like when he's managing to keep both His Insanity and His Temper under control.
And yes, I laughed. Because it's funny dammit. Er, well, as funny as gratuitously murdering the entire British Cabinet is likely to get, anyway. "It's a gas mask." "Oh really, what's that for then?" OH YOU POOR SOD. Incidently, I think that the Master means every word he says here, because if there's one thing he hates, it's traitors (or what he would define as traitors) and anyone who does betray him does tend to end up rather dead. And since this lot have already betrayed their parties and probably done some rather awful double-crossing and such, he really doesn't like them at all. He probably figures he's doing everyone a favour. And, heh, it's fun for him, and, this bit especially, feels like a more modern take on the Delgado!Master.
And I think this was the first bit I was a bit scared, the "You're insane" and the thumbs-up, grinning, nodding reply. I don't know why, I just found that really very disturbing. In the same sort of way as Big Tommy B's disbelieving realisation "You're mad! You're utterly mad!" when he gets his boyfriend back in a nice body in Logopolis.
"Jack, who're you phoning?" "Just some friends of mine, but there's no reply." OH GOOD PLAN JACK, GOOD PLAN. I bet they forgot to pay the sodding phone bill, because that's the level of competance we're talking about there.
The reporter lady! Oh, I love her quite a bit. Mostly cause of her acting like a twit and then being all clever. She and Saxon would get on great, in another universe, WHERE HE DOESN'T MURDER HER. I was spoilered for this, btw, by a bleedin' article that had a Spoilers For Utopia warning and then proceeded to tell me a reporter got murdered in tSoD. Mostly I am just happy it is not Sarah, cause that would be awfulness. I kind of like Lucy, I was hoping to love her, but no, still, at least she knows what she's getting into. And the parallels drawn with Rose are lol. "I made my choice." "So," says reporter lady, "You're a bit of a thickie but quite nice." Nice example of tact there.
(Also, Cambridge. Romana reference! Obv! It could have been Oxford, but noes, all good Time Lords go to Cambridge. Or Edinburgh.)
Lucy's apology seems genuine enough, and she's kinda grossed out by the murder. Even though the Master is having a lol at opening and closing the door and YES I WAS GREATLY AMUSED and somewhat in love with the facial expressions Simm was pulling. Also, Time Monster! "You promised, you said Archangel was one hundred percent." Yeah, last time he promised a woman he was sleeping with something shiny, it was power and he didn't lie then either really but she wasn't too happy about him killing her husband so then he destroyed her city. OOPS. And, lo, I do love how he revises his estimate down a few percentage points in an unsubtle parallel of Ten speech. I am cheap, yo. The hug is rather lovely, as it does seem both tender and genuine and why not? She's pretty and adores him, flatters his ego, and is okay with murder, megalomania and bringing the apocalypse.
And it feels like there's more to this ("my faithful companion," pinching Three's coat, the jelly babies) than simply wanting to draw parallels between the Doctor and Master - that's easy enough without all the accoutrements. It's more like, he's trying to be more like the Doctor, or maybe taunt the Doctor? Or some sort of weird Galifreyan flirtation?
"Nice work by the way." "Oh thanks." Oh, way to encourage the hubris, Jack. It's not like he went a bit OFF THE SODDING RAILS on Christmas Eve, is it? JACK MAKES THEM ALL TEA. This I love. because the making of tea or coffee in times of world crisis is a time-honoured Doctor Who tradition and IS NOT BLOODY DEMEANING IN ANY WAY (cf. Polly, The Moonbase.)
Y'know what would have made that broadcast Even Better? If he'd mentioned some of the seventies invasions that were HIS FAULT ENTIRELY. "What? exclaims the Doc, with a facial expression of win. Heh-heh. "I don't know...every...medical student?" I love the Doctor's insta-response there. Also it was a bit like the explosives under the table in Fenric. But Jack/Martha/Ten did not get to do a cool jump at the end, or lick each others' faces. FORSHAME RTD. "I'll do what I like!" snarls Martha, one hand extended as though she could strangle the Doctor. Oh Martha. I got a bit bored during this telephone conversation actually, but it got saved by Martha's dad being all heroic. Go Martha's Dad! Go Martha's Mad Driving Skills! Go Martha's Mum! Go Martha's Mad Driving Skills! Again!
SAXON'S ON THE PHONE! Oh, oh, oh, I love this scene, I love it like magic!candy, which it is, obviously, like woah. There's so, so much Stuff. The humour and tragedy and brilliance and love and hate and IT MAKE ME HAPPY. "I'm here." Oh, god, the look on the Master's face, the anticipation, the hurried removal of the phone. "Doctor?" That husky whisper of almost-disbelief. "Master." And he closes his eyes and there's a slight smile and he's clearly so, damn, happy. "I like it when you use my name." WHY THANK YOU RUSTY. THANK YOU. He never used it to his face when he was Three, y'know, but Five used it all the time. I'm sure that tells us... something. And here, here is the Master, the actual Master, the way he actually is, when he's not mucking about or playing a part, because he doesn't need anything else to amuse or distract himself with here. And it's all calm and dangerous and just as good as anything what they did in season 8, yo. "How can Gallifrey be gone?" OH GOD. I LOVE THE WAY HE SAYS THAT. I love that he is hardly gleeful about it and sort of angry. "And the Time Lords?" "Dead." And that tiny eyebrow raise, as though he's actually impresed that the Doctor could do that, that he could follow through with doing something like that. (Obviously he forgot about the other times when the Doctor did genocide, but I suppose it's a bit different on your own people.) "I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform (?)" Is that what he says? What is that? Or is it like Arcadia and we're just meant to imagine the SHEER DREADFULNESS of being there? And they are being all confessional at each other and it is quite great and that is just adding an extra layer of tragic to the Master with the "I was so scared" admission and it's not as though he hasn't been scared before (hello, Azal! And that bit of a panic when the Doctor admitted they were most likely going to get blown-up in The Sea Devils) but the Doctor has admitted Genocide Of His Own People so I think it's only fair he gets some emo-ammo in return really, yes. "I know." Of course he does, because he was terrified too and they are both quite cowards in slightly different ways and THE DOCTOR DOESN'T HAVE TO BE LONELY ANY MORE (that's right, folks, he's been lonely ever since his planet blew-up, as if that point hadn't been hammered home enough already, but here it is again because I'm aware some people did manage to miss it.)
"All of them!" And there, the mask is back in place, as he switches to humour. "I was the only one who could end it." Why? What makes the Doctor different? "What did it feel like though?" And he is curious, as well as messing with the Doctor's head, because that's the sort of power he craves, and possibly he'd get some lols from all the pretty devastation too. And he sounds pretty turned on by it, and the Doctor's obviously not wanting phone-sex just that minute. OR IS HE? Because the next second he's begging him to stop the awfulness so they can run away into space together and have fights and sex just like old times. Oh, his sheer desperation to make everything okay between them again...but, course, it went way, way past all that centuries ago. "All we've got is each other." "Are you asking me out on a date?" NO YOU FOOL HE'S ASKING YOU FOR A LIFETIME COMMITTMENT OF JAPES AND LOLS ACROSS THE COSMOS. SAY YES, DAMMIT. P.S. I love Rusty a bit now. Sorry 'bout that.
And, oh, god, he does consider the Doctor's jolly offer. But "too late", of course it is. And there's the percussion what drives you mad, apparently. "Please let me help." OH GOD.
"Oh, look, you're on tv!" "Stop it, answer me." "No, really, you're on telly." And it's like he's got his distraction from the drums now so he can fall back into a shiny old pattern of taunts and threats and I am mostly wanting to know More About The Damn Drums. "Oh, and you can tell Handomse!Jack (for that is his true name) that I've sent his little gang on a wild goose chase off to the Himalayas." Gosh, I wonder how tricky that was to arrange. "Oh, you...public menace!" He! Again, I am cheap. Control of everything, what do we do, oh, it's scary because it's the claustrophobia. Generally the Doctor does have some room to manouever: there is UNIT, there is Random Guest Star Helping Out, there is Oppressed Population Wanting Freedom, there's the TARDIS. There's almost always something. But he's got nothing here, except himself and Jack and Martha. That's scary, man.
"The President is said to be furious...about unilateral action" He! Ahem. Sorry. But I've got Fox News on the telly, and they so would. Cheap for laughs at the current American administration and media. Sorry. Again. And then it's Tellytubby time! Which was nicked from The Sea Devils when the Master's all amused at The Clangers. Obv, Clangers > Teletubbies. Also, teh drinking, which is what the Master does when he's all confident and relaxing (The Mind of Evil; The Time Monster) but no cigar this time around. Clearly cigars no longer a symbol of Ultimate Evil.
Oh, Martha/Doctor/Jack doing gritty urban hiding out, sort of! And Martha & Jack having non-verbal signals for Your Turn To Drag The Exposition Out Of Him Now, Dude. All very nice, and then there is backstory. About which I am marginally conflicted. Y'see there are certain things we can't find out, such as why the Doctor really left Gallifrey, or what his his real name is. These things can be hinted at, sure, but an exact, precise explanation? Never. And, for me, the Master also has some of these rules too, so the origin thing, I have conflict. It's not that I don't like it, cause I do (it reminds me of that thing where if you were able to see the whole of the universe in size and time and scope and yourself in comparision, you'd go mad cause of your sheer insginificance) it's just...I think it definitely pushed at my boundaries for How Much Backstory You Give Iconic Characters. Also it means there was an incarnation before the Delgado one, as young!Master has very bright blue eyes.
But, that said, it was very, very shiny. TIME LORDS IN SILLY HATS! THE CITADEL! THE SEAL OF RASSILON! ME SWEARING QUITE A LOT AT THOSE SHOTS OF GALLIFREY AND HOW I COULD HAVE USED THEM IN MY TIME WAR VID! And though we saw no female Time Lords, points for showing the first black Time Lord on the telly. And for squishing LOOOOOOMS. And for families on Gallifrey and anything else that means I can now ignore the bloody NAs Even More. (Oh, yes, and "I thought he was going to say he was your secret brother or something," thank you Rusty, VERY MUCH for winding up fandom ALL THE LIVE LONG SEASON. I guess that means Brax is the brother in my head, about which I have no strong feelings, so meh.) I did lol at The Continent Of Wild Endeavour cause, well, I've seen Time Lords on Gallifrey and 'wild endeavour' are not two of the words that spring to mind.
Also *handwave* this is already depressingly long-winded, but the origin thing does lend a big dollop of Nurture points in the Nurture v Nature, Doctor and Master and their human counterparts type thing. Again, meta I want to do.
"I did it for you, in your honour." Oh, Jack, you have to stop - the ego's gonna need its own credit soon enough. I do like how he doesn't mention the whole "Also we almost destroyed the world" thing, never mind the weekly fuck-ups.
"And we can fight back!" "Oh yes!" And now I make you shiny tech with random things, IN MANNER OF ME IN THE TIME MONSTER WHEN I DID TWENTY MINUTES POINTLESS PADDING WITH TEA LEAVES AS A VITAL COMPONENT. I love The Time Monster. Happily, this time the tech's actually useful for more than seven seconds, hurrah!
"It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist." How would you know, Doctor? Is it because Romana only used your eighth incarnation for sex and never really paid attention to you otherwise? Oh, I think it is, yes.
Far, far, far too amused at the Master's mockery of the President. Again, I am cheap for the laughs, and I love it greatly, yes. "The British army will stand down, from now on UNIT has control of this operation." OH YEAH. And for added value it's ANOTHER FUN FACT FOR UNIT DATING! The first contact protocols were done in '68, which heavily suggests that either the Yeti in the Underground or the Cybermen in the sewers were the catalyst. Therefore indicating one or other of those adventures was set in 1968 (presumably the former, as the latter is set several years after the first one in-universe) thus shoving UNIT dating forward by a few years and, lo, once more we curse Sarah Jane and her 1980-girl line.
"So America is completely in charge?" "Since Britain elected an ass, yes!" Mwhahaha! Sorry, sorry, I can't help it. IT AMUSES ME SO MUCH. And as soon as the President is offskies, he cuts it out. (There's a reason I keep going on about this, and it's the idea that somehow Simm is playing the Master as a joker or some such, and he's not; the Master is playing a joker when it amuses him.) Then as soon as the Jones' turn up, it's back on to taunt Martha & co. ("Don't move...don't," and she doesn't, UNLIKE ACE, thus proving Martha > Ace, hurrahs! No killin' o me, Acefen.)
"I'm not here to kill him; I'm here to save him." Oh, yeah, he loves him. Just incase we hadn't got that already.
So that Valiant's a UNIT ship, eh? Things really have taken off since the Brig's day, haven't they? Mostly I'm thrilled at every little UNIT mention and assume they will be helping save the Earth next week and then the Brig will appear at the end and give Martha a medal. IT COULD HAPPEN. "All hands on the Time Ring! Again!"
They've gone and buggered this right up and jumped into 42! (Or not, but the commentary track did confirm they are the same set-thingummies, incase you're blind or have no memory and didn't notice all by yourself.)
Hehe! The Master totally nicked Colonel White's Cloudbase (actually, given his penchant for kids' telly, I wouldn't be surprised if he really had watched Captain Scarlett and thought it was cool enough to pinch.) "Anything I can do? I can make the tea, or isn't that American enough?" Okay, corruption, murder and mind control, I'm okay with, but MOCKING THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THE TEA IS NOT ON. Shocking stuff. Boo. Also, what are grits? I haven't the foggiest. And then he rolls his eyes and makes a face. "Misery guts." Which is nicked from Sea Devils and the Master's boredom at Trenchard who also completely lacked any sense of humour.
The TARDIS! I had a thrill of yay when I first saw this, then they went inside and oh the Cloister Bell! Dudes! And it's all red and red is bad even though it should be mauve though I was a bit sad at A Paradox Machine as that sounded a bit like Deus Ex Machina. Oh, hero shot! And they're running! They're running! They're still running folks! Run, little heroes, run!
La, and the American address is all very nice and completely unsubtle but mostly it's the Master's amusement at the show and the Doctor's rubbish sneakiness that is entertaining and the "Oh, all right, it's me," is the closest it got to being OTT for self, so there's that. But then there's the switch-y thing again with "I'm taking control" because he really, really don't like the President. Oh, yes, and this is where it's made a teeny bit obvious that Lucy Saxon is completely fecking nuts. I love her dancing.
"Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully." HEHEHEHE! One of the more obscure old skool refs, but when the Master manages to destroy great swathes of the universe, then tries to blackmail the remainder with a, er, cassette recorder, his first words are, "Peoples of the universe, please attend carefully..."
And then the Doctor gets thrown to his knees in front of the Master, just incase everyone's minds hadn't already gone to the
OH GOD and the Doctor is trying so hard with the Deep Deep Down Some Part Of You See This A Bit Mad, Yes? IT HURTS MAN. And he just wants to save him and not be alone anymore and the Master is enjoying all the winning and attention way to much and then we make a segue into The Leisure Hive, thus Romana is referenced YET AGAIN. Oh yeah. (So the Master has a wee immortality device, yeah? Or did he only do that bit later and really the point of those experiments was so he could be a right sadistic bastard at the Doctor?)
OH GOODIES ANOTHER CGI INVASION. Never mind, at least they have sharp knives and horrible ways of killing people. Lucy clearly bit more okay with murder when she can't see the results as she seems to be wanting the sex quite badly at the end. AND THEN THE MASTER BLOWS THE DOCTOR A KISS BECAUSE THEY ARE CANON NOW.
"Down you go, kids." Literally? Are these children of Gallifrey or summin'? Tennant did mention in the commentary that Saxon wanted to create a new Gallifreyan Empire or something, I think. Nice to have a motive and all.
And then we have Martha, The Best Of Them All, seriously trying to take Babs' Crown really very, very hard indeed. We get a tear and her pulling away from the Doctor and her terrified and brave and listening as the reports of devastation come in and she transmats away because she can't help them on the Valiant and arrives to see London under attack and looks up and says: "I'm coming back."
It pains me to say it, it does, but quite possibly that is the single best companion moment ever.
Next week, Martha Jones Saves The World, without the help of magic fairy dust.
So, yeah, had to get all that out. Not in my head anymore. Much nicer. It was rather brilliant really, yes.
But what the hell do I know? My favourite story's still the bleedin' Time Monster after all.
