Season 9 Predictions!

Well, since I'm starting a new season, I might as well change things up. I had one season of posts about humans and another about Time Lords. I've seen two episodes of Season 9 as of writing this, so I can't really pick a theme (one will probably emerge anyway), so instead, I'm going to predict!

Yes, it will be wild and random speculation on what is coming up. But it should be fun to see how wrong (or maybe right?) I was.

Day of the Daleks

Well, the Doctor has one, so the Daleks might as well too. And interestingly, both are about stable time loops caused by changing a crucial event in history. 

Ooh, ooh! And the Blinovitch Limitation Effect! I had no idea that was actually a thing in the TV series. I thought it was just from the books! But no, the Doctor actually says it in this episode!

Also, I watched the special edition of this one, with the new Dalek voices, and it is so weird seeing classic Daleks talking like Nick Briggs. 

The Curse of Peladon

In which Jo Grant falls in love with a wimpy ruler, the Time Lords interfere completely unnecessarily (and illegally by their standards), and Ice Warriors turn out to be good.

Also, Hermaphrodite Hexapods.

The Sea Devils

I've heard the Master shows up in this one. Despite the fact that he's currently in jail. Then again, rumors that the Master is coming back have been true when he's currently dead so a little jail isn't going to stop him.

Also, something to do with being on a watery planet? Or maybe something coming out of the see on earth?

I doubt it's actual devils, at any rate. We already got that in The Daemons, and I've never heard any references to the Pertwee era when people talk about The Satan Pit.

The Mutants

Mutated...people. Daleks? No, though I believe that was an episode of The Daleks.

Possibly something set entirely on earth, where some sort of alien thing (or radiation, it's always radiation, no wonder that's why Three regenerated) has caused people to begin to change into monsters. 

The Time Monster

This one definitely has the coolest title (outside of the one that has the word "Dalek" in it, for obvious reasons). 

Something like a weeping angel or a reaper, that feeds of some kind of temporal disturbance? Something the Time Lords got the Doctor to investigate because it was doing damage to time?

Or maybe a time traveling monster that doesn't acutally care about time other than as a means of getting around.

Or maybe it's just a monster that's traveling with the Master in his TARDIS.

Let's see how far off I was! Should be fun. 

It's Where My Daemons Hide

Oh, what to say about the Daemons. It's not a bad story. In fact, it's a very well put together story, with many interesting elements. It's got great payoffs for earlier setups (the remote control Bessie) and has some interesting themes running through it.

However, unfortunately, the power of love saves the day and aliens have influenced every advance on earth forever. Not that either of those are bad, they just didn't seem to properly fit in the story.

So for my (completely unplanned) review today, I'll be talking about science vs. magic, the power of love, and alien influence. Also, Master's opinion that he's worthy to rule over earth, as a sort of wrap up to the Time Lord Season 8.

Science vs. Magic

In fiction, there is no difference between science and magic. 

Literally, there is none. 

In fiction, there is only a difference between science and miracles. 

Science, as I understand it to mean, is simply a means of understanding the world around us. That's all it is. Using the scientific method to support theories about the physical workings of the world around us, and then applying those theories to create new technologies. 

Poor Dumbledore...and poor Snape...

Magic, is (or at least ought to be) the application of a well defined system of actions that produce results that would not occur in the real world. If I wave a Harry Potter wand (of which I have collected quite a few) at the spider that's crawling up the wall of my living room and say "Avada Kedavra," nothing will happen. But in Harry Potter, you bet that every time someone waves their wand and says Avada Kedavra, it shoots the Killing Curse. And if I pray a prayer to R'hllor and kiss a dead person on the lips, nothing will happen. But you bet when Thoros does it in A Song of Ice and Fire, people come back to life. There are rules to magic, and if you obey the rules of magic, you can use magic to produce results.

How is knowing the laws of gravity and using them to roll a wagon down a hill different from knowing the levitation spell that will put the wagon back at the top, in a universe where both are equally possible?

Well, there is one big difference. Actually, it's what defines the two subgenres of speculative fiction: fantasy and sci-fi. If you use technobabble to explain your impossible gadget, it's sci-fi. If you use mystical words, it's fantasy. I've its got chemicals, it's sci-fi; if it's got potions, it's fantasy. Etc.

So all the Doctor is really proving when he explains that there is no such thing as magic to Jo is that Doctor Who is set in a sci-fi universe, and not a fantasy one. 

When the Doctor explains away the Daemons and Azal, he isn't proving that Azal doesn't have magical powers. When he says that Azal is a scientist and the earth is his scientific experiment, he's not claiming that Azal doesn't have the power to destroy the earth. Quite the opposite, in fact. But he is proving that it can be explained by him being an alien and very advanced; he's using sci-fi tropes instead of fantasy ones.

That's all it is. Literally. Because if you look at Doctor Who, the show is really not science based at all.

Doctor Who is fantasy, given sci-fi names:

• The TARDIS.  A sentient alien time ship that is dimensionally transcendental and uses a black hole, which was engineered by the scientist Omega, for power. Also known as, "magic box that's bigger on the inside."
• Regeneration. A physical process that is either genetic or technologically instilled in a Time Lord that enables them to rewrite their biology upon the moment of death in order to heal a damaged body. Also know as, "healing power."
• Sonic Screwdriver...does it really need saying?
• The Time Vortex. The essence of time through which all time travelers go to reach the past and the future. Who am I kidding, I can't even make that sound sci-fi!

And so on and so forth.

Now, I'm not complaining about this. If I wanted to watch realistic fiction, I wouldn't be a Doctor Who fan. The point of watching speculative fiction is to see unrealistic and impossible settings. What fun would Star Wars be without hyperspace and the force? Or Honor Harrington without Impeller Drives. Or that John Ringo series that my brother got me to read a book of, that had those mental implants that were really cool...the first book was called Live Free or Die, I believe. 

My point is not that Doctor Who is fantasy, but that fantasy and sci-fi are actually the same level of impossible, just worded differently. There is no difference between science and magic.

There is, however, a difference between science and miracles. 

The Eleventh Doctor explains miracles: "The Universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous. And sometimes—very rarely—impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that's the theory. 900 years, never seen one yet."

Miracles are impossible events. They are outside the possibilities of whatever universe they occur in. 

In our universe, Jesus rising from the dead is a miracle, because it is impossible to come back to life after being dead three days.  In the Doctor Who universe, the Doctor rising from the dead is not a miracle, because it is possible for his regeneration to have been temporarily disabled by human anesthetics and thus for him to be dead for a short time before he regenerates. In the Harry Potter universe, Harry Potter coming back from the dead is not a miracle, because Lily Potter's love magic tethered him to Voldemort's life. 

This is what comes up when you
Google "Doctor Who plot holes"

When there are miracles in fiction we cry "bullshit!" and call it a plot hole. 

The ending of The Rings of Akhaten is a miracle, for example. Whatever happened with the Old God was not explained, and didn't work according to the previously set forth rules that the universe was assumed to operate on. 

In fiction, magic is good. Science is good. Miracles, however, are not good.

The Power of Love

And of course, no discussion of science vs. magic would be complete without one about the power of love. The power of love is decidedly a fantasy trope. And yet, at the end of an episode that spends so much time proving that Daemons are aliens and magic doesn't exist, love saves the day.

Now, I personally like the idea of the power of love saving the day. I wish the power of love saved the day more in real life  - and it already does, often. It saves us from conflicts with friends and family, it enables a mother to lift a car to save her baby, it causes people to be self-sacrificing when they would otherwise be selfish, etc. So having it save the day using fantasy tropes and superpowers just seems like a symbolic representation of a good aspect of our world. 

Protect the Doctor from the Avada
Kedavra!

But it really does seem incongruous here. Azal is just a scientist. He isn't the embodiment of all evil. So the fact that an act of love is illogical shouldn't technically melt his brain. (Perhaps it was just a miracle?) He perhaps would have been confused and conflicted, and not  understood, but to actually die from seeing something he didn't understand doesn't make sense. He's a scientist. Scientists see things they don't understand all the time; that's what they study. 

Still, it was very sweet seeing Jo ready to sacrifice herself for the Doctor. I didn't think I would like Jo at first (no one could ever replace Liz Shaw) but I really do like her now. She's not always the strongest companion, but she certainly has her moments, and she's just a really sweet person. 

Verdict: Power of love accepted. Because my logical brain is melted by sentiment. "She would sacrifice herself? Awwwww!"

Alien Influence

"We have ruled your lives since your lives began. From the wheel and the fire." - The Silence.

How much of humanity's accomplishments have actually been achieved on our own? It seems that we've had aliens shaping our history for as long as we've been around. The earth was formed by a Racnoss ship, life sparked by Scaroth's ship, and shaped by the Daemons and the Silence. The Doctor has done his fair share of meddling too and protected us from sudden destruction across many centuries. 

What does that make humanity? The Doctor so admires the fact that we exist to the end of the universe (let's not talk about what we do after that...), but how much of that is really our accomplishment?

If other species have done everything for us, they why are we important? What have we ever done that makes us relevant in the universe? Or are we just a giant petri dish in which all ideas are tested and grow, so we eventually move out to conquer the universe using what's already been sown in us by aliens? What does the Doctor see in us?

And it's totally not because
this guy is very attractive....

The problem that I have with the "aliens omnipresent in history" idea is the same one that I have with the Doctor being half human in the TV Movie (and I love the TV Movie, by the way). It makes humanity less important. Yes, I'm an egotistical little human here, typing away at my computer, who likes to think that I'm somewhat worthwhile to the larger universe. If the Doctor only likes us because he's one of us, then what's the point? And if the only things worth liking about us are the product of other species, then what's the point?

It works a few times. If you do it too many, we cease to have accomplished anything at all.

Everything in moderation. Especially this.

Master of the Human Race

There are two people who Azal could have potentially chosen to rule the earth in his place: the Doctor and the Master. 

Yeah, we saw how well his
interference in human politics
went....

After a whole season of the Doctor interacting with the Master, being manipulated by the Time Lords, and generally displaying some of his more high-species qualities, it finally comes to a head in the fact that the only people fit to rule the human race, in Azal's eyes, are Time Lords.

Now, if this season has proven anything, it is that the Doctor would never rule the earth, and the Master should never rule the earth. Time Lords have incredible technology, but they are not actually more moral than our species, which is the only criterion that matters when it comes to being given power to rule (I've already written about this). 

Time Lords do not deserve to be lords of anything but time, which they can watch over and protect, but never interfere with. That is where the Time Lords belong, and when they overstep that, bad things happen.

So the Doctor refuses Azal's power, and Azal refuses the Master his power.

It seems that  Time Lords are not the greatest thing ever. Humans will have to continue on ruling themselves. Because, in the words of Martha Jones, "We are good."

Colony...IN SPACE!

I'm very torn about this story. On the one hand, there are so many interesting elements of it to talk about. On the other hand, it's not actually a very gripping plot. Though there are a few absolutely brilliant reveals: who the hell would have guessed that the Master was going to turn out to be the adjudicator? And how about the Master's TARDIS? And the superweapon? And the TIME LORDS?????

And the Time Lords.

Yes, indeed, there are Time Lords in this episode, which makes it between 247% and 1234% better, depending on their level of involvement and awesomeness factor in the story.

Anyway....

The Master's TARDIS

Security System

We get to see the inside of the Master's TARDIS! In Part 4, the Doctor and Jo enter the Master's TARDIS and eventually get caught there and incapacitated by sleeping gas that's part of the Master's security system. 

The Doctor should have had something like that. That would have kept the Master from stealing his TARDIS in Utopia. Then again, knowing the Doctor's TARDIS, the security system would have malfunctioned and created some large disaster for him and his companions rather than stop any intruder.

But seriously, the Master's TARDIS has many features that are improvements upon the Doctor's TARDIS. The security system is just one. 

After many attempted screenshots, this one provides the best view of everything in the Master's TARDIS. A few features:

• Filing cabinets! If we squint really hard, it almost makes sense that the Master would have filing cabinets. After all, many species he's dealing with (ie, humans), use mostly paper in the centuries he's dealing with them in (ie, the twentieth). So if he wants to steal their documents, he can't hack their computers and download their information - or for that matter, mentally invade their psychic wi-fi (or whatever that was that Dorium Maldovar has in the future) - he has to acquire their paper. So he keeps it well organized in filing cabinets. Obviously.
• A bookshelf? That's cool. The Doctor has a library (an awesome library with a big book on a pedestal about the Time War and Encyclopedia Gallifreya at that) but the Master keeps his books nearby in the console room.
• Cells. Well, he is the Master. He needs somewhere to keep his prisoners. And at least in the console room he can keep them in sight so that he isn't giving them a convenient amount of unsupervised time to escape. 
• The round things! Love the round things! What are the round things?
• A console unit. Which looks exactly like the Doctor's. Either that style was all the rage on Gallifrey at this time in their history, or the Master has decided to copy the Doctor's TARDIS because he thought it looked cool. Personally, if I were the Master, I would have gone for one that looked more like the one in Twelve's TARDIS. The one with the two screens that spin around. Yeah. That's a cool one. (Yes, yes, I know, they didn't build a new set for the Master's TARDIS. Shhh!)
• The laser intruder detector. C'mon, isn't it a brilliant idea? Though, frankly, how many times does a TARDIS ever get broken into or stolen? Once? Twice? Three times if you count this episode? (Others being Terror of the Autons and Utopia) I don't think the Doctor's TARDIS is ever stolen or broken into outside of Utopia. Still, it's a cool precaution.

Higher Beings

So this is cool. 

Once upon a time there was a very advanced alien race. They became so advanced as to be considered higher beings, of a more civilized level, with better justice, than other species. But then they built a superweapon which spread its radiation across their planet, and mutated them back into primitives. And then they died. The end.

Moral of the Story: Superweapons are bad.

But in all seriousness, it's interesting to see that the one remaining member of this highly intelligent and civilized race is also the most moral character in the story, dispensing wise justice and ultimately sacrificing himself to keep the superweapon from being used. 

It's a great contrast to the Master (and the Time Lords in general) who are higher beings but decidedly not more moral than most. They're disinterested, which is good for the species around them, because they're amoral and aren't particularly just (Deadly Assassin and Trial of a Time Lord, I'm looking at you). 

So what makes a higher species? Is it technology? Intelligence? Morality? Or is a higher species simply one that calls itself such?

I'd say it has to be a combination of all of those things. Technology and intelligence go hand in hand, and aren't really disputed. It's morality that needs to be argued for. 

Consider the Time Lords and the Daleks - the combatants in the Time War. The Gelf mentioned when the Time War raged it was unknown to lesser species but devastating to higher forms. What they of course mean is that it took place mainly in the time vortex so species that weren't time-aware didn't know it was happening. But this means that the Gelf classed the Daleks as higher forms. 

And we know that the Daleks aren't higher forms. They are too evil.

See, for a species to be a higher form, with an appropriate level of technology and such, they need to actually have a lot of power. Like, universe destroying level power. And the Daleks don't have that - can't have that - because they are not capable of any sort of morality. A higher form has to be self-policing or else the universe wouldn't exist.

The Time Lords are not that moral. We know that. The Doctor frequently comments on that. But what they are is uninterfering. Somewhere along the line they decided that the universe was better off without their interference (unless there are superweapons involved, apparently). And that shows a morality of sorts, knowing that they ought not conquer the universe, because they cannot properly rule it. 

So morality is a part of being a higher being, simply because the universe could not exist if those who had the power to remove it from existence were not moral. 

Superweapons of Who

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my review of Claws of Axos, but it bears repeating: superweapons are cool. (Gosh, this is a really insightful post, huh?) They are. They've got this phenomenal cosmic power and often mysterious names too. What's not to like?

Well, I mean, they blow up lots of stuff and kill lots of people. But that's why you can base the stakes of a whole plot around them. Because either the Doctor is trying to stop the villain from using the superweapon, or he's using the superweapon on the villain (in which case no innocent civilians are harmed...unless its an RTD  era episode...). So they make for great tension.

Some include:

Everything is named after Rassilon.
What does Omega get? Weapons.
Lots and lots of weapons.

• The Hand of Omega. A stellar manipulator. Not necessarily a superweapon, unless you use it in the way the Doctor did to make a sun go supernova and blow up Skaro.
• Logopolis. No, Logopolis isn't a superweapon, but I figure it deserves at least a mention, considering that the Master did, by destroying it, destroy a large portion of the universe. 
• The Delta Wave. Symbolic of the Doctor's choice to destroy Gallifrey and him once more becoming worthy of the title of Doctor, the Doctor chooses not to use the Delta Wave to save humanity from the Daleks. 
• The Bad Wolf. "You are tiny. I can see every single atom of your existence - and I divide them." - "Everything must come to dust. All things." - "I bring life!" Yes, this counts. Not only can the Bad Wolf disintegrate every single Dalek around, she can also spread words throughout time, posses the Moment, and bring people back to life permanently. 
• The Moment. "The Galaxy Eater. The final work of the ancients of Gallifrey. A weapon so powerful its operating system became sentient. Its said that it developed a conscience." - "How do you use a weapon of ultimate mass destruction that can stand in judgement against you? There is only one person mad enough to try." The coolest superweapon ever, since it's basically all powerful and determined to convince you not to use it. Also, it saved Gallifrey.

As you can see, all the coolest superweapons are played by Billie Piper. This is an undeniable fact of the universe.

How does the superweapon in this one compare? It turned a highly intelligent race into a band of primitives. It poisoned the soil of its planet. It made for a very cool scene in which the Doctor considers taking control of the universe to do good.

Yeah, it compares pretty well, I'd say. All it needs is a name, and for the Time Lords to cart it off to the Omega Arsenal, and it joins the "Best of" list above.

Dated Sci-Fi

They say that Sci-Fi dates faster than any other genre. 

Some people disagree with "them" (whoever this mysterious "they" are). Star Trek invented the iPad! And Orson Scott Card foretold the internet!

Okay, so there are a few lucky guesses that hold up to the test of time. But most don't. And that includes Colony in Space.

Seriously, just one camera phone. Like
what they used to defeat the Silence.

Seriously, if everyone just had an iPhone however far in the future this is, the whole conflict could have been solved within three seconds of the Adjudicator arriving because everyone would have pictures of the "monsters" on their phones, revealing them to just be holograms and robots. 

Also, filing cabinets in the Master's TARDIS? And not a computer in sight?

The lack of information technology in this episode is so glaring it's almost painful. I know they can't be expected to predict the future, but man--this is really dated. 

And that's all for Colony in Space. I've tried not to be as longwinded as I usually am...shaking things up a bit, you know. 

Next up is The Daemons, which I admit was...not my favorite. Still, it's got some interesting ideas in it. 

BAFTAs of Axos

No. No, you can't deny it. Axons look like they have BAFTAs for faces.

I swear I'm not crazy. In fact, I know I'm not crazy because I Googled "BAFTA Axon," and this came up:

Oh, oh, wait! I remember where I first heard that Axons have BAFTA faces. From the Doctor himself:

"It looks like an Axon."

ANYWAY....

Returning to the subject at hand. The Claws of Axos. Which is actually quite a wonderful story, with a lot to talk about. So lets start with another neatly organized (ha!) list of what there is to talk about: Jo Grant and Time Lords. This should be fun.

Jo Grant

I said I love Jo Grant in Mind of Evil. And I stand by it. But after--and even in--Mind of Evil, she begins to serve a somewhat annoying function: the person the aliens can threaten to get the Doctor to do what they want.

Like I said, this starts in Mind of Evil. (Before that, in Terror of the Autons, Jo is mind controlled by the Master to try to kill the Doctor, but it's a pretty pathetic attempt, frankly, and isn't that worrying.) Jo is held prisoner so the Master can threaten the Doctor into fixing the Keller Machine. The main difference between that, though, and what happens in this story, though, is that in Mind of Evil you believe that Jo could actually escape on her own without the Doctor's help--because she's awesome.

Well, they were a little off with
the aging up.

But all in all, not bad

In Claws of Axos, Jo is completely helpless and simply serves the function of getting the Doctor to do what the Axons want. They try to torture him into giving them the secret of time travel, and that obviously doesn't work, but when they threaten Jo, he's like "Oh yeah, here you go. Never mind."


This continues, too. In Colony in Space, the Master gets the Doctor to take him to the superweapon city by holding Jo captive in his TARDIS.

Now, I don't have a problem with the Doctor's companions getting captured by the villains. In Classic Who, it seems that the Doctor is held captive by someone at least once a serial, so it would be strange if only he and not his companions were held prisoner. The annoying thing is that after a while you start to get the feeling that Jo doesn't actually serve any useful purpose other than to look nice and be used as leverage against the Doctor.

[Insert feminist commentary here.]

Still, that may just be this season (hoping so, but doubting it given what I've heard about the development of companions in Classic Who). I've watched Day of the Daleks, and she uses her escape artist skills there again, so she's improving once again.

And now for the better, less complaining subject: Time Lords. As you've probably figured out, my favorite topic in Doctor Who.

Time Lord in Exile

Oooh, a title drop.

Join me, and together we can rule
the galaxy as...wait a minute...

At the end of this story, the Doctor (obviously in an attempt to trick the Master), pretends that he doesn't care about the Earth, and just wants to get out before the Axons (I literally almost wrong BAFTAs) destroy it. The Master has his first official "Join me!" speech to the Doctor, indicating that he may have had a slight change in opinion of the Doctor since Mind of Evil. I'm inclined to believe that since he almost killed the Doctor and then freaked out about him dying, he's decided that he'd rather the Doctor turn evil and travel with him. (Sort of like the Doctor wanted the Master to turn good in The Last of the Time Lords and travel with him.)

And yet, watching him do it, you could believe that someone like the Doctor might actually consider leaving the planet. Think about why he's here: he's been exiled by his people and his only way off the planet disabled. He obviously would rather be traveling, as he works so tirelessly to try to get the TARDIS working again. How much of a step is it to say that he'd leave the world in ruins because he simply wants to be out of here?

Look, Rani's dissing her second
favorite Doctor. Again.

Well, I didn't believe he would. I said someone like him might do it. He wouldn't. I'm steadily becoming convinced that Three is the most moral of all the Doctors. He always works for good. He always does good. When others don't do the right thing or resort to violence, he calls them out on it. He's always encouraging people to be the best they can be.

Three is like Ten, except for not a hypocrite. I mean, whatever you can say about the Time Lords, they know how to pick good traits to regenerate into (a lot better than the Sisterhood of Karn did; they ended up with a guy who would blow up a planet). Kind of funny to think that, considering how much he hates them for exiling him and the fact that they exiled him because he was too moral and interfering.

Basically, Three is great. And a very good person. Which I've written about before.

This is exactly what makes the Master's next "Join me!" speech in Colony in Space so interesting. He tells the Doctor that he can use the superweapon (which is neither as dramatic as the Final Sanction, nor as insane as the Reality Bomb, nor as mysterious as the Hand of Omega, nor as heroic as the Moment) to rule the universe for good.

The Third Doctor spends his whole life being frustrated by this military organization that can never seem to do the right thing when it comes to making the difficult choice. He constantly fights supposedly good humans who cause so much suffering with their reactionary violence. Wouldn't it be wonderful for the Doctor to be able to have a weapon that would enable him to solve the ills of the universe, the make everything different for the better? The Doctor could use that power--he could use it for good.

But, of course, that would make the Doctor a god. And Three knows the consequences of becoming a god, and they are less than what he would hope to achieve. We know the consequences of the Doctor becoming a god too. Look at Ten - the Lonely God. The Last of the Time Lords. Might I say, the Time Lord Victorious? He declares himself the highest authority in the universe (New Earth) at the beginning of his run and declares that the laws of time must obey him, because he is the winner of the Time War (The Waters of Mars) at the end. What good did Ten's god-like status do for the earth? For the universe? It changed history by deposing Harriet Jones, allowing the Master to take over. It almost destroyed time in The Waters of Mars. And no one can pretend that the Family of Blood actually deserved what they got.

If the Doctor used this superweapon for good, he would make himself into a god. And when the Doctor used the Moment, that's exactly what happened. He didn't have a choice. It was the only way. And we see that even Ten would do anything to change that decision in The Day of the Doctor. But it still remains that that's what happened.

The Doctor is a Time Lord, and in that respect he does stand above humanity. He could rule the universe better than most humans. And that's the tug here, whenever the Master does the "Join me!" thing. The Doctor is a bit above humanity, simply by virtue of the superpower and technological level of his species. He's also above humanity in his morality. Both make strong cases for him joining the Master.

But he chooses not to, because he knows the consequences. That's what separates him from the Master. He just wants to see the universe, to be a part of it; the Master wants to own it and rule it and stand above it. And that will always be a difference that they can never reconcile, no matter how much anybody ships them.

Side Note:

I'm totally beginning to love Three. Yup. I find that whenever I watch Doctor Who now and there's any sort of reference to the Classic Series, I always think of Three. Whenever people talk about Classic Doctors, the first one I think of is Three. He's great!

There, I said it, I've been converted. He is now duking it out with Six for the next higher spot in my list of favorite Doctors that looks something like this:

Eleven - Ten - Four - Nine - Eight - War - Seven - [Three vs Six] - One - Two - Five

Actually, looking at this, it  really looks like I don't like him very much. He's third on my list of favorite Classic Doctors (I don't count Eight as either Classic or New):

Four - Seven - [Three vs Six] - One - Two - Five

Having a decided extreme prejudice towards the new series, this means that Three is very high on my list. Surpassed only by Tom Baker (whose scarf I wear literally everywhere) and Sylvester McCoy (Remembrance of the Daleks is my favorite Classic Who episode). And is in competition with Colin Baker (who is the reason I got into Classic Who at all, watching Mark of the Rani).

Serious kudos to thirddoctor for the awesome pic

And up next time is Colony in Space, where superweapons, Time Lord incompetence and crony capitalists combine to make for some very interesting plot ideas.

Shhhhheeeeewwwwww...oooooWEEEEEEEooooo

Mind of Awesome

Er...Evil. The Mind of Evil. The Awesome of Evil? The Awesome Mind of Evil.

I'll try to be organized about this review, rather than rambling on until I pick a topic. There's three parts to the review: gushing, Doctor/Master, and Worst Fears. Let's get started, shall we?

Gushing

As can probably be gathered from the title, I love this episode more than I dislike the one just before it. I desperately want the color DVD of it, because...well... because it would just be that much more awesome in color. This is my favorite Jon Pertwee story, officially. 10/10.

Let's go with a list. What was awesome about Mind of Evil:

• The idea of the Keller Machine. It stores all the evil urges of criminals and eventually becomes evil and starts killing people using their worst fears. At first, I thought that it had become evil because it had absorbed too much evil; then it was revealed that there was actually a parasite inside that feeds off of fear and evil. It's just a little box, but it's such a malicious and scary little box that it actually works as a villain who's a credible threat to the Doctor and the Master.
• The Master. Seriously, can he get anymore James Bond Villain? It's glorious. Down to the fact that he sits down and outright tells the Doctor all of his plans. 
• Jo Grant. I had my doubts. I admit, I wasn't too sure about her in the last episode (something I entirely failed to mention because I was too busy complaining about boringness and generally not talking about the episode). Jo Grant, when she was introduced in Terror of the Autons seemed like a mostly incompetent replacement for the fabulous Liz, who I was very disappointed was gone. She grew on me throughout the episodes, but I still wasn't sure. Now I am. Jo Grant is awesome. She's one of those companions who you believe can get herself out of trouble without the Doctor's help. I mean, she hold her own in the middle of a prison riot. Many kudos to her.
• Doctor/Master. I don't really ship it, but I appreciate it. But I'll get to that below. 
• Worst fears. I literally sat up and went "That is brilliant!" after waiting for a week (I was busy with homework) to find out why the Doctor's worst fear was fire. But more on that below.

Worst Fears

This is one of those little characterization devices that I find fascinating in sci-fi and fantasy. You put a character up against something the presents them with their worst fear. What is that worst fear? And how do they react to it?

We get to see two important characters' worst fears in this serial: the Doctor's and the Master's. I'm pretty sure we didn't see Jo's, if I remember correctly. 

The Doctor's worst fear is fire. We first see that when the machine attacks him at the end of Episode 1. In Episode 2, he explains to Jo that this is because he saw the earth burn a little while ago (in Inferno).

The Doctor's worst fear is seeing the world burn. And by extension, he fears failing to save the world. There are several things to be said about this. First of all, this is harsher in hindsight, given what happens to Gallifrey: not only does he fail to save the Time Lords, he actually burns them [Insert comment about how he actually didn't do it here]. He has to cause his own worst fear. No wonder Nine, Ten, and Eleven were so messed up by the Time War.  

Now, (as per The God Complex and The Time of the Doctor) the Doctor's worst fear is a crack in time. Eleven's worst fear at least, was those cracks. But it's far more interesting to think about the fact that it's not actually the cracks specifically that he fears, but the fact that he left the universe in a worse state than he found it. The fact that the cracks are still there, damaging the fabric of the universe, and he feels responsible for this, is much bigger than simply a crack in time. The Doctor fears that he isn't helping the universe.

Are you tired of this pic, yet?

So really, nothing changes between the Three and Eleven. Sure, their experiences are different, but the same basic fact remains: he fears that he is unable to help people and is doing more harm than good. Because that's what the Doctor wants to be: the man who makes people better, the good man, the healer. That's the reason he chose the name Doctor. Yes, it's a retcon, I know.

The  Doctor also fears, as an honorable mention, the Daleks, Cybermen, and various other assorted villains who appear in that montage of fears. Quite a nice continuity nod.

Now the Master's worst fear is the Doctor standing over him and laughing. Why? 

Obviously the Doctor and the Master know each other quite well from their days on Gallifrey. For some reason or another, the Master is obsessed with the Doctor. This is completely obvious from the first episode, where the Master is putting all of his attention on the Doctor. He tries to kill him, but you feel that his attempts are halfhearted, and he would really be disappointed if the Doctor dies.

The Master doesn't want the Doctor dead. He wants the Doctor defeated. He wants the Doctor to have to look up at him and admire all the things he does, while being powerless to do anything himself (ring a bell? That's right, it happens exactly that way in The Sound of Drums when the Master gets to keep the Doctor as his pet Dobby creature in a cage). He wants the Doctor's approval, or at least his undivided attention. So it makes sense that the Master's worst fear is exactly the opposite: the Doctor standing victorious over him, and laughing at all the things that he tries to do. 

Look familiar?

Oh, remember that scene from The Last of the Time Lords? The one where the Doctor is literally floating above the Master in exactly the same way that the image of the Doctor in the Master's worst fear was? There's no way that wasn't intentional. Of course, in reality the Doctor doesn't laugh at the Master, he gives him a hug and says he forgives him (which is even worse, apparently).

Doctor/Master

Like I've said, the Master is completely obsessed with the Doctor in this serial.  He wants the Doctor to be horrified at all his evil schemes, and to give him attention by trying to stop him. He doesn't want the Doctor dead.

How do I know that he doesn't want the Doctor dead, despite the number of times he tries to kill him? Yes, he threatens to shoot the Doctor through both hearts and says that he'll eventually kill the Doctor after the Doctor helps him with the Keller Machine. But just look at that scene where the Master tests how well the Doctor can resists the Keller Machine. When it looks like the Doctor is going to die, he freaks out and desperately springs into action to try to save him. The worry in his voice when he says, "You were within an inch of dying," just says it all.

The Doctor, on the other hand, seems to mildly enjoy the Master's company, but isn't particularly obsessed with him. This changes quite a bit when it  comes to Last of the Time Lords, where it's the Doctor who is obsessed with the Master because he's the only other Time Lord left. The Master manipulates the Doctor by using this devotion and ultimately defeats him by dying and leaving the Doctor alone (with a plan to resurrect). 

Yeah, there's a reason the Doctor/Master ship exists, and it's not confined to NuWho, or even to the TV Movie. While I don't actually ship Doctor/Master (in any of it's forms), I do appreciate it as a ship. It's one of those ships that rides on the edge of canon, like Whouffle or Gwen/Jack.

And next up is Claws of Axos, in which Jo Grant becomes less than useless and we question the Doctor's loyalty to the earth. Also, BAFTA-faced aliens.

Name Night Day Time

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to give you this special report.

Nah, I just rewatched the whole "of the Doctor" trilogy (+minisode) and felt the need to write an article about my headcanons and otherwise crazy theories. See, I like to philosophize (if rambling can be called that) about Pertwee, but this is even more in my league, being mostly a NuWho fan. 

The End of the Doctor

The 50th Anniversary trilogy is all about the Doctor. His life, his death, his biggest (and worst) day. It's about fundamentally changing something about the Doctor, setting right what is wrong in his life. I'd like to posit that if this trilogy had not happened and these changes had not been made, the Doctor would have died for good as he sees in Name of the Doctor, in battle among millions on a burned planet as a tired and regretful old man. This trilogy is moving the Doctor past these problems, setting the him up for the next 50 years.

The Name of the Doctor

The name of the Doctor is all about who the Doctor is. It's in the title, the Name of the Doctor. It is about the path that has led him to this point in his life, and will lead him to his final death. It's about what he has become along the way from Gallifrey to Trenzalore. 

The Doctor enters the Name of the Doctor playing a game with Clara's children. He's been tricked into letting them go to the cinema, and is a bit peeved about it. It's very much an ordinary day for the Doctor, goofing around with children, visiting Clara, probably seeing another blackened attempt at a souffle in the kitchen. 

But  by the end of the episode, it becomes very clear that the Doctor, even when he's pretending to be happy and playing with kids and kissing his wife, is headed down a dark path that he can't escape from. He's hurtling not only towards his final death (this being his last incarnation) but also towards a more evil side of him.

How much more awesome is this
guy as the GI than as the Doctor?

It's interesting that the Great Intelligence, who has basically devoted his life to killing people and trying to take over worlds uses these words to describe the Doctor: "Welcome to the final resting of the cruel tyrant. Of the slaughterer of the ten billion. And the vessel of the final darkness. Welcome to the tomb of the Doctor!" and "Tell that to the leader of the Sycorax. Or Solomon the Trader. Or the Cybermen, or the Daleks. The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day. And he will have other names before the end. Storm. The Beast. The Valeyard."

But as the Great Intelligence is not so much a character as information ("I am information") with a bit of ambition tacked on, we can assume that he's not lying to suit himself and is actually stating factual information about the future of the Doctor. And from everything we as the audience know about the Doctor, he is completely accurate. He mentions the Valeyard (Trial of a Time Lord confirms that this is in the Doctor's future), Soloman the Trader (obviously he's somewhat omniscient if he knows about that), the leader of the Sycorax (same), and of course, the Cybermen and the Daleks. 

So this is an accurate, and perhaps slightly dramatic (isn't Richard E. Grant wonderful?), picture of what the Doctor has coming in his life. His whole life is only leading him into darkness. 

But why? Well, we get an answer to that too in the final moments of Name of the Doctor. We never do find out what his name is, but we get this:

"My name, my real name, that is not the point. The name you choose, it's like a promise you make. He's the one who broke the promise. He is my secret."

The War Doctor is standing at the bottom of the Doctor's time stream, not a ghost like all the others, but able to interact with the Doctor. [headcanon] I like to think that this is due to the timey-wimey (he would say timey-what?) nature of the Time War, given that it was mostly fought in the Time Vortex, the War Doctor probably spent a lot of time in his timestream) [/headcanon].

"What I did, I did without choice, in the name of peace and sanity."

"But not in the name of the Doctor."

The Doctor's greatest secret, the one that will ultimately lead him into becoming Storm (possibly already has, the Oncoming Storm?), the Beast, and the Valeyard, is who he was in the time war, and what ending the time war has turned him into. With the weight of 2.47 billion children on his shoulders, the Doctor was never going to find peace. He was never going to go back to just traveling around the universe exploring like he had before the war. He was going to die alone and in battle, because he was never really able to escape the fact that he broke the promise; he couldn't fully go back to being the Doctor after being the warrior for so long. 

The Day of the Doctor

Which brings us into the Day of the Doctor. This episode continues the idea that destroying Gallifrey has turned the Doctor into something that he does not want to become and will ultimately lead to his end. It's set at an interesting place in each Doctor's timeline, because each Doctor is at a unique spot to appreciate what the Time War has turned him into.

War: The War Doctor is still fighting in the Time War. He's about to use the Moment, and has declared, "No more." He's the one to make the decision that will turn Ten and Eleven into who they are.

Ten: The Tenth Doctor is between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time. And the Waters of Mars ended with the Doctor declaring himself the winner of the Time War and that the laws of time would obey him. He didn't do this because he wanted the universe to do his bidding, but because he couldn't stand to watch any more people die because time said they must. He is moving beyond the Time War, escaping from the guilt and using his position as last of the time lords to save people, but is also declaring himself the winner ("Time Lord Victorious") who can control the laws of time. He can't really move on, and when he tries to, well, Adelaide Brooke still didn't survive, and he practically turns into the Master.

Eleven: The Eleventh Doctor has obviously just come back from The Name of the Doctor, because it's the previous episode. In that, he saw that there was no escaping from the Time War, and that he would continue to be a warrior until his death, when he would be burred in a battlefield graveyard.

And when Ten and Eleven meet, its interesting to see how much of their approach to each other is defined by how each of them has learned to cope with the guilt of the Time War. Ten is the hero, the man who regrets, the one who would do anything to become a good man. Eleven doesn't know who he is, the man who forgets, who is coming to the end of his life and isn't sure he's done more good for the universe than harm. Ten is furious that Eleven has forgotten, but Eleven says that he's moved on because he saw Trenzalore, where they're buried. He's seen the end, and he's realized that being the man who regrets will get him nowhere but a battlefield graveyard, so he's tried to forget. He's even tried to erase himself from the databanks of the universe, so that his reputation doesn't continue to turn him into the man, the mighty warrior, who makes whole armies turn and run at the mention of his name. And even that wasn't enough to stop him from dying still a warrior. 

So at this juncture, these three Doctors meet, and they get along okay, sometimes fighting, sometimes joking, mirroring each other's movements, and generally being badass together. You get the idea that as much as the Doctor hates himself for burning Gallifrey, he's still vain enough to enjoy his own company and be impressed by his other selves. 

And then comes the moment (pun intended) to end the Time War. The War Doctor has decided that it's worth becoming the man that he's met to save the universe, and is about to use the Moment before his other selves arrive.

Up until the point that the Moment lets the other two Doctors into that shed on Gallifrey (I assume it was on Gallifrey), the Doctor was headed in the direction that the War Doctor's choice to burn Gallifrey had taken him. Which is to Trenzalore.

But when Ten and Eleven arrive in that shed, everything changes. Still being the men that the War Doctor made them, they originally decide that they are going to help the War Doctor so that he does not do it alone. 

(I swear I was crying at this point because I couldn't believe that the 50th Anniversary was actually going to end with the Doctor committing genocide, and I still find that to be one of the saddest moments in all of Doctor Who. And then there was this sudden relief when he decides not to and I'm like "That's awesome. Uh...where the hell is this going now?")

It's not the Doctor who changes his mind. The Doctor does not have that ability anymore. After the Time War, the Doctor's companions have to be the ones to stop him, to tell him to do the right thing, to remind him to be the Doctor. Because he can't do it by himself anymore. I don't believe this was the case before the Time War (in the Classic Series). Three's companions certainly weren't the ones being his moral compass; he was being theirs most of the time. 

Clara changes the Doctor's mind. She literally tells him to be a Doctor. She reminds him of the promise that he made, which he tells her was "Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in." And the Doctor decides not to use the Moment. 

Guess what's back? This pic!

This is where the huge shift in the trilogy happens. The Doctor was set on a collision course with disaster for which he originally set at the end of the Last Great Time War. He was going to die in battle, a warrior to the last, because of the genocide he committed. There was to be no redemption, no moving on. How could there be? No one could ever really get over killing off their own species. 

This changes everything; the whole timeline that was the Doctor's future is replaced with this new timeline in which the Doctor didn't destroy Gallifrey, but hid it away in a pocket universe. 

Why can't we do both?

[This is an issue with some people. There is a huge debate over whether the Doctor ever burned Gallifrey or whether he always saved it. I don't like arguing with people, so I say: both! Before the Day of the Doctor, the Doctor had burned Gallifrey. In every episode you watch up to Day of the Doctor, the Doctor actually killed off his own species. They're gone. In every episode you watching from Day of the Doctor on, the Doctor never actually destroyed Gallifrey. So in Time of the Doctor, he never burned Gallifrey in any timeline. But in Name of the Doctor, he did in every timeline. This allows people who think that Moffat has invalidated RTD's character development to go back and watch episodes with nothing changed; this also allows for Twelve to be totally free of any guilt for ending the Time War.]

It's no accident that the Curator appears as a retired old Doctor in control of his regeneration after the Doctor decides to save Gallifrey. There was no future for the Doctor after Trenzalore before he saved Gallifrey; now there's a Curator to tell him "Gallifrey Falls No More."

And Ten says, "We need a new destination. Because I don't want to go." In this moment after the timeline has changed (and indeed, has was never any other way), the Doctor's whole life is no longer heading towards Trenzalore. Even the War Doctor and Ten have changed their direction. 

The Time of the Doctor

The universe is a different place in The Time of the Doctor. The Doctor arrives on Trenzalore to hear the Time Lords calling out of a crack in the wall. They were always calling; they were the ones who caused the whole Silence thing. 

This is different from in The Name of the Doctor,where the Time Lords were decidedly dead and Trenzalore was a battlefield, where the Doctor died in a minor skirmish. It does seem to be implied that the Silence were dedicated to protecting time from the Great Intelligence and thus wanted silence to fall when he asked "Doctor Who?" in The Name of the Doctor. 

Now, the Silence are dedicated to keeping the Time War from restarting by keeping the Doctor for answering the question coming through the crack from the Time Lords. And it was always this way. Anything before Day of the Doctor has the Time Lords dead and always dead. Anything after Day of the Doctor has the Time Lords always alive and never been dead. 

The Doctor, not able to stop either the Daleks or the Church of the Papal Mainframe, decides to simply stay and wait out the stalemate. He'll save every life that he can, because every life is a victory. Notice that he does this without any prompting from Clara, his companion. He sends her home. He stays, he helps. He isn't the man who keeps running and moving on, because he can't look back. He's the man who stayed for Christmas.

The Doctor has washed away the stains of the warrior. He has become, as he was in The Night of the Doctor before he started fighting in the Time War, the good man, the Doctor--and they are the same thing. 

Look at the difference between The Time of the Doctor and The Name of the Doctor. In Name, the Doctor has become this dark figure, the slaughterer of the ten billion, the Valeyard, Storm, the Beast, the cruel tyrant before he dies. In Time, he becomes the great protector of a small town, a lovable grandfather figure to all the people. And all that, without a  companion.

Look at Ten--he goes mad without a companion and declares ownership over the laws of time. Before Day of the Doctor, the Eleven started killing people when he went too long without Amy and Rory, and he couldn't sit for a day in their sitting room without going crazy. 

The Doctor has found peace, the peace that he always wanted. Remember his dream of growing old in Family of Blood? That's what Eleven gets to do. 

After the End of the Doctor

So now the change is complete. The Doctor has washed away the warrior from his nature, he has found peace, and he is ready to die. Really, Time of the Doctor does wrap up the Doctor's whole story. He started running from Gallifrey as the First Doctor, made the promise, kept it until the Time War, where he broke it as the War Doctor, spent three incarnations trying to go back to keeping the promise but forever regretting and forgetting what breaking it had turned him into, undid breaking the promise as Eleven, and then stopped running and found a home where he could truly keep the promise. The story of the Doctor is truly the story of his journey from Gallifrey to Trenzalore.

"Raggedy man, goodnight." The story is over. It's time to say goodnight. 

But with a new regeneration cycle, it's only the end of the chapter, and you have to wait until tomorrow to hear the next one. 

"Kidneys! I've got new kidneys! I don't like the color. We're probably crashing. Stay calm. Just one question. Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"

And what a wonderful chapter it will be.