I gave myself a little ultimatum: No sleep until you've finished your Mind of Evil meta.
So I ended up staying up all night. But I woke up at 2 p.m. yesterday, so I'm not all that tired. But still.
So here it is.
Also, I finally gave in to my morbid curiosity and peeked at the who_anon meme. I wish I hadn't. I feel dirty. (And yet grateful for my happy, squeeful, and non-wanky corner of the Who fandom. You guys are awesome.)
Oh, and one more thing: Portal is AWESOME. Brain-twistingly difficult at times, but awesome nonetheless.
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....And I definitely just nattered on for eight pages about this thing. How do I find this much to say about one story? And why can't I expend this much energy on writing that I've actually been assigned? Le sigh.
*vaguely contemplates linking to this on![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
venusianaikido*
In other news, turns out I can write grumpy!Three much easier than cheerful!Three; my cheerful!Three tends to start sounding like Four.
So I ended up staying up all night. But I woke up at 2 p.m. yesterday, so I'm not all that tired. But still.
So here it is.
Also, I finally gave in to my morbid curiosity and peeked at the who_anon meme. I wish I hadn't. I feel dirty. (And yet grateful for my happy, squeeful, and non-wanky corner of the Who fandom. You guys are awesome.)
Oh, and one more thing: Portal is AWESOME. Brain-twistingly difficult at times, but awesome nonetheless.
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Doctor Who, The Mind of Evil
A.K.A. That Serial Where Three and Delgado!Master UST Furiously at Each Other and Jo Saves the Day and I Think Maybe There’s a Plot Of Some Kind Involving A Prison and a Missile or Something But I Can’t Really Recall And It Probably Wasn’t Important.
You may have sensed my oncoming squee.
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*fangirlflail* I can scarce describe just how happy these episodes make me. Aside from hitting one of my foremost narrative kinks (if I may shamelessly steal the phrase from stellaluna), “The Mind of Evil” also gives me Jo-related awesomeness, further revelations regarding the Doctor, the Master, and the relationship between the two of them, and the Brigadier actually doing something. What more could one ask for?
Of course, there are still one or two giggles to be had at the beginning of the first episode, namely the Doctor waving at the security camera (and then suddenly stopping once he realizes the door is open) and making snide remarks behind Professor Kettering’s back. (Also amusing is just how the two of them look sitting amongst all those businessmen. Suit…suit…slightly different suit…suit…opera cape. XD)
So, shall we start at the beginning? I think we shall.
I was a little puzzled by some of the Doctor’s actions early in the serial, I have to admit. Two of them stood out in particular, one in the first and one very early in the second
First off, why did he insist on working alone with the Keller Machine, if he considered it dangerous? It’s possible that he didn’t think it would affect him, and his request to work alone made a bit more sense when Professor Kettering and the Director were there (he didn’t want to actually work alone so much as he just wanted them to leave), but after the Machine’s been present at the scene of two inexplicable deaths, it seems very incautious for him to be stuck alone in a room with it.
Yes, yes, I know why he was alone from a plot perspective – that way, Jo could come in and save him before the Machine killed him – but it’d be nice if we didn’t have to haul in Rassilon’s Hammer of Plot Contrivance to explain his actions away.
The second one’s a bit more worrying: twisting Mike’s arm when Mike threatens to use force seems…an over-reaction, at best, and unnecessarily cruel at worst. Admittedly, I don’t know what Mike was hoping to accomplish by threatening the Doctor (what, was he going to drag him back to UNIT by his cape?), but breaking out Venusian martial arts?
This one’s a little bit more understandable in context, of course; he’s still probably a bit shaken by the Machine and isn’t thinking entirely rationally. Not that that excuses his actions, but it at least gives them a bit of context.
A thought, however: I’ve commented before (at length) on how much Three emphasizes his alien-ness and separation from humans, affecting a superior and wise air. His first encounter with the Keller Machine, however, drags him down to a much more human level by incapacitating him, not physically, but via shock and fear. More to the point, what the Machine shows him that first time isn’t a Dalek or a Cyberman or anything of the sort – it’s fire. Just fire. Compared to some of the other things the Doctor’s surely seen, fire seems positively mundane – positively human – regardless of the precise origin of the memory.
The Keller Machine, in a way, damages the Doctor’s persona of the ‘other’; perhaps twisting Mike’s arm is his way of trying to reassert that, trying to emphasize that he is still different and still superior to these people. *shrug* Or, quite possibly, I’m over-reading.
I’m intrigued that fire was the first thing to show up, though. He makes reference to Inferno when he explains what happened to Jo, but the episode Wiki makes an excellent point: there wasn’t much actual fire in Inferno. There was lava, and heat, and smoke, but no room-consuming blazes like the one the Keller Machine conjures up. Again, from an out-of-character perspective, there’s a good reason for this: making lava burst through the walls of the processing chamber would have put the show several thousand over budget (but would have been really cool). But I’d rather not resort to that as an explanation.
The appearance of fire also takes on a whole new light when we consider the new series, and Nine describing the end of the Time War as “ten million ships on fire”. Oh, and “42”, which Ten spends the last eight minutes of burning alive from the inside. Am I detecting hints of continuity, RTD, Chibnall et al? Because they’re delicious.
Also worthy of note – the only things I could actually see during the Doctor’s second session with the Machine were visions of the Daleks and the Cybermen (I know there were others, but I couldn’t see what they were). Granted, I haven’t seen any of Three’s Dalek stories yet, and he doesn’t have any Cyberman stories, but I find intriguing the idea that even at this early date in the series the Doctor actually finds them, on some level, threatening. Or perhaps it’s not so much them as being strapped to a chair and helpless while in the same room as them?
It reminds us, the home audience, watching from the comfort of our computer chairs in the 21st century, something that it’s easy to forget: the models and the special effects may look dated, and thus we may not feel threatened by the Daleks or the Cybermen, but we really can’t extend that feeling to the characters. Where we see a slightly dodgy model with a whisk and a plunger, or a rather obvious shiny bodysuit, they’re seeing an extremely hostile, very large death-machine bent on wiping them from the face of the planet, or an emotionless cyborg intent on lobotomizing them. I kind of feel bad for giving the companions flack for screaming. :)
So, point is, reactions like the Doctor’s in the Keller machine are, I think, important to selling the monsters of the series, reminding us that what isn’t necessarily threatening to us is still Very Bad News if a character is stuck in a room with them.
Of course, that still leaves the question of what those three images (and whatever else happens to be in that second sequence) have in common, and why only fire appears the first time. A common undercurrent of inevitability or helplessness, perhaps, of an inescapable situation? Note that the first time the Machine attacks him, the Doctor’s not tied down or seated or anything – if the machine conjured up a Dalek or a Cyberman, he’s still have a way out, and could probably keep his wits about him long enough to make an escape (regardless of what I said earlier about being threatening in the fictional world, Daleks are still kind of slow). Now, if the entire room suddenly catches on fire, on the other hand, he’s screwed. There’s no escaping the likely painful death to follow.
The second time he’s hooked up to the Machine, the Doctor’s handcuffed into the chair (which I am not going to make sketchy comments about, no sir) and already vulnerable, so if the Daleks and Cybermen start charging in, he’s got no escape route and is probably going to die. And there’s nothing he can do about it.
There’s that concept again – there’s nothing he can do about it. The idea of being inevitably doomed, of being helpless, underlies both of the Doctor’s sessions with the Machine. Which is interesting, considering his circumstances – stuck on Earth with a broken TARDIS and no memory of how to fix it. And there’s nothing he can do about that either.
Aha! A stealth wiki reveals that one of the other things that shows up in the second Machine sequence is Koquillion, who I believe stole the First Doctor’s TARDIS at some point. Stolen TARDIS? Non-functional TARDIS? Anyone else seeing it?
(Okay, I'll allow myself one sketchy comment: This sequence is yet further evidence that Three's era is All About Bondage, in much the same way that Two's Era is All About Gay Marriage In Space. No, it is. Seriously, try to stop and count the number of times Three ends up tied up, strapped down, or chained to something. And in this one, he's handcuffed to a chair. By the Master. They weren't even pretending to be subtle about it.
Oh, show. Never change. Oh wait you already did.)
(Okay, I'll allow myself one sketchy comment: This sequence is yet further evidence that Three's era is All About Bondage, in much the same way that Two's Era is All About Gay Marriage In Space. No, it is. Seriously, try to stop and count the number of times Three ends up tied up, strapped down, or chained to something. And in this one, he's handcuffed to a chair. By the Master. They weren't even pretending to be subtle about it.
Oh, show. Never change. Oh wait you already did.)
To go back to a previous topic, Jo Grant spends most of this serial winning at life. As I’ve said, she didn’t have much to do in The Claws of Axos, but I’d heard so many good things about her that I didn’t want to write her off as helpless eye candy. This serial shows me exactly why.
For starters, Jo came across as a very compassionate, caring character here, not only taking care of the Doctor but latching on to Barnham, keeping him out of harm’s way as long as she can. She really is the only one who sticks up for Barnham for much of the serial, when everyone else seems to have forgotten he’s there. Of course, I absolutely love the scenes of her tending to the Doctor; not only does she keep her head about her and do everything she’s able to for him, but she has this lovely tendency to yell at the prison guards until they help her out (by bringing them breakfast, helping the Doctor onto the bed, etc.).
Also, while Jo still spends much of the serial captured and stuck in the prison, she does manage to steal a gun from one of the prisoners while she’s being held hostage, thus almost single-handedly ending the hostage situation and allow the Governor to retake the prison. And then there’s the second-to-last episode, where she purposefully falls back on Mailer in order to give the Doctor a chance to escape. Conclusion: yay for Jo!
And, of course, there’s also that lovely scene where she completely demolishes the Doctor at checkers. Hee. (I would like to humbly request fic where Jo learns how to play three-dimensional chess…and probably beats him at that too.)
I did, however, notice that the Doctor talks down to Jo far more than he did with Liz – not in an intentionally mean way, of course, but the relationship between them isn’t that of peers and equals the way it was with Three and Liz. He seems to like her well enough, but he doesn’t respect her the way he did Liz. Granted, it’s only their second story together, so perhaps later on that dynamic changes. Jo doesn’t seem to mind being condescended to all that much, though (whereas you know Liz and Sarah Jane wouldn’t put up with that); perhaps that has something to do with her actual job. After all, Jo introduces herself as the Doctor’s assistant specifically, whereas Liz was a fellow scientific advisor. Perhaps taking orders is just part of her job.
It’s worthy of note, though, that she doesn’t always follow his orders, and when she doesn’t it’s usually for the better. Furthermore, I haven’t seen her press the Doctor for information; she asks him questions, per her role as the Audience Stand-In, but once he stops talking, she stops asking. And yet she seems to have a fairly solid idea about what’s going on, even if he doesn’t provide her with that information. I have no idea if that’s unique to The Mind of Evil, or unique to the Earth stories, or what, but now that I’ve seen Jo in action her relationship to the Doctor becomes a bit more complex.
What’s also wonderful is how very protective she is of him, as evidenced in the very first episode – “On the contrary, he happens to be a genius! I do wish you’d listen to him.” I feel like this could go some way towards explaining her selective disobedience. Part of it’s a desire to be helpful, I’m sure, but that wouldn’t explain the protectiveness, not completely. Hmm…you know, I’m not really sure what it is at the moment. Further Jo serials are needed.
Ahem. Moving right along. Another excellent thing about this serial was that UNIT seemed to have a purpose other than sitting around waiting for something to invade. Even though we only see maybe five different UNIT personnel, the place still seems bustling with activity, and we get a better sense of the scope of their duties and powers.
We also get to see the Brigadier looking entirely overwhelmed, which is rather adorable in a sad sort of way. Poor man, he’s just got so very much to deal with. I’ll admit, I couldn’t suppress an “awww” when he was asleep on his desk. Of course, beyond playing the harried boss to Mike and Benton, the Brig does get to exercise his military Mad Skills, and exercise them in an actually competent fashion, instead of being completely out of his depth as he was in Axos. I suppose it helps that the threat this time – the prisoners and the Master, not the Machine – wasn’t immune to bullets.
Seriously, though; in the absence of other information, it’s reasonable for him to assume that the missile is being held at Stangmoor Prison. And he gets to Strategize and Plan and look at maps in an important fashion and launch a successful assault on Stangmoor and come to the Doctor’s rescue! It always puzzles me when fandom refers to the Brigadier as incompetent or useless, because he clearly knows what he’s doing once he’s back in his proverbial home turf.
My personal favorite moment, however, was the scene right after the Brigadier tells the Doctor he needs his help. The very next scene we see? The Doctor issuing a long list of demands to the Brigadier, and the Brig very reluctantly agreeing and waiting for him to shut up. The expression on the Brig’s face there is priceless.
Which brings me to the Doctor’s and the Brigadier’s interactions, which have (understandably) shifted a bit since Spearhead and Inferno. True, the Doctor still doesn’t listen to the Brigadier except when he feels like it, and the two are only mildly less antagonistic than they’ve been. (The Doctor still insults the Brig, but…not in quite the same ill spirit as he did in Inferno, if that makes any sense at all and I suspect it doesn’t.) But…I don’t know. It’s not as if the relationship between them has softened, because it hasn’t, and I suspect it won’t until…well, at least until after The Three Doctors, possibly not until after the Doctor regenerates. But the Doctor seems to have accepted (grudgingly) that he’s not going anywhere anytime soon (Inferno, in my mind, driving that point home for him); perhaps he’s decided to tolerate UNIT and the Brig by this point. What other option does he have?
The Brig also seems to be keeping him on a slightly longer leash than he was in Inferno, allowing him to wander off to Stangmoor for no other reason than “scientific curiosity” and trusting his advice regarding the Master (after he knows that there’s a threat). There seems to be something like respect building incrementally between them, but it’s nothing certain yet.
(A note to New Who showrunners: I will forgive almost anything about S4 if you somehow manage to get Nicholas Courtney in it.)
And lest I forget: Benton and Yates! Yates freeing himself from the Master! Benton being all worried about him and requesting to go on his recovery mission! In most of the other serials I’ve seen, Benton and Yates have been in the background, so it was nice to see them get a bit of the spotlight. Plus, getting Benton and Yates in on the events of the plot went along way to making everything seem credible: the busyness surrounding the Peace Conference and the missile transport, the ambush on the missile convoy, the infiltration of the prison, et al. To use the term I used before, it sells the story and the characters.
Not to mention it gives us a bit more of a glimpse into them as characters. Yates is rather charming, isn’t he. :) (For some reason, he strikes me as very early-series Tony DiNozzo-ish. Only, you know, more British and slightly less forward.)
In fact, one of the things that I really love about this serial is that the threat actually seems believable. Because UNIT has been established as competent and credible in this serial, the prisoner ambush seems dangerous; because the Machine is designed to look innocuous rather than especially threatening, it never ‘falls short’ of an audience’s expectations. The missile being transported at the exact same time as the Peace Conference was too much of a coincidence, and the dragon-thing that attacked the U.S. Senator looked a touch silly when looked at too carefully, but on the whole everything felt like it could be taken more or less seriously.
Which brings me to the Master, and to the apex of my fangirl squee. Because really, while Jo and the Brig and Yates and Benton were excellent, this story was really about the Doctor and the Master.
I still adore Delgado’s classy, calculating, coolly threatening Master, who exudes menace even when he’s just sitting in the back seat of a car (and who actually sets up overhead presentations outlining his Evil Plot). In keeping with the serious feel of the whole serial, his plan actually makes sense and isn’t unnecessarily convoluted, nor does it rely on his single-handed control of a species that we know is going to double-cross him (i.e. Axos). And, since he’s already been established as a scientist by the prison personnel, he has an easy way in and out. It’s all quite perfect, really, except for the aforementioned weird coincidence with the missile.
But…but…but I really can’t focus on that, because I completely lose concentration whenever the Doctor and the Master end up in the same room, or on the phone, or whenever they interact in any capacity whatsoever. Which is all the time. This story positively spoils me.
I mean, look at them. Look at their first conversation, in Episode…Three, I think it is? They’re so polite to each other. Even when the Master pulls a gun, or when the Doctor’s hooked up to the Machine, they’re bizarrely civil. It’s exchanges like this that really make me believe they were once friends; they talk as if they’re just picking up a conversation they left off. A conversation with rather more firearms and upturned desks than usual, but a conversation nonetheless.
…and then there’s the beginning of Episode Four, after the Doctor’s second Machine session, which is where my thoughts completely degenerate into fangirl squee.
Where do I even begin, really? With the very worried expression on the Master’s face when he realizes that only one of the Doctor’s hearts is beating? With the note of panic in his voice when he tells Mailer to wait outside? With the quote what I quoted in the cut text? I DON’T KNOW. It’s all just too much for my fangirl heart to take.
That one scene encapsulates so much of what I love about the Third Doctor and Delgado!Master’s relationship, right there. For all that the Master talks about killing the Doctor, he seems awfully scared when it’s possible he might actually be dead; the Doctor’s statement that the Machine will turn on the Master sounds like a warning rather than a threat. All of which becomes very strange when you consider that the Master’s just finished up torturing the Doctor. There isn’t really any simple term for what their relationship is, nothing that encompasses both the enmity (which is there) and the strange…companionship as well. Rivalry doesn’t even begin to cover it.
And then, of course, there’s that excellent scene after that, where the Keller Machine turns on the Master and he sees…the Doctor. Standing over him and laughing. I knew that was coming when I saw this episode for the first time (I’d read the episode recaps) and that scene was still brilliant and unexpected and awesome. Because the episode recap doesn’t tell you how the Master reacts to it, how he starts by shouting at the Machine, trying to bring it back in order, but then shouts almost the exact same words at the hallucination-Doctor – trying to bring him back in order, trying to prove that he is better than him.
I keep forgetting that this is only the second serial in which the Master appeared, because this seems like the sort of character revelation that would normally wait until much later in the character’s tenure. But this huge, huge part of the Master’s character, this root of his motivations, is handled so early and with such finesse, without tiresome exposition. Gold star for the writers!
And such characterization it is! (I should tone down the exclamations, yes? Yes.) Because it seems that the Master wouldn’t really want the Doctor dead; he’d want the Doctor to know that he could kill him if he wanted to. He’d want the Doctor to know that he’d won. That one scene lends a whole new cast to everything he does; it explains why he keeps ending up on Earth, why he allies himself with more powerful and more unstable forces. There’s a beat this, get out of this one element to it, as if in addition to whatever scheme he’s planning there’s the added advantage of seeing if the Doctor can survive it.
And then there’s the idea that so much of who he is and what he does is built on the Doctor, centered on the Doctor – yet another thing that makes their relationship so complicated. I really hope this thread continues throughout the later Master serials, into the Ainley eras, because it’s just such an interesting dynamic.
Gah. Sometimes I forget that the story keeps going after this scene, really. :D
And yet it continues! It continues with the Master’s extra-polite conversations with Jo! It continues with the Doctor agreeing to help the Master control the Machine! It –
Actually, let’s stop there for a minute, too. Because, this was just like my favorite scene in Axos, where the two of them try to escape Earth together. Once they’ve got a common goal, they’re just so civil and friendly. The Master even wishes the Doctor good luck before he heads into the processing room! I already made the point about their very easy companionship, and about how they’re the only people they know who truly think like each other, so I don’t really feel the need to reiterate it here, but that scene done made me squee.
Also what done made me squee was when the Doctor meets the Master to negotiate. And the Doctor starts rambling about Bessie. And the Master gives him an absolutely perfect “My God, you’ve gone native” look. I’d say that that had Implications for the time that the Doctor’s spent on Earth and for how long he’s been with Jo, and what that means for the Master’s reaction when the Doctor ditches UNIT in The Claws of Axos, but he didn’t actually use those words so I sort of can’t. But I want to.
What did not make me squee was the Doctor and Jo simply running away from the missile site while the Master was under attack by the Keller Machine. I mean, they’ve both seen what that thing can do. I think it pretty much falls under the “wouldn’t wish this on your worst enemy” sort of thing, let alone your best. I don’t know what I expected them to do, but…they just ran right past him. And I think the directors meant for us to notice that they did. It’s quite troubling, and the writers and directors and cast get extra points for making it troubling. Consider once more that this was only the Master’s second serial; making him a sympathetic enough villain for the shot to work took some doing (and was probably thanks in no small part to that earlier scene with the Machine turning on him).
However, what more than made up for it was their phone conversation at the end of the serial. It was one of many Squeeful Doctor/Master moments, and one that ends the serial on a not-entirely-happy note. Because the Master’s won, hasn’t he? Sure, he didn’t blow up the Peace Conference, but he’s got his dematerialization circuit back, he’s free to roam time and space as he pleases, and the Doctor’s still stuck on Earth with a tampered memory and a TARDIS that doesn’t work. Oh, and a character who’s been in the story since Episode One’s dead (Barnham). In keeping with the generally grim and serious feel of the entire story, the ending’s a bit of a downer, and I think I like it better that way. Anything else would have felt too upbeat. (It’s also one of the reasons I think I like this serial in black and white more than I would in color. Adds to the mood and suchlike.)
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....And I definitely just nattered on for eight pages about this thing. How do I find this much to say about one story? And why can't I expend this much energy on writing that I've actually been assigned? Le sigh.
*vaguely contemplates linking to this on
venusianaikido*In other news, turns out I can write grumpy!Three much easier than cheerful!Three; my cheerful!Three tends to start sounding like Four.
crazy
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Part I of my epic response!
The Doctor announcing that he's going to work on the machine alone: It's just so much the Doctor, sure he'll be fine, and if he's not sure, then he doesn't really care. Four goes into what he knows that, if it works right, will cause him much pain, and he does it with an excited grin. Ten tilts himself backward into a seemingly bottomless pit. And Three, the most openly pompous of them all, why should he be any different?
I think the use of the images the machine conquered are more a matter of symbols. The fire was a reference to Inferno, like he said, even though there wasn't particularly fire so much in that story. But "the cold world dying in flames" was the theme. And, yeah, New Who has carried on the fire as a symbol thing. Gallifrey didn't explode, it wasn't destroyed, it "burnt." There's some kind of dystopian passion in that. I don't know. And it goes further to applying to the symbol of the other visions -- he's not scared perse of the Daleks, the Cybermen, but it highlights the terrifying prospect of what they bring with them. And the Master, well, he's not literally afraid of the Doctor. He's got a giant honking inferiority complex, though. Partially unfounded, because there are things he's better at than the Doctor, but one of the big parts of his character.
I have an idea about what is achieved by showing the Doctor run off without trying to help the Master. It makes the relationship more complex, not hero and villain. It's already established they're far more tied together than that, that anytime it's the two of them together it's not a matter of defeating him, it's going to involve a lot more introspection. But that bit, I think, is an example that maybe gives the Master's bitterness some weight. Maybe, on the personal level, the Doctor is capable of being the asshole in the relationship and has done some shitty stuff to him.
I CANNOT SPEAK FOR THE INTENSITY OF THE SLASH IN THIS EPISODE. HE MADE HIS HEART STOP. The symbolism is madness. It's being piled in the corner with The Deadly Assassin and the scene where they rolled around on the ground while a building fell down around them. And beyond the blatant homoerotic aspect of it, it's also good for delving into the Master's panic when the Doctor is hurt and what that means.
Both of these things get explored with Five and Ainley, too -- the Doctor as committing personal wrongs against him (despite himself) and the Master's intense attachment to him through the bitterness ("A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about," he muses wistfully to himself in The Five Doctors. One of the iconic lines regarding that relationship.)
Part II of my epic response!
Who has been calling the Brig incompetent? I've never come across anybody in fandom who's said that. UNIT as a whole occasionally falls into the Really Bad Military Unthinking Judgment category, but more often than not they're thorough and professional and even though it's still ingrained that you're generally better off listening to the Doctor because he has a more comprehensive and less damaging solution and won't get tied up in formalities on his way to doing so, they aren't bunglers.
Reply Part Deux
I do love that about her - Jo's still so much her own person, all throughout her adventures. She's never the Doctor's hanger-on. You know she's traveling with him because she wants to, not just out of attachment or obligation or whatever.
Re: selective disobedience: I ALSO love that, by the end of her run, he's giving her instructions and telling her to stay behind purely out of habit, and doesn't even bat an eye when she turns up later to rescue him from something. I mean, he scolds her here, since it's only their second serial together, but by the time we get into her last season he doesn't even bother doing that. :D
I think one of the key things is that Jo doesn't engage him, even when she doesn't intend to do a thing he says. Arguing with the Doctor just sort of feeds the whole 'separateness/superiority' thing, since he's not about to lose an argument if he can help it; Jo doesn't give him that opportunity, which alters the balance of his relation to her, a little bit. I think. I could just be rambling.
Basically the way the Doctor treats the Brig, except without the yelling.
You know, I hadn't thought of it that way at all, but now that you mention it, that's really perfect. And it explains a lot, actually. :D
Who has been calling the Brig incompetent? I've never come across anybody in fandom who's said that.
Mostly folk on older newsgroups that I came across when I was first breaking into Old-School. Looking back I now realize that they were kind of scary and full of weird-ass fanboys. And most of them seem to have only seen the Brig in, I don't know, The Three Doctors or something. Which he spends in an understandable state of confusion since, you know, the Doctors run off with UNIT HQ. *shrug*
I can't believe I forgot this entry was here.
The Doctor announcing that he's going to work on the machine alone: It's just so much the Doctor, sure he'll be fine, and if he's not sure, then he doesn't really care.
Yeah, but with the examples you gave (assuming that I know what you're referring to, and I think I do), both Four and Ten seemed to know exactly what they were getting into. When the Machine switched on, Three looked...a bit too surprised. I see what you mean about the Doctor disregarding personal risk, but the scene still niggles.
I think what I saw from the scenes with the Doctor and the Master in the Machine wasn't so much fear of a specific thing but fear of something represented by that thing - helplessness and entrapment in the Doctor's case (up until the last few seconds, he was stuck in the Inferno-verse with no way out), inferiority in the Master's. Now that I read over this whole block o' text again, I don't think I phrased that very well.
But that bit, I think, is an example that maybe gives the Master's bitterness some weight. Maybe, on the personal level, the Doctor is capable of being the asshole in the relationship and has done some shitty stuff to him.
Yes! That's it exactly. One of the things that this serial does so well is deepen and complicate the relationship between them, a big part of which is that the Doctor isn't always doing the right thing and that the Master isn't always wrong.
I'm still in awe of the fact that TWTB saw fit to include something like that in the Master's second appearance. That will never not impress me. They've never been simple, these two. :D
It's being piled in the corner with The Deadly Assassin and the scene where they rolled around on the ground while a building fell down around them.
PLEASE STOP MAKING ME THINK ABOUT CRISPY!MASTER IN ANY KIND OF SEXUAL CONTEXT WHATSOEVER. Even if it's just a symbolic sexual context. Thank you, that'll be all. ;)
Funny that such symbolism would emerge in the Master's first reappearance since Frontier, though. We all needed a reminder, I suppose.
Both of these things get explored with Five and Ainley, too -- the Doctor as committing personal wrongs against him (despite himself) and the Master's intense attachment to him through the bitterness.
Having finally seen a bit more Five/Ainley!Master serials, especially Planet of Fire, I can say you're exactly right about this, too. Even in Castrovalva you can kind of see it, what with the Master using Adric to math a whole city into existence just for him. Which the Doctor then promptly leaves him in as it collapses, of course.
Reply Part 2 to come when I'm not supposed to be working.