Doctor Who: Helping Ordinary Fangirls Make An Art Of Time-Wasting. : comments.
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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.