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jjporIt was okay, I think - better than the writer's previous Who effort Curse of the Black Spot (and a lot better than his Sherlock script The Blind Banker*, a.k.a. Talons of Weng-Chiang without the good bits), but seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity in that we discovered the New Who TARDIS's secret interior in fact contains...er, corridors, mainly. We found that out in The Doctor's Wife. I prefer the slightly rubbish Invasion of Time version tbh. And we never got to see the missing Sontarans from that story, living with the poor missing bobby from Black Orchid and trying to avoid the missing Cyberman or -men from Attack of... I Liked the library. Liked the audio clips of Doctors and companions past. Was troubled by some of the Unfortunate Implications on display. The boy Smith and Ms Coleman as good as ever - will have to watch it all again, though, to get my head around it, at which point I will probably like it either a lot more or a lot less than I do at this moment.
But you came for the rant...!
Is it just me, or does this whole idea of the Doctor's name - not the fact that he has a name or that people like River apparently know it, but the revelation of what the name actually is - as some sort of apparently significant upcoming plot point strike anybody else as irksome, not to mention kind of stupid? It's probably unlikely that any name will actually be revealed, but even if it is, what can it possibly be that will actually strike fans and casual viewers as genuinely shocking and significant? Who? Theta Sigma? Rassilon?? Marco Polo??? It's got something to do with the Time War apparently. It was in a big book in the TARDIS library, apparently.
I personally think it has the potential to be easily as ridiculous as the non-mystery of who the "woman in white" was in The End of Time. RTD alleges she was the Doctor's mum, I believe, which even if we accept it has absolutely no significance as we have never before had any indication of the Doctor's mum as a character or of his relationship with her and she has never really even been referenced or given any in-universe significance over and above the fact that the Doctor, presumably, might have a mum somewhere (but...LOOOOMS! ;D), or did have once and, er...that's it. We've never had any indication before that the Doctor's mum might be involved with Rassilon and the Time War and all of that business, and even if that really was her (and it had actually been, you know, mentioned on screen or something as to who she was), well, okay, it's a nice little story I guess. It adds something to the Doctor's character, but it will probably never, ever be referenced again in a future story, and it doesn't really have any great emotional or intellectual impact upon the viewer because it comes completely out of leftfield with no context or build-up.
I sort of feel the same way about the (non) issue of the Doctor's name, anyway. And yeah, okay, there has been a bit of build-up I guess, if only because of the inane repeated "Doctor Who?!" thing Moffat seems to regard as the funniest joke he has ever thought of in his screenwriting career to date. But it's only significant and it's only supposed to be important because Moffat keeps saying that it is - it's not really the great mystery Who has revolved around since 1963, or whatever nonsense I read in the Radio Times when they were talking up the S7b finale, which...doesn't enthuse me on any level.
And yeah, you're thinking "Well, what about that bit in Silver Nemesis? There's your precedent there." To which I say, evidence nowadays strongly suggests to me that the Cartmel Masterplan never existed in the form Andrew Cartmel may have wanted people to believe at one point, i.e. never as anything more than a back-of-an-envelope series of mission statements mashed up with Marc Platt's admittedly rather groovy fanfic. Any major revelations about the Doctor's past etc in the never-made S27 probably would have fallen as flat as the stuff I'm talking about above, I suspect. The NAs, by contrast, spent nearly sixty novels building up to the things revealed in Lungbarrow, and even a lot of those revelations came across as more weird and/or daft than actually significant. Imho, anyway. But, LOOOMMMS! :D
Next week's looks like it might be good, though - Diana Rigg vs Madame Vastra and crew. Ace!
Crazy theory: the real Doctor died in the Time War and the Meddling Monk has been impersonating him ever since in an effort to make amends for his own past naughtinesses? He even downloaded the Doctor's memories via some sort of Matrix/Chameleon Arch lash-up so he really does think he knows people like Sarah Jane and used to be Four and Seven and the rest. Hey, it might happen...! ;D
*Oh, and about The Blind Banker - it always amazes me how many people seem to accept that it's an adaptation of "The Dancing Men" just because Moffat or somebody rather carelessly said so in some press event or something. Clearly it's actually "The Sign of (the) Four". Only, again, without the good bits. And without John Thaw with a wooden leg (the Granada Jeremy Brett version of that one is ace, imho, maybe the best in the whole Granada/Brett Holmes canon).
But you came for the rant...!
Is it just me, or does this whole idea of the Doctor's name - not the fact that he has a name or that people like River apparently know it, but the revelation of what the name actually is - as some sort of apparently significant upcoming plot point strike anybody else as irksome, not to mention kind of stupid? It's probably unlikely that any name will actually be revealed, but even if it is, what can it possibly be that will actually strike fans and casual viewers as genuinely shocking and significant? Who? Theta Sigma? Rassilon?? Marco Polo??? It's got something to do with the Time War apparently. It was in a big book in the TARDIS library, apparently.
I personally think it has the potential to be easily as ridiculous as the non-mystery of who the "woman in white" was in The End of Time. RTD alleges she was the Doctor's mum, I believe, which even if we accept it has absolutely no significance as we have never before had any indication of the Doctor's mum as a character or of his relationship with her and she has never really even been referenced or given any in-universe significance over and above the fact that the Doctor, presumably, might have a mum somewhere (but...LOOOOMS! ;D), or did have once and, er...that's it. We've never had any indication before that the Doctor's mum might be involved with Rassilon and the Time War and all of that business, and even if that really was her (and it had actually been, you know, mentioned on screen or something as to who she was), well, okay, it's a nice little story I guess. It adds something to the Doctor's character, but it will probably never, ever be referenced again in a future story, and it doesn't really have any great emotional or intellectual impact upon the viewer because it comes completely out of leftfield with no context or build-up.
I sort of feel the same way about the (non) issue of the Doctor's name, anyway. And yeah, okay, there has been a bit of build-up I guess, if only because of the inane repeated "Doctor Who?!" thing Moffat seems to regard as the funniest joke he has ever thought of in his screenwriting career to date. But it's only significant and it's only supposed to be important because Moffat keeps saying that it is - it's not really the great mystery Who has revolved around since 1963, or whatever nonsense I read in the Radio Times when they were talking up the S7b finale, which...doesn't enthuse me on any level.
And yeah, you're thinking "Well, what about that bit in Silver Nemesis? There's your precedent there." To which I say, evidence nowadays strongly suggests to me that the Cartmel Masterplan never existed in the form Andrew Cartmel may have wanted people to believe at one point, i.e. never as anything more than a back-of-an-envelope series of mission statements mashed up with Marc Platt's admittedly rather groovy fanfic. Any major revelations about the Doctor's past etc in the never-made S27 probably would have fallen as flat as the stuff I'm talking about above, I suspect. The NAs, by contrast, spent nearly sixty novels building up to the things revealed in Lungbarrow, and even a lot of those revelations came across as more weird and/or daft than actually significant. Imho, anyway. But, LOOOMMMS! :D
Next week's looks like it might be good, though - Diana Rigg vs Madame Vastra and crew. Ace!
Crazy theory: the real Doctor died in the Time War and the Meddling Monk has been impersonating him ever since in an effort to make amends for his own past naughtinesses? He even downloaded the Doctor's memories via some sort of Matrix/Chameleon Arch lash-up so he really does think he knows people like Sarah Jane and used to be Four and Seven and the rest. Hey, it might happen...! ;D
*Oh, and about The Blind Banker - it always amazes me how many people seem to accept that it's an adaptation of "The Dancing Men" just because Moffat or somebody rather carelessly said so in some press event or something. Clearly it's actually "The Sign of (the) Four". Only, again, without the good bits. And without John Thaw with a wooden leg (the Granada Jeremy Brett version of that one is ace, imho, maybe the best in the whole Granada/Brett Holmes canon).
