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Entry tags:
"Frontios," "Resurrection of the Daleks," and "Planet of Fire"
*blinks in a stunned fashion*
Frontios
I was already very fond of Turlough, but now I love him entirely. Because he saves the Doctor with a hatstand!
Determined Turlough is determined:
And then later we get traumatized!Turlough, which I thought was well done in spite of the "ancestral memories" nonsense and the clumsy dialogue. The way Strickson plays Turlough's shock, especially in the moments when Turlough is quiet, stunned, clearly not quite taking in what's happening around him, works beautifully. It's all the more effective because by this time we know Turlough well enough to know how much he values being, or seeming to be, in control: it's one thing to call yourself a coward, as Turlough does (in "Enlightenment," I think), but quite another thing to be incapacitated by fear.
Turlough's breakdown leads up to another wonderful moment, when he forces himself to go back underground to help the Doctor and the others. His bitter response to Norna telling him that nobody expects it of him shows a depth of pain and self-loathing that's been hinted at but never shown before. "No, of course they don't," he says. "I'm Turlough." Just as effective is his immediate shift back into his usual mode of ironic detachment, joking about "fate" when in fact he's rigged the game by holding a coin in each hand.
I'm glad the woobieness isn't overplayed, and I'm also glad that the deepening of Turlough's character in "Frontios" didn't come sooner. Nowdays on TV, I think, there's a tendency to put every character's inner pain instantly on display, when in fact that kind of revelation works much better when it comes as a surprise about a character we think we know, a contrast to their usual way of being in the world. And this kind of slow development also respects a character's complexity: the Turlough whom I described in an earlier post as a "devious little intergalactic tart" is every bit as much the real Turlough as the traumatized and self-depracatingly brave Turlough we see here. They're just two aspects of a multilayered personality, and perhaps not even as incongruous as they might initially seem: hatstand!Turlough from earlier in "Frontios" turns a pose, a lie, into heroism.
Overall, "Frontios" is an odd, not-always-comfortable mix of good old Whoniverse silliness and the bleakness that becomes increasingly marked in these late Fifth Doctor episodes. There's a bit of dialogue, from the second episode, that sort of encapsulates the juxtaposition:
Some aspects of the eventual happy ending rang very false to me. Yes, the revolting Giant Space Cockroaches have been rendered harmless, but I don't believe that the sick polity of Frontios is going to instantly get better as a result. The colony is still based on a scary combination of hereditary monarchy (Plantagenet? Really?) and military rule, with decaying technology, rationed food, and people deserting right and left. This culture is halfway down a descent to barbarism, and I wonder if we're supposed to believe that they'll manage to pull themselves back up, or whether we're meant to be left with niggling doubts. Anyway, regardless of authorial intention, my doubts niggled away.
Resurrection of the Daleks
Oh, Tegan. *hearts* Even tearful and miserable, she stands up to the Doctor at the end with such dignity. And I love that she comes running back to say that she'll miss him anyway . . . and then, fittingly enough, arrives just a moment too late. I really like Tegan, and I've been frustrated with how little she's been given to do every since Turlough arrived. At least she gets a very powerful goodbye. Wow. Has any other companion ever left like this (i.e., deciding that the Doctor's kind of fucked up and they really don't want to be around him anymore)? I can't think of one, but there are still substantial chunks of the show that I haven't seen.
As for the Doctor's fucked-up-ness: I think he was going to kill Davros. He was hesitating, yes, but I think in the end he would have done it if events hadn't intervened. Earlier in the story we saw him kill an unarmored Dalek with a gun--an actual gun firing actual bullets, not a Futuristic Space Gun (a choice which I think increases the realism for viewers). And of course he does deploy the virus against the Daleks. It's not a big step from that to shooting Davros, especially since the Doctor didn't seem to plan on surviving afterwards. It's significant that an ongoing plot thread in "Resurrection" is people's attempts to activate the space station's auto-destruct, with Stien (who comes across, when himself and not under Dalek control, as a very gentle man) ultimately succeeding. Like Stien, the Doctor here embraces a last-stand ethos of heroic self-destruction; unlike Stien, he doesn't quite fulfill it. This time.
"It seems I must mend my ways," says the Doctor at the end, right before stepping into the TARDIS. I rewatched the closing scene just now, writing up this post, and it's even more painful after having seen Planet of Fire. Try harder with the ways-mending, Doctor.
What else can one say about this episode? It's bleak and disturbing, and everyone dies, and (it's implied) the Doctor is wrong in thinking that the Dalek-created duplicates will eventually break down. The image near the end of the three police officers--alien, compassionless, monstrous--walking through the remains of an empty factory is haunting, both within the narrative and as a political allegory of the Thatcher years. It must have had quite an impact on British viewers at the time.
Planet of Fire
I'm still a bit in shock over this one, although I finished watching it about fifteen hours ago now. I can't believe the Doctor killed the Master. I can't believe he stood there and let the Master burn to death when saving his life would've been so easy, would've risked nothing. It's not that the Master didn't deserve it. One could even make the argument that it was the morally correct decision, because as long as the Master lives, he'll keep hurting and killing people. And normally I like stories about that kind of agonizing moral question, and I respect characters who can make terrible choices when they need to be made (for example, I think Jack made the right decision at the end of "Children of Earth").
But the Doctor. The Doctor doesn't do that.
Five is just . . . broken. Something's gone horribly wrong in his head, and now he's done something unbearable, and Turlough, the little fool, leaves him alone with it. (I realize Turlough didn't know what the Doctor did, but damn it, boy, couldn't your stupid brother and your stupid planet have waited a while?) No way is Peri going to be able to help; it's not her fault, but she doesn't even know enough to realize that the Doctor is not okay.
I need to rewatch "The Caves of Androzani," because I think it's going to be a very different story for me now that I've seen what leads up to it.
This story is even harder to talk about than "Resurrection of the Daleks," because most of it seems trivial when placed beside the Doctor killing the Master. There's so much silliness (miniature!Master, and Kamelion, and Turlough's short shorts and Peri's bikini, and the usual "tribal people mistake technology for the supernatural" stuff) and then there's this terrible, terrible thing. I wonder if the Doctor told anyone what he did, or if he's lived with it in silence ever since. (I still haven't seen most of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors stories--no spoilers, please!) If nothing else, I'm sure it was yet another fond memory for the Doctor and the Master to go over during that year on the Valiant.
Moving on to other things, I think the backstory we get for Turlough here raises more questions than it answers. Some of them are nitpicky, like Turlough's age. Conceivably he could've been a junior ensign officer while still school age, hence his being consigned to Brendon, and time travel would explain how he ends up the same age as his brother who was an infant when he was exiled. But Turlough's old captain seems to be only a few years older than Turlough himself. I do try to ignore these plotholes, but occasionally they bug me.
Other questions are more substantial. Turlough doesn't exactly strike me as military material, and I want to know why he thinks of himself as a coward. I'm envisioning some kind of spectacular fuck-up; it could be that Turlough blames himself for his father's side losing the civil war.
And didn't Turlough earlier try to get the Doctor to take him home? That doesn't make sense if (as in this story) he desperately wants to avoid getting caught by the Trions, who he thinks are likely to either kill him, imprison him, or send him back to earth.
It all just cries out for fanfic, and yet there seems to be a dearth of good Turlough fic. *sigh*
I'm not crazy about Peri (besides "Planet of Fire," I've also seen her in "Caves," "Timelash," and "The Two Doctors," so I'm not rushing to judgment on this), and I don't think she's much of a substitute for Tegan and Turlough, either for us viewers or for the Doctor, who desperately needs a friend. But I must admit that she has a moment of true awesome in this story, when Kamelion!Master has her cornered on the clifftop:
The most fun thing about a not-very-fun episode was the bit set on the Greek island. The Doctor and Turlough are adorable wandering around in the sun, dressed in their casual clothes, and the only way they could look more like a couple is if they were clinging like Two and Jamie. I still wouldn't say I exactly ship Five/Turlough, at least not in the "so in love" sense, because the affection between them is of a different quality; it's very present, but it's tempered by Turlough's self-interested pragmatism and the Doctor's emotional distance. But nevertheless, there's an intimacy there that I find all the more interesting for the ways it's not True Love Forever.
And on that relatively cheerful slashy note, I will conclude.
Frontios
I was already very fond of Turlough, but now I love him entirely. Because he saves the Doctor with a hatstand!
Determined Turlough is determined:
And then later we get traumatized!Turlough, which I thought was well done in spite of the "ancestral memories" nonsense and the clumsy dialogue. The way Strickson plays Turlough's shock, especially in the moments when Turlough is quiet, stunned, clearly not quite taking in what's happening around him, works beautifully. It's all the more effective because by this time we know Turlough well enough to know how much he values being, or seeming to be, in control: it's one thing to call yourself a coward, as Turlough does (in "Enlightenment," I think), but quite another thing to be incapacitated by fear.
Turlough's breakdown leads up to another wonderful moment, when he forces himself to go back underground to help the Doctor and the others. His bitter response to Norna telling him that nobody expects it of him shows a depth of pain and self-loathing that's been hinted at but never shown before. "No, of course they don't," he says. "I'm Turlough." Just as effective is his immediate shift back into his usual mode of ironic detachment, joking about "fate" when in fact he's rigged the game by holding a coin in each hand.
I'm glad the woobieness isn't overplayed, and I'm also glad that the deepening of Turlough's character in "Frontios" didn't come sooner. Nowdays on TV, I think, there's a tendency to put every character's inner pain instantly on display, when in fact that kind of revelation works much better when it comes as a surprise about a character we think we know, a contrast to their usual way of being in the world. And this kind of slow development also respects a character's complexity: the Turlough whom I described in an earlier post as a "devious little intergalactic tart" is every bit as much the real Turlough as the traumatized and self-depracatingly brave Turlough we see here. They're just two aspects of a multilayered personality, and perhaps not even as incongruous as they might initially seem: hatstand!Turlough from earlier in "Frontios" turns a pose, a lie, into heroism.
Overall, "Frontios" is an odd, not-always-comfortable mix of good old Whoniverse silliness and the bleakness that becomes increasingly marked in these late Fifth Doctor episodes. There's a bit of dialogue, from the second episode, that sort of encapsulates the juxtaposition:
Doctor: If you're going to kill me, you'd better get on with it.On first viewing, I just thought it was a really funny moment, a clever subversion of a trope. But writing up this post, having since seen "Resurrection of the Daleks" and "Planet of Fire," I'm struck by the fact that this is the Doctor failing. His usual smart-arse remarks and clever ploys don't work, they don't stop the violence; in fact they instigate it, and it's only Turlough's intervention with the Hatstand Secret Weapon that saves him. It's a dangerous universe, and all the Doctor's armed with is lies and chutzpah, his own and other people's. No wonder things go wrong.
Plantagenet: Kill him.
Doctor: This wasn't what I had in mind at all.
Some aspects of the eventual happy ending rang very false to me. Yes, the revolting Giant Space Cockroaches have been rendered harmless, but I don't believe that the sick polity of Frontios is going to instantly get better as a result. The colony is still based on a scary combination of hereditary monarchy (Plantagenet? Really?) and military rule, with decaying technology, rationed food, and people deserting right and left. This culture is halfway down a descent to barbarism, and I wonder if we're supposed to believe that they'll manage to pull themselves back up, or whether we're meant to be left with niggling doubts. Anyway, regardless of authorial intention, my doubts niggled away.
Resurrection of the Daleks
Oh, Tegan. *hearts* Even tearful and miserable, she stands up to the Doctor at the end with such dignity. And I love that she comes running back to say that she'll miss him anyway . . . and then, fittingly enough, arrives just a moment too late. I really like Tegan, and I've been frustrated with how little she's been given to do every since Turlough arrived. At least she gets a very powerful goodbye. Wow. Has any other companion ever left like this (i.e., deciding that the Doctor's kind of fucked up and they really don't want to be around him anymore)? I can't think of one, but there are still substantial chunks of the show that I haven't seen.
As for the Doctor's fucked-up-ness: I think he was going to kill Davros. He was hesitating, yes, but I think in the end he would have done it if events hadn't intervened. Earlier in the story we saw him kill an unarmored Dalek with a gun--an actual gun firing actual bullets, not a Futuristic Space Gun (a choice which I think increases the realism for viewers). And of course he does deploy the virus against the Daleks. It's not a big step from that to shooting Davros, especially since the Doctor didn't seem to plan on surviving afterwards. It's significant that an ongoing plot thread in "Resurrection" is people's attempts to activate the space station's auto-destruct, with Stien (who comes across, when himself and not under Dalek control, as a very gentle man) ultimately succeeding. Like Stien, the Doctor here embraces a last-stand ethos of heroic self-destruction; unlike Stien, he doesn't quite fulfill it. This time.
"It seems I must mend my ways," says the Doctor at the end, right before stepping into the TARDIS. I rewatched the closing scene just now, writing up this post, and it's even more painful after having seen Planet of Fire. Try harder with the ways-mending, Doctor.
What else can one say about this episode? It's bleak and disturbing, and everyone dies, and (it's implied) the Doctor is wrong in thinking that the Dalek-created duplicates will eventually break down. The image near the end of the three police officers--alien, compassionless, monstrous--walking through the remains of an empty factory is haunting, both within the narrative and as a political allegory of the Thatcher years. It must have had quite an impact on British viewers at the time.
Planet of Fire
I'm still a bit in shock over this one, although I finished watching it about fifteen hours ago now. I can't believe the Doctor killed the Master. I can't believe he stood there and let the Master burn to death when saving his life would've been so easy, would've risked nothing. It's not that the Master didn't deserve it. One could even make the argument that it was the morally correct decision, because as long as the Master lives, he'll keep hurting and killing people. And normally I like stories about that kind of agonizing moral question, and I respect characters who can make terrible choices when they need to be made (for example, I think Jack made the right decision at the end of "Children of Earth").
But the Doctor. The Doctor doesn't do that.
Five is just . . . broken. Something's gone horribly wrong in his head, and now he's done something unbearable, and Turlough, the little fool, leaves him alone with it. (I realize Turlough didn't know what the Doctor did, but damn it, boy, couldn't your stupid brother and your stupid planet have waited a while?) No way is Peri going to be able to help; it's not her fault, but she doesn't even know enough to realize that the Doctor is not okay.
I need to rewatch "The Caves of Androzani," because I think it's going to be a very different story for me now that I've seen what leads up to it.
This story is even harder to talk about than "Resurrection of the Daleks," because most of it seems trivial when placed beside the Doctor killing the Master. There's so much silliness (miniature!Master, and Kamelion, and Turlough's short shorts and Peri's bikini, and the usual "tribal people mistake technology for the supernatural" stuff) and then there's this terrible, terrible thing. I wonder if the Doctor told anyone what he did, or if he's lived with it in silence ever since. (I still haven't seen most of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors stories--no spoilers, please!) If nothing else, I'm sure it was yet another fond memory for the Doctor and the Master to go over during that year on the Valiant.
Moving on to other things, I think the backstory we get for Turlough here raises more questions than it answers. Some of them are nitpicky, like Turlough's age. Conceivably he could've been a junior ensign officer while still school age, hence his being consigned to Brendon, and time travel would explain how he ends up the same age as his brother who was an infant when he was exiled. But Turlough's old captain seems to be only a few years older than Turlough himself. I do try to ignore these plotholes, but occasionally they bug me.
Other questions are more substantial. Turlough doesn't exactly strike me as military material, and I want to know why he thinks of himself as a coward. I'm envisioning some kind of spectacular fuck-up; it could be that Turlough blames himself for his father's side losing the civil war.
And didn't Turlough earlier try to get the Doctor to take him home? That doesn't make sense if (as in this story) he desperately wants to avoid getting caught by the Trions, who he thinks are likely to either kill him, imprison him, or send him back to earth.
It all just cries out for fanfic, and yet there seems to be a dearth of good Turlough fic. *sigh*
I'm not crazy about Peri (besides "Planet of Fire," I've also seen her in "Caves," "Timelash," and "The Two Doctors," so I'm not rushing to judgment on this), and I don't think she's much of a substitute for Tegan and Turlough, either for us viewers or for the Doctor, who desperately needs a friend. But I must admit that she has a moment of true awesome in this story, when Kamelion!Master has her cornered on the clifftop:
Master: You will obey me.On the other hand, Peri's relationship with her stepfather Howard utterly creeped me out. I thought he was her boyfriend at first, and the sexual vibe made his attempts at showing authority over her very icky indeed.
Peri: No!
Master: I am the Master.
Peri: So what? I'm Perpugilliam Brown, and I can shout just as loud as you can!
The most fun thing about a not-very-fun episode was the bit set on the Greek island. The Doctor and Turlough are adorable wandering around in the sun, dressed in their casual clothes, and the only way they could look more like a couple is if they were clinging like Two and Jamie. I still wouldn't say I exactly ship Five/Turlough, at least not in the "so in love" sense, because the affection between them is of a different quality; it's very present, but it's tempered by Turlough's self-interested pragmatism and the Doctor's emotional distance. But nevertheless, there's an intimacy there that I find all the more interesting for the ways it's not True Love Forever.
And on that relatively cheerful slashy note, I will conclude.
no subject
Watching Five let the Master burn was like watching Batman kill the Joker. Completely shocking.
I always interpreted the final scene with Turlough as the Doctor sending him away-- Turlough sounds like he wants to be talked out of leaving, and the Doctor interrupts him with that flatly final "I'll miss you," and Turlough accepts it and pretends it's his idea.
no subject
That makes a lot of sense. I'm convinced that the Doctor is something close to suicidal at the end of PoF (and of course on into "The Caves of Androzani"), so he might well send away the one remaining person who knows him fairly well. He's cutting his ties.