Doctor Who 12x10 Thoughts
Sep. 11th, 2020 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaThe Timeless Children
Overall I'm pleased with the direction the show is going in.
+ I'm an entirely new!Who fan. I've never watched a whole episode of classic!Who (only random clips) and generally only know background based on osmosis so this upending of the set Time Lord lore doesn't really bother me. Honestly this feels pretty in line with something they'd do according to that osmosis. And excepting the destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, again, I'm intrigued about where the story could go here and the mystery of the Timeless Child. There's so much story there about the Doctor's many previous lives that could be interesting as well as the base mystery of just who she was and where she came from. I'm into it.
+ I continue to adore Thirteen.
+ The Master's motivations would have worked much better for me if, as the title suggests, there had been two timeless children - the Doctor and the Master. His fury at the lies told to them would thus make so much more sense. Not that what we got doesn't make sense. In particular "All I am is somehow because of you." absolutely works as something that would piss the Master off and make him lose it. That everything important and special about him is because of her, yeahhhhh. But his destruction of Gallifrey and how this has played out make more sense if they'd both been the 'timeless child', lied to and used by the Time Lords. I think this actually ended up being my biggest issue of the episode. It should have been both of them. Alas.
Although... it is called 'the timeless children. Not child. Now you could say it was about the Time Lords making themselves into timeless children like the timeless child they found but I think it's open enough that the show could later give a different explanation. Like say there wasn't one child but two. We already know memories have been messes with, not only erased but changed. So I'm holding out hope for that now.
+ I also would have preferred them both be Timeless Children so that they would have remained on the same level so to speak. Equals, two sides of the same coin, coming from the same background having gone in different directions. They balance each other. This puts them on such an uneven footing now that I'm not pleased about.
+ I love that after the initial shock and horror over learning the truth the Doctor ends up even more centred on herself, sure of who she is but at the same time I wasn't expecting anything else? It's a shock yes but it's not like she learned something to completely upend who 'the Doctor' is, like say learning she used to be like the Master or something.
+ "The history between us does mean something. It's the rage and pain in my hearts." Dhawan!Master/Thirteenth Doctor continue to be an electrifying chemistry powerhouse. I loved all their interactions.
+ Wow, that last confrontation was really telling. The Master was pretty explicitly saying what he was thinking and wanted so like, also, literally telling. The Master being suicidal is kind of not completely surprising. He wants it all to end but at the same time he can't do it himself because it's also about the Doctor. He needs it to be her. Never before has a plan of his felt more about the Doctor. I mean it was actually a pretty interesting 'destroy everything' plan for him (Time Lord cybermen under his complete control) but also weirdly he really obvious doesn't care about it either. He set it up so that in the end it was all on the Doctor. He pushed her as hard as he could to try and break her like he felt broken, to force her to be on his level. Learning that she was the Timeless Child seems to have pushed that desire, always there, to a whole new extreme level. "Become death, become me", yeesh Master.
+ I can't help but wonder if some the Master's rage isn't about how the Time Lords treated the Doctor. He pretty thoroughly destroyed the Time Lords and then essentially desecrated their corpses in the worst way and that is - a lot of anger for a lie but not something actively done to him. The Doctor is the single most important person in the Master's life and he's always be rather 'no one can hurt you but me' about them so I can see a lot of that rage being for her.
+ I wondered after the previous episode if this could be a 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' situation and it turns out - yeah, kind of. With the Doctor as the child used to bring about the happiness of others and the Master as one who can't bare the truth, except in true Master fashion he decides to burn it all down rather than walk away (including himself and the Doctor, he is such a drama queen.) I actually rather like this.
+ The one disappointment I have with the current Doctor/Master dynamic is the distance/coldness the Doctor has towards the Master. Ten desperately wanted the Master on his side. Twelve spent hundreds of years in one place to try and 'rehabilitate' her and save her life. Both of them showed a lot of care that matched the Master's own obsession with them. Dhawan!Master is a confusing follow up to Missy, which I don't think this revelation addresses well enough, but seems more in line with previous Masters in a lot of ways.
The Doctor's attitude seems off. I actually think it makes a lot of sense - she likely blames Bill's death/cybernisation on him and the last time they met he begged her to choose him and she left him (she still doesn't know that Missy did make the right choice in the end). Plus this Doctor has trying so hard to be 'normal' and human-like and happy and everything about the Master and their past and her feelings about it all is none of those things. But I still miss that missing piece in her interactions with the Master.
+ I really hope this isn't the end of Dhawan!Master because he is fabulous and I love him. Three episodes isn't near enough of him. It goes without saying that there is no way the Master is really dead.
+ In the premiere I decided to wait and see how Gallifrey's destruction played out before deciding on how I felt about it. Having seen this I'm meh. It was fine but not interesting enough reasoning for me to be complete happy with the direction. It's too much back and forth over Gallifrey's fate for me. This current eradication of the Time Lords/Gallifrey was pretty conclusively an end but I'm still sure they'll find some way to bring them back one day and it leaves me very unmoved and annoyed. Especially since they haven't really done anything much with Gallifrey or the Time Lords since so it leaves me wondering what the point was. Finally it's a rather larger bummer after the Doctors getting Gallifrey back was such a triumphant moment for them, and makes that victory feel hollow. I hope when they eventually do bring them back it's as survivors who fled the Master's attack in various TARDIS who return to their dead planet to try and rebuild rather than saving it in some way.
+ I was not a fan of how weirdly passive the Doctor felt for most of the episode. I really think there was a much better way for the Doctor to have gotten the same result (learning the truth) without her passively following the Master and having him lead the story. Why not have her choose to chase the Master to Gallifrey instead of him forcing it with threats? (It would also add weight, her choosing to abandon her fam.) Have her chose to chase the truth in the Matrix instead of continuing to pursue the Master.
+ The end of the confrontation was lacking unfortunately. I mean they set up Ko Sharmus making the sacrifice well enough as a character choice but... why? Why is this random character involved at all? This great confrontation between the Doctor and the Master, the Doctor pushed to the very edge, a rock and a hard place - and that's how it ends? So disappointing. Such a massive cop out to put the Doctor in this position and then deus ex machina a convenient solution for her. Plus it bothered me that the Master just let the Doctor and Ko Sharmus talk and then didn't immediately just shoot him. Meh.
+ I do really love that it's now canon that the very first Doctor was a girl. Awesome. I also liked the variety in those 7 regenerations we saw.
+ I find it really weird that all, or even some, of those hidden Regenerations were called the Doctor. How the hell has the Doctor never run into one of them before Ruth!Doctor? It would make more sense to me for the first 'Doctor' to have been One who finally ran away from the Time Lords and started a new life/identity for himself (separate from everything before). I wonder when the Doctor started calling themself 'The Doctor'?
+ I loved the Doctor all but tackling the Master to try and force him to reveal more information.
+ Aww, Graham's little speech to Yaz about why she was special and amazing was wonderful. What a lovely little moment.
+ Sad at the lack of Graham/Ryan content. No hug filled reunion or emotional message from Graham in case he died? Boo.
+ I was a little worried there that Ryan would end up accidentally killing Graham or Yaz. I liked that instead he got a hero moment.
+ I love that before Graham has even finished asking who is going to "step into the unknown" first and Yaz is already walking through, because of course she is.
+ I loved the Doctor's little moment of talking to herself after Ruth!Doctor disappears. "Ah, I'm talking to myself again, that's a good sign. Thanks Doctor, still here? No shut up I need to concentrate.
+ What was with the Cyberium's violent reaction to joining the Master versus when it joined the Doctor? Did it just not like the Master as much? I'm disappointed that it joining with the Doctor didn't have any purpose in the end.
+ "Oh, you mean robots." LOL. I loved the Master's disappointed and disdainful reaction to Ashad's plan. His expression was great. I loved that he wanted to work shop the idea and had notes, heh.
+ The Master saying breathlessly "Well aren't you pretty" to the Cyberium the first time he sees it reminded me a lot of the Doctor.
+ The Master kicking himself for thinking up the perfect line after he'd already compressed Ashad and wryly acknowledging that he's trigger happy amused me.
+ Yikes, Tecteun totally activating the regenerations in her adopted child on purpose wasn't she? There is no way that the Doctor went through 5 regenerations that quickly otherwise. That's horrible.
+ The Judoon nabbing the Doctor in the TARDIS annoyed the crap out of me. They shouldn't be able to get in there! It's happening way too often. It would have been much better if they'd grabbed her on the road before she'd even gotten back to the TARDIS.
+ I like that there are now two random TARDIS's hanging out on Earth and I hope they show up again.
+ I like the look of the old TARDIS's over Thirteen's current design and I really wouldn't mind a new TARDIS makeover for next season.
Overall I'm pleased with the direction the show is going in.
+ I'm an entirely new!Who fan. I've never watched a whole episode of classic!Who (only random clips) and generally only know background based on osmosis so this upending of the set Time Lord lore doesn't really bother me. Honestly this feels pretty in line with something they'd do according to that osmosis. And excepting the destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, again, I'm intrigued about where the story could go here and the mystery of the Timeless Child. There's so much story there about the Doctor's many previous lives that could be interesting as well as the base mystery of just who she was and where she came from. I'm into it.
+ I continue to adore Thirteen.
+ The Master's motivations would have worked much better for me if, as the title suggests, there had been two timeless children - the Doctor and the Master. His fury at the lies told to them would thus make so much more sense. Not that what we got doesn't make sense. In particular "All I am is somehow because of you." absolutely works as something that would piss the Master off and make him lose it. That everything important and special about him is because of her, yeahhhhh. But his destruction of Gallifrey and how this has played out make more sense if they'd both been the 'timeless child', lied to and used by the Time Lords. I think this actually ended up being my biggest issue of the episode. It should have been both of them. Alas.
Although... it is called 'the timeless children. Not child. Now you could say it was about the Time Lords making themselves into timeless children like the timeless child they found but I think it's open enough that the show could later give a different explanation. Like say there wasn't one child but two. We already know memories have been messes with, not only erased but changed. So I'm holding out hope for that now.
+ I also would have preferred them both be Timeless Children so that they would have remained on the same level so to speak. Equals, two sides of the same coin, coming from the same background having gone in different directions. They balance each other. This puts them on such an uneven footing now that I'm not pleased about.
+ I love that after the initial shock and horror over learning the truth the Doctor ends up even more centred on herself, sure of who she is but at the same time I wasn't expecting anything else? It's a shock yes but it's not like she learned something to completely upend who 'the Doctor' is, like say learning she used to be like the Master or something.
+ "The history between us does mean something. It's the rage and pain in my hearts." Dhawan!Master/Thirteenth Doctor continue to be an electrifying chemistry powerhouse. I loved all their interactions.
+ Wow, that last confrontation was really telling. The Master was pretty explicitly saying what he was thinking and wanted so like, also, literally telling. The Master being suicidal is kind of not completely surprising. He wants it all to end but at the same time he can't do it himself because it's also about the Doctor. He needs it to be her. Never before has a plan of his felt more about the Doctor. I mean it was actually a pretty interesting 'destroy everything' plan for him (Time Lord cybermen under his complete control) but also weirdly he really obvious doesn't care about it either. He set it up so that in the end it was all on the Doctor. He pushed her as hard as he could to try and break her like he felt broken, to force her to be on his level. Learning that she was the Timeless Child seems to have pushed that desire, always there, to a whole new extreme level. "Become death, become me", yeesh Master.
+ I can't help but wonder if some the Master's rage isn't about how the Time Lords treated the Doctor. He pretty thoroughly destroyed the Time Lords and then essentially desecrated their corpses in the worst way and that is - a lot of anger for a lie but not something actively done to him. The Doctor is the single most important person in the Master's life and he's always be rather 'no one can hurt you but me' about them so I can see a lot of that rage being for her.
+ I wondered after the previous episode if this could be a 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' situation and it turns out - yeah, kind of. With the Doctor as the child used to bring about the happiness of others and the Master as one who can't bare the truth, except in true Master fashion he decides to burn it all down rather than walk away (including himself and the Doctor, he is such a drama queen.) I actually rather like this.
+ The one disappointment I have with the current Doctor/Master dynamic is the distance/coldness the Doctor has towards the Master. Ten desperately wanted the Master on his side. Twelve spent hundreds of years in one place to try and 'rehabilitate' her and save her life. Both of them showed a lot of care that matched the Master's own obsession with them. Dhawan!Master is a confusing follow up to Missy, which I don't think this revelation addresses well enough, but seems more in line with previous Masters in a lot of ways.
The Doctor's attitude seems off. I actually think it makes a lot of sense - she likely blames Bill's death/cybernisation on him and the last time they met he begged her to choose him and she left him (she still doesn't know that Missy did make the right choice in the end). Plus this Doctor has trying so hard to be 'normal' and human-like and happy and everything about the Master and their past and her feelings about it all is none of those things. But I still miss that missing piece in her interactions with the Master.
+ I really hope this isn't the end of Dhawan!Master because he is fabulous and I love him. Three episodes isn't near enough of him. It goes without saying that there is no way the Master is really dead.
+ In the premiere I decided to wait and see how Gallifrey's destruction played out before deciding on how I felt about it. Having seen this I'm meh. It was fine but not interesting enough reasoning for me to be complete happy with the direction. It's too much back and forth over Gallifrey's fate for me. This current eradication of the Time Lords/Gallifrey was pretty conclusively an end but I'm still sure they'll find some way to bring them back one day and it leaves me very unmoved and annoyed. Especially since they haven't really done anything much with Gallifrey or the Time Lords since so it leaves me wondering what the point was. Finally it's a rather larger bummer after the Doctors getting Gallifrey back was such a triumphant moment for them, and makes that victory feel hollow. I hope when they eventually do bring them back it's as survivors who fled the Master's attack in various TARDIS who return to their dead planet to try and rebuild rather than saving it in some way.
+ I was not a fan of how weirdly passive the Doctor felt for most of the episode. I really think there was a much better way for the Doctor to have gotten the same result (learning the truth) without her passively following the Master and having him lead the story. Why not have her choose to chase the Master to Gallifrey instead of him forcing it with threats? (It would also add weight, her choosing to abandon her fam.) Have her chose to chase the truth in the Matrix instead of continuing to pursue the Master.
+ The end of the confrontation was lacking unfortunately. I mean they set up Ko Sharmus making the sacrifice well enough as a character choice but... why? Why is this random character involved at all? This great confrontation between the Doctor and the Master, the Doctor pushed to the very edge, a rock and a hard place - and that's how it ends? So disappointing. Such a massive cop out to put the Doctor in this position and then deus ex machina a convenient solution for her. Plus it bothered me that the Master just let the Doctor and Ko Sharmus talk and then didn't immediately just shoot him. Meh.
+ I do really love that it's now canon that the very first Doctor was a girl. Awesome. I also liked the variety in those 7 regenerations we saw.
+ I find it really weird that all, or even some, of those hidden Regenerations were called the Doctor. How the hell has the Doctor never run into one of them before Ruth!Doctor? It would make more sense to me for the first 'Doctor' to have been One who finally ran away from the Time Lords and started a new life/identity for himself (separate from everything before). I wonder when the Doctor started calling themself 'The Doctor'?
+ I loved the Doctor all but tackling the Master to try and force him to reveal more information.
+ Aww, Graham's little speech to Yaz about why she was special and amazing was wonderful. What a lovely little moment.
+ Sad at the lack of Graham/Ryan content. No hug filled reunion or emotional message from Graham in case he died? Boo.
+ I was a little worried there that Ryan would end up accidentally killing Graham or Yaz. I liked that instead he got a hero moment.
+ I love that before Graham has even finished asking who is going to "step into the unknown" first and Yaz is already walking through, because of course she is.
+ I loved the Doctor's little moment of talking to herself after Ruth!Doctor disappears. "Ah, I'm talking to myself again, that's a good sign. Thanks Doctor, still here? No shut up I need to concentrate.
+ What was with the Cyberium's violent reaction to joining the Master versus when it joined the Doctor? Did it just not like the Master as much? I'm disappointed that it joining with the Doctor didn't have any purpose in the end.
+ "Oh, you mean robots." LOL. I loved the Master's disappointed and disdainful reaction to Ashad's plan. His expression was great. I loved that he wanted to work shop the idea and had notes, heh.
+ The Master saying breathlessly "Well aren't you pretty" to the Cyberium the first time he sees it reminded me a lot of the Doctor.
+ The Master kicking himself for thinking up the perfect line after he'd already compressed Ashad and wryly acknowledging that he's trigger happy amused me.
+ Yikes, Tecteun totally activating the regenerations in her adopted child on purpose wasn't she? There is no way that the Doctor went through 5 regenerations that quickly otherwise. That's horrible.
+ The Judoon nabbing the Doctor in the TARDIS annoyed the crap out of me. They shouldn't be able to get in there! It's happening way too often. It would have been much better if they'd grabbed her on the road before she'd even gotten back to the TARDIS.
+ I like that there are now two random TARDIS's hanging out on Earth and I hope they show up again.
+ I like the look of the old TARDIS's over Thirteen's current design and I really wouldn't mind a new TARDIS makeover for next season.
