They're definitely on a roll with this season of Doctor Who!
Apart from flashbacks to the Face of Boe and Rose (in Tardis-induced God-form), Captain Jack is back! But wait... didnt we hear the Tardis-sound inside the Torchwood compound back on Torchwood?
Of course, Jack doesn't need to hide anything from the Doctor, and we learn that after he was abandoned at the space station after the Dalek battle, he tried to 'bounce' to the early 21st century, since he figured he'd have a good chance of running into the Doctor there. But instead he landed in the 1890s, and lived through the entire 20th century, fighting in wars and dieing a lot. I really liked his genuine interest in Rose's wellbeing. It's good that Rose isn't just forgotten.
But.. forget about Jack.. The REAL surprise is Professor Yana (it's an acronym by the way). I totally didn't see that coming (but then again, I don't read much spoilers for this series), but Yana is... wait for it... the Master!
It's a shame he had to regenerate into a new body, since the 'old' actor was pretty damn good. The new Master (what number is he?) is Saxon, and is recognized as such by Martha.
Well, not much more than this excellent build-up in this first of a two (or three?) parter.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Holy fookin' shoot! There were unexplained campy villains, there were irrelevant human refugees, there was a relatively dull plot saved by tremendous characerization and acting by just about EVERYONE.
Derek Jacobi as the Professor and then the Master was nothing short of briliance. And the guy has been trying for decades to get on Doctor Who! What took them so long? And now John Simm (formerly Sam Tyler of Life on Mars) is set to chew the scenery as the latest incarnation of the Master. Being relatively spoiler-free on this one, I was genuinely clueless as to what was going on even when the watch came out (which was an excellent running plot device). We knew the Master as Saxon hs been running around London for at least the last couple years, so it didn't occur to me that the Master would be first hiding at the end of the universe before all that happened, And now the gaps will be filled in next week while The Doc, Martha and Jack are finding their way back here (which doubtless involves Jack's busted time watch).
The ONLY grudge I have is the continued presentation of humanity in costume, appearance and mannerism as being essentially modern day. Now, in the year 100,000,000,000,000 there'll have been plenty of time for humanity to evolve to energy, to digital information, and back again hundreds of times, and in fact that's what the Doctor says has happened. I can accept that evolution of body and apparently of style can be cyclical given time, but it annoys me to no end that the future looks like it can be purchased in a shop down the street.
Mark
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I wonder if they'll explain why the Master was able to regenerate? Best guess I can come up with is that, at some point, he must have stolen another Time Lord's body.
I guess the Simm Master is going to be kind of wacky. I wondered at the end there if maybe it was just post-regeneration loopiness, but the preview for next week implies that that's just his new personality.
I was a little annoyed by his "new voice" comment. Seemed far too much like Tennant's "new teeth" from right after his regeneration.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:I was a little annoyed by his "new voice" comment. Seemed far too much like Tennant's "new teeth" from right after his regeneration.
I think that's exactly what they were going for.
Again, not much of a Doctor who expert, but didn't the Master run out of regenerations, get executed by the Daleks, turn into a weird snake thing, posses some bloke then fall into the eye of harmony?
So...how could he have gotten out of that one? Bet you a fiver it has to do with the time war.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: I wonder if they'll explain why the Master was able to regenerate?
I'm thinking it's to do with Rose. Perhaps the Master was hiding in the heart of the Tardis after being sucked into the Eye, and when she basically opened it he escaped complete with a new set of regenerations. Hiding in the future rather that to escape the Time War, but more to hide from the Doctor...who would presumably have done everything to stop the Master in his evil schemes.
Anyway, from the minute or two of John Simm as the Master we got I felt a little disappointed...Sir Derek Jacobi would have been far better in the role I feel if they'd left him to be in the finale. Honestly, was there any reason to show a regeneration that soon after re-introducing the character. Full marks to the tabloids again this year though...they spoiled yet another series finale months in advance by reporting the main villain. Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I actually wasn't worried that we knew about the Master - infact it made the episode even THAT MUCH BETTER! When the watch appeared I was like - clever, clever but I was still on the edge of my seat right until the credits! I think this maybe the best episode of the season, so far! Jacobi was great - but I think having a young Master to be up against the Doctor will be great! He complained about not having a young body like the Doctor... something like "if he can, why can't I"? I wonder if there was some way he could influence the next regeneration!?!
Maybe the Time Lords extracted the Master from the Eye-of-harmony in preparation for the Time-War? Gave him a new body except he chickened out and hid as a human. I guess the Daleks must have had some way to track down the Timelords across time and space - why else turn into a human?
I like how the Doctor said "yes but it depends on which one" - when Martha and Jack were so excited about there being another Time Lord.
What if it turned out to be a really boring Time Lord?
What IS the Master's reason d'etre? Why is he like he is - crazy and maniacle? I havn't seen a lot of original Who but - is he just always portrayed as a nutter villain? Does he have reasons for being the way he is?
Andrew
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
I see I'm not the only one who was a bit disappointed by John Simm's take on the character. I'd been looking forward to him being in Who, especially after the brilliance of Life on Mars, but I preferred Derek Jacobi's professor to John Simm's needlessly manic(and a bit camp really) Master.
I also hope the Doc will explain to Martha all about the Master next week, because I'm not very up to speed on old Who and that probably goes for most of the audience.
The Reavers are another thing I hope will be explained next week, but it doesn't seem like there'll be much time. We don't really know what they have against the humans, but we might see them again if the Utopia rocket is followed up on.
Oh and why didn't Jack die in the radiation? Yes, he has the power to come back from the dead, but that means he should have died over and over again while channeling Spock in the radiation compartment. The other guy who went in there was vapourised.
Over all, Utopia wasn't a bad episode, but it was mostly saved by the ending. Otherwise it might've been quite bland. Not as well thought out or thoughtful as the previous two week's episodes though.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"I think that's exactly what they were going for."
I'm sure they were. That's what annoys me. It'd be nice if, say, the Master had his own personality. Rather than just being an evil version of the current Doctor.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:I see I'm not the only one who was a bit disappointed by John Simm's take on the character. I'd been looking forward to him being in Who, especially after the brilliance of Life on Mars, but I preferred Derek Jacobi's professor to John Simm's needlessly manic(and a bit camp really) Master.
Camp? I thought the master was supposed to be camp. I mean my only clear memory of the character is from that TV movie from the 90's and he was screamingly camp - big collar, evil laugh, the lot. I have a vague memory of the old master fencing with the Worzel Gummidge Doctor and acting very camp, so it all seams to have been part of the character from the get go. From what I can see he's meant to be an odd combination of Moriarty and Ming The Merciless, which just camp city.
quote:I'm sure they were. That's what annoys me. It'd be nice if, say, the Master had his own personality. Rather than just being an evil version of the current Doctor.
I think the point of it was more to show that he was a Timelord (hence identical regeneration effects) than to draw any specific parallels with the Doctor. Having said that, he is the "Arch Nemesis" and that usually means evil twin, at least in terms of character.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
The Master was always evil, but a bit on the camp side. His to do list read thus: 1 Become master of all matter (I always liked that), 2 Destroy the Doctor.
Aside from a touch of alliteration, his hobbies included hypnosis (by looking into his victims eyes and telling them "I am the Master and you will obey". Later on after using all of his lives up he also included gaining more regenerations on his list of goals.
He was always played as a vilain bent on total domination of everything, whilst being the quintessential gentleman - very much like Prof. M. Pertwees Doctor especialy has a begrudging respect for him, highlighting the similarities between the two vilains. I think he was also written to be the Doctors equal, and opposite, rather than just another bad guy.
The first Master (Roger Dalgardo) was a bit on the camp side, but in a very 70's sort of way. Anthony Ainley (a few actors later, but the first time he's realy seen properly, or not a walking corpse) realy did play him camp, laughing wildly, disguising himself (often for no reason) and making long "this is my fiendish plan" speaches.
Julia Roberts' brother took the pantomime villain mould and made it his own.
Personaly I like the idea that Rose inadvertantly gave the master a new set of lives, but I always wondered if the Dalek trial thingy might have been to do with the Time War (perhaps he sided with the Daleks but, as was his want, betrayed them, and was EX-TERM-INATED! Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote:I see I'm not the only one who was a bit disappointed by John Simm's take on the character. I'd been looking forward to him being in Who, especially after the brilliance of Life on Mars, but I preferred Derek Jacobi's professor to John Simm's needlessly manic(and a bit camp really) Master.
Camp? I thought the master was supposed to be camp. I mean my only clear memory of the character is from that TV movie from the 90's and he was screamingly camp - big collar, evil laugh, the lot. I have a vague memory of the old master fencing with the Worzel Gummidge Doctor and acting very camp, so it all seams to have been part of the character from the get go. From what I can see he's meant to be an odd combination of Moriarty and Ming The Merciless, which just camp city.
Okay, well I suppose I was hoping for something with more depth then. Camp villains who are evil for the sake of being evil just don't interest me much, and it seems a waste of John Simm's acting talent.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Aren't most villains evil for the sake of being evil? What do you want? For him to have been abused as a child, or something?
I mean, he's evil because he's a power-hungry megalomaniac. What sort of "reason" do you want for that?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Exactly. Likewise, we'll probably get only a cursory explanation for Martha (and maybe Jack, who likely knew the Master while he was frequently pestering the Third Doctor in the 1970s) but very little detail. Like the Time War, how he got out will probably never be explained in full, or in any context which would require the viewer to see anything besides the three years of the current show. However, RTD has been VERY respectful of the original series, and whatever reason he comes up with will doubtless jive SOMEHOW with what has gone before.
And Jack! Poor guy, he gets stuck in the 19th century and has to sex his way through more than a century to meet up with a version of the Doctor that is contemporary to his current timeline. This basically confirms the notion that he must know several incarnations of the Doctor, and his related adventures. He was very likely right under the ninth Doctor, Rose, Mickey AND HIMSELF when Blon Slitheen tried to nuke Cardiff, and was powerless to do anything even though he knew it would turn out okay. They even threw in a reference to Rose being officially dead after the Battle of Canary Wharf.
And speaking of Rose, even Martha is now showing increased annoyance at the Docor constantly going on about her, often at Martha's expense. We don't yet know whether Martha will stay or not after this season (we'll know for sure when series four starts shooting and the spoiler reports start coming in), but the writers are acknowledging that the Doctor's comparisons of Rose to Martha are becoming a charcacter issue that will have to be resolved. I'm hoping that they'll do so in the finale, and that Martha will accept that the Doctor will never feel for her the way she does for him.
Next week looks to be an A/B story episode, with the main plot following the new Master's rise to power, and the the secondary tale of Doc & co. finding their way back home. I'm plenty certain that by the end of the episode, we'll have gotten over Jacobi's fantastic portrayal of the Master and fallen in love with Simm's edition.
Mark
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Aren't most villains evil for the sake of being evil? What do you want? For him to have been abused as a child, or something?
I mean, he's evil because he's a power-hungry megalomaniac. What sort of "reason" do you want for that?
I'm sorry if I like my villains with more than one dimension. I would quite like to know why he wants to kill the Doctor and control all matter. Doesn't have to an old clich� like child abuse or seeing his family killed in front of him, but something in the revenge variety wouldn't go amiss.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:But wait... didnt we hear the Tardis-sound inside the Torchwood compound back on Torchwood?
Aparantly that's not a problem, according to some bloke on youtube. Personally I can't see it, but then the quality is quite bad.
quote:I'm sorry if I like my villains with more than one dimension. I would quite like to know why he wants to kill the Doctor and control all matter. Doesn't have to an old clich� like child abuse or seeing his family killed in front of him, but something in the revenge variety wouldn't go amiss.
Patience. We've only seen the Master very briefly and then in a state extreme excitement, which basically ammounted to "bugger you, I'm nicking your ride!" I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for character depth in the next two shows. As for motivations, I almost don't want to know. I mean what do we REALLY know about The Doctor and his motivations? Not much from what I can tell.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: I'm plenty certain that by the end of the episode, we'll have gotten over Jacobi's fantastic portrayal of the Master and fallen in love with Simm's edition.
Mark
Don't forget that wasn't REALLY the MASTER - it was like enjoying David Tennant solely for his portrayal of John Smith. The Professor was very likealbe and had a 'Doctor' quality about him - even with the clothes.
I wonder what the drums mean? The drums of war?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, Jacobi was the Master for all of four minutes before he regenerated. Those four minuteswere gold, but then so was his portrayal of Prof. Yana for the whole time before that.
Dunno about the drums, though people are already comparing it to the beat that the Saxon/Master was laying down whilst wearing a gas mask in the preview we saw a few weeks back.
And it took someone pointing it out to me, but they put in two clever nods to previous incarnations of the Master: while Yana is reeling in the years, he hears various people talking and repeating things he'd just said. Towards the end, he hears both a line by Roger Delgado (about giving power to him), and Anthony Ainley's distinctive evil chuckle. Respect!
Mark
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I noticed the "power" line sounded like it had a different audio quality, and I wondered if it was something they ripped from an old episode. Google didn't help, though, so I figured I'd imagined it.
"Patience. We've only seen the Master very briefly and then in a state extreme excitement, which basically ammounted to 'bugger you, I'm nicking your ride!' I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for character depth in the next two shows."
Um... We've actually seen quite a lot of the Master between 1971 and 1996. There may be time for the development of the Simm Master's particular personality, but the sort of background being discussed here would have been present in all the old Masters, as well. The fact is, he's never been portrayed as having any sort of "defining moment" that turned him into a villain. Sometimes, dudes are just evil.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Um... We've actually seen quite a lot of the Master between 1971 and 1996. There may be time for the development of the Simm Master's particular personality, but the sort of background being discussed here would have been present in all the old Masters, as well. The fact is, he's never been portrayed as having any sort of "defining moment" that turned him into a villain. Sometimes, dudes are just evil.
I was refering to THIS master, specifically because Jonny was lamenting the lack of character depth in the four minute scene we got at the end of the episode. Given the track record of this show, I'm sure as a major villan they'll give him some depth and a little background. I mean come on, these are the same people who portrayed a Dalek in a sympathetic light...twice!
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
True enough. I'm also looking forward to a Master unencumbered by the increasing desire to extend his lifespan, something we REALLY haven't seen since Delgado's Master.
Mark
Posted by FawnDoo (Member # 1421) on :
I quite liked Simm's take on the character - after being stuck in a decaying body, a possessed alien body, a translucent snake, a possessed human body, the heart of the TARDIS, a pocketwatch (watching his human body get older and older - I got the impression the Time Lord mind remains quite aware of itself and its surroundings, even when it is within the watch) he finally gets his Time Lord body back only to have a blue alien shoot a hole in it and fatally wound him! Makes sense that when he regenerates and gets a nice, young body to plot and scheme in he would be a bit giddy.
As for the campness, it might not be entirely the fault of the actor. From the Wikipedia article on the Master:
"Ainley's portrayal was closer to Delgado's, but his Master's tendency to burst out into peals of malicious laughter was criticised by some fans as being too over-the-top. However, this was more a function of the scripts and direction that Ainley received than of his own interpretation of the character. Visitors to the recording of the story Planet of Fire recall Ainley giving a serious, understated performance in an initial take only to be overruled and asked to go more "over the top" for the final one."
Of course that doesn't excuse Eric Roberts who took it to panto villain levels (Widow Twanky meets Chancellor Flavia) but it might point to where the whole camp angle started to come into the character.
A few questions though - does the Master still have his TARDIS? If not, how did he get to the end of the universe? And what provided the chameleon watch and the means to transform his biology? And what was on that disk he pulled out of the computer? And will he land on Earth in 1973? ;-)
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
quote:Originally posted by FawnDoo: A few questions though - does the Master still have his TARDIS?
My inclination is to say, not any longer. Clearly he needed it to get to the very end of time, but presumably it's been lost since given how the Doctor's Tardis seemed to get Yana acting strange...I doubt that if his own Tardis still existed that he'd be much bothered by it. That he was found on the border of the Silver Devastation could leave a few clues as to what is going on. It's previously been said in the series that the Silver Devastation is, for want of a better term, the homeworld of the Face of Boe, so presumably this being rumoured to have been as old as time itself had something to do with all that's going on...especially since he knew the truth. One can't help but wonder if the Chameleon Arch can change people into being Boekind as well as humans.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
quote:Originally posted by FawnDoo: A few questions though - does the Master still have his TARDIS?
Will the Doctor find the Masters TARDIS? Or will he use that or Jack's funky watch thing to escape the toothy gits at the door? Tune in next week, bat-fans, same bat-time, same bat-channel. na-na na-na na-na na-na, na-na na-na na-na na-na...
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
It could be that the Master's TARDIS is still hanging around, and is on that planet somewhere. Given that its chameleon circuit is supposedly still working, it would be disguised as something that Yana always brought with him but never thought too much about it.
Posted by Zipacna (Member # 1881) on :
The little jar thing the Face of Boe lived in was the Master's Tardis. Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yana was much perturbed by the Doctor's TARDIS because he knew it so well - who else in the universe travels through time and space in a blue box, who you want to kill mostly for the heck of it?
Also, the Master has been known to operate multiple TARDISes over the years. Presumably he'd been using the same one from his first appearance through "The Keeper of Traken", by which time he had acquired another one with a cool seat and everything. His original TARDIS was seen in the background of the control room, and was used to escape at the end of the story. He'd seemingly lost THAT one between his appearances in "The Ultimate Foe" and "Survival", as he was trying to steal the Doctor's ship at the end of the latter story (and had none in the TV movie - perhaps the Daleks got it?). Still, there's no reason why he can't have had or obtained another one in the intervening centuries and bodies.
Mark
Posted by FawnDoo (Member # 1421) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zipacna: That he was found on the border of the Silver Devastation could leave a few clues as to what is going on.
We don't know that he was - remember that was Yana's account of his origins, probably false memories implanted into his human mind by his TARDIS (much like the Doctor's TARDIS created the entire John Smith backstory - right down to names of his mother and father). Yana's discovery on the border of the silver devastation is probably about as factual as John Smith's memories of his family.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think it's very doubtful that it's a coincidence that Yana's recollections have him coming from the Silver Devastation, just like tFoB and that said FoB somehow knew about him several trillion years in advance AND his last four words just happened to abreviate (in English) to his assumed name.
In the words of Agrajag - COINCIDENCE!!??!!? Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
I haven't watched much of this series, but I did catch this one and was moderately impressed. Jacobi's acting was excellent, and the story was really good, even if it did rely on a couple of rather old cliches. It still suffered from my big criticism of the new Who though, in that I really think these stories need several episodes to do them justice. I know this is a 3-parter in total, but this episode felt like you could easily get 2 hours of TV out of it and really build up some suspense. Everything moves too quickly. The part of this that really bugs me is that the script writers seem to expect you to have some empathy for characters that you have known for about 5 minutes when they are in danger, or even killed, such as bug-woman from this episode. Sorry, I need more time than that to properly start caring about someone.
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I would quite like to know why he wants to kill the Doctor and control all matter. Doesn't have to an old clich� like child abuse or seeing his family killed in front of him, but something in the revenge variety wouldn't go amiss.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)