![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Someday I will post about something that isn't the Doctor. Maybe.
So I've finally watched LotTL/tSoD (the New Who Master episodes). I figured it was time, given how much meta energy I've been expending on it. (See, the over-elaborate themed fanmix was almost ready to post- then I realized I had to switch the order around a bit to match the episodes better.)
Watching actual episodes after you've already been deeply immersed in fandom for them is a really interesting experience. Because I already know what *happens* - in great detail, with copious theories and elaborations and details and analysis - and I can use all of that to figure out what must have happened, and what everybody's underlying motivations must have been, and how it all interlocks with other things that were going on. And people who have seen the episodes generally agree that my interpretation makes sense, because after all I'm working from the same evidence and body of theories as they are.
And then I watch the actual episode and realize I've been wrong, wrong, wrong. All the evidence is still there - my previous version still makes *logical* sense - but what I'd been missing was the tone of voice, the body language, the pacing, the completely insignificant details, sometimes even entire minor characters who nobody else noticed enough to work into their theories - and I realize that whatever motivation I'd been ascribing to these characters, I'd barely scratched the surface.
It's like I'm a historian who's studied a certain event in detail, and read all the primary sources and historical accounts, who suddenly gets to travel back in time and *be there*. ...it's pretty awesome, honestly.But I'm going to have to rewrite my whole thesis from the beginning!
The Master is really, really, obsessed with age. Basically from the moment he opens his stopwatch in Utopia. Which makes good character sense - when I actually think about it, he went through his first set of regenerations so fast I doubt he ever came anywhere close to wearing out a body until Yana, and after that, a body's natural aging process was the least of his concern; note how casually he fixed Tremas -- He'd always though of death as something that came suddenly and too early and unfairly and needed to be fought off. Then suddenly he's a body of his own again, and everything's winding down - the Time Lords, the Universe, and his body. And he doesn't deal with it well. But I've basically never seen that theme picked up on in fic. And it ought to be.Especially in light of their Shalka alternates, who are really feeling their age.
I also now understand why fandom is so puzzled by Lucy. Without actually seeing the episode, she makes sense in a variety of ways. Onscreen she's puzzling. Either the actress was really bad, or the director had no clue whatsoever what to do with her,or her chameleon arch was faulty. Even in her first appearances in tSoD she's inconsistently ... not all there.
And the Master/Doctor relationship in there was odd. Okay, not really odd - apparently the Doctor has had a mad pash for the Master ever since their schooldays, and is convinced that the Master will never look at him *that way*. And the Master is convinced that the Doctor knows that the Master is in love with him, and is pretending not to notice just to be cruel, in which case the Master is going to prove he can be cruel back.
...thing is, Three/Master and Five/Master were very clearly past that point in their whatever-it-is, so I'm not sure why exactly Ten and Simm have suddenly reverted to schoolboys. v.v.strange. Is amusing how whenever they're trying to bring back the good old days they bring up Three/Delgado though.I want to see an alternate Time Crash featuring Three now.
Watching actual episodes after you've already been deeply immersed in fandom for them is a really interesting experience. Because I already know what *happens* - in great detail, with copious theories and elaborations and details and analysis - and I can use all of that to figure out what must have happened, and what everybody's underlying motivations must have been, and how it all interlocks with other things that were going on. And people who have seen the episodes generally agree that my interpretation makes sense, because after all I'm working from the same evidence and body of theories as they are.
And then I watch the actual episode and realize I've been wrong, wrong, wrong. All the evidence is still there - my previous version still makes *logical* sense - but what I'd been missing was the tone of voice, the body language, the pacing, the completely insignificant details, sometimes even entire minor characters who nobody else noticed enough to work into their theories - and I realize that whatever motivation I'd been ascribing to these characters, I'd barely scratched the surface.
It's like I'm a historian who's studied a certain event in detail, and read all the primary sources and historical accounts, who suddenly gets to travel back in time and *be there*. ...it's pretty awesome, honestly.
The Master is really, really, obsessed with age. Basically from the moment he opens his stopwatch in Utopia. Which makes good character sense - when I actually think about it, he went through his first set of regenerations so fast I doubt he ever came anywhere close to wearing out a body until Yana, and after that, a body's natural aging process was the least of his concern; note how casually he fixed Tremas -- He'd always though of death as something that came suddenly and too early and unfairly and needed to be fought off. Then suddenly he's a body of his own again, and everything's winding down - the Time Lords, the Universe, and his body. And he doesn't deal with it well. But I've basically never seen that theme picked up on in fic. And it ought to be.
I also now understand why fandom is so puzzled by Lucy. Without actually seeing the episode, she makes sense in a variety of ways. Onscreen she's puzzling. Either the actress was really bad, or the director had no clue whatsoever what to do with her,
And the Master/Doctor relationship in there was odd. Okay, not really odd - apparently the Doctor has had a mad pash for the Master ever since their schooldays, and is convinced that the Master will never look at him *that way*. And the Master is convinced that the Doctor knows that the Master is in love with him, and is pretending not to notice just to be cruel, in which case the Master is going to prove he can be cruel back.
...thing is, Three/Master and Five/Master were very clearly past that point in their whatever-it-is, so I'm not sure why exactly Ten and Simm have suddenly reverted to schoolboys. v.v.strange. Is amusing how whenever they're trying to bring back the good old days they bring up Three/Delgado though.
no subject
I think this can be explained by the widespread "OMG WE ARE THE ONLY ONES LEFT" theory, Y/Y?
I'm sad that you didn't think big-eyed!gremlin!Doctor was adorable. )*:
no subject
See, not having seen the episode, I could totally buy it's "we're the only ones left!!!" trauma making them adorable nervous around each other, but in the actual episode, it's obvious they've *never* actually managed to communicate with each other, which given their previous appearances, can only be explained by random amnesia. (Or their entire old!who history having been written out of the timeline, but that doesn't square with all the three!nostalgia in the episode. Or Time Crash, where Ten is gleefully commenting on the Master's beard. Also it would be sad and tragic.)
no subject
Well, even if they *have* managed to communicate at some point in the past, the Master was a good deal more BATSHIT INSANE than in any of what I've seen of him in old!who, even when he was crispy! That's bound to throw anyone off.
no subject
--the face of boe's an old friend of his, he just told him to use that name because he knew it would freak the Doctor out.
They are both at pretty much their zenith of batshit in that episode, yes. I blame the timelords being gone. (The Doctor hears the drums, he just a) knew it was the Master's heartsbeat, and b) doesn't want to tell the Master that it's way, way better than the alternative... Also, the hearts the Doctor hears aren't beating out DESTROY EVERYTHING I HATE THE UNIVERSE IT ALL ENDS IN FIRE because the Master isn't actually that fucked up.)
no subject
no subject
...it was a pretty cool reveal scene. To bad the revelation was WRONG.