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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who Season 3 UK (No Spoilers)

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18:22 / 16.06.07

Master had a Chameleon thingumybob, why all that stealing people's bodies in the Eighties?

The Master's TARDIS always had a fully functional Chameleon circuit, and as it was a newer type than the Doctor's, it probably had the watchy thing as well. Don't forget that we only ever saw three of the Master's regenerations, too. It's possible that these are earlier ones. (Maybe between Delgado and Deadly Assassin) Or he just stole another body. Although that doesn't explain the Simm change. Maybe being near a healthy TARDIS helped. The watch is about hiding, not regenerating.
Another interesting possibility is that the pointy-toothed humans are in fact descended from the cat people in Survival in some way.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:33 / 16.06.07

What I think is really impressive is that we should have been asking "If the Doctor can make himself undetectable, why couldn't other Time Lords?"; thinking about how that could answer how he couldn't sense any more of 'em; how the Face of Boe and the Doctor could both be right; and oh yeah, Jacobi's pocket watch chain has been visible in the trailers for ages... And yet for it all to play out as well as it did surprised even the people who had heard the rumours that Jacobi was the Master, I think. All to do with a very, very well structured season. And two more episodes to go! They've really raised the bar.

18:52 / 16.06.07

cube: Another interesting possibility is that the pointy-toothed humans are in fact descended from the cat people in Survival in some way.

I would love for that to be true.

It was a half-and-half episode for me, this one. The second half was aces, obvs (although not too keen on the Star Wars music that suddenly appeared from out of nowhere when jacobi jumped into the Tardis - not only far too reminiscent of that other big SF series, but also completely out of whack with all of New Who's other compositions), but the first half - end of the universe, giant rocket, Mad Max baddies - was a bit pump.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:54 / 16.06.07

Isn't the music just a big orchestral version of the drums Yana had heard all this life. Which are in themselves a more martial, sinister version of the basic Who theme tune, because the Master DO YOU SEE?

Dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum.

18:55 / 16.06.07

I also suspect that the Master may well send the TARDIS back for the Doctor, if his habit of wanting the Doctor to play the game and lose is intact.

Chan New Master, new rules. Hence him not sticking around to explain his plans tho.

(So we're all agreed I can probably get away with the chan/tho thing once more without it getting irritating yes?)

I...that...fucking...MASTER!

"Say my name."

Loved it, utterly loved it. Jack and The Doc's chat. Chantho. The whispers to The Professor (in what sounded suspiciously like the old school Master's voice). Chantho. The drum beat. Chantho.

Nearly everything about that episode rawked for me.

18:55 / 16.06.07

I thought it might be what it sounds like when both your hearts are beating...

18:55 / 16.06.07

So what happened to the Master's TARDIS? Might it still be somewhere where they are, thus facillitating escape? Obviously they will escape or poor Captain Jack is destined to a life of living hell, like Prometheus. Being eaten by the futurekind over and over again. (In fact, could he live forever if he were eaten?) And they surely must escape or what is there for the last two episodes and also anything else?

And why is it de rigeur for the ubercool to be called Captain Jack these days?

18:57 / 16.06.07

So what happened to the Master's TARDIS?

It's unlikely he was able to bring it with him. More than likely it was left to "die" on some other planet.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:02 / 16.06.07

THAT. FUCKING. ROCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That aside I'd love it if they did explain the whole body stealing period, and the trapped in the eye of harmony stuff, but they totally don't need to for me. I was also thinking about how the feral futurekin could be connected to the Cheetah infection, but i'm happy for that connection to remain in my head.

Really, really loking forward to a hopefully Sim heavy episode next week, in fact almost hoping we have very little of the Doctor next week and instead focus on what the Master has been up to in the 21st century for the past year or more, and then go into the showdown for the finale.

Also I'm guessing that our heroes will get back to the present using Jack's 'Spacehopper' after the Doctor gives it an upgrade,,,,,

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:06 / 16.06.07

Also I felt so sorry for Professor Yana. Even more than I did for John Smith. The Professor was so achingly tragic - unlike Smith he wasn't just a normal decent enough guy - he was an almost saintly figure, a guy who was just getting ready to give up his life to save everyone else - but in the end he just ended up dying to let something monstrous out. Real nasty stuff that.

19:07 / 16.06.07

Simm really came across as the anti-Doctor in that scene. Same infectious exhuberance and enthusiam, just twisted.

19:12 / 16.06.07

WOOO-HOOOO!
yes, nail biting stuff. Jacobi was fantastic
The Doctor's plaintive and pitiful 'It's all changed now, it's just the two of us'
the explanation of the Doctor abandoning Jack satisfying...loved that scene ending up with the two of them grinning like loons about the joy of surviving no matter what and the Doctor accepting he may be prejudiced against the immortal

also loved how the master asserted himself unknowingly in Yana to create the tech to power the ship and in a classic piece of Pertwee era needed the Doc to make it work

also great was the bit in confidential when DEREK JACOBI said how much he loved the series and wanted to be a part of it

oh lord...what a cliffhanger

A fall of geckos

19:19 / 16.06.07

Great stuff...

Thinking back over the episode, the main plot was fairly thin. As a set up for the Master reveal it worked brilliantly though. For some reason I already feel that Simm is going to be horrible in the role (in a good way). The shots of him seem to have a gleeful malicious insanity.

19:20 / 16.06.07

The whispers to The Professor (in what sounded suspiciously like the old school Master's voice).

Fairly certain that there were a couple of audio clips of Master dialogue ripped out of old episodes playing out over the realisation scene.

19:40 / 16.06.07

It was Delgado ripped from "The Daemons." That was an intense episode. Martha's amazing when RTD is writing her, same for Jack. Really well scripted with a lot of great humour. The Future Kind were a bit Papa Lazarous for my tastes.

19:41 / 16.06.07

Oh, and John Simm as the Master= Lord Flashheart from Blackadder.

Tryphena Absent

19:44 / 16.06.07

And why is it de rigeur for the ubercool to be called Captain Jack these days?

I'm not sure but I think I know the name of my firstborn son. Uh-huh!

A fall of geckos

19:58 / 16.06.07

Has the silver devastation (where the Master as found) been mentioned before? It rings a bell.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

20:07 / 16.06.07

When the Face of Boe was introduced in 'The End of The World' it was stated that it beleived to come from the Silver Devastation.

20:12 / 16.06.07

The Future Kind were a bit Papa Lazarous for my tastes.

They were a bit Mad Max cum Ghosts of Mars for mine. Nothing like Papa lazarou, who I consider to be genuinely horrible

Nelson Evergreen

22:47 / 16.06.07

heh, maybe it was just the victorian waistcoat but I spent a big chunk of that episode thinking what a fabulous old school Doctor Jacobi would have made. And then...!

Mysterious Transfer Student

05:39 / 17.06.07

Hahaha! We too were sitting there going "What a lovely performance, it's like he's doing a tribute to the Peter Cushing Dr. Who"! And then... *choke*

Poor Chanthro. She tried to kill him even though she loved him and he just ended up getting stronger. Simm's Master is already an absolute bastard without even trying.

That was a truly incredible episode. In a way the thinness of the A-plot and the return of beloved Captain Jack were just devices to get the audience to drop our guard and distract us from what was really going on until the business with the watch crept out and suddenly the horror and suspense leapt into overdrive.

The real headmelty, though, is wondering whether "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood", brilliant and beautiful as they were, just acted as a set-up for this one.

Outstanding plotting. The Buffy comparisons are deserved for once.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:56 / 17.06.07

Just to make it clear, I loved this episode. And when Jack wakes up and starts flirting with Martha, oh, this was the Jack I'd been so disappointed had never once turned up in Torchwood.

To be clear, the Doctor and Rose left Jack in the future because they were a bit distracted and didn't realise he was still alive?

And this did clear up something that got only vaguely hinted at in Torchwood, that Jack time jumped to way before the twenty-first century and had to live through it the hard way. Some potential for Highlander/Angel-esque stories in Torchwood this autumn I suspect, though unless the Doctor drugs and dumps Jack in Cardiff I can't see why he'd want to go back to that team of amateurs and social misfits.

And blow me, but yet again Doctor Who manages to deliver an episode that, despite savage future humans, the end of the universe, bug people and regenerations, feels so much more adult than desperate adulterous shagging and use of the naughty words.

A fall of geckos

08:30 / 17.06.07

"To be clear, the Doctor and Rose left Jack in the future because they were a bit distracted and didn't realise he was still alive?"

If I recall the episode correctly, the Doctor left Jack because he was immortal (and shouldn't have been) and this made the Doctor feel sick on an instinctive level. I think it was a kind of Time Lord allergy to something that didn't fit into the timeline.

10:25 / 17.06.07

I thought there was a hint of something else to it as well though -

In School Reunion the Doctor talks about never being able to spend his whole life with his companions, but in an immortal Capt. Jack the Doctor has finally found a companion who could stay with him forever and I have a feeling that the thought terrifies him...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

11:51 / 17.06.07

I really had my doubts about Simms as the big bad (only knowing Simms from Life on Mars where, while good, he is a bit uber-emo) but I'm glad to see my fears may be groundless.

I do like where so much of this season seems to have been actual set up for a big payoff at the end, as opposed to say the sloppy Bad Wolf payoff in Season 1.

And I'm with sleeze, while I'm sure from the description that Capt Jack looks like a walking wound in time to the Doctor, I bet there's a bit of the awkward regarding the possibility of an immortal Companion. And the Jack/Doctor banter was fantastic.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:21 / 17.06.07

If I recall the episode correctly, the Doctor left Jack because he was immortal (and shouldn't have been) and this made the Doctor feel sick on an instinctive level.

I thought that referred to when the Doctor and Martha were refueling in Cardiff, not when the Doctor and Rose were on Satellite Five or whatever it was called. The Doctor was the Bad Wolf long enough that presumably he could have fixed Jack there and then before heading off.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:47 / 17.06.07

No. The Doctor is clearly refering to 'The Parting Of The Ways' during this exchange:

"How long have you known?"
"Since I ran away from you."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:56 / 17.06.07

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

That's four consecutive blinders. And I watched them all in the space of one weekend. I think I can see through time.

Yeah, I'm with Fly on the whole "fuck continuity" thing. I'd rather stuff that cherry-picked and rocked than stuff that was slave to the whim of some writer twenty years ago who probably wouldn't even remember why he did what he did now.

And the Master wouldn't have used the chameleon thing except as a VERY last resort, given that it involves losing your identity. Be interesting if we learn what led up to its use in this case, and might iron out some of the "inconsistencies" while it's at it.

That was just fucking MADE OF WIN.

15:35 / 17.06.07

Also, there are any number of occasions in the old series where the Doctor could have used his own chameleon unit, but didn't, so picking up on this one seems a little odd.

Fanwank it into something that was introduced into Tardis technology during the Time War or the period between the end of Old Who and that point. It's easy if you try.

15:37 / 17.06.07

Be interesting if we learn what led up to its use in this case

Time War, again. Crapped his pants, ran away and hid. It's the Master, it's what he'd do - anything else will run the risk of overdoing it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:50 / 17.06.07

Indeed. It looks like a retcon, to explain why he never came back for Captain Jack - I had previously assumed that it was because he didn't know that Rose had returned Jack to life (since he _didn't_ become Bad Wolf - he absorbed the run-off energy and then he died) because she only returned him to life before he stopped her altering reality. As it turns out, we are now told, he did know, and abandoned him on the satellite presumably assuming that, being as he was immortal, he would probably find a way out.

My one problem with this episode - except for Martha continuing Rose's streak of dooming any woman she bonds with - was the Futurekind, who looked stupid and felt played out - no disrespect to earlier British sci-fi, but the "they are what we become" thing was done in Terminal (Blakes 7) , among other places, and the paintballing outfits looked rather too much like the Space Rats, also in Blakes 7. I love Blakes 7, as hardly needs to be said, but what British sci-fi probably shouldn't take from it is its wardrobe. Hopefully they will be dispatched pretty quickly in the next episode, as they were only there to create a bit of drama in the first place.

Otherwise, cracking stuff. Jacobi was excellent, and John Simm playing David Tennant was a nice turn. I'm looking forward to coming back to Earth to see shit nicely fucked up, hopefully in the first ten minutes or so of the episode. I am also hoping that absolutely no attempt is made to tie this in to the continuity of the Master in Old Who. At the absoolute most, we can have Tennant saying "Ah, the Master. Nasty piece of work. Thought I'd trapped him in the balls of whojamaflip." That's it.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

15:51 / 17.06.07

Be interesting if we learn what led up to its use in this case

The fact he washed up in the Face of Boe's turf as a child rather than an identical looking human makes me think it might not have been entirely his choice.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:58 / 17.06.07

Nah, I think maybe just how Boe knows about him, is all. The Master says Yana was a disguise that worked too well - that implies it was his idea.

15:59 / 17.06.07

I thought it was pretty obvious the Master used the chameleon arch to escape the Time War. It was a desperate gambit but he hid as a human in the distant future - so distant that not even the Time Lords went there. No TARDIS because the Time War wiped out everything. Brilliant.

And quite sad, because Professor Yana was a noble person who represents what the Master might have been had he walked the Doctor's path. I thought Jacobi played the part as a Patrick Troughton pastiche, which combined with the old-school Doctor dress really drove the point home for me.

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