Doctor Who - The Curse of Fenric
Oct. 25th, 2005 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeth7th Doctor and Ace
story that pokes around in Ace's background, moves her on emotionally, depends on her emotional development for the ending, and yet also has grand cosmic trickster Doctor playing for the highest of stakes.
I love this story so very, very much.
What the Doctor has faith in? Starts naming his companions. And of course Ace has faith in the Doctor, but he has to break it for the plan to work. Everything I love about these two characters in one story.
And also, Ace distracting the guard. I always loved that bit, have it memorised since way back. Took me ages to figure out all the reasons it so captured my attention.
A lot of what I just said, focusing on the psychology of the companion especially, should apply to the new series, yet I really got fed up of that. I think its a question of balance. For every moment of Ace emotion we get, we get a moment of Ace action, something psychological from the Doctor, some trickster ploy of his, a plot on a really grand scheme, him playing his cards so close his companion screws up his game - lots of different stuff. I love the balance here, Doctor and Ace working towards being partners. New series seemed to take shortcuts, not show us the work.
The little leaflet blurb says "The Curse of Fenric bravely attempts to hint at a background to the Doctor that alters our conception of the character, and shows that maybe he is more than just a Time Lord..."
7th Doctor had a lot of those hints and layers. Fenric puts him up against primordial Evil, biggest stakes possible, and says this isn't the first time.
What I liked was that we didn't just get the hints of vastly more depth than we knew the details of, we got the development, the growth that happened because of all the things we saw. He got elected President of Gallifrey. More than once. 7 started acting like it, taking *huge* steps, making decisions that changed the shape of everything. But still the stories involved him wandering around writing himself letters of introduction or playing spoons. Huge implications to small actions.
Daleks call the Doctor "The Oncoming Storm". Seems to me he's more the storm butterfly, always changing, making little changes in a far off place and having the consequences hit like a hurricane.
In "The Curse of Fenric" the Doctor has this little speech about how the universe began.
"Time--the beginning of all beginnings. Two forces, only good and evil, then chaos. Time is born, matter, space. The universe cries out like a newborn. The forces shatter as the universe explodes outwards. Only echoes remain, and yet somehow--somehow, the evil force survives, an intelligence--pure evil."
Creation as chaos? Time and space born of chaos, or their birth being chaos.
I realise I'm probably meant to be listening to the whole 'evil' bit, but chaos is much more fun as a keyword.
The Doctor is an agent of chaos. He turns up, things change.
Fun.
story that pokes around in Ace's background, moves her on emotionally, depends on her emotional development for the ending, and yet also has grand cosmic trickster Doctor playing for the highest of stakes.
I love this story so very, very much.
What the Doctor has faith in? Starts naming his companions. And of course Ace has faith in the Doctor, but he has to break it for the plan to work. Everything I love about these two characters in one story.
And also, Ace distracting the guard. I always loved that bit, have it memorised since way back. Took me ages to figure out all the reasons it so captured my attention.
A lot of what I just said, focusing on the psychology of the companion especially, should apply to the new series, yet I really got fed up of that. I think its a question of balance. For every moment of Ace emotion we get, we get a moment of Ace action, something psychological from the Doctor, some trickster ploy of his, a plot on a really grand scheme, him playing his cards so close his companion screws up his game - lots of different stuff. I love the balance here, Doctor and Ace working towards being partners. New series seemed to take shortcuts, not show us the work.
The little leaflet blurb says "The Curse of Fenric bravely attempts to hint at a background to the Doctor that alters our conception of the character, and shows that maybe he is more than just a Time Lord..."
7th Doctor had a lot of those hints and layers. Fenric puts him up against primordial Evil, biggest stakes possible, and says this isn't the first time.
What I liked was that we didn't just get the hints of vastly more depth than we knew the details of, we got the development, the growth that happened because of all the things we saw. He got elected President of Gallifrey. More than once. 7 started acting like it, taking *huge* steps, making decisions that changed the shape of everything. But still the stories involved him wandering around writing himself letters of introduction or playing spoons. Huge implications to small actions.
Daleks call the Doctor "The Oncoming Storm". Seems to me he's more the storm butterfly, always changing, making little changes in a far off place and having the consequences hit like a hurricane.
In "The Curse of Fenric" the Doctor has this little speech about how the universe began.
"Time--the beginning of all beginnings. Two forces, only good and evil, then chaos. Time is born, matter, space. The universe cries out like a newborn. The forces shatter as the universe explodes outwards. Only echoes remain, and yet somehow--somehow, the evil force survives, an intelligence--pure evil."
Creation as chaos? Time and space born of chaos, or their birth being chaos.
I realise I'm probably meant to be listening to the whole 'evil' bit, but chaos is much more fun as a keyword.
The Doctor is an agent of chaos. He turns up, things change.
Fun.