beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2025-06-03 08:44 am
beccaelizabeth) wrote2025-06-03 08:44 am
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Doctor Who: Mark of the Rani and three BFA adventures
This morning I watched Mark of the Rani while eating my soup. I watched it on the iplayer instead of getting my dvds down, on the vague theory that they might be counting how many people go 'hmmm, I wonder who that person in that episode was' and go to the iplayer for more, which might influence the general existence of future episodes. Don't know, but, figured it was the same thing so I might as well.
Only when it is on DVD I can play it faster. Playing it faster is preferred for older TV. For it is not fast.
I noticed especially with establishing shots. They spent like a minute looking at people covered in coal doing coal things. They weren't doing plot things or having lines yet, just walking around covered in coal. I think we'd get like six seconds of that in a newer show.
I've been listening to a lot of 6 in audios so I thiught I'd remember quite well what he's like, but I forgot quite how much he was like it back on the tele.
Also I found he moves around a lot more than my audio imaginary Doctor. I imagine them doing things that make the plot go, but actual live acting just has him moving around jumping down off things or looking at stuff in ways the audios wouldn't mention. My imagination has been leaving that out.
After watching the whole story I concluded that (a) that was a proper Doctor Who story (b) the one in my head was the Good Bits Version, even if the Good Bits were just it being faster, and somewhat augmented by owning the novelisation much longer than the recorded episode, and (c) I think some of the people complaining about Doctor Who in endless comment threads elseweb have only been watching the Good Bits Version in their heads for some time.
Not that Doctor Who is ever without flaw, but I think maybe some of them should try writing their good bits version and see what they come up with. Or try Yes And ing the show a bit.
... yes I know there is a place for critique but reading the comment threads all season I see people watching every episode to say the exact same thing and like, why? If they want to watch the old thing it is right there also.
ANYway
I also listened to three connected Big Finish Audios, The Helliax Rift, Hour of the Cybermen, and Warlock's Cross.
Three different Doctors meet the same man at three points in his life. It's also three UNIT adventures so you see assorted changes in UNIT across some years the TV didn't keep a close eye on them. Also going from a general UNIT attitude of 'oh it's him again, keep him out of the way' to 'who is the Doctor? find out later, too busy'. Interesting progression over not so many years.
Helliax Rift was a bit of a horror story but at rather more of a distance than a Torchwood story would have done. The Doctor and his borrowed UNIT doctor find a clinic that has been experimenting on aliens, specifically aliens who arrived in response to a distress signal. They have possibly hundreds of them in the basement before UNIT suspects a thing. And the ones running the clinic don't think they've done anything wrong. It's science! They're helping people!
Specifically, the one running the place is looking for a way to help her half alien son.
She met a shapeshifting alien who pretended to be her deceased husband, so there are *words* for that.
And then this half alien baby got born really inexpectedly quickly.
And he can't breathe well, so she has been hiding him and doing research.
But he called for help so his bio father has finally turned up again, and the action bit of the plot kicks off when they open the doors to leave.
UNIT respond with violence, ignoring the Doctor's insistence these are all victims, just labelling them hostiles for 'containment', which means killing them before they get outside.
The Doctor and the woman with the half alien child escape, following the alien who has arrived to rescue his son. And the Doctor offers them all a lift to a planet where the kid can actually breathe, so that ends nice.
But there's several layers of horror happening in that story, however gentle it ended for those three.
Going from 'here is an alien doctor' to 'so lets vivisect him', how many this happened to for how long, UNIT not noticing such a build up of awful, and the shape shifter stuff. Plus just the disability stuff, she has a kid with an unknown condition so she locks him in a cell.
Sometimes an adventure shaped adventure rolling through the middle of a story feels like it barely touches the sides on the way past.
Interesting stuff, but the Whoniverse has some *things* going on in England, and UNIT have some creepy edges pretty often.
Hour of the Cybermen is the most adventure shaped, but the connection to recurring characters from the first one is mostly sad. Turns out someone we met the first time had such a tragedy happen that he actively wants to be cyberconverted because upgrading will mean not feeling all the grief any more. And he thinks that will be better for everyone. So he's helping the cybermen.
That's just so sad though. How much do you have to hurt to try and cut it out of yourself? He wasn't like that one story ago, he could have been someone else, but nope, he makes these choices.
And it does not go the way he wants it to.
So the Doctor saves the day of course, but this one man is left unconscious in the long term, in UNIT's care.
Warlock's Cross seemed to me the strongest story of the three, because of how it used 7 and Klein and the idea of roads not taken and wanting so badly to change the past. There was a really good bit with 7 bringing Klein with him to stop him, because hehad been tempted into trying to change the ship crash that kicks the plot off, but with her there he has to remember how every stone cast makes ripples. I liked that bit a lot, the two of them talking and resolving some things.
The plot has a psychic crashed space ship using whispers in the back of the mind to try and tempt people into destroying the world, the only way the ship sees to free itself. And by the end it makes clear that by free it means kill. So you get this strong psychological stuff where people are hearing these whispers in their own voices and being pulled along to be who they usually are but more so, in the direction ship wants. So the UNIT guy nearly blows everything up trying to defend everyone, and the guy who last time tried to escape pain via cyber conversion gets tempted to just end it all for everyone.
They could have done some kind of uplifting ending where UNIT's attempts to treat him and the Doctor talking to him all led to him realising he doesn't want to die and so resisting the ship.
They did not.
He resists the ship because dead humans can't be converted.
If Ianto ever fixed the physical problems with Lisa, this is the precedent Earth had, someone where surgery had reversed his partial conversion, but he still wanted it so bad he'd betray everyone.
It doesn't map because he invited them in first, but it would be what Earth knew about cybermen.
There were other strands of story about a UNIT soldier who got lost years ago and has a lot of feelings about UNIT stopping looking, and about a campaigner who wants to prove humans and specifically UNIT have been covering up and mistreating aliens. He's actually interesting because he's like 90% right but he has been misled by, eventually, literally everyone else in this story, so he has the wrong end of the stick by just enough to sound like he's being weird. Like the story is set in the same location as the clinic that experimented on aliens, but now Klein says it is for people they don't know how to treat, like Krynoid exposure or partial cyberconversion. So like the whole place is UNIT's version of Flat Holm, but with more science noticeably going on. So as far as UNIT are concerned it's totally different than the old days because they are trying to help people.
And as far as the woman who originally built it was concerned it is totally different because she was trying to help someone.
So the juxtapositions make you think instead of just keeping you jogging along the plot.
I thought the third story was strongest but by keeping some of the characters and setting but jumping the timeline forward you got interesting angles.
Not ones that made me like UNIT more.
But interesting.
Good stories, liked them as a set.
Plan to listen them again when I am better at concentrating and not actively doing other stuff at the time.
Only when it is on DVD I can play it faster. Playing it faster is preferred for older TV. For it is not fast.
I noticed especially with establishing shots. They spent like a minute looking at people covered in coal doing coal things. They weren't doing plot things or having lines yet, just walking around covered in coal. I think we'd get like six seconds of that in a newer show.
I've been listening to a lot of 6 in audios so I thiught I'd remember quite well what he's like, but I forgot quite how much he was like it back on the tele.
Also I found he moves around a lot more than my audio imaginary Doctor. I imagine them doing things that make the plot go, but actual live acting just has him moving around jumping down off things or looking at stuff in ways the audios wouldn't mention. My imagination has been leaving that out.
After watching the whole story I concluded that (a) that was a proper Doctor Who story (b) the one in my head was the Good Bits Version, even if the Good Bits were just it being faster, and somewhat augmented by owning the novelisation much longer than the recorded episode, and (c) I think some of the people complaining about Doctor Who in endless comment threads elseweb have only been watching the Good Bits Version in their heads for some time.
Not that Doctor Who is ever without flaw, but I think maybe some of them should try writing their good bits version and see what they come up with. Or try Yes And ing the show a bit.
... yes I know there is a place for critique but reading the comment threads all season I see people watching every episode to say the exact same thing and like, why? If they want to watch the old thing it is right there also.
ANYway
I also listened to three connected Big Finish Audios, The Helliax Rift, Hour of the Cybermen, and Warlock's Cross.
Three different Doctors meet the same man at three points in his life. It's also three UNIT adventures so you see assorted changes in UNIT across some years the TV didn't keep a close eye on them. Also going from a general UNIT attitude of 'oh it's him again, keep him out of the way' to 'who is the Doctor? find out later, too busy'. Interesting progression over not so many years.
Helliax Rift was a bit of a horror story but at rather more of a distance than a Torchwood story would have done. The Doctor and his borrowed UNIT doctor find a clinic that has been experimenting on aliens, specifically aliens who arrived in response to a distress signal. They have possibly hundreds of them in the basement before UNIT suspects a thing. And the ones running the clinic don't think they've done anything wrong. It's science! They're helping people!
Specifically, the one running the place is looking for a way to help her half alien son.
She met a shapeshifting alien who pretended to be her deceased husband, so there are *words* for that.
And then this half alien baby got born really inexpectedly quickly.
And he can't breathe well, so she has been hiding him and doing research.
But he called for help so his bio father has finally turned up again, and the action bit of the plot kicks off when they open the doors to leave.
UNIT respond with violence, ignoring the Doctor's insistence these are all victims, just labelling them hostiles for 'containment', which means killing them before they get outside.
The Doctor and the woman with the half alien child escape, following the alien who has arrived to rescue his son. And the Doctor offers them all a lift to a planet where the kid can actually breathe, so that ends nice.
But there's several layers of horror happening in that story, however gentle it ended for those three.
Going from 'here is an alien doctor' to 'so lets vivisect him', how many this happened to for how long, UNIT not noticing such a build up of awful, and the shape shifter stuff. Plus just the disability stuff, she has a kid with an unknown condition so she locks him in a cell.
Sometimes an adventure shaped adventure rolling through the middle of a story feels like it barely touches the sides on the way past.
Interesting stuff, but the Whoniverse has some *things* going on in England, and UNIT have some creepy edges pretty often.
Hour of the Cybermen is the most adventure shaped, but the connection to recurring characters from the first one is mostly sad. Turns out someone we met the first time had such a tragedy happen that he actively wants to be cyberconverted because upgrading will mean not feeling all the grief any more. And he thinks that will be better for everyone. So he's helping the cybermen.
That's just so sad though. How much do you have to hurt to try and cut it out of yourself? He wasn't like that one story ago, he could have been someone else, but nope, he makes these choices.
And it does not go the way he wants it to.
So the Doctor saves the day of course, but this one man is left unconscious in the long term, in UNIT's care.
Warlock's Cross seemed to me the strongest story of the three, because of how it used 7 and Klein and the idea of roads not taken and wanting so badly to change the past. There was a really good bit with 7 bringing Klein with him to stop him, because hehad been tempted into trying to change the ship crash that kicks the plot off, but with her there he has to remember how every stone cast makes ripples. I liked that bit a lot, the two of them talking and resolving some things.
The plot has a psychic crashed space ship using whispers in the back of the mind to try and tempt people into destroying the world, the only way the ship sees to free itself. And by the end it makes clear that by free it means kill. So you get this strong psychological stuff where people are hearing these whispers in their own voices and being pulled along to be who they usually are but more so, in the direction ship wants. So the UNIT guy nearly blows everything up trying to defend everyone, and the guy who last time tried to escape pain via cyber conversion gets tempted to just end it all for everyone.
They could have done some kind of uplifting ending where UNIT's attempts to treat him and the Doctor talking to him all led to him realising he doesn't want to die and so resisting the ship.
They did not.
He resists the ship because dead humans can't be converted.
If Ianto ever fixed the physical problems with Lisa, this is the precedent Earth had, someone where surgery had reversed his partial conversion, but he still wanted it so bad he'd betray everyone.
It doesn't map because he invited them in first, but it would be what Earth knew about cybermen.
There were other strands of story about a UNIT soldier who got lost years ago and has a lot of feelings about UNIT stopping looking, and about a campaigner who wants to prove humans and specifically UNIT have been covering up and mistreating aliens. He's actually interesting because he's like 90% right but he has been misled by, eventually, literally everyone else in this story, so he has the wrong end of the stick by just enough to sound like he's being weird. Like the story is set in the same location as the clinic that experimented on aliens, but now Klein says it is for people they don't know how to treat, like Krynoid exposure or partial cyberconversion. So like the whole place is UNIT's version of Flat Holm, but with more science noticeably going on. So as far as UNIT are concerned it's totally different than the old days because they are trying to help people.
And as far as the woman who originally built it was concerned it is totally different because she was trying to help someone.
So the juxtapositions make you think instead of just keeping you jogging along the plot.
I thought the third story was strongest but by keeping some of the characters and setting but jumping the timeline forward you got interesting angles.
Not ones that made me like UNIT more.
But interesting.
Good stories, liked them as a set.
Plan to listen them again when I am better at concentrating and not actively doing other stuff at the time.