Spoilers World Enough and Time (Grade & Discussion Thread)

[Lonemagpie]

She'll have been too young to vote, but the guy's face will have been on TV almost constantly for weeks, if not months, before he was elected, and then a serving PM being killed off in the middle of assassinating the US president would be prtty big news that would make it into every school's Modern History class...

 

[Guy Gardener]

The 18 month lock I took to mean that he could only land within 9 months either side of 21st century earth where landed after leaving Utopia, or return to anywhere 100 trillion years upstream, and within 9 months either side of when he left.

Remember, that is why Lucy went insane, she was taken to the end of time to see a dark universe.

 

[starsuperion]

People would remember a Prime Minister who killed his cabinet, the US President and was then shot by his wife, I guess.

That would only apply to Bill.. the "humans" on the ship were Mondosians as the ship was.. only missy figured out that the ship and the people were from Mondas.. or did I miss something??

I couldn't hear well.. sick with the flu..

 

[Guy Gardener]

The character The Master was playing was called Mr Razor.

Mr Razor spent 9 hours a day with Bill for 15 years.

Bill might not've done that if it seemed like Razor was also an infamous psycho who almost started WWIII.

 

[TommyR01D]

She'll have been too young to vote, but the guy's face will have been on TV almost constantly for weeks, if not months, before he was elected, and then a serving PM being killed off in the middle of assassinating the US president would be prtty big news that would make it into every school's Modern History class...

Maybe instead of Class we could have had a miniseries detailing the political crisis that followed.

 

[Reverend]

Side note: thinking of the events of the Master's stint as Saxon made me wonder why the Tardis is putting up with Missy being around. The Master turned her into a paradox machine to he could slaughter the entire human race with it's decedents. You'd think she'd hold a grudge.
Hell, she wasn't above tormenting Clara just on general principle.

It's always pot-luck figuring out if something from a few series ago has still happened or if we're supposed to assume it has been overwritten (we didn't have a male monarch or £5 coins in the 1990s, for instance).

Oh I get that it's all wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey. I just have a vague memory of those events specifically being said to have been excised.
On the other hand, it may have just been Amy's memory of them since she also forgot about her parents...but didn't that require them to have also been physically erased? I forget how that was supposed to work.

Another element in this is that Saxon gives Macron a run for his money. He is said to only be on Earth for about eighteen months before The Sound of Drums and his premiership lasts barely a week before Lucy shoots him.

I suppose it comes down to how politically aware Potts it. She would have been slightly too young to vote when Saxon took office.

The Last of the Time Lords is four days from its tin anniversary.​

I was definitely too young to vote when Thatcher got out and Major was voted in (I was in primary school), but I was still aware of who they were because it was all over the news for months. Political awareness (of which I had bugger all) didn't enter into it. I also remember the wall coming down, Mandela being released, Gorbachev being ousted, President Bush Sr. and the briefings from General Schwarzkopf. Unless you grew up in some Luddite commune, it's damn near impossible not to be aware of certain events and people as you're growing up.

I think it's said that Bill was born in the early 90's, so logically she would have been a teenager around the time of those events. There's no way she didn't know who the Prime Minister was. Indeed, if anything being in office for such a short time would make him *more* memorable, since they generally last the best part of a decade.

Mr Razor spent 9 hours a day with Bill for 15 years.

I may have miscounted, but I think it worked out to more like 3-4 years by that clock they kept showing. Your point still stands of course.

 

[DarthPipes]

This is one of those times where I think the long memories of classic Who fans help...The Master (who is also missy) has also helped the Doctor almost as often as he has tried to kill him...and the reverse is also true....the Doctor has almost killed the Master several times. They are balanced...you can even argue the Doctor is as megalomaniacal as the Master...they both want the universe to run to their rules, they both cause deaths, the Master is just a bit different and blasé about it. The Doctor has literally ruled the earth in about half a dozen episodes lately, one of the Masters occasional habits. This recent episode draws attention to this....the Master is apparently to the cybermen as the Doctor is to the Daleks...there at the beginning, could possibly prevent their very being, and makes a choice not to intervene, for personal motivations. He just doesn't give a speech about it so we don't know why he makes that choice. For all we know, he just wants to help the Mondasians survive to thrive throughout the Galaxy, maybe they are his pet species as much as Terrans are the Doctors. We don't know. Both renegade Time Lords see themselves as above the rest of the universe, even above their own kind...it's all in how they act that changes things. This is something that is increasingly true in recent years. Maybe the Master is simply what the Doctor becomes without friends or, more pertinently, family (The Doctor has Susan at the beginning...we have never seen the Master with anyone, and the Master is only truly violently brutal after he becomes someone fighting for their very survival.)
I actually think the key Master figure is the Ainley Master, particularly his actions regarding Ravolox, his actions in Survival, and his quiet behaviour in The Five Doctors. Balanced between the Delgado Master and the modern incarnations tormented figures, (don't forget the self-sacrifice and the revelations around the post-hypnotic stuff in The End of Time.) it becomes apparent that the two characters are very much alike, and both very much a product of what has happened to them...including being screwed with by political forces on gallifrey.

I've seen all the episodes so I remember these things. The Master has been helpful several times, no doubt about it. But The Master has always proven in the end to be an unrepentant killer. The Doctor convinced authorities on Earth not to give The Master the death penalty after Unit captured him (during the Third Doctor years) and the Master constantly rewards that by killing more and more people, in some cases on a grand scale. He's never truly paid for his crimes and the Doctor seems to think he shouldn't.

 

[TommyR01D]

I was definitely too young to vote when Thatcher got out and Major was voted in (I was in primary school), but I was still aware of who they were because it was all over the news for months. Political awareness (of which I had bugger all) didn't enter into it. I also remember the wall coming down, Mandela being released, Gorbachev being ousted, President Bush Sr. and the briefings from General Schwarzkopf. Unless you grew up some things in some Luddite commune, it's damn near impossible not to be aware of certain events and people as you're growing up.

I think it's said that Bill was born in the early 90's, so logically she would have been a teenager around the time of those events. There's no way she didn't know who the Prime Minister was. Indeed, if anything being in office for such a short time would make him *more* memorable, since they generally last the best part of a decade.

My perception is tainted by experience of going around a college last month putting up posters reminding students to register to vote. I heard some discussing them as they went past and it became clear that a few were oblivious to the election even happening, and in particular one who took some prompting to remember that Cameron wasn't still in power.

 

[jaime]

It's always pot-luck figuring out if something from a few series ago has still happened or if we're supposed to assume it has been overwritten (we didn't have a male monarch or £5 coins in the 1990s, for instance).

Another element in this is that Saxon gives Macron a run for his money. He is said to only be on Earth for about eighteen months before The Sound of Drums and his premiership lasts barely a week before Lucy shoots him.

I suppose it comes down to how politically aware Potts it. She would have been slightly too young to vote when Saxon took office.

The Last of the Time Lords is four days from its tin anniversary.​

We did in fact have five pound coins. Big silver ones too. The king thing was covered by the very first eighth doctor novel.

 

[Lonemagpie]

We did in fact have five pound coins. Big silver ones too.

I still have one knocking around here somewhere, actually.

 

[jaime]

I've seen all the episodes so I remember these things. The Master has been helpful several times, no doubt about it. But The Master has always proven in the end to be an unrepentant killer. The Doctor convinced authorities on Earth not to give The Master the death penalty after Unit captured him (during the Third Doctor years) and the Master constantly rewards that by killing more and more people, in some cases on a grand scale. He's never truly paid for his crimes and the Doctor seems to think he shouldn't.

He was executed by the Daleks at least once...something killed him prior to the Deadly Assasin...and the Time Lords owed him a full pardon, if not a new regeneration cycle for going into the Death Zone on gallifrey...which now I think of it, has Rassilon basically save him from Time Lord Justice. I wonder why hmm? The Game of Rassilon indeed. The Master is like Jason Bourne, from a certain perspective, and we all know the Doctor has worked for the CIA...

 

[jaime]

I still have one knocking around here somewhere, actually.

Me too. Buggered if I can remember what it commemorated.

 

[DS9Continuing]

I've not been especially enjoying this season. It's all felt very middle of the road - no real highs, no real lows (although 'Knock Knock' certainly came closest), nothing I can really point to and say, "there, that's what's wrong". It's just all been... eh.

I always like pulling out the thematic elements and the hints and suggestions that have been part and parcel of the arc building for this show since 2005. I'm not talking about blatant in your face stuff like "OMG he said Saxon!" or "oooooooooh what's the crack?" or who's in the damn vault. I'm talking about the subtler, lower level stuff that can slip by you without noticing, but once you do, it all clicks into place and adds a whole other level of enjoyment. And there didn't seem to be any in this season. It disappointed me.

But I've been reading and listening to other people's reviews, and hearing them find stuff I didn't find, and it's starting to come together for me more now.

For the purposes of this season, it's been all about fighting against empire. The Doctor has always been all about the little guy, toppling regimes left right and centre. But that has been brought into focus more this season. Subverting dominion. Standing up to The Man.

First of all we have the most diverse and anti-establishment Tardis team we've ever had. An over-50 year old man as a central action hero. A black woman playing a gay character. A gay actor playing a robot. Even though the Doctor seems to be part of the Institution by working at the university, he never does what he is supposed to and mixes up poetry and quantum mechanics lectures however he likes. Bill is black, gay, has an unconventional family structure, and goes to lectures she isn't even supposed to. All of this is part of the theme.

In "Smile", the Doctor declares the Vardi as the native species of the colony planet, and that the humans are colonial invaders. In "Thin Ice", they overthrow the landed gentry and place street urchins in their place, meanwhile ending the 'slavery' of the Big Fish. In "Oxygen", they are literally fighting 'the suits', and the Doctor says that this one incident eventually results in the overthrow of oppressive capitalism as a social concept.

Then we get to the big three-parter, which frankly I think failed rather as an experiment. But it contains the same timely themes - a dominating force who nobody really wanted in charge, and who keep control by convincing the populace that a lie is the truth. Bill overthrows that regime not by telling the truth, but by telling a bigger lie. Some simultaneously subtle and brutal political commentary there, I think. "Empress of Mars" features the conquering arrogance of the British army, thinking they can rule the world by divine right. "The Eaters of Light" features the Roman army conquering the Scots by the same justification.

A secondary theme is 'origin stories' - to go with the 'new start' concept for this season, I suspect. We have the origin story of the Vardi as an independent civilisation. The origin story of the Loch Ness Monster. Background details suggest that the space station in "Oxygen" is a preliminary version of the Gus system from "Mummy on the Orient Express". "Empress of Mars" is an origin story for the Ice Warriors.

And of course, at the end, an origin story for the Cybermen - which takes place on another colony ship, featuring people on their way to take over another world. And all of Bill's uniqueness, her anti-establishment-ness, has been horrifyingly subsumed into utter conformity and facelessness by a newborn empire.

There is also a recurring motif of time dilation, but that doesn't seem to be quite as extensive.

So I'm hoping that this will all come together in the final episode - although I'm starting to suspect it may overflow into the Christmas special, which is both Capaldi and Moffat's swansong so I don't imagine it's going to be a fluffy throwaway.

And I'm also seeing themes that appear throughout the entire Capaldi era, not just this season. Matt Smith's era was all one big piece, where "The Time of the Doctor" looped back around to "The Eleventh Hour" and made it all one big circular story. The theme of the Doctor's approaching death appears throughout Smith's era, symbolised by the Crack which keeps chasing him around and is his greatest fear in "The God Complex". Likewise, I believe that in Capaldi's final stories, Moffat is looping back around to revisit the themes which he began the Capaldi era.

What was the Twelfth Doctor's first big question? It was "Am I a good man?" That question, still ongoing, has been paralleled with Missy. In season 8, her entire plan was to get the Doctor to be her friend again by bringing him down to her level - by giving him a companion who would push him further, by tempting him with an army with which to right the universe's wrongs, by pointing out how similar they are, even down to the accent.

In season 9 she did the same - emphasising 'the good within the evil, the evil within the good' in an attempt to erase the lines between the two. Even Davros asked him, "Did I do good, Doctor?"

And now, in season 10, we get the same question, but flipped. Now the Master is wondering, can she be a good 'man'? The Doctor is trying to get her to be his friend again, but by bringing her up to his level instead of sinking to hers. Missy and the Doctor have been paralleled all three seasons.

The producer's reuse of the "Day of the Doctor" image to promote this final two-parter is no coincidence or simple cost-saving exercise. It is part of the point. In "Day of the Doctor", the current Doctor faced his own dark past, the version of him who did terrible things, and grew to accept him. Now, the Master, on the verge of becoming good, is faced with her own dark past, a version of him who did terrible things. Will the Master sink again to the evil acts he once did (such as destroying Gallifrey), or will she try to bring the old him up to her level?

And I think that will also circle back around, hammer the point home thematically in Capaldi's final episode, by explaining his brief appearance in "Day of the Doctor" and tying it all back in together. At least I hope so.

.

 

[Solariabsg25]

He says he worked it out from his observations of the TARDIS team, noting that she took him the longest.

Thanks, for some bizarre reason I missed these lines until rewatched the episode.

Another part of the trailer features

Spoiler: Spoiler

The Master claiming that he would refuse to stand with The Doctor, but it appears that we're going to be treated to a classic Who Master story trope - he has a plan, it goes horribly wrong and he has to team up with The Doctor to save his own skin.

I agree with what a few have said, this version of Simm's master appears more stable than before, so the drums may have either stopped, or he's found a way to ignore/suppress it. I always regarded the drums as being slightly more subtle in the Delgado Master, but perhaps it became more pronounced with his constant attempts to extend his lifecycle. Certainly by Survival Ainley's version had lost the plot.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I always regarded the drums as being slightly more subtle in the Delgado Master, but perhaps it became more pronounced with his constant attempts to extend his lifecycle. Certainly by Survival Ainley's version had lost the plot.

The Delgado and Ainley versions wouldn't have had the drums when we saw them. They will have done, however, also, but not when we were watching... The drumming a closed loop variant of the Master's timeline, created and ended on the last day of the Time War.

So, basically, before the TV Movie, the Master never had the drumming. After the TV movie, the Master always had the drumming since he was a child. After the End Of Time he doesn't have it, but it remains to be seen whether he remembers having had it (whcuh, to fit correctly with how it was depicted in a temporal sense in End Of Time,, he shouldn't.)

 

[Reverend]

I always interpreted it as "the drums" got exponentially more intense the closer The Master came alone his own timeline to the point we see in 'End of Time'. So in his early lives he suffered the insanity making effects, but couldn't literally "hear" them.

The problem with the notion that the drums are a closed loop is that the plot point was supposed to explain what drove The Master insane and thus making him a victim (and distorted reflection) of Rassilon's own megalomania.
Without that, it implies that The Master was always going to be bonkers regardless and Rassilon didn't really affect anything after all.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Not very fond of the whole drum thing. But it is what it is.

 

[jaime]

The Delgado and Ainley versions wouldn't have had the drums when we saw them. They will have done, however, also, but not when we were watching... The drumming a closed loop variant of the Master's timeline, created and ended on the last day of the Time War.

So, basically, before the TV Movie, the Master never had the drumming. After the TV movie, the Master always had the drumming since he was a child. After the End Of Time he doesn't have it, but it remains to be seen whether he remembers having had it (whcuh, to fit correctly with how it was depicted in a temporal sense in End Of Time,, he shouldn't.)

I think it's a retcon, but one that makes plenty of sense...and I don't think it's a closed loop...it's just the drums got louder the closer he gets to their origin. Deafening till Rassilon opens the door.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I always interpreted it as "the drums" got exponentially more intense the closer The Master came alone his own timeline to the point we see in 'End of Time'. So in his early lives he suffered the insanity making effects, but couldn't literally "hear" them.

The problem with the notion that the drums are a closed loop is that the plot point was supposed to explain what drove The Master insane and thus making him a victim (and distorted reflection) of Rassilon's own megalomania.
Without that, it implies that The Master was always going to be bonkers regardless and Rassilon didn't really affect anything after all.

It was intedned that way in Series 3, but then retconned in End Of Time... And, of course, in the classic series the Master was evil, but not insane particularly, until the writing and direction for Ainley made that the only in-universe explanation for how daft his uses were getting...

 

[Reverend]

It was intedned that way in Series 3, but then retconned in End Of Time... And, of course, in the classic series the Master was evil, but not insane particularly, until the writing and direction for Ainley made that the only in-universe explanation for how daft his uses were getting...

Another way to phrase that would be that he got crazier the closer he got to 'End of Time', yes?

Honestly though, I have a very patchy knowledge of classic who so I'm not all that familiar with the Master's pre-McGann appearances. I think the only one I've even seen was Logopolis and I could barely follow what was going on. That said, my impression is that he's always been a megalomaniac of some type or another.