Empress Of Mars (Grade & Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter StCoop
- Start date
A step up from the previous (faint praise), but nothing really special.
Fair to Middling.
Fair to Middling.
With this episode, Alpha Centauri/Ysanne Churchman takes the title for the longest period between first and last appearance of a character portrayed by the same person, at 16,569 days.
Counting the spinoffs, the Brigadier is second with 14,905 days, followed by Jo Grant (14,542), Sarah Jane (13,821) and K-9 (12,092, though admittedly, it's four different versions of K-9). Counting the minisode Time Crash, the Fifth Doctor/Peter Davison's span is 9,736 days.*
Not counting the spinoffs, the Brigadier's time is nearly halved, and Jo loses almost 10,000 days.
* the list isn't comprehensive, I just worked out some of the longest running characters I could think of.
Counting the spinoffs, the Brigadier is second with 14,905 days, followed by Jo Grant (14,542), Sarah Jane (13,821) and K-9 (12,092, though admittedly, it's four different versions of K-9). Counting the minisode Time Crash, the Fifth Doctor/Peter Davison's span is 9,736 days.*
Not counting the spinoffs, the Brigadier's time is nearly halved, and Jo loses almost 10,000 days.
* the list isn't comprehensive, I just worked out some of the longest running characters I could think of.
I voted pretty nippy.Well funnily enough Mark Gattis appeared in and wrote a remake of TFMITM for the BBC a few years ago.
I was thinking of that. If NASA were freaked out by the message in the sand imagine how they'd feel about the Union flag and associated detritus left from the Mars Probe 7 in Ambassadors of Death (not to mention Mars Probes 1 to 6)
.I know I'm pedantic but the opening shop was not accurate. It would be JPL in California that would track & control the probe, not the Kennedy Space Centre.
Regarding Missy's "redemption" - it's possible she might actually be genuine since the retcon is that the Master's insanity is down to the drumbeats put in his mind by the Time Lords as part of their gambit to escape the Time War. We don't know, but there's every chance that drumbeat no longer affects Missy since there's no more need for it. So she might slowly be recovering her sanity... she's been treating the Doctor more as a "friend" since her first appearance - wanting her playmate back in Death in Heaven, helping alert Clara to his peril and trying to rescue him from the Daleks in The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar.
That said, I fully expect something to knock her back into evil mode.
That said, I fully expect something to knock her back into evil mode.
Well, she is the Master after all, so it is a given that she will try to conquer the universe or something. But I think she does have that line about having a different definition of good. So a more nuanced approach might be interesting, whereby Missy is no longer over the top insane as you suggest but still has a radically different morality than the Doctor and thus still does things that he would deem to be evil. So Missy and the Doctor would still be rivals as they should be since he would want to stop her machinations.
there was some kind of old movie in Technicolor about something similar, they find martians under the crust on mars and they were green and ruled by a queen. Victorian era people..might have been a George pal flick...
In my mind, the outstanding question of the episode is, what was the malfunction in the TARDIS that made it necessary for Nardole to get Missy. Seems awfully convenient, if you ask me.
Ahhh.... the dreaded MacGuffin has arrived yet again!
That's the Nigel Kneale-scripted 1960s version of First Men in the Moon, which has a framing plot of an Apollo (correction, UN) lunar landing finding relics of the 1890s British one.there was some kind of old movie in Technicolor about something similar, they find martians under the crust on mars and they were green and ruled by a queen. Victorian era people..might have been a George pal flick...
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One thing I liked about the Rani was that she wasn't evil per se. She was amoral and just totally into her scientific studies. That seems like a more interesting motivation than just being evil. Perhaps they'll take Missy in that direction? Not evil but not giving an F about others in the pursuits of her interests. Of course, her interests would be on a large scale!
Of course, it's all probably a moot point because, with the changing of the guard, Chibnall could go in any direction he wants with probably a new Master.
It might not be a TARDIS malfunction. It could be the TARDIS seeking help for the Doctor from a Time Lord for whatever condition ails him. The TARDIS knew the whereabouts of Missy so went to pick her up. She was concerned about his health.
At least we're into the final quarter of the series now so it can't dominate too much time.
And one really cool thing about the episode was that it took me back to my youth where between playing Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons and Dragons and Traveller, we fitted in games of Space:1899.
Don't under estimate the Moff...he;s done it before.
OR... Missy got a hold of the TARDIS console's command prefix code.
She hijacked it on remote control and forced it back to Earth the first time someone was in there and the Doctor wasn't, locking its system so that ONLY she could 'fix' it.Take a look at that scene again with that idea in mind. Missy's expression as the Doctor first sees her: "Yeah. I could've busted out of the Vault and taken your ship any damn time I wanted. But surprise - I'm giving it back."
OR... Missy got a hold of the TARDIS console's command prefix code.
Except that in the latest episode "Eaters of light", she says that she is locked out of the command console and even the doors to get out. Of course. she could be lying which is very likely.
