Leave me out of this!
I do not accept the Cartmel Masterplan
- Thread starter starsuperion
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Leave me out of this!
The "Great Vampires" in Doctor Who are massive creatures, colossal humanoids the size of mountains. The potential for inter-species romance is minimal.
Assuming you're referring not to my saying the Time Lords as better dead than alive (which is pure opinion), but are instead referring to my characterization of the story as fundamentally different if it's any villain other than the Time Lords:
No, not my opinion. Fact. The very fact that it's the Time Lords as the villains makes the story fundamentally different than any other story under any other villain. You cannot claim that a story about a man who has to repeat the choice to bring destruction to his homeworld on the eve of his foretold death is the same as a story about a man who has to defeat some other villain.
Now, The End of Time may have sucked. You may have wanted the Time Lords to play a larger part, or a different kind of part. The whole thing might have fallen apart for you. But that doesn't change the fact that having the Time Lords there makes it a fundamentally different type of story.
Jeezus Sci get off your soap box and unclench now and again, it will do you the world of good..
I'm sorry, did you have something relevant to say?
Jeezus Sci get off your soap box and unclench now and again, it will do you the world of good..
People age differently. Time has not been kind to poor Colin.
BTW, I too would like to see the Time Lords return. And properly this time - what RTD did in The End of Time was terrible imo. Bringing the Timelords back for all of 5 minutes and then locking them away again is criminal! And they were only used as if they were some alien of the week anyway, you could have substituted any made up alien race in their place and the story would work the same!
Erm, no, the story would not have worked the same. The End of Time was, in essence, about the Doctor being faced with the prospect of having to repeat the worst thing that ever happened to him, of coming full circle -- RTD's tenure on the show began with the loss of Gallifrey, and it would end with its repetition.
I see the reasoning behind the choice, but I think it could have been more focused in the execution and mindful of the historic nature the time lords represent to the storyline.. Rassilon was a great addition, but if we could have just gotten a bit more, it would have been smashing in my opinion.. a couple of shots of Gallifreyan war tardises in dock.. or how about some more scenes featuring the citadel..
or better yet the doctor's ancestral home..?? that was even more maddening..
just minor things to make the pot a bit sweeter is all..there was the touching scenes with the master, but none which really anchored the doctor to his homeworld, even with the cheap shots of what could have been the doctor's mother, it still left me feeling as if the choice to send his world back to hell was easier then it should have been..with no fond memories and or flashbacks of his life on Gallifrey, It seemed like it a contrived event.. shallow to the weight of the story..
I will give you that..
Now see here, this is where I greatly disagree with you..the last of the time lords, what a ridiculous and almost cliche' scenerio.. indeed! I think that the magic of the whole show in the classic series is that you had the time lords.. the wonder of their civilization, and the fact that the doctor could take us back there every now and again was a marvelous and intriguing part of the overall story..some of my most favourite episodes are those which involve the time lords!
think of the ratings and the reverence those classic episodes engender..
The WAr games (at the end)
The Invasion of Time
The Deadly Assassin
The five Doctors
Trial of a Time Lord
the Three Doctors
Etc.. etc..
for me, these episodes provided a wonderful glimpse into the society of pure technological wizardry and excited my imagination as a kid, and adult to this day..
to say that the time lords in doctor who are better dead then alive is preposterous.. when do we see more of them any longer? 5 minutes in the end of time? what a farce that was.. it should have been much much more.. I understand their importance to the overall run of the RTD era, but I think that Pike is right about one thing..
they are at tribute in such a minor way, that it really brings a sense of anger to my heart.. More, much more could have, and should have been done..
since we didn't get a proper amount of time with the time lords in the End of Time, and since they are left dead, and since they are now time locked forever, how do you suppose we will ever experience that fantastic feeling ever again, of revisiting the home world of the most fantastic civilization in sci fi, the time lords? with so much done today in CGI to not bring the time lord society back in some way or fashion is criminal in my opinion.. so much could be done, and so little has yet to be explored.. RTD may have had a great "last of the time lords" bit, but it has gotten old now..
I mean how many times are we going to explore the psychosis of the doctor's repeated "I am the last" diatribe??
time to move ahead, time to bring the Lords back..
He seems to have moved on, actually.
Nah.
The War Games barely even counts if they're only in it at the end
The Five Doctors is only popular because it has 3.5 Doctors in it, sod all to do with the inane and inept politicking of the Time Lords
Trial of a Time Lord surely isn't THAT popular by the time you deduct everyone who thought was a) too long b) too convoluted c) too nonsensical or d) Colin Baker was the worst Doctor ever
Deadly Assassin I'll give you, good story
The other two I haven't seen
I don't think bringing Time Lords and Time Lord society back into the show at this point will add anything to it. They're better off in limbo, leaving the Doctor's past and life a mystery, as it always was to begin with.
That said, Dalton was awesome.
I agree, the "Moff" Has certainly done well to stem the tide of repeated and overly emphasized "last of the time lords" story line... though, in the Pandorica Opens, it was a bit much with the whole arrogant ranting.. but I suppose it worked to seemingly scare off the other races hovering around Stonehenge..
I completely disagree..the War Games is a historic episode..
it is the first time we see the time lords, and it is the first time we see the Tardises in their default form, and a SIDRAT type of inferior Tardis, and it is the last time we see the 2nd doctor, and black and white in Doctor who, the time lords force the 2nd doctor into his 3rd persona.. In all due respect, you are just wrong on this episode.. it is sooo much more then just they are featured at the end.. the Warmaster, and the whole show was amazingly cool.. and to see some of the stills from the set online in colour really brings out the awesomeness of that one last episode..
Are you serious?? I again disagree..
this is the first time we see Rassilon's Resting place the tower of rassilon, and we get a sense of the Dark history surrounding the Doctor's race, time lords and their psychic powers, the Death Zone, the fact that Rassilon isn't dead merely in forced stasis, and that he alone has achieved perpetual regeneration..it shows off the President's chamber, and the use of the time scoop, which is featured in several novels.. a pivotal tool in some cases.
IMHO, There is nothing "sod" and political about that special.. it hits the mark on mystery and outright coolness for it's time..if done to today's production standards, the time lords would seem like gods of technology.. or at the least majestic..
I have to disagree,
this was the first time we saw the Valeyard, and the connection he has to the Matrix, and how the Matrix of the Time Lords can create a virtual world which seems real.. it is a magnificent piece just because it explains much about the Matrix, and gave us an evil version of the doctor, which could theoretically come back at some point..Not to mention explained Peri's death, and or rebirth and marriage, and gave us some interesting tidbits on the Master, it gave us an actually cool giant robot(for it's day) the Space Station of the Time Lords, Zenobia!! and soo much more..
The Deadly Assassin is a great story yes, and so too is the invasion of time, both of which center squarely on the time lords themselves.. the difference in the other three you disliked is that they are intermixed with other stories, and yet still give us much time lord involvement.. and when we see the time lords in those episodes, they do well to bring in some interestingly new tidbits on the doctor's role in their society.. the houses of the time lords, their beliefs, etc.. etc..
I agree that Dalton was awesome..
but I still think that the time lords being gone makes the series less epic..when the time lords were around, we had a sense of super powered beings and super powered stories, which in some cases the time lords were used as a measurement of the threat, I.E. the 3 Doctors.. if the time lords couldn't handle it, then it was pretty bad. Now it seems as if the Universe according to RTD is winding down to lesser species, "the 2nd Great age of Middle Earth is ending.. the time of man is upon us".. so to speak..
come on!!! the reduction of the time lords leaves one single solitary man who inexplicably takes on the entire universe, and whole civilizations?? please.. the time lords could time lock and isolate a planet.. as they have done before..they brought a lot of weight to a story, and now that they are gone it may put the doctor on the defensive and on the run, but honestly..
I think the fact the doctor could mention the time lords and their role in his travels was a great part of the series.. no more stories with the Rani surfacing, or the Matrix as a cool plot device.. no more involvement with the red planet, and we will never find out more about his homeworld..
the mystery of the doctor was only contrived because they didn't work that out in the beginning.. it wasn't until the end of the 2nd doctor's run that they got more involved with his back story, and actually under Pertwee's run we learned so much about his people the time lords, that it gave us much more insight into the doctor's life.. and revealed much about him..
the mystery of the doctor has been already revealed.. what is a mystery is we never know what he'll do next..to keep the time lords out of the series to provide some kind of "mystery" is redundant..we already know who he is in his past.. and those newer fans can always go back and find out..
I've never seen The War Games actually - I was going by what you said about the end. My mistake, clearly it counts.
Nothing you said about Trial will make me like it though. Getting through it was a trial in itself. Maybe there are some juicy bits in there about Time Lords and such, but based on that serial and The Five Doctors portrayal (a serial I otherwise enjoy) I simply do not find Time Lords and their society interesting and don't need them around to enjoy the Doctor's escapades. Many would applaud their return (I'm guessing you might
), I'd just be indifferent until won over by whatever the new series did with them. As, in all fairness, I probably would be.
The more important thing to bring back from The Five Doctors is the Raston Warrior Robot.
Nothing you said about Trial will make me like it though. Getting through it was a trial in itself. Maybe there are some juicy bits in there about Time Lords and such, but based on that serial and The Five Doctors portrayal (a serial I otherwise enjoy) I simply do not find Time Lords and their society interesting and don't need them around to enjoy the Doctor's escapades. Many would applaud their return (I'm guessing you might
), I'd just be indifferent until won over by whatever the new series did with them. As, in all fairness, I probably would be.The more important thing to bring back from The Five Doctors is the Raston Warrior Robot.
War Games is a ten-parter and the Time Lords are in at least the last 3 episodes, whilst the principal antagonist is our second non-Doctor Time Lord, the War Chief, the first being the Meddling Monk.
What about Susan?
she's a Gallifreyan isn't she?
Psst, she doesn't have a you-know .. she's a girl. A Time Lady, if you will, not a Time Lord.
I see the reasoning behind the choice, but I think it could have been more focused in the execution and mindful of the historic nature the time lords represent to the storyline.. Rassilon was a great addition, but if we could have just gotten a bit more, it would have been smashing in my opinion.. a couple of shots of Gallifreyan war tardises in dock.. or how about some more scenes featuring the citadel..
or better yet the doctor's ancestral home..?? that was even more maddening..
I completely disagree. Less is more. The less we see of the Time Lords, the more awe-inspiring they can be in our imaginations. Seeing more of them just makes them more known, more assessed, more comprehended. It can never match up to our imaginations.
Fair enough. I thought it seemed like an incredibly difficult thing for the Doctor and not something that was in any way easy for him, but your mileage may vary.
Actually, I'm not aware of all that many sci-fi TV shows who make their central character the last of his entire species. I think it's an interesting premise.
*shrugs* Your mileage will vary there, but I never found the Time Lord episodes of TOS all that interesting. Like I said above: The more we saw of them, the less awesome they seemed. The mystique was lost.
And, more to the point, for me, the mystique of the Doctor himself gets lost if the Time Lords are out there. If the Time Lords are back, then the Doctor is just a guy they let run around playing with the natives. He's just another alien with a ship. But if he's gone, and he's wandering time and space because he's the last one left and there's nothing to go back home to? That's interesting to me.
We won't. That's the point. We'll get glimpses every now and then, hints of memory -- the Gallifrey flashback in "The Sound of Drums," for instance. But I think that's the best way to create that sense of fantastic reverence you're referring to, because, like I said, I don't think any detailed, lengthy depiction of the Time Lords could possibly not be a disappointment.
That's what I mean when I say the Time Lords are more interesting dead than alive: They're more interesting as an abstraction, a dream, a memory, than a reality. Make them a reality and they become overly familiar, they lose their mystery, their mystique. They just become aliens with funny clothes and supercomputers.
Isn't that a bit like asking how many more times the Enterprise is going to go to warp, or how many more times we'll see crime in Law & Order? It's an implicit part of the premise of the revived Doctor Who that the Doctor is alone. It adds to the mystery of him -- who is this guy, who ran away from his homeworld and then was the last of his people to survive?
Bringing the Time Lords back would be moving backwards, not moving ahead.
It's not a story line. Story lines are things that are ongoing. That the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords is part of the premise of the revived program. In the same way that Kirk is the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise is part of the premise of Star Trek: The Original Series but not a story line, or that Buffy's status as a Vampire Slayer is the starting point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but not an ongoing story in and of itself, so the Doctor's status as the last of his people is not a story line. It's just an implicit part of the show -- that, and his travels through time and space, make up the basic premise of the revived series. It's the status quo from which all future story lines develop. It's the basic premise of the revived Doctor Who.
No, it hasn't been. And it never should be. Who is the Doctor, what did he do that forced him to run away? And what is his real name?
We don't know. And we never should know.
Killing the Time Lords helps keep some of the Doctor's mystery, too. And a single man who takes on the Universe is more interesting than advanced alien races doing it.
Romana has been called a Time Lord on several occasions.
