One Fateful Knight
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
No, it's very disappointing.
Well, several things. Firstly, it ignores or is ignorant of a lot of the stuff that's been developed around the concept of the Doctor as Merlin in Who stories over the years - the red-haired Afghan-coated Doctor from Marc Platt's novelization of Battlefield, who was subsequently developed as a character in several stories by Peter Anghelides. So that's disappointing to me on a fannish level. Storywise, it's just not very good. It does nothing really new or interesting with the concept. It's really a sort of "join the dots" piece rehashing the few facts that we learn in Battlefield, and wrapping them in a very trite and silly little plot. The author also seems not to realize that Arthur and Morgaine in Battlefield were from another dimension.
There are two fanfic stories about the Merlin Doctor I've enjoyed over the years:
You may even like them better than "One Fateful Knight."
- Erin Noteboom's "A Man at Intervals" (Illustrated PDF here)
- Rebecca J. Anderson's "Tasting Mozart"
You may even like them better than "One Fateful Knight."
I've always interpreted the Doctor's line in "The Christmas Invasion" to the effect that he's "not ginger" (and his disappointment at that) that he hasn't yet been the Merlin Doctor, so it's still a real possibility for him. As to whether or not they would show that on-screen, I don't know.
I've toyed with the idea, purely for personal fun, that Merlin shows us a fob-watched future Doctor, who's hiding out from something or someone. Others have had similar thoughts.
I've toyed with the idea, purely for personal fun, that Merlin shows us a fob-watched future Doctor, who's hiding out from something or someone. Others have had similar thoughts.
I've toyed with the idea, purely for personal fun, that Merlin shows us a fob-watched future Doctor, who's hiding out from something or someone. Others have had similar thoughts.
I assume in that story that Morgana is the Rani or Romana. Actually, Katie McGrath is on my list of who I'd like to see play Romana if they ever brought her back.
As for Merlin himself, hey, if they keep casting younger who is to say someone like Colin Morgan wouldn't be cast?
Alex
I've always interpreted the Doctor's line in "The Christmas Invasion" to the effect that he's "not ginger" (and his disappointment at that) that he hasn't yet been the Merlin Doctor, so it's still a real possibility for him. As to whether or not they would show that on-screen, I don't know.
I've toyed with the idea, purely for personal fun, that Merlin shows us a fob-watched future Doctor, who's hiding out from something or someone. Others have had similar thoughts.
Merlin Doctor is clearly from another dimension. There's no reason whatsoever that "our" Doctor will ever become the Merlin Doctor.
For a while, I've been itching to have another extended arc on the TV series similar to Jon Pertwee's extended exile on Earth working as UNIT's scientific advisor. Perhaps the next time he suffers a prolonged exile on Earth, it's during Arthurian times.
I've long thought that the mistake Philip Segal made in 1995 and 1996 was in not making Doctor Who Earth-based. The logical direction, coming out of the television movie, is the Doctor stays on Earth with Grace, and they get involved in X-Files or Fringe-type stuff. Segal could have had a very interesting, though not particularly Who-ish, series had the Doctor agreed to Grace's offer and stayed.
A few years ago Rob Shearman (Jubilee, Dalek) was working on a mini-series for Big Finish where the Doctor (I'm not sure which one, but probably the eighth) lives a century during the Italian Renaissance. I stopped following the ins and outs of Big Finish, so I don't know when or why it was scrapped. (Maybe in the Gary Russell to Nick Briggs changeover?)
In the novels, the eighth Doctor was exiled on Earth from the 1880s to 2001. He had destroyed Gallifrey, lost his mind, lost his TARDIS, and he was left on Earth by Compassion and Fitz to heal, with Fitz to meet him in a specific place in 2001. While there are individually some good and strong books in the "Earth Arc" (The Turing Test is magnificent, and I love Father Time), I've long felt that editor Justin Richards and his writers shied away from treating the century on Earth realistically, and that weakens the concept.
How is the Merlin regeneration "clearly" from another dimension? Morgaine's realm is a different dimension/universe/what-have-you, but that's no different than the TARDIS reaching E-Space or Pete's World, and doesn't preclude Merlin from being a future Doctor.
It was the sixth Doctor actually, but no reason was ever given for cancellation-- indeed, it was never publicly canceled, just never mentioned again. I think it actually disappeared a bit before Gary Russell moved on.
If this Merlin Doctor has to be from another dimension, it could be another story possibility for 10.5, somehow.
He would be from another dimension, and still be the Doctor.
Maybe that's what they were planning with 10.5 all along.
Preponderance of the evidence.
What evidence? The evidence of "Battlefield" is that Merlin is a future Doctor, not a sideways Doctor.
Yeah, no evidence. That's right. Except for that pesky, "all the Arthurian folks in Battlefield are from another dimension" bit of evidence, you're dead on.
There's nothing "pesky" about that; we'd seen the TARDIS visit alternate universes before, and we'd see the TARDIS visit alternate worlds after.
The piece of evidence that seals that Merlin is a future Doctor is that Merlin left a note for his younger self, telling him about the bomb, because Merlin had already lived through this adventure. A "sideways" Doctor would not have lived through this adventure and would not have left a note for his younger self.
You have to willfully ignore the episode itself to say it's an alternate universe Doctor that's Merlin.
^^^ Forgot about the note, but reading up on it again to refresh my memory, there's nothing to suggest that the Seventh Doctor was necessarily the intended recipient of the note. The only thing noteworthy is that it's written in the Doctor's handwriting. In fact, the idea that Merlin is future incarnation of "our" Doctor is only speculated by the Doctor.
Similar threads
- Poll
