I very quickly came up with a scenario which would require all four of them, an excuse for them to be together, and something sufficiently challenging. And that's when the trouble began.
My first instinct was "anyone but 5". I never want to let anyone pigeonhole me as a fan of just one doctor, and I'm paranoid. It would be such an obvious, easy choice; so I had a look at my options first:
I wanted it to be someone who recognised at least one Master, but also there were others he wouldn't recognise - ruling out 1, 2 and 10 instantly. I also felt 3 was an unlikely candidate - because I wanted this to be a space story, and he doesn't get much space time, and also because I feel he gets enough Master time in too. I couldn't use 9 without breaking time - he'd figure out He Was Not Alone two seasons too early. 8 would have worked, but companions were impossible.
By this stage, I was beginning to like the idea that not only would he fail to recognise SM, he'd be unnerved by the nonchronological appearance of DM. And I wouldn't dare write for 4.
Which narrows it down to three inevitable candidates. I feel I could write 7's dialogue, but not his character - I'm in rebellion against New-Adventures-Evil-7, making me particularly allergic to the idea. I can draw 6, but I couldn't catch his voice. And 5, who is striding quite merrily around my head as we speak, his lines, character and movement all perfect - in sufficient detail that I could never hope for the skill to draw it.
In terms of story, there wasn't much to determine either. The Master's plan depends on the Doctor being sufficiently distracted by a chain of nasty events on Earth to not notice his other selves quietly taking over a different corner of the galaxy. That ruled 7 out pretty quick - that guy really did have an eye for the big picture and disregard for collateral damage; I needed someone who would ignore the undercurrents in favour of rescuing cats from trees. Sounds like a pretty obvious case for 5 - but he couldn't talk down a Tereleptil; whereas throwing 6 in with four Masters at once would be hilarious fun to write, not to mention he'd be the most intimidating thing in the room.
Really, it came down to companions. Even though I still imagine the second half of the story functioning better with 6 in charge, I'm not fond enough of Peri or Mel to want to write them. I'd be too worried about letting them become "companion default", because I don't know them well enough to notice how they're different. And as someone who loves the character moments, it'd be rough to write an episode without them.
And then lots of lovely ideas started bubbling in my mind. Nyssa and Tegan - two of them, and it's a story that takes place in two different parts of the universe. As a scientist, Nyssa is also the perfect candidate to be at said part of the universe. And in particular, Nyssa gets to meet a pre-Tremas Master. Oh lovely, lovely ideas. What if the multi-Master time crash was the reason AM got saved in Planet of Fire, instead of the popular canon-wrangle with Five Doctors? AM wanting revenge for something the Doctor hasn't even done yet. Delicious.
It was pretty inevitable, wasn't it? Ignoring the 10th Doctor, there's no era I know better, so perhaps its for the best. I've already got the last scene sorted out - when the Doctor, inevitably, wins - and I'm still in mourning for 6 being put in the same situation, and doing the exact opposite action.
Plot wrangling over. Stage two: art and dialogue. I'm in pain. I can draw DM, SM and Tegan. However I'm floundering with RM and Nyssa, my AM's don't look dissimilar enough from his predecessor, and I don't know where to start with 5. Having boiled it down to three expressions - barely suppressed panic, inappropriate polite smiling and "Oh no! It's a cliffhanger!" - I find I can't do any of them. Its because the whole thing is too vivid in my mind - any other Doctor (again, sans 10, who's also causing trouble in his two-panel cameo), I wouldn't know any different, and thus wouldn't notice. If all else fails, I might start copying the perfect art from The Ten Doctors comic instead of trying to draw from life. Nyssa's even worse - I can draw something like her, but every time I give her an emotion it looks wrong. I figure that's because Ms Sutton's role on the show involved her doing little or no acting.
If all else fails, I could write it as a novel. But the idea is a drawing practice, and my writing is very rusty. In any case, I have some preparatory viewing drawn up:
- Claws of Axos - all the DM I have, so it'll have to do.
- King's Demons - my favourite of the AMs, and some of my favourite master-doctor dialogue too.
- TV Movie - because it's my only option. I can't decide how to pitch his character. Should he be charming, following Eric Roberts wonderful Sal in The Dark Knight? Or should we follow the rule that he should be the Doctor's mirror, and make him a vampyric figure? Or should he come out of the Eye of Harmony completely mad and mangled? DM, AM and SM already have charm, vengeance and lunacy covered, so there's really not much else for him to choose from. Apart from "campness".
- Mr Brightside music video - scraping the barrel for good ideas with Mr Roberts.
- Goth Opera - set at more or less the same time as mine, post Arc of I (his was post Snakedance). Also, to remind me how not to do it...
- Journey's End and Five Doctors - to remind me that if the timecrash is good enough, and the dialogue sufficiently fun, then the plot is irrelevant.
No comments:
Post a Comment