The Day of the Moon

"No I think she's just dreaming..."

It still doesn't feel like my show, like something I am a part of. Instead, I am the salivating child pressed up against the sweetshop window, when before I was as good as employed there. Which is a shame, because this episode actually won at so many of my complaints. The moment between Doctor and Rory is, to me, one of the most memorable scenes from this era. We also learn "the Threat" are actually THE SILENCE - at long last! Now if only their names ahd bot been released until now. What a wonderful spineshivery, classic moment that'd be if you'd gone around with your fingers stuffed into your ears, and not checked the BBC website or read anything from the press.

But back to Rory. What is it about drippy males that makes so many fans angry? I'd speculate that the hatred of Mickey, Adric and Rory stem from the same source. We watch television for wish fufillment - we* are the Doctor; we don't like to be reminded that in life, we're actually a bit cowardly and rubbish and incompetant with females.

*working on the basis that your stereotypical Who fan is an incompetant male dwelling in mama's basis.

I've always had a soft spot for him - far more empathetic than Ms Pond - even while I despair of his dependancy on her. In discussions with my crowd, we feel the relationship is a realistic one - but it doesn't mean a small part of me doesn't want him to grow a spine. I admire his devotion, and despair of it at the same time. I can see what he sees in her to an extent - she's nice enough. She's not, however, 2000 years worth of nice. I liked this episode for acknowledging his character "flaws" as intentional character facets. Useless, but canonically so. His declaration that Amy can always hear him is really sweet, and pathetic, but still sweet in equal measure. Rory is hardcore! but still in a timid way. I like the momentary, chilling reference to the memory ghost recordings - one of my favourite all-time scenes - and this has a similar impact. We can hear Amy's distress, but there is no way of alleviating it. Very effective, very unpleasant.

Amy? Ouch. My heart just broke for him when Amy started calling for the Doctor. In fact, this was a poor Amy episode all round - what part of "record what you are seeing" did she interpret as "just scream cus none of what you're seeing's important"? Although I did admire her "just say no!" response to Silent interrogation, reminded me very much of the personal safety course I attended.

In general, I like the rather awkward interplay between the three of them. The Doctor's little look as he overhears Amy's message. Calling her on telling him about the baby first. Oh, Rory! I was particularly happy to see his Auton years tackled on screen - we'd all been wondering. Not just that they did it, or that the solution was so good, but that they did it so well

"No"
"Lying?"
"of course."

It's the thread I had been waiting for - this emotion runs all the way through. Has, perhaps, Moff taken my individual complaint on board due to my status as an inestimably important member of the Doctor Who fandom and world in general? Whatever it is, I hope it lasts - it restores what I felt was so badly missing last season. Long may it remain!

As predicted, part two changes tack entirely from the previous episode - instantly more expansive and, for me, less effective. I was entirely unenchanted at the time, but having mulled for a few days I'm feeling more positive. Nothing wrong with it. Why do I still have problems? I don't know. And the amount they cram in here requires a rather shoddy cliffhanger resolution, plus an elegant Rory-based exposition dump. I hope they will explain why they were all running from the Feds at the start, and that it's not just a gimmick to look cool. If there's a reason, I may forgive. If not? Oh look, the death counter is up yet again. Dramatic currency is extorted from
three dead companions - I'm not sure how far to push this, as they're not actually dead at any point - but then the same goes for the other "emotive" deaths they have survived. While we're Moffing, note again the critical role of a young child and the textbook "every time there has been a creak in your house, it's monsters FACT" speech. In fact, I'm sure he's used "corner of your eye" before in Eleventh Hour.

"As long as there's been something in the corner of your eye, or creaking in your house. or breathing under your bed, or voices through a wall, or Moffat as your script editor..."

My feelings on River were more mixed in this episode, but in general, my antipathy has dimmed. For every pithy bit of banter, there was her tottering around buildings in daft shoes and going into Slaughter God Mode. That spin is especially painful, and especially not what Doctor Who is about - although I did like the Doctor's comment that he kinda likes it and isn't sure why. It also makes me wonder if there is a Reason for her awesomeness. That shooting was inhumanly good. Is she an android? A construct? Some other form of superbeing? Would explain a lot.

Due to various personal crises, I am, against my will, involved in that romance dammit. I guess the Doctor Is Asexual camp is defended by that same troop of stereotypical fans without girlfriends. I've never really been a member, though I am nontheless a tad peeved about them putting romance in my show. This is more personal than partisan - I like the dynamic, I like the show going somewhere it hasn't before, and I'm interested to see how both couples - I think we can say "couple" now - pan out. I just like my Saturday night entertainment to be about temporal warp ellipse cutout, and compensatory sonics and spaceships, and impassive sci-fi gimmicks that only I understand so I feel superior when explaining them...

Indeed, my biggest problem with the plotline has always been how-too annoying River is. I'm a big fan of Patience (Cold Fusion) and that three-orgasm chapter in the middle; I also think there's strong basis for believing 3 genuinely loved Jo. But River - I never saw what the Doctor saw in her. I still don't entirely, but I am appreciating 11's dialogue touches which are beginning to give a reasonable motive. Smug. Vicious. Quite unlike the other most important relationships in the Doctor's life: Rose, Ace and Jo stand out as particularly strong to me, and all three are built on enthusiastic naivete. None of them are especially smart, but they have guts and bravery and initiative. That'd be my template for the Doctor's Ideal Girl. Still is, but now it's been articulated on screen I can accept the idea that he is attracted to her for all the wrong reasons - "I should object to that; kinda do a bit". Perhaps simply because Matt Smith is carrying it off with such charm! I'm still enjoying the banter.

No qualms with the kiss at all. I like 11's awkwardness, but also the way he seems touched too amid the confusion. My heart broke again for River when she realised it was the last time.

Still, it wasn't all gloom and doom. Dragging Nixon around was one of the funniest Who jokes I've seen in a while - very silly. My anthropologist sister liked River's "archeology - I love a good tomb". Canton's dazed-but-accepting "whatever a videophone is" was a fine moment also, and I liked Amy's "you're ugly" retort. River's building dive set my teeth on edge; but I instantly forgave at the swimming pool gag. Wonderful!


Onto the Serious Themes And Stuff. I loved their use of the Neil Armstrong footage - there's something strangely pleasing about this nod to his importance. So much of science fiction's fates are intertwined with science facts, and seeing the Doctor explain its significance to viewers who may never before have seen it was a valuable harken back to the educational days of old. There's probably also a valuable bit of evidence here for any would-be essay On The Power Of Watching Telly. But I'll leave that for another time.

At the same time, there's a growing Who streak which I Do Not Like at all. Its interactions and interventions in history seem increasingly anti-humanist. When Tom Baker interacted with Shakespeare and Leonardo in City of Death, it was just that - interaction. He wrote out Hamlet, but did not write it. The Doctor was Leo's chum, but Leo's genius was his own. Nowadays, the gimmick is upside-down. Charles Dickens doesn't invent The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Shakespeare's skill alone does not create his witches. Vincent needs Amy to draw his attention to sunflowers. The Doctor goes on about humanity's invention, but whenever we go back and see it all I see is copying. And City of Death is hardly innocent - Scaroth built the pyramids and invented all the science. Last week, I loved the Doctor's statement that humans went to the moon "because it was there". Great, positive humanist statement. Indomitable!

It was, I guess, setup. Because this week, the Doctor changes his theory - humans were influenced to go to the moon because the Silence wanted a space-suit. And in addition, most of human history has been invisibly created and controlled by hypnotists. Oh. Really? Oh.

(I'm aware I'm using the word "humanist" here in a bit of a fuzzy sense; nevertheless, the Doctor is a humanist in terms of non-religious compassion and morality, and celebration of human achievement and dignity. Wiki "humanism" and you'll see what I mean)

And while we're talking about human dignity, I remember a bit of worry about the Americanisation of these episodes/series/show as a whole - probably by rightly-paranoid veterans of 1996. Simultaneous broadcast in America? Filming in Utah? All in the first episode?

If that was you, then you were wrong. I loved how subversive the episode was. In other words, despite all that, there was no compromise within the script. Moff made jokes about gun-toting - I particularly loved "Welcome To America". And as we all rather suspected, Canton is dating a man; but it only occured to me this week that his expulsion from the FBI is a fairly direct parallel to the debates on Prop 8. The type of message pushing I'd judge somewhere between irritating and morally unconscionable - if not for my complete, gobsmacked commitment to equal marriage. If you are going to go out of your way to appeal to a specific audience - here, mainstream America - then why not shoehorn in a message? I was also surprised by the mention of race, but of course - I kept forgetting, it's 1969. Nice parallel, although I expect the wankier corners of the web are already on fire for the comparison.

On that note, the use of guns really stood out for me here - investigating depictions of screen violence is one of my nerdier hobbies, and I plan a longer article once I've rewatched the New Series. In The Writer's Tale, I remember reading that RTD put a GUN RULE in place: "this show will not feature humans shooting other humans with realistic guns". Great idea! The last thing that kids need, and especially on such a human-positive show as Who. It's interesting to see how it erodes even throughout his tenure:

• in Age of Steel, the Preachers have realistic guns but do not use them. I believe this is the context in which the GUN RULE is mentioned.
  
• In the Last of the Timelords trilogy, there are a LOT of guns - Jack is gunned down; the Master's cronies shatter the back of their escaping car. I rather admired it in context - that trilogy is a cut above in the gritty-nasty standards and earns them by not being too gratuitous or glorifying.
• The next notable use is The Doctor's Daughter, in which Jenny is shot by a familiar pistol and the Doctor then picks it up and threatens another humanoid. Part of me thought "steady on!" even while watching, although that was mostly my incredulity at the dialogue.
• And then again, during The End of Time, the Doctor is armed with a pistol. This was another case in which context was clear and justified: we had a sense of the very high stakes. The Doctor moralises to Wilf on how weapons are not the answer, and ultimately chooses not to fire at anyone. He picks up that gun for that little word, that one exception - and by this point we were all invested in quite how important that word was.

Day of the Moon and it's friend are completely guntastic. The serial gunning down of companions is, I belive, the darkest use of guns within the New Series - there is no high-stake justification, it's characters we know and love, and we see it happen.

Even if the Silence are merely humanoid, I was also a little concerned at the implication they were about to be gunned down en masse. If the Doctor is so bothered by the Silence brainwashing humanity, why is it OK for him to condition them all to kill? Is this just the natural extention of Davros' claim that he turns people into weapons? A fabulously cheeky thread on GB asks how many Silence you think you've killed in your lifetime. Other people soften the blow by theorising the Doctor's plan merely makes Earth uninhabitable for the Silence, and it's a gamble to force them to leave. Still...the act of hypnotism is still there.

I also didn't like what River did next. It was gratuitous and ugly. You can't host an on-screen massacre without some sort of acknowledgement that that is what it is. A good comparison would be Warriors of the Deep - when people get killed, it's horrible and there are voices which say "this is horrible". No one comments on River's bloodbath - it's presented as a morally neutral image, and one that is repeatedly turned into a joke throughout the scene. Death isn't funny. Neither is killing your enemies. And neither of those are Who. Why couldn't they have run straight back into the TARDIS, not traded sexual repartee over the corpses? The scene is cooly directed, complete with wisecracks and badass spinning. Additionally, I felt considerable sympathy for the dying Silent. I don't mean this in a Mary Whitehouse sense - what children Should and Shouldn't be seeing is a matter for psychologists, never amateur commentators. But it is interesting.

But let's talk about that. This is one of my favourites, possibly my very favourite episode for the Eleventh Doctor himself. The first sense I've got of him truly distinguishing himself and demonstrating The Kind Of Man He Is. I suppose he has the evidence from Vampires in Venice that Silence are up to no good. Still. Engineering genocide on a global scale. He's done worse and he will again, but note how he does it - no angst a la Dix, none of 7's quiet remorse, no "Time's Policeman" entitlement or God-moding. He just does it. Even Six threw a wibbly after misjudging Lytton. The episode does not acknowledge consequences or guilt: this is a Doctor with a very tidy mind and nerves of steel. I kinda like that.

And look at his I'm-So-Clever-Speech-Confrontation-Scene. No "just go now!", no "Shadow Proclamation", no "let's talk about this over tea and muffins" or "I'm smart enough to talk you out of this!". Instead, he rules out forgiveness because "it's not Christmas", and offers up the show's most sardonic "sorry". Go give the Tennant a spin. Any episode, any season - it is made out of sorry. Look at that earnestness, the way that even if he'll do his best to forget the pain, in that one moment he means it. Now back to Smith. Now back to Tennant. Now back to Smith - the Doctor your Doctor should defeat evil like.

Outstanding. Weird. One To Watch. I love all the Doctors in their own way, both the woobies and wisecrackers. And in one of my hearts, I'm a committed Sixgirl - someone has to be - with a real soft spot for his practicality and flair. But unlike Six, who is merely well organised, it looks like Eleven has Bastard!Mode too.

"Let's rescue Amy!"
"Then what?"

I'm sorry, repeat? You can hear your companion crying, right? This is definitely new, and a clear difference to Six who turned into a steamroller the moment Peri was the least bit imperilled. Seven could be insentisive, but he never put Ace second quite so explicitly. I'm definitely interested in this wholly new development. In other news, I'm rather fond of his suddenly improved piloting skills - and rather loved the beard. But there's something...wrong...with his hair - a bit too well trimmed and not half bonkers enough in this episode.

Everything else.

I adored the orphanage - very hokey, but in a fun sort of way. It reminded me of the Little Sister's realm in Bioshock: the trapped girl, the run-down nursery, the mechanical suit. I also liked the American Gothic keeper - his dozy performance, that wonderful lazy accent and shabby clothes.
I think without him, the set would have rankled more - instead, he contributed marvellously to the atmosphere. Although I'm also not sure why they go back to the warehouse to examine the spaceman. I'd like to tidy up some canon here, but frankly, the TARDIS is a far more sensible choice and I'm fairly sure they simply didn't have the sets. I also loved the technology - the palmblips were simple but cool, while the talleys were a very effective lo-fi equivalent.

The music got mixed feelings from me. The odd motif, like the snazzy zinging over the White House, was really exciting. On the other hand, I am feeling Eleventh Doctor Theme fatigue. Yes, it's exciting. Yes, it's probably one of the three best pieces of Who-music ever created (The other two are "This Is Gallifrey" and the theme tune). Yes, it can generate a teraquadrupletonne of
anticipation-energy without even trying. But a piece of music that strong needs to be savoured, held back to make its useage all the more important. Rather like Casino Royale bravely ignoring the Bond theme until right at the very, very end; or the A-Team movie using that wonderful iconic tag oh-so sparingly. The last two episodes, I've really noticed it in the background, used in a rather tired and lazy fashion. No. When you use that music, it had better be the most important thing in the scene. Not just something zippy to smother with exposition.

The ending? Was marked by my housemates asking me why my empassioned swearing had just ricoched around our flat. Still not sure whether it was surprise or rage. I'm intrigued. There's a strong, partisan part of my brain going Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong, but if I can shut that up for long enough I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this plotline. All the same. Gallifrey is special, and I forsee epic anger if its resolution does not meet my exacting standards..

Just as I was beginning to wonder, the NEXT TIME confirmed that it's going to be a bit more episodic now. As much as I love the idea of proper overarching plots ("Torchwood" meme? Please...), I do feel it takes a little away from the show too. It's definitely something worth trying, but I'd hate this to become the pattern - it reduces its accessability, especially given quite how smart the current arc is.

And this one left a lot unanswered. Why does the Silence want Amy to tell the Doctor about his death? Why were the Feds chasing the companions? Why is the Doctor in the "perfect prison" (and wasn't that the Pandorica?) I am excited to learn what the little girl is needed for and, of course, who shot the Doctor. And don't get me started on last season - we still don't know who organised the Pandorica Party in the first place. Additionally, my writer's nouce says that they'd be fools if the Doctor didn't figure out his future death of his own accord - perhaps several episodes before he admits it. The drama of it is irresisteable, and I absolutely cannot wait.

But it was well constructed in that this episode - Day of the Moon - was sufficiently involving tha
t these things didn't matter during viewing. I cross my fingers for a tidy resolution, but my contempt for the Big Bang tangle left me too raw to blog, and not wholly optimistic.

However, my favourite moment by far occured during Amy's orphanage ramble. It was so unexpected that I was too distracted to write it in my notes, and forgot it entirely until rewatching today. How apt. Unless this was the mysterious "oooh unexpected. WOW" I'd scrawled. Something which sticks out so much you just don't see it. It was so inexplicable, so out of context, and so very exciting. A window opens where there is no window, a strange woman in white says "no I think she's just dreaming". Woman and window disappear. No idea at all what is going on there. And I can't wait for that either!

Other Points

• The world's worst continuity error? When Amy is being chased at the beginning, the long shot reveals that is clearly a slope, not a cliff. I don't normally notice these things - I prefer to simply believe - so if I am picking up, then it must be glaring.
• Creepy as it is, I don't see the point of charcoaling tallies on your face. Logistics if nothing else.
  
• Did you all notice this like following on from last week: "You have to trust me and no one else" says Eleven to Nixon. Trust!
  
• My notes also read that someone says "Never going to forget you". I wonder who? If I did remember, then this would surely be another significant use of memory to pick up on.
  
• UM. RECURSION. Shouldn't Eleven's TARDIS landing inside the "very aikman road" TARDIS cause bizzarity and surreal?
  
• Did Scaroth the Jaggeroth know of the Silence? Wouldn't their agendas have clashed rather?
• If you remember my demoralised reviewlets last season, my one big Lodger flaw was the Doctor's procrastination. It irked me beyond belief that he was mucking around in a call centre, and not simply going upstairs to save lives. Considering the Silence's powers, maybe the Doctor periodically forgot it was there? It's an otherwise good episode, so I'd be happy to rehabilitate it in this manner.
• If the Silence truly have been there since the dawn of civilisation then is it reasonable for the Doctor to say this is "incorrect" and unleash freedom on the human race? I mean, natural for humanity is evidently being watched and manipulated. It's all they've ever known. There is no pastoral state for them to return to.
  

Notable Lines
"Tape everything that happens in this office" - good advice, but the irony of it has only just struck me...

"Safe? No of course you're not safe. There's a billion other things out there just waiting to burn your whole world. But if you want to pretend you're safe just so you can sleep at night, ok, you're safe. But you're not really."

"Today the battle begins" - really? Battles aren't your style...aren't they?

"I believe the word you're looking for right now is... Oops! Run... Guys, I mean us - run!"

"What's the point in two hearts if you can't be a bit forgiving now and then? All right, you got me, I'm lying. I'm not going to let you go so easily; nice notion but it's not Christmas."

"This isn't an alien invasion, they live here. This is... their empire. This is kicking the Romans out of Rome!"
"Rome fell"
"I know, I was there"
"So was I"

Speculation

I am not interested in discussing this in any detail, because I'm just tossing around ideas. The moment theories get indepth, you're storywriting and setting yourself up for a fall when yours is better. Like my extreme disappointment when last year's megatheory went to pot. However:
Notes that I don't understand now but may in the future

• One idea I did have viz the mysterious FBI chase was hypnotism. If the Silence are hypnotising people, and they know the Doctor is a threat, then that may just explain it. I'm hoping for this to be addressed in canon really though.
  
• Has Amy been hypnotised? In particular, the direction of the almost-creepy scene when she is trapped in the bedroom suggests this is a possibility. Why else do they let her leave, and with such a strange expression?
• Please tell me that child isn't Amy's. I had an inkling of it last week, when the pregnancy bombshell and the spaceman's appearance coincided; and now it looks rather sure with the appearance of that baby photo. Hrm. Sounds a bit awful, but I'll wait to see how this pans out.
• I am not so happy with the implication that this may somehow be the child of the Doctor and Amy. Chatup lines like "Let's tangle our artron energy streams!" are why we fans can't get girlfriends...This would indeed be an awfully cringy turn of events.
• That said, I'm not going to totally rule it out as feasible, due to one most unusual Short Trip in Life Sciences. Don't laugh, but "The Reproductive Cycle" features the TARDIS and Kamelion having a child together, which is then raised by Six and Peri in a ghastly mockery of domesticity. It's also superlatively wonderful, I mean really just a slice of fried genius. And not what you'd expect from a story in which the central cast wind up married and the TARDIS get laid. So. Teaspoon and an open mind.
  

Notes that confused me but I may one day understand
Of course.
Click!
"But you're not really"
guns in TARDIS
Jump! cool.

THE ULTIMATE DW THEORY

Friend 4 and developed this, quite by accident, in a very frenetic 15 minutes. As a canon Nazi, I'm not usually prone to developing new swathes of mythology all on my own, but this strikes me as justifiable on three counts:

a) Doctor Who is a huge beast, worked on for 45 years by thousands of people. Every actor, writer and director had their own things which they gave to the series. Inventing your own part is, then, quite a different affair to screwing around with Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, each of which had One Creator and one unified vision. Hell, nowadays the show is being run by the fanboys - you can look in back issues of Doctor Who Magazine to find fan-rants written by RTD, the Moff and the rest. Therefore, my contribution is no less valid than anyone else's. It wouldn't be the first time I've remoulded canon in my own image. I have not one but two of my own superior Valeyard origin theories, as well as a grisly theory about the fates of ex-companions and a private version of what happened to Turlough on Trion. Also, in my canon Caves of Androzani goes by its original name, Chain Reaction.

b) the area I'm covering has been deliberately not touched on - it's practically an invitation. It has only ever been explored in audios/novels (in Master and The Dark Path, and also in Lungbarrow and the rest), and therefore of questionable canonicity anyway.

c) And it's always been crappy. This makes far more sense.

The super-mega theory about why the Doctor and Master stopped being friends, and why the Doctor got exiled, and also why he won't tell anyone his name. And some other stuff.

Key: things in red and bold are canonical facts, accompanied by where they come from. Things in green are reasonable extrapolations based on facts, accompanied by square brackets and italics explaining things. Everything else is me, and statements not at all backed up by anything in the show are in blue. Colour scheme completely accidental, but a nice coincidence nontheless.

So it started from me asking how someone as fundamentally evil as the Master and as good as the Doctor could ever have seen eye to eye. It's well established that they used to be friends at the Academy, and it's clear from every on screen encounter that they get on really well when they are not facing their ideological differences [every time Delgado'n'Pertwee team up; also how pally the Doctor is with the Portreve (Castrovalva) and Yana (Utopia) when he doesn't realise their identity]. The chemistry is so there, but they can't help but argue when it comes to ethics.

However, when we first meet the Doctor he is not good or heroic, at least not how we expect. He kidnaps his first companions against their will, lies to them, and even attempts murder to get out of a tight spot. It's through contact with the humans Ian and Barbera that he learns the value of compassion and valiance, and with each successive companion he becomes more and more like the figure we recognise. Even the Third Doctor still has to be talked into heroics by UNIT - he'd much rather be back on a cosmic joyride. You don't really see the Doctor landing and attempting to help until the Fifth - it's not until his Sixth regeneration that he starts actively looking for trouble and thinking of himself as a Doer-Of-Good.

So we can suppose that the Doctor of Gallifrey was even less well behaved, at least in human terms. In other words, he was thinking like a Timelord - superior to everyone, not caring about lesser species [reasonable guess based on the first few episodes, and every Timelord we've ever met]. Yet there was one fundemental difference - he was not content to sit and just watch the universe go past. He wants to travel and he wants to get involved. [obvious, really, from his later behavior] Not necessarily "involved" as how you'd imagine the Doctor to get involved nowadays - saving people, hunting things - but still, he was thinking BIG. Every non-renegade Timelord we've ever seen has been completely tedious and law-abiding, so you can imagine how a rebellious Doctor would bond with the only other person in his class [probably] who also had big ideas. Loneliness does strange things to people ("Such a lonely little boy...", Girl in the Fireplace), so the Doctor's enthusiasm at meeting a fellow mind would naturally lead him to overlook the Master's flaws. The pair become completely wrapped up in one another* - they neglect their studies [numerous references to the Doctor failing his exams - Deadly Assassin and Ribos Operation are two], but have some very big plans of their own.

[*you've met people like that, right? Also, see later episodes - the Doctor and Master seem to care about only each other when they meet, and seem to regard one another on another plane of existance. Nothing else seems to matter. See: every time the Master abandons his meticulous plan, and instead chooses to reveal his identity so he can gloat, particularly Kings Demons. See the Doctor's refusal to bring the Master to justice, even when he should know better - letting him escape in Deadly Assassin despite an attempt to detonate a black hole at the heart of Gallifrey; letting him live in Castrovalva despite the fact he murdered Tegan's aunt, destroyed Nyssa's home planet and pinched her dead father's corpse, tortured Adric for a few days and accidently blew up a third of the universe. Do I really need to defend the statement that they have an unhealthy obsession with one another?]

Now comes the theorising. Together, they did something they secretly knew to be wrong, but were arrogant enough to assume the results would justify it. It starts small, but then it goes too far - and even though their aims seemed the same with the blindness of enthusiasm, when put to the test it turns out the Master's core motivation (power!) and the Doctor's (more hard to define at this point of his life) are quite different. They start to disagree about the basic nature of what they are doing, it gets completely out of hand, and then the Timelords catch up with them.

I hope that doesn't seem too much of a jump of logic. To my mind, it makes sense that their mutual desire for something would get larger and larger, especially because no one else would be invited to join their little friendship [see: obsession in every other Master episode ever]. Also that they wouldn't be content with merely theorising [later episodes; this is what sets them apart from other Timelords - action, change, actually putting things in motion], and they wouldn't be too worried about the consequences [later episodes]. Finally, this is when my question - "how someone as fundamentally evil as the Master and as good as the Doctor could ever have seen eye to eye" - gets answered. It is not until now they have realised that their basic aims are different.

Of course, the problem is of defining exactly what they were up to. At that point, the theory turns into pure invention. Both want to travel, to make change and to think outside the small-mindedness of the Timelords - I'll leave it at that. For non-fans, I want to make it absolutely clear - this "event" is never referred to on screen, on audio or in the books, there is no canonical substantiation for it except that it seems to make a lot of sense. So we have to ask ourselves what do the Timelords percieve as crime. The answer is interferance, along with non-conformity. It is clear, from Deadly Assassin and Trial of a Timelord, that the Timelords pretty much regard the Doctor and Master as as bad as one another. Neither want to stay on Gallifrey, both want to go out and change things. The distinction between one's "good" and the other's "evil" would be quite lost on them.

What happens is something like this: the Master is caught, and the Doctor isn't. Or possibly (but less likely IMO) the Doctor decides things have gone too far and hands the Master in, or even both get caught but the Doctor escapes. Infinite permutations of this exist - I like the first one best - but all are equally theoretical.

For this crime, both are stripped of their names.

[this is pure fabrication on my part, but seems to make sense. The Timelords are obviously into their ritual, and the Doctor obviously has a hangup about his. It is my belief that when a serious crime is comitted a Timelord no longer has any right to his name. Evidence? The renegade Timelords we meet are: the Doctor, the Master, the Rani, the Meddling Monk - also, if you accept them as Timelords, the Celestial Toymaker, the War Chief and the Valeyard. No exceptions, unless you count Omega - and he isn't strictly a renegade, merely a villain who happens to be Timelord. Also Morbius, but again that's complicated, and Drax - but I haven't seen his episode, so I can't come up with a smart answer. But everyone we meet on Gallifrey has a name - Borusa, Maxil, Flavia, Andred and so on. There are exceptions - the Inquisitor is one, so is the Castellan and Lord President - but those are all ceremonial Gallifreyan titles, so maybe there's a custom whereby you can surrender your name (therfore also your dynastic responsibilities) for the greater cause of Gallifrey itself.], and hence must choose new ones.

The Master is put on trial - the Doctor is not [in the interests of telling a good story, evidence for this follows]. But obviously, peeved about being abandoned, and also prone to panic as we see in later episodes, the Master has no qualms about revealing the Doctor's part in it. The gravity of what they have done not only endangers them, but also their families [reasonable guess - the Timelords are evidently very dynastic, and the the Doctor's family is all dead. We are presumably meant to think they are Time War references, but this works just as well] Instead of standing by his buddy and admitting to his part, the Doctor uses his freedom to rescue his family. Possibly arriving to find them all dead, possibly they have merely vanished and been imprisoned/exiled [based on half-garbled memories of Cold Fusion. Death seems violent and sudden for the Timelords - maybe imprisonment makes more sense, because pre-Doctor would not necessarily want to take the huge risk of a prison break. Perhaps the best answer is he simply cannot find them, and doesn't have time to risk Susan's life to save them all. Something tragic definitely has happened, even before the Time War - in Tomb of the Cybermen, he claims his grief about them "sleeps in his head" -but in Curse of Fenric he claims he doesn't know whether or not he has a family, suggesting maybe he never found out where they got to.]

In any case, he does find his granddaughter Susan [no time here to discuss whether she's actually his grandchild - I hate the Cartmel Masterplan, I don't know why collective Fandom has such a hernia about "the Menoptra and Vespiforms" and I don't know why it's necessary to invent a huge mythos about pre-Doctors, the Other and parallel timelines to explain away a simple fact like the Doctor having screwed someone once. While I like the idea that "Grandfather" could be a Gallifreyan term of respect, she is so obviously his that this whole argument is rendered null. Too cute to be anything but.] and the pair of them hastily escape in a stolen TARDIS. When we first meet Susan and the Doctor, they are definitely in danger and on the run. The way to make someone behave like a criminal is to treat him like one. The idea that Susan might be in danger also explains why he kidnaps Ian and Barbera - their knowledge might prove an anomaly which would alert the Timelords.

The Doctor is eventualy put on trial in The War Games - proof that he wasn't put on trial first time around, and evidence that only the Master was caught for whatever-it-was. His punishment is one forced regeneration - we can also presume that's what the Master got. As we have no idea what regeneration Delgado!Master is actually on, he could have recieved an even more severe penalty ["I have wasted all my lives on you!" - TV Movie], given that by the time the Second Doctor was put on trial he had saved the universe once or twice and maybe had some mitigating arguments. I haven't actually seen The War Games, which naturally hampers the argument, but I can't handle more than one regeneration in a year.

Here ends the theory: from now on, I'm merely justifying using Master episodes. The following is more spoilerific, if anyone actually cares, but not so much it'll spoil anyone's fun.


This non-canonical event is reflected in all the subsiquent meetings between the Master and the Doctor. In his first appearance in Terror of the Autons, the Timelords warn the Doctor that the Master is on the way - ergo their history is known, and the Timelords are keeping tabs on both of them. The Master's first action is to attempt to kill the Doctor, ergo he's still cross about something. But when he's not crazy with vengeance, the Master is really keen to team up with the Doctor. It happens automatically - even in Terror of the Autons, it takes only five words for the Master to have a complete change of heart, and for both to efficiently solve the problem and save the world. Ditto in Sea Devils, in Claws of Axos. Not only does the Master want him to help, he actually expects him to. On several occasions, he genuinely believes the Doctor is going to leave with him. It suggests they did once have a very healthy working relationship, and the Master expects that to still be there - not understanding that in the interim, the Doctor has become a Good Guy. It also explains why the Master has such LOLage at the Doctor's pretensions to goodness, because the Doctor he knew was far more flexible in the morality department.

[I'm no longer a fan of my Doctor/Master alien-concept-of-marriage theory, but those who like the idea may want to fner over Terror of the Autons working title: The Spray of Death.]

Similarly, the Doctor seems to feel he owes the Master something. It's more than the Doctor's regular refusal to let villains die - the Doctor is actually pretty flexible on that front. It does genuinely seem as if he has something to make up. The Sea Devils is a particular example of this, with him going to visit the Master in prison to check he's OK, and having fought extra hard to prevent the government from having him killed. It's a very telling episode - the moment the Doctor agrees to help the Master build his super-device to awaken the Sea Devils and Enslave The Universe, his guard just evaporates. He doesn't even suspect the Doctor will sabotage it - it's all "here are the blueprints, please rebuild it and lets conquer Earth together".

Of course by the time you get to the end of the Third Doctor's run, the Master is beginning to get the idea. The next time you see him is Deadly Assassin, where his plan involves sacrificing the Doctor - although it's a matter of survival, which is always of a slightly different priority for the Master.

[For the record, I rank the Master's motivation as 1) Survival, 2) Winding the Doctor Up and Attempting To Kill Him, In A Good Natured Fashion, 3) Universal Domination. I base this on what he is willing to abandon, i.e. he will always abandon a plan or the Doctor to save his life, but he will also always abandon a plan to save and/or annoy the Doctor.]

After that, Logopolis - and mk.2 Ainley!Master is a different kettle of gumblejacks. His actions are no longer governed by my Non Canonical Event, so much as events we've seen on screen. And he is very, very different. The chumminess goes away after Castrovalva. Five and the Master never once team up the way Three inevitably would. The Master still puts him in fatal scenarios which are deliberately easy to escape - it's like the unwritten rules of the game - but at the same time he genuinely wants to hurt him. Kings Demons - all of it - is my evidence. I think he's finally got the message.


So what do you think? Any plot holes? Any inconsistancies? I'd love a chance to defend and make my argument better. And look at me, all grown up: I've managed to write an essay about the Master without mentioning Planet of Fire once. Hurrah for me!

Living up to the theme tune

Perhaps the hugest problem with Doctor Who is its iconic, brilliant, adrenalin rush of a theme tune - a standard no episode could hope to live up to. Total Film often does a "predicted interest graph" for new movies - transfer the method to Doctor Who, and all the episodes would begin with a huge spike, after which things can only go downhill, quicker than you can say "spectrox toxcamia". Admit it - has any episode ever matched the theme tune itself for daring and excitement?


So here's a fragmentary chit chat about the theme tune, because I've nothing else to say, and also because I've promised to watch the first episode of Caves of Androzani before I go to bed, and I have legendary delaying powers when it comes to that particular story. I've marked particular favourites in red, because I'm not methodical enogh to do top tens.


All the themes can be listened to on the Doctor Who Reference Guide, and title sequences are doubtless located on youtube if you want to look them up.


The original (Radiophonic Workshop)
Well, it has to be, doesn't it? Still one of the best. It's surreal, haunting, very creepy. I especially like the first time the TARDIS takes off, when they use the same visual effects. It's basically the old-skool equivalent of the modern vortex sequence. Combined with the music, it puts you straight into the atmosphere.


The 70s
From the Second Doctor onwards, I don't get excited by either the theme or sequence, which is why I'm skimming straight over one of the most popular eras entirely. Except I like the fact that the "drums" are so promenant in the Pertwee episodes, considering the way the Master overshadowed them.


Season 18-22 (Peter Howell)
This is the nostalgia vote - I hear it, and it takes me straight back to the first blossoming of my Doctor Who fandom. It reminds me of running up the hill to break a few rules, by claiming the hut with the DVD player and watching Doctor Who during our school study periods. That's the sound of watching Keeper of Traken in Friend 3's lounge - I'd borrowed my dad's Scarf, and made the foulest tasting Dalek cookies, and later we played the BBC's chocolate board game and instantly began improving it. It's the sound of watching Logopolis and Castrovalva in hut 24., and suddenly making an iconic part of your childhood into an iconic, albeit in different circumstances, part of my childhood. Hearing the theme is always a rush, but this and the Season 23 theme make me particularly Pavlovian.

Season 23 (Dominic Glynn), and the Sixth Doctor sequence
Listen to those haunted groans at the end. They remind me of the twisted incarnations from Matrix; or of that shuddering sound the TARDIS makes when it can't take off; or of Flavia's theme, as a ghostly voice from within the void, but this voice is not only in mourning but in pain. Sad and creepy in equal measure. It's the Valeyard's theme tune more than it is the Doctor's.
I like all the 80s sequences, because they reflect their Doctors. But the Sixth Doctor beams, and that familiar starfield explodes into colour. And you suddenly know you're in safe hands.



Seventh Doctor
a.k.a. Who on helium, this is the one I have as my mobile phone ringtone because it's so darn highpitched. It's far more space-y than the others, and both theme and sequence reflect it's Doctor well. Falls between adoration and dislike. There is something universal-masterplannish about the Seventh Doctor's theme - and I like the wink very much. That the Seventh Doctor gives a mischevous wink, to replace the Sixth Doctor's glowing smile, already says a lot.

Eighth Doctor - Telemovie (John Debney)
The magical beginning, and then the drums come in, and you just can't help but get really, really excited. And there's a vortex, and then Paul McGann's name comes up, and the Sylvester McCoy's, and for one brief moment it's gonna be SO DAMN FANTASTIC. After that, it's a sharp plunge downhill towards Grace's resurrection...the saddest thing is, the building arrangement is so vibrant that I can't help but still have that reaction, even though I know what follows is broadly disappointing.



Eighth Doctor Audios (David Arnold)
The first time I heard this, a shiver shot up my spine. Marvellous, marvellous, and matches the steampunk feel of that Doctor perfectly, all mechanical wheezings and groanings, magical and otherworldly.



Dimensions in Time
Cross the Doctor Who theme tune with Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Horrible travesty, like the program which follows it, barely excused by its "charitable" status. Don't really like the Shalka theme either.


Ninth Doctor
At the time, I loved it, but it sounds stale compared to the pumped up 10th. Too laboured, too heavy, although I do like the exciting string arrangement. But oh, that exciting vortex! It's what they've always been trying to do, but never had the tech to - see how they used the blots and scratches of the original in Unearthly Child's first ghostly takeoff.

Tenth Doctor
You know, I love both of those themes, or loved, but they do pale a bit next to the three highlighted above. Suddenly, they seems to lack atmosphere. Nevertheless, after my excitement about the Master's return, it was a stroke of genius to remix the theme tune to emphasise the fact the drums had been there all along.

A classification rant!

"Science is not an exact science" ~ the Doctor

I am a huge BBFC nerd: I read books about cinema's treatment of the major nasties, argue for hours about whether things are correct, can quote you their handbook verbatim and have even been to see talks. Normally, my dedication falls with righteous anger and furious vengeance whenever I feel they've got it wrong. Which is very, very rarely: as an institution, I trust them.
Except for Casino Royale and The Dark Knight. And now, it's Doctor Who's turn.

OK, so I'm still shellshocked from this afternoon. But answer me this: why is Attack of the Cybermen rated U?

U means everyone can watch it. To my mind, PG means pretty much OK for everyone, but it does have an edge. Your kids should be fine, but they might be a little bit worried. You shouldn't be concerned at all about a U - if a film does have some areas of potential concern, that's what makes it PG. Right? Let's see what the BBFC have to say about PG:

General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ‘PG’ film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

To my mind, most Doctor Who episodes are at about this level. And I'm supported by the BBFC in this: the collection is a mix between U and PGs. Most of the time, I'm behind them: Deadly Assassin, Two Doctors and Caves of Androzani are three PG rated episodes, and they're three which have actually concerned me. I'd think twice about the age of my child. That's what PG means - they are going to be fine, but do think about it. Now let's look at U:

It is impossible to predict what might upset any particular child. But a ‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. U films should be set within a positive moral framework and should offer reassuring counterbalances to any violence, threat or horror.

It's clear that the three episodes mentioned above do not fall into this catagory. But what of Attack of the Cybermen? Is it reassuring? No, it's nihilistic and depressing. Does it have a positive moral framework? No. The Doctor requests his companion shoot an unarmed man, massacres some Cybermen and beats up a series of unfortunates. Granted it's not that bad, but it's still the bloodiest episode of Doctor Who ever. It's just not a U. I identified it as a Earthshock-Resurrection-Androzani hybrid - three PG rated episodes.

It's at least as bad as those three. True, it lacks their sustained dark, nasty atmosphere -but it also has some seriously sadistic hand-crushing. I recognise that in the case of several episodes I regard as scary, it's my adult perspective going into overdrive. A child might not get what was so horribly wrong about Planet of Fire. The things which are wrong about Attack of the Cybermen are out there and in the open - obvious things, like disintigrating Cryons, dribbly gore and the Doctor lashing out at whatever is in his way. If you don't believe me, look up the Doctor Who Review Guide page for this episode. Obviously, my review touches on the level of violence - it's my personal hobby horse - but so does every other one on there.

Attack of the Cybermen is only picked up for "violence: some, very mild". Not what I'd call it, but let's do some more comparisons.

Arc of Infinity: PG, and this I do not understand at all.

Four to Doomsday: wouldn't have struck me, but they pick it up for "infrequent, mild violence" and "infrequent, mild horror", which I suppose is fair.

Tomb of the Cybermen - deserves it's PG, but I'm listing it here because the box claims it contains "some, mild sex and nudity". Really?

Enlightenment: "Contains mild violence and threat" Probably deserves this, as it is creepy, but I'm having difficulty remembering any act of mild violence to compete if Attack is "very mild"

Planet of Fire: "violence: once, mild". Justified, I feel. But I think Attack of the Cybermen is worse.

Trial of a Timelord: no reason given, but it does have a worrying atmosphere throughout.

Ghost Light: no reason again, but I suspect the stuffed vicar and all around creepiness.

Maybe these things are being judged more on mood, not detail? Four of those do brood very heavily - Attack of the Cybermen has a lighter touch, except when being sadistic and vicious.

I'll change my tune for a moment to look at the highest rated episodes. That's how this all began - I know some classic episodes are rated 12, and I wondered for a moment if Attack was one of them. More fool me. The below are all rated 12.

The TV Movie - was passed at a 12, but with cuts. I think it was neck-snapping that tipped it into the 15 catgory. I'm happy with this rating. yet if The TV Movie was one minute and six seconds away from a 15, it worries me further about how badly wrong the Dark Knight's 12A rating is.

Silence in the Library - "moderate fantasy horror", justified I feel, although The Empty Child is still a PG. I think that was scarier than the Vashta Nerada - but I suppose the nodes, and Miss Evangelista dying all combine. Yes, this is very just.

Tooth and Claw - "moderate horror and violence" My 7-year-old cousin is just terrified of Werewolves since this episode.

Planet of the Ood - "one gory moment". Can only be Halpen's transformation. It's occured to me before that that's a bit much.

Dalek - "violence: frequent, moderate" Undoubtedly deserved, and good to see the Daleks getting a genuinely nasty runaround.

The Unquiet Dead - "Infrequent, mild violence, moderate supernatural horror" - not sure anyone can dispute this one either.

Doctor's Daughter - "moderate threat". Now this is a bit funny. Really? Longtime readers will know I loathe this episode with every fibre of my being. Still, is it really 12 rated threatening?

The Beginning Boxset - this is for special features, not the episode - "one use of language, strong". The only thing I can think of is maybe a scene from Celestial Toymaker which innocently drops an n-bomb as part of a charming 1960s children's rhyme. The audio release of the story has rightly dubbed the offending word over, but that's the only single strong use of language I could possibly connect with this series. That or simply a foul mouthed interviewee.

I think all of those are fair judgements. I don't think Attack of the Cybermen justifies a 12, no matter how much of a shock it gave me. I do strongly maintain, however, that the U is far, far too soft. I had to watch part of that episode through my fingers, and I don't think of myself as squeamish.

While doing some research for this post, I turned up two other Us that concerned me a little. These were Army of Ghosts and Pyramids of Mars. Although Doomsday is a PG, and it's Yvonne's death that I'm thinking of, so maybe it's in part 2.

Anyway. Geeky geekery finished with.

And now let's meet the eight, who are going to regenerate

So I've been angsting, but the fact remains that regeneration is something I'm qualified to talk about, having seen a greater percentage of regenerations than anything else (i.e. Dalek episodes, companion entry/departure episodes, episodes with "Time" in the title...).

So overanalysing what's going to be goin' down next year, what are the key features of a decent, final turn in the scarf?

It should be a GOOD EPISODE
Obviously - Planet of the Spiders is something of a let down, as regenerations go, because your sadness is overwhelmed by your relief that the damn thing is over. There's naturally a runaway winner in this catagory, but let's just pause to remember just how brilliant it really is, start to finish.



It should be FAIR TO THE NEW GUY

...who we're ALWAYS going to hate on sight, no matter how hard you try. But let's not make the process any worse than it needs to be? The Christmas Invasion does this brilliantly - by keeping Tennant out of the action, by the time he wakes up the situation is so dire you're just glad to see the Doctor - any Doctor! Relief smooths over any qualms one might have had.

It should be ALL ABOUT DEATH

Or should that be all about change? Logopolis-Castrovalva, a pair of episodes which can't be praised highly enough, never let you forget what they're doing - saying goodbye to the old Doctor, with the presence of the Watcher throughout, and welcoming the new. This process spans all eight episodes. Compare, if you like, Planet of the Spiders and Robot - which clearly want to get that actor-swapping process over as quickly as possible, to better get onto something with tentacles.

In a slightly more downbeat approach, Caves teases us throughout - "shooting" him in the first cliffhanger, and then proceeding to put him in virtually constant pain and/or danger for the next three parts - the underlying irony being that it doesn't matter how many times he dodges death, it's all heading that way anyway.

It should be THEMATICALLY SATISFYING

No just popping it in at the end, like an afterthought. It should be part of a culmination of everything that has come before. In that sense, the regeneration is a rebirth. Parting of the Ways is perfect for this reason - in rejecting the destruction of Earth, the events of the Time War have come full circle, and the angry "stupid apes" Doctor we are introduced to has found a sort of peace with his actions. You even feel you deserve that kiss.


Planet of the Spiders is the chief criminal of this approach - it's a shame the ultimate "face your fears" moral wasn't looped into earlier episodes. In returning the Master, Logopolis does have a stab at this - one last hurrah with a major villain, yet one who is utterly changed from the charming gent of the late 60s. It's a different world the Doctor is moving into. Caves too faces the thematic hurdle beautifully - after Earthshock, this is a Doc who absolutely positively cannot let Peri get hurt. You could also say it's the ultimate expression of the nastier the locale, the worse the Fifth Doctor fares - his major sucesses always seem to have a green tree within 100 metres, while the major botch-ups all occur on grim spacestations. I've always assumed, for lack of a better solution, that the backfiring Megabite Modem in the Fantasy Factory addled the Sixth Doctor's insides. This makes the Valeyard responsible, and I'm not sure there's anything more thematically apt than that. Seven too, as discussed below, gets a suitable passing.


It should STRIKE A BALANCE

I couldn't find a better way to put this: this is upsetting stuff. Typically, the production team either seem to attempt to make things as comforting as possible, or seemingly attempt to see just how traumatised they can leave their audience. One approach isn't necessarily more valid than another - I love Logopolis because, while it's sad and all, it does feel magesterial and bittersweet, and he's smiling. I've always regarded him as already on the way out - hence the presence of the Watcher - so you do feel that yes, the moment is prepared for and everything's going to be OK. Yet I also have admiration for the "...just when you thought things couldn't get any worse" school of regenerations, in all their Puccini-playing, blowhole-exploring, milk-drinking awfulness. Because it's unpleasant, and because it's ironic, and in the context of a kids TV show, making death a nasty painful process is a very brave thing to do.


Yet speaking as someone who actually has to go out and make a cup of tea during the TV Movie, however, it's possible that that one goes too far. My critical juices adore the irony of the Cosmic Chessmaster being cut down out of the blue and completely by accident, then dying through a non-heroic medical botch up. It's cruel, it's post-modern - it's too hard to watch.


To my mind, Planet of the Spiders gets it just right, because you have the comfort factor of his address to Sarah Jane, not to mention the Brigadier's aside, yet it's coupled with the sheer unpleasantness of radiation as a way to go (not helped by Paul Cornell's retconning of an extra eight years in the TARDIS home) and the crushing sadness of an unfinished "where there's life there's...". Not too cosy, but not too upsetting either.


It should JUST FEEL RIGHT


A culmination, then - not too sweet, not too sour, suited to the Doctor and his past adventures, yet leaving room for the new one to slot in alongside.




So what does this leave for 10?


It's going to be BIG and it's going to be CHEESY and the strings are going to make it THE SADDEST THING IN THE WORLD. Even though I can critically say that the best deaths are ironic and nasty, and that maybe it would be nice to do a "small" regeneration story - I'm not sure that a huge RTD-fest isn't genuinely what I want. In other words, I may actually have a breakdown if they go for the full Androzani, and take comfort from the fact it's almost 99% certain they won't.


I'd look to Logopolis for my template - with the whole story being set up with foreshadowing throughout, and that great heavy sense of loss and passing. And while it's very sad and very moving, it isn't too too traumatic, especially compared to other regenerations I could mention. He goes, saving pretty much everything in the process.


And if we're doing Tom Baker parallels, losing our immensely popular Doctor to this suspiciously young pretender, then why not bring the Master back just once more? He really is DT's ultimate villain, especially considering we really can't do Daleks yet again. And bringing him back would give the whole thing some serious thematic punch. We're almost certainly going to have one of those flashback montages, although it's seriously doubtful whether I'll be able to see the screen for Kleenex by that point. I'm quite upset by the idea he's going to be all on his own, but that doesn't mean I think bringing an old companion back is a good idea. Not in the slightest. Especially not Rose. Jack might work, now he's turning into the new series Brigadier.



God. All that came out pretty sane and lucid. Maybe I'll be able to cope after all :)

Best Who-music ever?

This miniessay was written for a behindthesofa.org.uk feature that never got ran, about the best piece of music in the show. What do you think I'm gonna vote for? Any guesses?


Utopia is a very exciting episode, and that’s partly down to the music – chuntering during all the running, zwerrrrrrrrrrrrp as the Doctor what's going on upstairs. But first prize has to be the Master's theme – that jarring, offkilter violin tottering up and down scales, accompanied by the ever present a-THUMP-du-dum a-THUMP-du-dum. It was sufficiently catchy that life imitated art, as next morning saw legions of fans mildly tapping out the rhythm. Favourite use outside of Utopia is Sound of Drums, as the Master walks down the road looking for Martha and finding Tom Milligan first. Spine-tinglin’ good.

The idea of a musical motif is very powerful – I still get excited by hearing the Torchwood theme tune both in Utopia when Jack collapses next to the TARDIS, and when the ghosts appear in Army of Ghosts. The use of Martha’s theme in Reset was the highlight of the entire second series. Obviously, going back through the series reveals the sound of drums used in earlier episodes. But to cap it off, he then remixes the theme tune and points out the drums have been right there all along. The sheer cheek could only be matched by RTD digitally editing “bad wolf” back into the classic episodes – Terror of the Autons, there are the drums in the theme tune! Right from the start! Wow, who’d have thought! By using the theme tune, the idea of the Master being the Doctor's opposite, a permanent underlying menace has suddenly been woven straight back into the classic series.

Speaking thus, I'd like to give a special mention for Planet of Fire's haunting Logar theme. I always find it hard to sympathise with Doctor Who's "generic warring factions on a futuristic planet". Here, the factions are at war over religion. For this to be convincing, you have to believe Timanov's all-consuming trust in Logar, and the eerie music gives it a nudge – particularly as he describes his encounter with the god. Generally, with the exception of this and Earthshock, I feel the 5th Doctor's era was an ugly one for music. Though, it may just be the association with Logopolis, but that descending regeneration tune is unfailingly moving. Even in Curse of Fatal Death. Ahem.

Worst? The only one which comes to mind is the Three Doctors – I suspect the tinny antimatter music was supposed to sound "futuristic". And indeed, it does foreshadow an invention not yet dreamt of in the 70s. I speak, of course, of the gameboy. The 2-bit colours on the antimatter blob don't help...

Everybody Lives!

"I must mend my ways", muses the Fifth Doctor as he reenters the TARDIS at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks. He has lost a companion, screwed up defeating the Daleks, been taunted by Davros, and allowed a bodycount of 57 - basically everyone who isn't himself and remaining companion - to slip under the radar. Ach, love that episode. One of the best. What of Inferno, or Logopolis - other great episodes where whole planets or star systems get destroyed.
The new series doesn't seem to appreciate the value of a good body count. It has a half-baked definition of death. Astrid Peth sacrifices her life - but its OK, she becomes stardust. River Song does it as well, living out life in creepy suburbian utopia that only moments before we were told was evil. Jenny is born. Jenny dies. Jenny lives again. My favourite almost-companion is Lynda. Maybe its because she stayed dead?

Numerous hints about Rose's "death" actually refer to her being trapped in a parallel world. As a card-carrying, flag-waving Adric fan, I can tell you death is a bit worse than being reunited with your mum, dad and ex-boyfriend in a perfectly nice alternate Earth. I was Donna's greatest fan, and was pretty troubled by all the death prophecies. But it annoyed me more that they wouldn't actually do it. "Death" in the first instance was the sacrifice of her alternate life. "Death" in the second was forgetting her time with the Doctor. Now I'm no biologist, but I think the technical term for that is amnesia. Even if Dalek Caan had just said it once - but he kept repeating, and repeating, and even after it was all over, he had to say it again. I was prepared for something impressive.

The alternative universe is a cheap one too. Last of the Timelords kills Tom Milligan, then lets him survive. Turn Left exterminates the entire cast of Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood, Astrid (again) and Martha without blinking, but none of these have any pathos.
Jack got brought back to life too - but that's not so bad, as the show has explored the consiquences of his return. It was the same with Owen from Torchwood, dedicating three episodes to his troubles. Which would have been OK had it not been undermined by killing him properly in the series finale. I cried in Reset - by End of Days, I'd spent my tears.
There's an old mantra that "no one dies in sci-fi", and I'm beginning to appreciate how true that is. It was cute when everyone lived in The Doctor Dances, because of its novelty - the Doctor's joy is formed by the fact he knows this is a rarity. Death has ceased to be a meaningful threat. We already know the Doctor can't be killed as often as he strictly should be, but the continual cheating of death removes the threat entirely, cheapens the show and prevents our suspension of disbelief. How often do you actually feel cold fear that the cast won't make it? Hell, the central fact of the show is that if killed the Doctor can regenerate. You still lose an actor, but the character won't die.

So lets celebrate the true deaths of the new series! To Madame de Pompadour, whose departure was both moving and permenant. To Creet of Utopia, the child turned into a Toclofane, whose death (and the deaths of the other future-humans) was not reversed and remains chilling. To Lynda. To half the cast of the Impossible Planet. To Sir Robert of Tooth and Claw for going down (and staying down) heroically. To the Master, for not coming back (yet).

And please lets have a massacre next season?