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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Tom Baker

Death and the Maiden

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Doctor, Doctor Who, episode, Game of Thrones, GRR Ma, Michelle Gomez, Missy, regeneration cycle, regenerations, South Park, Time Lords, Tom Baker


So, yesterday there was an announcement that Michelle Gomez would be reprising her role as Missy (AKA The gender switched Master) in the upcoming series of Doctor Who.

The announcement is here for those who wish to read it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/6a78885d-e0b1-49a0-b7e8-cecba867a99f

Now, do not get me wrong I am in a way pleased by this announcement as I did enjoy seeing the Master reimagined as a woman and I think it is good to get the character back. However, I  have one very  huge misgiving about it… the character has really been killed far too many times now.

The Master was originally on his last (13th) regeneration in the Tom Baker episode The Deadly Assassin, the story which in fact established the canon that there are only 12 regenerations a Time Lord can have before they are finally and completely dead. Later stories in the Tom Baker/Peter Davison crossover point (Logopolis and Keeper of Traken) established a plausible means for keeping him alive a little longer using the possession of another character who looked remarkably like his original goatee bearded form (to the extent it probably is not a spoiler to tell you which character would get possessed…) as a reasonable excuse. This, however, did not give him any more regenerations – once that body (which was not a Time Lord body) died that was it so his quest from that point was to gain more regenerations. This was a fact the Time Lords themselves used as a bribe to get him to perform a task for them in the Five Doctors – the promise of a whole new regeneration cycle*. His appearances since then (some Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy episodes, the Paul McGann movie) were all aimed at that goal – for example trying to steal the Doctor’s remaining regenerations.**

Then at some point he finally did get given the new regeneration cycle because of his promises to help during the Time War and that leads us to Uptopia and the wonderful portrayal by Derek Jocobi who I would have liked to have seen more of before his regeneration to John Simms but the fact he did regenerate shows he had been paid in full by the Time Lords before legging it all the way to the end of the universe and activating his Chameleon arch.

So far so good. John Simm was a good Master and managed to give across the right level of insane evil coupled with that empathic bond with Tennant’s Doctor which rightly portrayed the Xavier/Magneto relationship inherent in their associations – two people who were as close as brothers driven apart by wildly different ideologies.

Then Simm’s Master died. Not in a ‘it’s ok, I will regenerate’ way and merely be played by yet another actor but in a ‘no, there is no way I will regenerate’ way.

Then he came back… in a way that was a little unrealistic and far fetched even for Who.

Then he died again… this time also in a way that seemed to preclude regeneration.

And then with very little explanation as to how it happened, ‘he’ came back as ‘she’. Perfectly fine if it had been a regeneration – oh how much we have wanted to see a regeneration from male to female – but again that was apparently not an option. He was dead and gone, no coming back. Yet suddenly she is back… did they give a reasonable reason why? Not that I noticed…

Finally, at the end of the last series, she is also killed and again regeneration seems unlikely… yet here she is, back and ready for more.

Now, to be fair, that last death may be more than it appears. I am willing to accept that since that episode’s final moments were all about lies (the Doctor’s lies to Clara about Gallifrey, her lies to him about being happy) its possible that her death was an elaborate illusion and she was merely teleported somewhere else with the appearance of being totally vaporised. It’s a trick used before in Who (the Big Brother episode in the Ecclestone series, for example) so I am willing to accept it is possible. However, it does not detract from the fundamental issue. Death should not be cheap.

Some characters are famous only for being killed…

Killing a character should have an emotional impact. Equally so should bringing them back from death. Having grown to love or hate them over the course of your reading or viewing of them, to have that character suddenly be taken from you should be a vicious and painful experience. As a reader or viewer you should feel that pain. However, the more you kill them and the more you bring them back the more you stretch the suspension of belief and the more you dilute the emotional impact. Recurring villains are great, a much loved staple of fantasy and SF and even less fantasy based stories such as the Three Musketeers, and used right they can be wonderful creations. However you can push it too far and using the ‘they’re finally dead for good and this time we mean it. Oh no, we totally didn’t mean it’ card too many times (or more than once, really) is not good storytelling. If you have a popular character who you think may be worth a reappearance it is better planning to not kill them off. Have them escape from being captured (the Master has done this a few times too) or simply slip out the back door while the heroes are battling the convenient distraction they arranged for them. This applies doubly to Time Lord enemies. After all, you already have a convenient and perfectly plausible method for them to come back from the dead (regeneration). Why have to go to all the effort of making up some new ways to bring them back after managing to eliminate that as an option? Fans would rather the enemy were still alive – so they and the heroes know they are still a threat – or able to come back in a way which does not seem too ridiculous and fits in with previous observed metaphysics of the way the universe works.

OK, yeah, in some universes (Marvel and DC I’m looking at you) the afterlife has a revolving door and characters pop in for a brief break between adventures only to pop back when sales of the comic drop. And let us not forget poor old Kenny in South Park. However, in most fictional universes, it is better to stick to a more realistic means of death in order to keep the audience with you. Less South Park, more Game of Thrones, make every death meaningful not a cheap joke or marketing ploy.

###

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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*Which incidentally also set up the canon that they can do that leaving the way clear for Moffat to have it happen to Matt Smith’s Doctor.

** May have been interesting at some point in all this to have seen a episode where he was trying to keep the Doctor alive out of enlightened self interest. After all, the more the Doctor dies and regenerates the less there is to steal…

What might have been…

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Alternative Universes, David Tennant, Doctor Who, entertainment, Female Doctor Who, Hattie Jacques, honour blackman, joanna lumley, Matt Smith, Miranda Hart, Penelope Keith, Sherlock Holmes, Steve Moffat, Sue Perkins, Tom Baker


Not too long ago, this article was flashing about the internet.sue perkins

http://www.scifind.com/features/the-other-11-doctors/

It is an article with a single premise – what if the Doctor was female? It essentially takes each of the 11 incarnations of the Doctor and considers the most likely actor who might have played them based on who was around at the time and had approximately the same CV as the male version in our universe.

It is an interesting read and throws up a number of interesting choices. I would never, for example, have considered Hattie Jacques in the role. Her fame being largely based on her involvement with the Carry On franchise it never seemed to fit in my mind that she would be good for the role. However, the article gives a good argument for why she would have made a superlative second Doctor. Ditto Penelope Keith – I had never considered the star of To The Manor Born and The Good Life stepping into Tom Baker’s emormously large scarf but here again the article is convincing as to why she would be perfect.

It is unfair in other ways, I have to say. To tar Miriam Margoyles with the position as the sixth Doctor is unfortunate. Based on her other performances, I would have thought she would have done far better in the role regardless of script and production issues than is intimated here. Then again, I suppose that she can do loud and brash rather well so this may have been a way she would have taken the character.

I am, however, especially impressed with some of the casting. Honour Blackman as the third Doctor is a rather obvious one and Joanna Lumley was always one who was under consideration for the role should the Doctor ever have regenerated into a woman (and indeed was in Curse of the Fatal Death which also had Johnathon Pryce as one of the best Masters I have seen – watch the interviews on the DVD for true ‘method acting’) though putting her in the position of the sensitive and caring fifth Doctor rather than a more action oriented one is a stroke of genius. Sue Perkins wearing David Tennant’s ‘brainy specs’ is also absolutely spot on casting and part of me loves the idea of the love story between the Doctor and Rose still being there in that circumstance – an excellent piece of pro LGBT casting. Though I would also have liked to have seen the reversal in genders go further than that to the extent of more of the companions being male instead of remaining female.

In fact, this article has affected me so much that I have actually begun to re-imagine some of the stories with these actors in play. I rewatched the more recent Christmas special not long ago* and I could totally see Miranda Hart prancing around the big snow globe thing pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Sue Perkins as a School Mistress** in 1913 or being grim and fatalistic with Bernard Cribbens.*** Obviously, the idea has legs and those legs are kicking.

So, the question has to be, can something be done with this concept? Yes, this is another ‘somebody make this happen’ post. Obviously, until the advent of safe and effective time travel we cannot go back in time and film new episiodes of Doctor Who only with the female counterpart, but there could be other ways. For example, I would love to see an anthology of short stories in the style of the old Doctor Who Short Trips series with a story per Doctor. I would also love some audio adventures and, maybe, in a universe where all my dreams came true, Steve Moffat might make a couple of shorts in the style of the Comic Relief/Children in Need sketches and the recent ‘Pond life’ web broadcast teasers. Were I a less lazy author, I’d get proactive and troll fan fic sites or lobby writers I know who are involved in Who in some manner to do something about it. I’d campaign Miranda Hart and Sue Perkins to agree to star in something linked to this, stand outside Steve Moffat’s house with placards, demand my MP did something about it and so on. However, I am lazy so none of this is going to happen. If any of you out there wish to do something about it, though, I’ve totally got your back. I might even submit a short story to an anthology or something. I can probably summon up enough proactivity to achieve that.

So, some questions…

What do you think about the selection of actors chosen here for a female Doctor?

Would you change any of them?

What already filmed Who story would you like to see redone with a female Doctor and do you think the story would be significantly changed by it?

Feel free to answer these in the comments….

* How many times has Richard E Grant been in Who now? Quite a few, I think. He played the Doctor in Curse of the Fatal Death, was also the Doctor in at least one online animation and now is here as a villain…

** And no, not in THAT way…

*** Another actor who seems to have been in Who multiple times.

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