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Old 01-29-2010, 12:03 PM
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Originally Posted by Wowbagger View Post
I will take you up on that, Val. As a DW convert pulled in by the Ninth Doctor, the only pre-TV movie material I've seen is Battlefield... which was fine, but given the ruckus the old-school fans make about the old show, I think I missed something. So I've been waiting for somebody to give me a short list of Good Old Serials for a while now. In short, thanks.
I think you just summed Battlefield up perfectly. It's not doing anything spectacular, and it didn't set out to. Although the hamminess of some of the performances are slightly too awful for words. And that's before we get on to "THERE WILL BE NO BATTLE HERE!"

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Incidental question: was the absurdly powerful gauntlet Rasillon was wearing that famous "Hand of Omega" I've occasionally heard about? For that matter, was Lord President Rasillon the same Rasillon I've occasionally heard about? Big scary mythic figure from the dawn of the Time Lord era?
On your first question, no. The Hand of Omega isn't remotely hand-shaped. It is (or was) contained in a large box about he size of a medieval sarcophagus. But (IIRC) it's a big ball-of-energy style thing, and so doesn't look like that at all. It certainly doesn't shred people like crispy duck. Or it didn't.

On your second, that appears to be what RTD is trying to do, yes. This is what in the old days we called a "gratuitous continuity reference", and called the person responsible a fool on account of - it confuses the average viewer and simply annoys the fans.

It's also why the late 80s often get a bit of a lambasting in Who circles - there's a disproportionate number of stories which demand knowledge of the show's history - often stretching back to the early 70s. And you only need to look at the ridiculous recaps you see toward the end of season 10 of SG1 to realise how bad a decision they were. It's a bit different in the books, since they were catering by necessity to a narrower audience, but on TV I'd have generally said it shouldn't be so. And it's partly why I didn't mind the Time Lords not being in the revival (even if most of the backstory to the 2005 series was nicked from elsewhere...

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I am pleased the Time Lords didn't get restored. I am also pleased they are now officially on the villains list. One day, I'd like to see them return for real... but I still think there are a lot of stories to tell from the "Last of the Time Lords" angle before it would be right to bring them back.
You see, this really annoys me. Actually, both of these annoy me. First, because the destruction of the Time Lords is utterly pointless. You scarcely saw them in the original run anyway (until the aforesaid 80s, when navelgazing became the order of the day almost), since they didn't, generally speaking, interfere. They weren't seen or heard from, aside from the occasional dialogue reference or redirection of the TARDIS to a place with a problem the Time Lords want clearing up. Which is no worse than what we've had since 2005.

Second, I'm annoyed by the redundancy of it. Why bring them back for all of ten minutes? For the love of Simeon Stylites, Rusell, make your damned mind up for once. If you're going to kill them, let them stay dead. If you're going to resurrect them, keep them alive. But enough with the toing-and-froing. I can accept Gallifrey being destroyed; I can't accept it acting like a bloody yo-yo in and out of existence.

I can accept the Daleks being wiped out - hell, I can even respect that as a pretty damn bold decision. I can't accept that they're wiped out... except for that one that landed in Kansas... and those four that escaped in a mysterious, ominous, looming black sphere ( (C) 2001, Miles, Lawrence, again)... and that secret army that's been breeding itself for four-million years... and that army that's trapped in a Time Lord box... and that army over there that were hiding with lampshades on their heads and behind the curtains. Do you see what I mean? If you're going to take a bold stand, at least stick with it for a few years.

Third, it annoys me that the Time Lords are now the standard idiotic, deified villains du jour of every sci-fi ever. Because they used to be actually interesting. I'd write more but I'm going to Berlin in about three hours. But if you want to see the Time Lords as they were, watch The Deadly Assassin. Less brilliant than the others I suggested but worth a look.

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But maybe that's because I was raised on the massively hubristic Nine and Ten, and so I haven't really decided that hubris is a bad thing, at least in the case of a demideity like the Doc.
The deification of the Doctor is another issue, but like I said I'll write more later.
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