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I first got into Doctor Who when I went to college-- one of they people in my freshman class, and a handful of juniors and seniors happened to love the show, and organized a weekly get-together to watch reruns as they aired on PBS. (If you have never experienced being in a room full of theoretically adult people all screaming in horror because a robot dog may be about to fall into an incinerator, you don't know what you're missing.) The sets were hokey, the monsters were... also hokey. The acting and writing were largely superb.
The episode airing the night we began was The Face of Evil, and baring those episodes I missed due to vacations (as PBS didn't carry Who where my parents lived, and thus, I only watched it during the school year) I don't think I missed an episode until I stopped at or around (might have hung on a few more episodes, but not many) Planet of the Cheetah People.
When next I had a TV, PBS was, for reasons phenomenally unclear to me, doing the Third Doctor's run over and over, in an (apparently) endless loop. He'd regenerate and then, next week... have just regenerated into himself. It was odd. And frustrating. I bought a couple tapes, and watched those friends of mine had, but by and large I was much too poor to be out buying decades of British television. I sort of drifted away from Who after PBS stopped showing it at all.
Then New Who started, and I didn't watch it. Many reasons. Well, mostly, didn't want to see the Doctor with a love interest. Yeah, I got over that. But recently, I had the urge to rewatch (or, in some cases, watch for the first time) Classic. In the carefully determined order of "what dvds I happen to buy" combined with "what I can talk my housemates into putting up with" and a side order of "whim". Since my ability to remember titles is minimal, I decided to keep a reccord/log of my thoughts. Since it might, theoretically, be of interest to someone other than myself, I'm keeping on my lj. But since it almost certainly isn't of interest to most -though my instinct is that very few people actually see my journal- this constitutes your warning.
The Keeper of Traken
This story is set near the end of Tom Baker's tenure as the Fourth Doctor, and I believe it's the first episode after Romana's departure. It's one of the ones I hadn't seen, due, I think in this case, to Christmas Break.
Companion: Adric. And his Gold Star for Mathematical Excellence.
God-like Superbeings of inexplicable power?: Yes. The eponymous Keeper of Traken
Villain: The Master. This was the first time I was privileged to see Zombie!Master. I must say, between this and the Valeyard, maybe Time Lords would be better off stopping at life number 12? But this story (which I had ne'er before seen) is where the idea of the Master stealing other people's lives (since he was out of his own) appears to have first been generated. But I was surprised to see that he apparently can steal them from whomever, not just another time lord.
General Thoughts: I really don't like Adric. Though in this episode he did manage to refrain from falling for some transparent importunement of the bad guy and selling the Doctor out whilst being really aggravatingly self-righteous about it. Though now that I think about it, I did miss his entire tenure with Four; maybe he only does that to Five? He also, as I mentioned previously, gave off an incredible vibe of big huge enormous crush on the Doctor. Who was giving off the vibe of "Oh dear; a fifteen-year old is all infatuated. Um."
Nyssa was a great deal younger than I remembered her being. And had more exciting tights.
On the other hand, the people of Traken had great clothes-- much better than most theoretically advanced societies in CW had. Horrific perms seemed unduly mandatory though. And speaking of people's grooming habits, there were people in this episode with beards who weren't evil! I think this is the first time (that I can recall) that I've seen a non-evil beard in CW.
But I'm sure the Master is pleased to have been elevated to "most evil being in the universe". I'm sure both Davros and the Black Guardian are writing letters even now to complain. And he was seriously hitting on the Doctor. A lot. If only he hadn't also been, you know, rotting.
I have long held the theory that the Doctor varies in skills from regeneration to regeneration; that is, of the 'core set' of Things the Doctor Does, some of him are better this and others at that. Since I'm rewatching, I shall hopefully remember to do so with an eye towards evaluating that hypothesis. So if I were to create a list of such things, it would probably be: math, theoretical science, practical engineering, flying the TARDIS, dealing with/managing people, telepathy, manipulating time, and other super powers. Am I missing any? So based on this episode, I'd say (on a scale of 1-10) Four comes out:
with insuficent data to comment on the rest. (Side note: 1-10 for the Doctor, not for people in general.)
Overall, smashing good episode, despite Adric.
The episode airing the night we began was The Face of Evil, and baring those episodes I missed due to vacations (as PBS didn't carry Who where my parents lived, and thus, I only watched it during the school year) I don't think I missed an episode until I stopped at or around (might have hung on a few more episodes, but not many) Planet of the Cheetah People.
When next I had a TV, PBS was, for reasons phenomenally unclear to me, doing the Third Doctor's run over and over, in an (apparently) endless loop. He'd regenerate and then, next week... have just regenerated into himself. It was odd. And frustrating. I bought a couple tapes, and watched those friends of mine had, but by and large I was much too poor to be out buying decades of British television. I sort of drifted away from Who after PBS stopped showing it at all.
Then New Who started, and I didn't watch it. Many reasons. Well, mostly, didn't want to see the Doctor with a love interest. Yeah, I got over that. But recently, I had the urge to rewatch (or, in some cases, watch for the first time) Classic. In the carefully determined order of "what dvds I happen to buy" combined with "what I can talk my housemates into putting up with" and a side order of "whim". Since my ability to remember titles is minimal, I decided to keep a reccord/log of my thoughts. Since it might, theoretically, be of interest to someone other than myself, I'm keeping on my lj. But since it almost certainly isn't of interest to most -though my instinct is that very few people actually see my journal- this constitutes your warning.
This story is set near the end of Tom Baker's tenure as the Fourth Doctor, and I believe it's the first episode after Romana's departure. It's one of the ones I hadn't seen, due, I think in this case, to Christmas Break.
Companion: Adric. And his Gold Star for Mathematical Excellence.
God-like Superbeings of inexplicable power?: Yes. The eponymous Keeper of Traken
Degree of god-likeness: Well, he can transport himself into the TARDIS. And he had enough power that the Master wanted to be him. Mind, the Master didn't really look like he was brimming over with better options, but it appears that he felt sitting on his ass in a garden pretending his TARDIS was a statue for what appears to be a decade or so was worth it to get said power. Which appears to have been fueled by hooking a planet full of people up to a telepathic machine of some kind? Analogous, it seems to me, to the power source for Tinkerbell!Doctor. (Side note: given that the Doctor saw the plans for the Traken machine, does this mean with a planet of people reasonably well disposed towards him he could obtain long term god-like power? I think it does.)
Villain: The Master. This was the first time I was privileged to see Zombie!Master. I must say, between this and the Valeyard, maybe Time Lords would be better off stopping at life number 12? But this story (which I had ne'er before seen) is where the idea of the Master stealing other people's lives (since he was out of his own) appears to have first been generated. But I was surprised to see that he apparently can steal them from whomever, not just another time lord.
General Thoughts: I really don't like Adric. Though in this episode he did manage to refrain from falling for some transparent importunement of the bad guy and selling the Doctor out whilst being really aggravatingly self-righteous about it. Though now that I think about it, I did miss his entire tenure with Four; maybe he only does that to Five? He also, as I mentioned previously, gave off an incredible vibe of big huge enormous crush on the Doctor. Who was giving off the vibe of "Oh dear; a fifteen-year old is all infatuated. Um."
Nyssa was a great deal younger than I remembered her being. And had more exciting tights.
On the other hand, the people of Traken had great clothes-- much better than most theoretically advanced societies in CW had. Horrific perms seemed unduly mandatory though. And speaking of people's grooming habits, there were people in this episode with beards who weren't evil! I think this is the first time (that I can recall) that I've seen a non-evil beard in CW.
But I'm sure the Master is pleased to have been elevated to "most evil being in the universe". I'm sure both Davros and the Black Guardian are writing letters even now to complain. And he was seriously hitting on the Doctor. A lot. If only he hadn't also been, you know, rotting.
I have long held the theory that the Doctor varies in skills from regeneration to regeneration; that is, of the 'core set' of Things the Doctor Does, some of him are better this and others at that. Since I'm rewatching, I shall hopefully remember to do so with an eye towards evaluating that hypothesis. So if I were to create a list of such things, it would probably be: math, theoretical science, practical engineering, flying the TARDIS, dealing with/managing people, telepathy, manipulating time, and other super powers. Am I missing any? So based on this episode, I'd say (on a scale of 1-10) Four comes out:
- Math: 4
- Theoretical Science: 7
- Practical Engineering: 5
- TARDIS: 3
- People: 10
with insuficent data to comment on the rest. (Side note: 1-10 for the Doctor, not for people in general.)
Overall, smashing good episode, despite Adric.