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Doctor Who Series 12 |OT| Spyfall Is Where We Start

sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Oct 25, 2017
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APZonerunner said:
That RTD Time War prose is wonderful, and really nails why I was so disappointed with Day of the Doctor. Just mad, twisted imagery, time travel used to break reality itself in ever-more brutal ways - rather than, you know, Gallifreyan soldiers with space rifles, the doctor flying the TARDIS into Daleks and Daleks killing each other with a misfire. I like that story plenty, but it never matched up to what I envisioned the Time War would be - and it never could've on a TV budget. So reading this is at once so exciting and also kinda brutally crushing.
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Agreed.

Moffat's Day of the Doctor - in a vacuum - is a very good story.

The problem is, it's not in a vacuum, it heavily leans on RTD's time war mythos in general, and "The End of Time" in particular, and yet Moff ignores so much from that it doesn't work. Like in The End of Time the war was at a deadlock, with Gallifrey the furthest point from it. Yet in Day of the Doctor, which is supposed to take place simultaneously, the Time Lords are on their knees with Gallifrey all that is left. In TEOT, the doctor is worrried that if Gallifrey is freed, a lot of evil things like the Nightmare Child will be freed with it. In DOTD there are no such worries. The moment was used in TEOT to stop Rassilon's Ultimate Sanction, and in DOTD it was used to stop a Dalek fleet.

He turned the magical into the mundane, and it was a big pity.
 
Metallix87

Metallix87

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sir_crocodile said:
Agreed.

Moffat's Day of the Doctor - in a vacuum - is a very good story.

The problem is, it's not in a vacuum, it heavily leans on RTD's time war mythos in general, and "The End of Time" in particular, and yet Moff ignores so much from that it doesn't work. Like in The End of Time the war was at a deadlock, with Gallifrey the furthest point from it. Yet in Day of the Doctor, which is supposed to take place simultaneously, the Time Lords are on their knees with Gallifrey all that is left. In TEOT, the doctor is worrried that if Gallifrey is freed, a lot of evil things like the Nightmare Child will be freed with it. In DOTD there are no such worries. The moment was used in TEOT to stop Rassilon's Ultimate Sanction, and in DOTD it was used to stop a Dalek fleet.

He turned the magical into the mundane, and it was a big pity.
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For what it's worth, my interpretation was always that both were connected. The reason Rassilon tries to unleash his Ultimate Sanction is because Gallifrey was starting to lose the War. The Doctor uses the Moment because Rassilon is talking of the Ultimate Sanction as a solution to end the war in their favor.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Metallix87 said:
For what it's worth, my interpretation was always that both were connected. The reason Rassilon tries to unleash his Ultimate Sanction is because Gallifrey was starting to lose the War. The Doctor uses the Moment because Rassilon is talking of the Ultimate Sanction as a solution to end the war in their favor.
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It's pretty clear from this scene that some time lords were starting to lose their stomach for the war because it was never ending with everyone dying and being resurrected, and some were willing to throw in the towel rather than carry on forever. To me it seems that RTD's intention is that this is why Rassilon is spurred to use the Ultimate Sanction - because he loves life too much and sure as hell is never going to give in.



 
Aprikurt

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sir_crocodile said:
Agreed.

Moffat's Day of the Doctor - in a vacuum - is a very good story.

The problem is, it's not in a vacuum, it heavily leans on RTD's time war mythos in general, and "The End of Time" in particular, and yet Moff ignores so much from that it doesn't work. Like in The End of Time the war was at a deadlock, with Gallifrey the furthest point from it. Yet in Day of the Doctor, which is supposed to take place simultaneously, the Time Lords are on their knees with Gallifrey all that is left. In TEOT, the doctor is worrried that if Gallifrey is freed, a lot of evil things like the Nightmare Child will be freed with it. In DOTD there are no such worries. The moment was used in TEOT to stop Rassilon's Ultimate Sanction, and in DOTD it was used to stop a Dalek fleet.

He turned the magical into the mundane, and it was a big pity.
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Maybe so...

... but it's an absolute masterpiece compared to Season 12's finale :)
 
APZonerunner

APZonerunner

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sir_crocodile said:
It's pretty clear from this scene that some time lords were starting to lose their stomach for the war because it was never ending with everyone dying and being resurrected, and some were willing to throw in the towel rather than carry on forever. To me it seems that RTD's intention is that this is why Rassilon is spurred to use the Ultimate Sanction - because he loves life too much and sure as hell is never going to give in.



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I would interpret Rassilon's actions the other way: he knows they are if not losing the war, destined to death regardless because of what the Doctor is doing, and he's selfish enough to say if he's going down he's going to do the ultimate sanction and take the whole universe with him. It's also the ultimate expression of the Time Lord hubris - this idea that without them to police it the universe is doomed, so they may as well end it all.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Aprikurt said:
Maybe so...

... but it's an absolute masterpiece compared to Season 12's finale :)
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Yep. As I mentioned, it's a very well written and enjoyable story if you ignore all links to RTD stuff. S12 finale has problems within its own structure.

APZonerunner said:
I would interpret Rassilon's actions the other way: he knows they are if not losing the war, destined to death regardless because of what the Doctor is doing, and he's selfish enough to say if he's going down he's going to do the ultimate sanction and take the whole universe with him. It's also the ultimate expression of the Time Lord hubris - this idea that without them to police it the universe is doomed, so they may as well end it all.
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It's mentioned at some point (I forget where) that the Doctor stole The Moment because he'd gotten wind of Rassilon's plans in advance and was disgusted enough to kill the timelords to stop the selfishness of killing all other races to save themselves.
 
Metallix87

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sir_crocodile said:
It's mentioned at some point (I forget where) that the Doctor stole The Moment because he'd gotten wind of Rassilon's plans in advance and was disgusted enough to kill the timelords to stop the selfishness of killing all other races to save themselves.
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Yes, there is no denying that, but Day of the Doctor doesn't necessarily negate that, just re-contextualize it.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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sir_crocodile said:
It's mentioned at some point (I forget where) that the Doctor stole The Moment because he'd gotten wind of Rassilon's plans in advance and was disgusted enough to kill the timelords to stop the selfishness of killing all other races to save themselves.
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Found the scene I was thinking about:



Spectromixer said:
shadow banning means twitter may not show the tweets to everyone and it may not show up in searches.
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Ah, didn't realise that. This is a random thing or focused on people for some reason?
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Metallix87 said:
Yes, there is no denying that, but Day of the Doctor doesn't necessarily negate that, just re-contextualize it.
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It's been a long time since I watched DOTD, so I don't have all memories at my fingetips like I do with the RTD stuff, but didn't it say that the moment was literally used just because a dalek fleet had turned up on gallifrey's doorstep and the time lords couldn't handle it? If so, it would negate it (but my memory might be faulty).
 
Metallix87

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sir_crocodile said:
It's been a long time since I watched DOTD, so I don't have all memories at my fingetips like I do with the RTD stuff, but didn't it say that the moment was literally used just because a dalek fleet had turned up on gallifrey's doorstep and the time lords couldn't handle it? If so, it would negate it (but my memory might be faulty).
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If memory serves me well, the weapon was going to destroy Gallifrey to take the Daleks down with them. The Time Lords had too much hubris to sacrifice themselves to end the Time War, and thus it fell on the Doctor to steal the Moment and attempt to use it.
 
Lee Morris

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Just read through RTD's timeline. Not done a rewatch but I love listening to that man talk about putting his shows together. You know he agonises over every details and is thinking about things on multiple levels at the same time. What a bloody treasure he is.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

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Metallix87 said:
If memory serves me well, the weapon was going to destroy Gallifrey to take the Daleks down with them. The Time Lords had too much hubris to sacrifice themselves to end the Time War, and thus it fell on the Doctor to steal the Moment and attempt to use it.
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Then it's still a complete shift in the time lords culpability while ignoring TEOT's reason for its use. For RTD, the doctor sacrifices the time lords who are doing evil to save reality. For Moff, the doctor sacrifices the time lords just because they don't want to sacrifice themselves (let alone most of them probably don't know about the existence of the moment given it's prob one of Omega's goodies).

In the RTD timeline the Doctor is justified, though it's still not his way so he still has guilt. Although TEOT is not a good story for many reasons, it captures the doctor's personality perfectly. It basically shows that during the time war he finally has to make the decision he avoided in Genesis of the Daleks, and he makes the only one he can, and is racked with guilt afterwards.
In the revised Moff timeline the Doctor suddenly looks a lot shadier.
 
Metallix87

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sir_crocodile said:
Then it's still a complete shift in the time lords culpability. For RTD, the doctor sacrifices the time lords who are doing evil to save reality. For Moff, the doctor sacrifices the time lords just because they don't want to sacrifice themselves (let alone most of them probably don't know about the existence of the moment given it's prob one of Omega's goodies).

In the RTD timeline the Doctor is justified, though it's still not his way so he still has guilt. Although TEOT is not a good story for many reasons, it captures the doctor's personality perfectly. It basically shows that during the time war he finally has to make the decision he avoided in Genesis of the Daleks, and he makes t he only one he can, and is racked with guilt afterwards.
In the revised Moff timeline the Doctor suddenly looks a lot shadier.
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I mean, Moffat is clear that the Doctor is both haunted by his guilt and arguably quite shady in his actions. The War Doctor outright says he did what was necessary, not necessarily what was good or right. And Moffat doesn't absolve the Time Lords of guilt for atrocities, either. Night of the Doctor clearly portrays the Eighth Doctor as standing alone and apart from the horrors committed by the rest of Time Lord society. His entire regeneration into the War Doctor is basically driven by a desire to abandon his code of ethics in favor of becoming a warrior willing to commit heinous acts in the fight against the Daleks, as well. I don't think that's a retcon so much as contextualizing everything in a greater fashion.
 
sir_crocodile

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Metallix87 said:
I mean, Moffat is clear that the Doctor is both haunted by his guilt and arguably quite shady in his actions. The War Doctor outright says he did what was necessary, not necessarily what was good or right. And Moffat doesn't absolve the Time Lords of guilt for atrocities, either. Night of the Doctor clearly portrays the Eighth Doctor as standing along and apart from the horrors committed by the rest of Time Lord society. His entire regeneration into the War Doctor is basically driven by a desire to abandon his code of ethics in favor of becoming a warrior willing to commit heinous acts in the fight against the Daleks, as well. I don't think that's a retcon so much as contextualizing everything in a greater fashion.
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But it completely wipes away the ultimate act of evil of the timelords - the destruction of reality to save themselves. And it changes enough straight statements compared to TEOT, like Gallifrey changing from the furthest point of the time war to the last point of defence that I can't see how moff meant it to be anything but a retcon.

Spectromixer said:
And I just got my Sylvester McCoy bluray in the mail 😄
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Shame it wasn't s25 instead of s26, that would be apropos of the current discussion given "Remembrance of the Daleks" :D
 
Metallix87

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sir_crocodile said:
But it completely wipes away the ultimate act of evil of the timelords - the destruction of reality to save themselves. And it changes enough straight statements compared to TEOT, like Gallifrey changing from the furthest point of the time war to the last point of defence that I can't see how that's anything but a retcon.
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I think those two points are the same point, though. It just adds further context to why the Doctor steals the Moment and why Rassilon was considering the Ultimate Sanction. Regardless, we can agree to disagree on the matter.
 

mclem

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EvilRedEye said:
I got so distracted by his excellent enunciation that I didn't actually listen to the content of his words for about half the video.
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He's the guy who does Big Finish performances for Doctors they don't have in person, his impressions are incredible. He's played Ten, Eleven and Twelve for them.
 
Dwebble

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I have room in my headcanon for both Moffat and RTD's conceptions of the Time War.

RTD's grand visions of seconds used as weapons and planets used as bullets eventually giving way to slugfests and conventional weaponry as both sides are exhausted.

"I know not with what weapons [the start of the Time War] will be fought, but [the end of the Time War] will be fought with sticks and stones", that kind of thing.

Let's face it, it's not like The End of Time showed much of RTD's overall vision for the War- all we saw was a smoking Capitol and some wrecked Dalek saucers, which is way more compatible with The Day of the Doctor than what RTD was up to in that prequel.
 
water_wendi

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The latest in that long running Doctor Who review series by Clever Dick Films is up. This one covers the Eccleston era and is another fascinating installment.

 
Coldman

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The Timeless Child stuff is soooo easy to retcon. Just make it a Rassilon revenge plot after he got outsted in Hell Bent. Fucks off Gallifrey with select few Time Lords, tricks the Master by revealing the Timeless Child origin of the Time Lords (but add in the fictional detail of the Child being the Doctor to push him over the edge), then have him eventually get busted by the Doctor at some point (like saaaaay 60th anniversary).

I do like RTD giving the Timeless Child idea some shine in his foreword for his Rose prequel, but yeah no.
 
Metallix87

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Coldman said:
The Timeless Child stuff is soooo easy to retcon. Just make it a Rassilon revenge plot after he got outsted in Hell Bent. Fucks off Gallifrey with select few Time Lords, tricks the Master by revealing the Timeless Child origin of the Time Lords (but add in the fictional detail of the Child being the Doctor to push him over the edge), then have him eventually get busted by the Doctor at some point (like saaaaay 60th anniversary).

I do like RTD giving the Timeless Child idea some shine in his foreword for his Rose prequel, but yeah no.
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I think Rassilon being out somewhere in the universe is definitely a very easy way to re-tackle this issue with a new show runner down the line. I've had my own thoughts on exactly that for weeks now.
 
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