Caught Up (sort of)
Jun. 9th, 2008 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaWe marathoned the last three episodes of Doctor Who relaunch season 3 for TV Night tonight.
Okay, the Doctor's a god. As of ep 3-13, he meets my definition in every particular - the only one he'd been missing was 'deriving a direct benefit from worship,' and I'd been loosely classing the companions as the members of his cultus - especially the ones whose attitude towards him clearly had that element (*points at Jack Harkness*). That whole "Tinkerbell Jesus" thing? Hell, yes! He even does the callback to "faith, hope, and love" before absolving the Master of his sins.
And he leaves heroes and demigods scattered in his wake! Again, the Captain is the best example, but Martha spends a year becoming a hero and his prophet (oh, and that bit with leaving him her cell phone? Prophet and priestess - she has a direct line to him now), Sarah Jane is still doing her part to protect the Earth after thirty years, a season of peripheral contact and then half a season of direct Companion-ship renders Mickey a great enough hero to fight the Cybermen without the Doctor (although the existence of Ricky suggests that Mickey had at least one level of Badass in him all along, and one might suggest that being Rose's consort might have had said something about his potential, too), and I strongly suspect that he didn't quite suck all the time vortex out of Rose, but even if he did - she beat abalrog kakodemon without the Doctor, and how cool is that?
(I wanna see what Ace is doing!)
Not only is he the one remaining Time Lord and Savior, but he is creating new legends out of humans, to replace the ancient legend that was his own people. Whether he realizes he's doing this is suspect - given that he seems to be genuinely disgusted by what Rose made of Jack, I'm going to guess not, but it fundamentally doesn't matter. He can't be a lone god - his existence generates a pantheon.
I do sort of wonder why he gets that upset at the Master's death. He has to know by now that it's not permanent. The Master has died at least twice already, and stolen a new body each time. He's had practice. The Simm regeneration of the Master sets himself up as the anti-Doctor, and largely succeeds, but he's also an anti-Captain - Jack's body won't stay dead, and keeps yanking his soul back; the Master's soul won't move on, so he keeps having to hijack new bodies. (Although the Chameleon Arch explains how he managed to change his stolen bodies to proper Gallifreyan ones.)
Does the whole speech about the eight-year-olds brought to look into the eye-of-time thingy mean that Time Lord is a caste of Gallifreyan? They usually use the term 'Time Lord' to refer to any native of Gallifrey, but that suggests that those who aren't chosen to take that look (at the very least) aren't selected for whatever further training the Doctor and the Master both got. (It also suggests that a Time Lord's first regeneration grows up at an approximately human rate, which surprises me.)
So, there are privileged timelines in this universe. The Doctor's is the most important, since he's the one remaining Time Lord. (Well, okay - strictly speaking, the TARDIS's timeline is probably the most important, but it's not clear that it's sophontic.) The second most important one, then, would be the Master's, since he's also a Time Lord, diminished below the Doctor's only by his long time spent under the Arch. Third would be the Captain, since he's a time-traveller in his own right and he's 'a fixed point in time.' (And he survived a time trip on the *outside* of the TARDIS, which is just incredibly badass.) Fourth would probably be Rose, having been inhabited by the Time Vortex and all. After that would be any member of the Time Patrol, followed by any of the Doctor's companions, followed by Lucy Saxon, followed a variety of other people who have had time incidents (including, but not limited to, anyone who was on the Valiant when the Year That Wasn't occurred), followed by other humans. Oh, and Dalek Caan belongs in there somewhere. He probably outranks all the humans, with the possible exception of Jack Harkness/the Captain/the Face of Boe (who, it is implied strongly, is no longer properly human).
Ten is a bit of a bigot, isn't he? He abandons Jack because Rose screwed him up, with neither explanation nor proper apology, and he's the "no second chances" Doctor, but he's willing to forgive the Master killing off much of the human race. Granted, he un-did it, so perhaps there's a "no harm no foul" clause working there, but still. Nepotism. (And a cute nod to fan speculation on the Master-as-long-lost-brother brushoff!)
I need a silly icon that's just Captain Jack. Preferably topless.
Now we've finished all of the DW that's available on disc. We need to get caught up on Torchwood, and then start in on Season 4.
Okay, the Doctor's a god. As of ep 3-13, he meets my definition in every particular - the only one he'd been missing was 'deriving a direct benefit from worship,' and I'd been loosely classing the companions as the members of his cultus - especially the ones whose attitude towards him clearly had that element (*points at Jack Harkness*). That whole "Tinkerbell Jesus" thing? Hell, yes! He even does the callback to "faith, hope, and love" before absolving the Master of his sins.
And he leaves heroes and demigods scattered in his wake! Again, the Captain is the best example, but Martha spends a year becoming a hero and his prophet (oh, and that bit with leaving him her cell phone? Prophet and priestess - she has a direct line to him now), Sarah Jane is still doing her part to protect the Earth after thirty years, a season of peripheral contact and then half a season of direct Companion-ship renders Mickey a great enough hero to fight the Cybermen without the Doctor (although the existence of Ricky suggests that Mickey had at least one level of Badass in him all along, and one might suggest that being Rose's consort might have had said something about his potential, too), and I strongly suspect that he didn't quite suck all the time vortex out of Rose, but even if he did - she beat a
(I wanna see what Ace is doing!)
Not only is he the one remaining Time Lord and Savior, but he is creating new legends out of humans, to replace the ancient legend that was his own people. Whether he realizes he's doing this is suspect - given that he seems to be genuinely disgusted by what Rose made of Jack, I'm going to guess not, but it fundamentally doesn't matter. He can't be a lone god - his existence generates a pantheon.
I do sort of wonder why he gets that upset at the Master's death. He has to know by now that it's not permanent. The Master has died at least twice already, and stolen a new body each time. He's had practice. The Simm regeneration of the Master sets himself up as the anti-Doctor, and largely succeeds, but he's also an anti-Captain - Jack's body won't stay dead, and keeps yanking his soul back; the Master's soul won't move on, so he keeps having to hijack new bodies. (Although the Chameleon Arch explains how he managed to change his stolen bodies to proper Gallifreyan ones.)
Does the whole speech about the eight-year-olds brought to look into the eye-of-time thingy mean that Time Lord is a caste of Gallifreyan? They usually use the term 'Time Lord' to refer to any native of Gallifrey, but that suggests that those who aren't chosen to take that look (at the very least) aren't selected for whatever further training the Doctor and the Master both got. (It also suggests that a Time Lord's first regeneration grows up at an approximately human rate, which surprises me.)
So, there are privileged timelines in this universe. The Doctor's is the most important, since he's the one remaining Time Lord. (Well, okay - strictly speaking, the TARDIS's timeline is probably the most important, but it's not clear that it's sophontic.) The second most important one, then, would be the Master's, since he's also a Time Lord, diminished below the Doctor's only by his long time spent under the Arch. Third would be the Captain, since he's a time-traveller in his own right and he's 'a fixed point in time.' (And he survived a time trip on the *outside* of the TARDIS, which is just incredibly badass.) Fourth would probably be Rose, having been inhabited by the Time Vortex and all. After that would be any member of the Time Patrol, followed by any of the Doctor's companions, followed by Lucy Saxon, followed a variety of other people who have had time incidents (including, but not limited to, anyone who was on the Valiant when the Year That Wasn't occurred), followed by other humans. Oh, and Dalek Caan belongs in there somewhere. He probably outranks all the humans, with the possible exception of Jack Harkness/the Captain/the Face of Boe (who, it is implied strongly, is no longer properly human).
Ten is a bit of a bigot, isn't he? He abandons Jack because Rose screwed him up, with neither explanation nor proper apology, and he's the "no second chances" Doctor, but he's willing to forgive the Master killing off much of the human race. Granted, he un-did it, so perhaps there's a "no harm no foul" clause working there, but still. Nepotism. (And a cute nod to fan speculation on the Master-as-long-lost-brother brushoff!)
I need a silly icon that's just Captain Jack. Preferably topless.
Now we've finished all of the DW that's available on disc. We need to get caught up on Torchwood, and then start in on Season 4.
