The Five Doctors

[meddow]

I watched The Five Doctors with my flatmates. Flatmate One decided that Anthony Ainley was hot and proceeded to drool over the Master. Flatmate Two decided that Two is the best Doctor ever, with haircut being her sole judging criterion. Everybody mocked the triangles and I found myself apologising for the Sarah vs. the hill of very slight gradient. Actually, the Sarah fall thing wasn't half as awful as I had expected it to be. Don't get me wrong, it was pretty bad, but listening to fandom you would think it was the worst moment in Who history (for me that's the entirety of Revelation of the Daleks)

It occurred to me sometime after watching it that The Five Doctors would be in 1983 what The Stolen Earth (and to a lesser extent Journey's End) was to fans this year: one big long squee fest, although incomplete with the lack of Tom Baker and the real One. Yes, it's a bit rubbish in places, but who cares? It's five Doctors. And Susan! The Brigadier! Sarah Jane!

I have one major complaint – there was not nearly enough bickering. You can take your Death Zones and Yetis and Rassilon robots, all I'm here is for the Doctor bickering with his selves. But they spent barely any time together. The The Three Doctors is far superior in this respect (actually in most respects).

One and Tegan are quite possibly the greatest TARDIS team that never were. I don't like Tegan that much, but I think it's very little to do with the character, but rather she's paired with the wrong sort of Doctor. Five's so very lovely and she would work far better with a grumpy Doctor, like One. Poor Turlough just seems to not want to make an impression on me - negative or positive - at all.

In other pairings, this serial contained the most Foe!Yay I've seen after the Sound of Drums. It was the Master's line about a universe without the Doctor being unbearable that did it. You actually had to feel quite sorry for the Master in this serial. He is actually for the most part just trying to help. And One couldn't even figure out who he was.

I couldn’t help but notice Sarah ends up with the coasterseal of Rassilon. There's something that it would be brilliant to see show up in her attic. I think 'X item should show up in Sarah's attic' is a very common phrase in my journal, like 'Y classic monster should be in the new series' and 'Actor Z that Meddow has a crush on this week should be Eleven' (you know I've been crewing at the bit since TDK to say how brilliant a Doctor Aaron Eckhart would be in spite of being American).

The commentary with David Tennant, Phil Collinson and Helen Raynor was excellent, and the making of doco one of the best. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to listen to the other commentaries. I hope I didn't miss out on much.

Next DVD I plan to watch is Timelash. Wish me luck.

Comments

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

I cannot criticize The Five Doctors. I don't even think it's all that rubbish, that's how much I adore it. It's just an orgy of fun.

I'm rather not fond of Tegan, but I actually like her dynamic with Five quite a bit. The bickering is pretty great, and sometimes they make really damn good points. I don't ship them, though. They honestly don't seem into each other. Just that they came to care about each other as friends despite themselves. XD And people do talk about her needing a grumpy Doctor...okay, well I suppose One or Six could be hilarious, but I kind of thank my lucky stars Four bowed out as she came in because HE WOULD HAVE KILLED HER. I mean it.

The poor Master in this one. "I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP---WELL FINE THEN, YOU BASTARD!" And, um, yeah. That scene with Five on the hill in particular...that was pretty lustful. Five/Ainley!Master really give other incarnations a run for their money for sheer sexuality coming in waves off the screen.

This was the first time I ever saw One, even before any actual One serials. So I don't have a criticism for him either. There's so much more to the original One -- partly due to, you know, more time, and him being the one who built the character -- but I adored Five Doctors!One. He was so cute.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Four would have killed her, or at least shoved her out of the TARDIS door and run away very quickly, but it would have made for hilarious viewing. Though, really, Four had stubborn companions his whole run, Sarah, Leela and Romana aren't exactly pushovers, so I actually think Tegan may just have worked with him.

Ainley!Master works so very well with Five. I don't think was as good with Six and Seven, but with Five they had a rather excellent thing going on, and give Simm!Master/Ten competition.

Fake!One wasn't a bad. I doubt the could have found a better replacement. Still, it's disappointing him not being real!One. Oh, why do people have to grow old and die?

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

The thing is, at the exhausted point Four had reached at the point she came along, I could seriously seem him getting humorlessly ENRAGED. And there's a difference between the forceful that his other girls were and the downright difficult that Tegan could be. I mean, even at the beginning with Romana, he nearly threw stuff at her in a fit.

I just saw Mark of the Rani, and there was a wonderful comfort level between Six and the Master while they were conversing amongst themselves while the Rani went to get Peri, but it still doesn't hit the level he had with Five. It blows the mind.

ETA: OH, AND. The Phil/Helen/David commentary was adorable. XD But Peter was on another of the commentaries, and I hear he's great for those. Everything I've ever heard him say has certainly been awesome. So that's one to seek out, I should think.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen many of the early Romana serials. He was getting rather annoyed with everything in Logopolis, though, and seemed to just want to be alone. I doubt any new Companion, no matter the personality, would have lasted long with that particular version of Four. Still, in Tegan with him from seasons 12-15 would have worked.

When the DVDs not in such high demand, I'll rent it again and check out the other commentaries.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Ainley!Master works so very well with Five. I don't think was as good with Six and Seven, but with Five they had a rather excellent thing going on, and give Simm!Master/Ten competition.

Agreed that Ainley!Master had the most chemistry with Five, but as far as Old Who is concerned, nothing will ever beat Three/Delgado!Master, who had fantastic chemistry AND way better scripts than poor Ainley ever did his appearances. It's also the ONLY Doctor/Master combination before Ten/Simm!Master that really works the "two sides of a coin/doppelgangers" thing and has the Doctor showing fondness for the Master in a direct, not just indirect way. (As in: "In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing him again." "Well, we were friends once. Very good friends. In fact, we were - at school together.")

[meddow.livejournal.com]

My local library - my main source of Classic Who - has no Delgado!Master serials so I haven't managed to watch any. It's terrible. I'll try and get some though because their dynamic sounds fantastic (and I adore the UNIT crew).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

In lieu of providing you with entire serials, I can at least give you their classing making out fencing scene from The Sea Devils. The sandwhich eating in between kills me and is the most blatant come on by the Doctor in Old Who:

More!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

An assortment of clips featuring some of their best scenes:



And a vid that is especially fun if you've ever watched Highlander *veg*:

Re: More!

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting those. I really have to start lobbying my library to buy more third Doctor serials because Delgado!Master and Three are wonderful.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Agreed on One and Tegan. And Turlough is pretty much a nonenty in this one; of course, it took me until his goodbye story to finally warm up to him, so I would say that. (BTW, astrogirl2 suggested a meeting of the ginger comanions - Turlough, Mel and Donna - is in order.

The Tennant/Collinson/Raynor commentary is one of my gleeful fannish indulgence things. They're just so much in love with the show and such geeks, and it's adorable.

(BTW, in the actual Five Doctors cast commentary, Elisabeth Sladen returns the sentiment and refers to "the lovely David Tennant". *g*)

[meddow.livejournal.com]

A meeting of the ginger companions is certainly in order, with a seething jealous not ginger!Ten watching on.

It was the T/C/R commentary that really hit home how much of an event The Five Doctors was for fans. And it's hilarious at times.

[adroidmortox247.livejournal.com]

Surprised to hear you didn't like revelation, but each to their own. Five Doctors is a story I have a love hate relationship with. There are many bits of it I like, but there are also so many that make me cringe (e.g. the Cybermen talking about how they will betray the master when he's literally within earshot.)

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I'm very forgiving of those moment due to the squee factor, but I do wish it had less of those flaws.

[prlrocks.livejournal.com]

I just watched this ep in the last week or two. It's good fun, though I admit I found Sarah Jane horribly annoying it it.

I felt bad for the Master too in this ep. You know something is wrong when you want to give the Master a hug.

I rather like Turlough, though he didn't have much to do in this ep. The two eps before that though, his storyline was great, in my opinion. In those two eps alone, he skipped several companions ahead on my ranking list of all the companions I've seen.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

This wasn't Sarah Jane's greatest hour. Although she did get to be wonderfully snarky at times.

They really need to release more Turlough serials on DVD. All the ones relating to his arc haven't been released yet, and his story does sound rather interesting. Maybe then I would appreciate him more.