(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Who is back!



Very enjoyable. Obviously Missy, Clara, and the TARDIS are not going to stay exterminated, but I find that sort of thing much less irritating in the season opener than in the finale, because I don't feel that the show is pretending it might be permanent.

It is exciting to have Skaro back; I liked Small Davros and his awful jumper, and it's an enjoyable set-up. Of course, we shall have to see where it goes. The 'hand mines' were enjoyably grotesque, and the sense they give that pre-Dalek Skaro is a place where body horror is normal and bodily modification in order to create weapons fits with the willingness to create the Daleks.

There was an enjoyable WB Yeats joke in the clever sequence where Missy works out that they're not on a small space station, but on a cloaked planet. As Missy steps out, apparently into space, Clara asks what she's doing. "Treading softly", Missy replies, which looks like an allusion to Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven. Missy has just claimed that her friendship with the Doctor is of supreme importance and transcends all the Doctor's other relationships (is being encouraged to believe you're the puppy better or worse than being left feeling like the tin dog, I wonder?), even as she denies that it's got anything to do with sex. But the Doctor has brought her, not to the heaven's embroidered cloths, but the blood-soaked ground of Skaro. Skaro, though, may not be the stuff of the Doctor's dreams, but it is the stuff of his nightmares - which Missy, who is so revolted by the suggestion she might even be pretending to be good that she shoots several UNIT personnel, would no doubt prefer.

Nice to see what is presumably Bambera and Ancelyn's daughter, though I can't help feeling that UNIT ought to consider hiring some people who aren't second generation. We'll be seeing a Benton sprog next. Never mind; I think I completely misread the credits....

Also, Peter Capaldi just gets better and better. I really need a Who icon that's not Ten...

Comments

[perennialanna]

I did find myself thinking "This is a bit end-of-series, all this zipping between planets" (not that I had seen anything more than the first couple of the last series, but I decided it probably didn't matter and I think I was right, though I'm not at all sure of Missy's backstory. I will catch up one day). I liked it a lot.

[white_hart]

The main thing about Missy is that before her current regeneration she was the Master.

I really liked the episode; having been prepared for disappointment, I was pleasantly surprised by an episode which was just a lot of fun to watch.

[perennialanna]

I had gathered Bad Timelord (well, Timelady).

[white_hart]

S(he) is a recurring character going back to the Pertwee era - the Doctor's childhood friend and archnemesis (well, one of his archnemeses). Most recently appeared in the Tennant era played by John Simm.

[perennialanna]

I have only really seen New Who, but of that I've only missed the last series.

[sir_guinglain]

It's worth digging out Terror of the Autons, The Daemons, The Sea Devils and Frontier in Space for a start as the main texts (in my view) for the original Master, as played by Roger Delgado. There have been other interpretations since, of course...

[white_hart]

Sorry, I didn't mean to teach you to suck eggs - I just wasn't sure how much you had seen and whether "The Master" actually meant anything to you!

[tree_and_leaf]

I second the recommendation to check out Roger Delgado; he was a lot of fun.

[perennialanna]

No, it's the sort of detail that could easily have got lost in the haze of the last few years. I think John Simm was after I started having babies, so all my watching was with one and a half ears on the stairs, waiting for a wail.

[sir_guinglain]

You have found the heart of things as so often. I must watch this again (I haven't yet) and didn't spot the Bambera/Ancelyn daughter.

[tree_and_leaf]

Alas, I think I misread the credits! Never mind...

[nineveh_uk]

I enjoyed it very much. You make a good point about the hand mines as normalisation of body modification/horror. I really liked Missy as sort-of-working-with-the-Doctor in this episode in a way that allowed her space to be a more complex character, including her genuine horror at finding herself on Skaro.

Re. denial of anything to do with sex, an argument might be made that strictly speaking, Missy only denies "reproductive frenzy" rather than non-reproductive sex...

[tree_and_leaf]

an argument might be made that strictly speaking, Missy only denies "reproductive frenzy" rather than non-reproductive sex...

True!

Of course, the Master presumably had fairly unpleasant memories of Skaro, even before the Time War stuff.