I finally finished “The War Games”!

[rusty_halo]

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I finally finished “The War Games”! And, hey, only a month after I started watching it.

Why is it ten episodes long? It could have been three and it would've been a million times better. I just can't take too much of these pointlessly meandering filler-loaded old Who episodes. If you're a fellow newbie interested in watching this, seriously, just skip the beginning and start with episode five or six. Nothing happens at the beginning aside from "they run around a lot." Everything they figure out gets summarized later in a sentence or two.

That said, it actually did get good at the end. This was the first time I've felt emotionally invested in an old Who story. The Time Lords were awful (no wonder Ten talks more about the grass and the mountains than the, um, people) and the Doctor's fear of them was palpable. It was hard to watch, how he kept trying and failing to escape, and how at the end he'd pretty much given up and only went along with the escape plan to humor Jamie and Zoe. And being forced to regenerate (although is that really a regeneration? he didn't die) and lose his ability to travel in time? That's heartbreaking.

And to lose his companions. That was hard to watch, and kind of brought back memories of "Doomsday." Especially Jamie, who I grew to like despite the painfully bad acting. His relationship with the Doctor (even if you ignore the extreme slashiness) was full of both confidence in the Doctor and yet protectiveness toward him--again, a lot like Donna or Rose. Zoe was less appealing--mostly she just looked wide-eyed and asked questions in that awful chirpy voice (and, god, the actress here was even worse)--but of course I was sad for her too. I loved that they sought out the Doctor when he was imprisoned, that they cared about him, and it was painful how they had so much belief in him while he was helpless to do anything. Having your memory erased is such an awful violation. Thank god RTD got rid of those awful Time Lords. :P (Yes, this is the first time I've seen old Who Time Lords--what an unappealing introduction! No wonder the Doctor ran away!)

Oh, and the War Chief! He was campy and ridiculous and so utterly slashy. I kinda wish I'd been watching it with a fellow slash fan, because, dude. I was bouncing and jaydk was looking at me like I suddenly turned twelve. But the whole story was about the War Chief being in love with the Doctor and wanting to rule the universe together with him! It was! Shut up! And while I realize that he was a proto-Master and not the actual Master, come on, watching it now it only takes the slightest squint to see him as the Master.

And the slash. First of all he captures his "enemy" and instead of killing him, he tries to seduce him. "Let's rule the universe together! It won't be any fun without you!" (Also he was so Darth Vader there. The Doctor's not his son so obviously he must be his ex-boyfriend! None of this "secret brother" nonsense.) And there's some flimsy meta reason--he wants the Doctor's TARDIS--but come on, he really wants the Doctor. He could've killed the Doctor and gotten the TARDIS another way if that's all he wanted. Why would the bad guy immediately volunteer to give up half his power and share his rule with the Doctor unless he was totally in love with him? And then later he finds out the Doctor's in trouble and rushes to his rescue. I mean come on.

And they're obviously perfect for each other--the adventurous runaways who want nothing to do with those stuffy old Time Lords. The Master even kind of wants the same thing as the Doctor, to help (his ultimate goal here was peace), he just differs in his methods (himself as megalomaniacal dictator of the universe). And the Doctor doesn't call in the Time Lords to stop the Master; he does it because they're the only ones who can put the humans back into their correct timelines. That's the difference between the Doctor and the Master--the Doctor actually cares about the individual humans, so much so that he's willing to sacrifice his own freedom in order to help them.

Also, old Who fans who keep whining that new Who plots make no sense--are you seriously suggesting that the plot here made sense?! Soldiers from (a small slice of Western) human history pitted against each other? This is how the bad guys are going to take over the universe? Ummm...

So, next up is "Terror of the Autons." Any advice on that one?

Current Mood: amused

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