The I Like Doctor Who Project

No, not the breakfast food (despite calling myself Animate Mush).

Porridge is the proverbial “man behind the curtain” at Hedgewick’s World of Wonders, running the chess-playing cyberman for Webly all Kenny Baker style. Once he is discovered he joins our heroes in the role of “just this guy, ya know?”

One of the nice things about Porridge is that he’s played completely straight. Like, given the carnival setting he could have been a circus freak or something, but no, he’s just a regular guy. A remarkably practical regular guy, whom basically everybody feels comfortable talking to. Just an easygoing guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of imperial history and politics. He’s a great source of exposition and backstory and he takes charge very very early, without really interfering with or undermining the people giving the orders. And this makes perfect sense, because he’s the Emperor. Ludens Nimrod Cedric called Longstark the 41st, Defender of Humanity and Imperator of Known Space. YEAH.

What he also is is a beautiful and deliberate parallel for the Doctor. Seriously. It’s a bit buried by the Doctor arguing with himself all episode, but it’s definitely there. I ADORE obvious parallels for the Doctor, as you might have gathered. Consider:

• Porridge’s beautiful little scene with Clara near the beginning: “I feel like a monster sometimes” and the especially evocative “I just feel sorry for the poor bloke who had to push the button and blow it all up.” He’s talking not just about his ancestor who destroyed the Tiberius Galaxy, but also about his own role and the standard procedure of planet-imploding. Both the history of genocide and the burden/responsibility of genocide resting firmly on his own shoulders.

• The idea of the runaway, or Defector From Decadence, as tvtropes puts it. He gets called on it very early on, when he’s trying to order the Captain to stand down, and she says ” you ran away!” This comes to a head with his eventual decision to activate the bomb, and his “I don’t want to be Emperor.” Near infinite power and authority, and we find him (functionally) hiding out in a junk yard. (How many times has the Doctor been made Lord President, again? Oh right - four.)

• The theme of Loneliness. “Every lonely monster needs a companion” right? And if you look at the Doctor’s face there, he’s got this very real fear that he’s going to lose his companion to a younger version of himself (again.) The wanderer, doomed to wander alone. And so he invites Clara to come with him, as really the only person (other than Webley) he’s interacted with to a significant degree in some time.

• So, for the record, I’m not a whouffle shipper (though I do think y’all have the cutest ship name ever). That said, the Queen of the Universe stuff felt like a very deliberate parallel being drawn between Porridge and the Doctor. Clara turns down the Imperial Proposal because she’s already Queen of the Universe in a sense via her relationship with the Doctor. (Well and also because she just met him, and this is crazy). There’s, ya know, blocking and stuff. In many ways, Porridge’s proposal comes kind of out of nowhere, but that’s primarily because it’s only there in order to throw up this parallelism with the Doctor. As I said, I’m not personally a whoufflepuff (seriously you guys have the best name), but this moment in particular seemed pretty clear.

In general, Porridge was throughout someone whom everyone was comfortable around. He took charge almost immediately without ever seeming to do so. He was unassuming, but practical. And he did take responsibility in the end, even though he really really didn’t want to. He tended to accept things with a remarkable degree of stoicism and equanimity. He certainly has flaws, but he ultimately does what needs to be done, despite his reluctance. He takes things as they come and with great resignation, and in a very understated sort of way. He’s got almost a Last Sane Man thing going on, but more easygoing than that trope tends to suggest. Just a generally good character (and I kind of wish Clara had decided to marry him after all. It would have been more believable than Leela and Andred, at least).

And if your name were Ludens Nimrod Cedric blah blah blah you’d probably go by Porridge as well.

(…how does he feel about porridge itself anyway?)

Mod’s Note: Shifting queue later in the day because I keep having to make adjustments in the middle of the night to have it ready by 5 AM California time…..

Unbeknownst to most, Jamie’s Kilt is not, in fact, the only kilt to appear in Doctor Who. Less well known (but no less fabulous) is the kilt worn by the one and only Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. For all of about 3 minutes in the beginning of “Terror of the Zygons.” But it is sufficient.

(gif courtesy of dimensionsintime )

We first know that something is potentially amiss by the fact that, when we first see the Brigadier, he is out of uniform. Wha!? But it’s okay because his suit jacket is gorgeous on him. It’s never explained why he’s out of uniform in that scene, except perhaps to give him an excuse to wear a kilt. But the first time we see it is when the Doctor walks in (in plaid scarf and tam o’shanter, mind) and says:

Doctor: I want to know one thing Brigaider. What’s that?
Brigadier: That, Doctor, is a kilt.
Doctor: Yes… suits you very well.
Brigadier: Oh, do you think so?

This is the Doctor and the Brigadier down to the ground. Treating insults like compliments and compliments like insults. The Doctor is fascinated, but serious. The Brigadier is proud and defiant - expecting a ribbing over it but thoroughly unapologetic. And of course revving up to give the Doctor some friendly abuse in return. But sadly they get interrupted by the Duke, and we are robbed of an episode entirely about the Brig’s unexpectedly visible knees. Perhaps surprising, the Doctor never actually makes fun of the Brigadier’s kilt, although the Brig clearly expects him to. He seems more just impressed that the Brigadier has managed to surprise him.

Sarah is not nearly so politic, and spends the entire scene unable to stop cracking up. Harry, for his part, has gotten himself saddled with The Scarf, and so probably can’t see or breathe sufficiently to take notice. Incidentally, Harry wearing The Scarf is almost as adorable as Six wearing The Scarf in the Ten Doctors, and significantly more canonical. D’aaaawwwww Harry.) But, being an Intrepid Reporter, Sarah also manages to actually ask about it.

Sarah: “Though I didn’t expect to see you in a kilt!”
Brigadier: “My dear Miss Smith - as you remember my name is Lethbridge-Stewart! The clan Stewart.”
Sarah: “Oh sorry! I thought you were doing a Doctor.”
Brigadier: “What an absurd idea.”

Leaving aside the fact that Sarah has apparently gotten so used to the Doctor and his shenanigans that it doesn’t occur to her that someone might have a legitimate reason for wearing a kilt, there is a ton of stuff going on here. First off, “Terror of the Zygons” is set in Scotland, and there’s sort of a three-way conflict going between the landed gentry, the locals, and the (English) Oil Company. The Brigadier is officially here on behalf of the Oil company, but even in those few brief moments at the beginning he puts a lot of effort into allying himself with the locals, not being an outsider. The bit with the bagpipes is another example - he’s pushing accommodation of his hosts at the expense of personal convenience. He also seems to genuinely enjoy the discomfort it is causing Mr. Huckle, which puts him at a distinct conversational advantage. (I’d suspect he also enjoys the music). The kilt is another such gesture. I am one of you - I am not coming in from the outside and throwing my weight around as someone who knows nothing about such things. It helps him achieve an image of neutrality. Perhaps this is also why he is “holding court” as it were out of uniform.

But also, as the dialog with Sarah indicates, he is a Scottish person in Scotland. He is proud of his heritage and seems to be enjoying the opportunity to show it off. The Brigadier is as straight-edge as it gets. But just as he covers his stiff upper lip with the quirk of a fabulous mustache, he is not so straight-laced nor so stern that he will not induldge in a bit of kiltedness in the even that it is ever completely appropriate. It is these little flashes of personality that really make the Brigadier who he is: more than just your pompous military idiot. But this is why Sarah bursts out laughing. Not at kilts generally (even Sarah is a bit too politic for that) but at the idea that it’s the Brigadier wearing one. Something so fanciful seems completely out of character for him. Which is because he’s not being fanciful or absurd - that’s what the Doctor would do (heaven forbid!). He’s being who he is, which is every inch a Lethbridge-Stewart, on both sides of the hyphen. (And, need I point out, not only is Stewart a Scottish name, is is also a royal name. Thoroughly appropriate for the Brig, of course).

My Scottish sources inform me that, although clan tartans were more or less invented by Sir Walter Scott, what the Brigadier is wearing is not the familiar Royal Stewart tartan, but likely instead the very handsome Hunting Stewart tartan, as befitting a military man.  So well done team for attention to detail!

So, it probably took you longer to read this than it takes to watch the one scene with the kilt, but that’s okay! Because it is, indeed, a magnificent kilt. And comes with the extra bonus of containing the Brigadier! Huzzah!

Daleks, man. Those guys. Nazi pepperpots. We’ve seen their genesis, and we’ve seen their ultimate extinction - admittedly more times than I can count. (Well, okay…seven.) They’re decidedly one-note, and that note is “exterminate.” How much can you really do with that? Answer: Civil War.

The Dalek Civil War was the best thing to ever happen to the Daleks. At its heart, the civil war is a philosophical conflict between racial superiority and racial purity. Both sides agree that the Daleks are the supreme beings of the universe (I mean duh) - but what does it mean to be a “Dalek” and how is supremacy to be achieved, these are questions that must be answered.

The catalyst for the war was the revivification of their creator Davros. His existence created a philosophical dilemma. On the one hand, as the creator of the Daleks, Davros must be honored; since Daleks are the supreme beings of the universe, whoever made them must be pretty great too. On the other hand, as the creator of the Daleks, Davros is by necessity not a Dalek. Chicken and egg, you know? Which means he must be inferior - not the person you want to let take command. He’s also dangerous - best just to exterminate him and have done.

The other problem with Davros is that he sees the Daleks as a work in progress, to the consternation and resentment of many of them (since the Daleks are, of course, perfect). He offers racial superiority in the form of improvements and genetic modification, at the expense of racial purity. The formerly unified Dalek nation splits into two factions: the Imperial Daleks, who follow Davros and get shiny new upgrades, and the Rebel Daleks, who maintain their purity and get to keep their insufferable smugness. As Ace so aptly puts it: “Daleks are blobs. Imperial Daleks are bionic blobs with bits added.”

The most interesting thing is the way this fundamental philosophical division has implications for the entire way the respective sides operate. Because the Imperial Daleks are no longer committed to racial purity, they start getting into forced conversion - turning people into new Daleks. (This is completely terrifying, for the record). This gives them a massive advantage in numbers and technology. They go in for cybernetic implants and specialized Dalek models (such as the Special Weapons Dalek). And they are completely dominated by the leadership of Davros. They have better weapons, but less individuality and creativity. The Rebel Daleks, by contrast, maintain their Dalek greyness (and greatness). Because they can’t recycle other people to make new Daleks, their numbers are small, and so they have to use human slaves - and, when necessary, human sub-contractors. They work with humans, but but maintain a hard distinction between the Dalek and the Human.

Which of these strategies ultimately proves the more effective? The new series makes it pretty darn clear (though it is never explicitly stated) that it must be the Rebels who won the war. (though Mod points out that they are using obviously imperial tech where they absolutely must) It probably helped that the Doctor tipped the balance of power by giving the Imperial Daleks the Hand of Omega (with which they obliterated themselves). But they maintain the values of the Rebel Daleks - obsession with purity, rather than the potential advantages of adaptation; using humans as slaves, not converts. They are ruled by the Emperor Dalek (a type of Dalek who is also an emperor), not the Dalek Emperor (an emperor over the Daleks who need not be one himself). They are wary and distrustful of Davros - they need his help but dare not give him any real power. Possibly because Daleks are more intelligent the fewer of them there are, possibly because they weren’t subject to Davros’ mismanagement, possibly because the Doctor somehow convinced the imperials to shoot themselves in the face - but the Rebels won the civil war. And more power to them!

I love the Dalek Civil War for oh so many reasons, but mainly because it forced a re-examination of what the Daleks were all about. An active discourse. And Daleks fighting each other while everyone else is caught in the crossfire made for an entirely different sort of plot from the typical “Daleks exterminate everything” sort of storyline. It was new. It was different. And it was brilliant. Especially since the two sides were really incredibly different, and not just in convenient color-coding either. It raised philosophical issues of identity within a heretofore monolithic monster. It is the best thing to ever happen to the Daleks, hands down.

This is just a rough list from memory (attemptedly chronological), so let me know if I’ve missed anything:

IP Foreman
Grandfather
Maximus Petalian
Doc
Zeus
Doctor Who
Doktor von Wer
John Smith
Doctor Gond
Shen-shen
The Great Wizard Qui Quae Quog
the Enemy of the Daleks
the Evil One
Old One
Master
Theta Sigma (or Thete)
the Watcher
Idiot
the Outsider
the Valeyard
the Great Architect
the Professor
Merlin
the Oncoming Storm
The Predator
The Lonely God
Sir Doctor of TARDIS
the Time Lord Victorious
the Raggedy Doctor
Sweetie
the Dream Lord
the Rotmeister
Raggedy Man
Thief
Benjamin
Also Not Mum
the Caretaker
Chin-boy
Sherlock Holmes
Monster
Mr. Clever

Bessie is the best darned little car in the entire universe. Let me tell you all about her.

When the Doctor is stripped of his knowledge of Time Travel and exiled to Earth, it takes him a while to settle down and start to accept his situation. The first bit of a silver lining that he is able to recognize (he tends to spend a lot of time being fractious and resentful of the Brigadier, for instance) is a fabulous red roadster that he steals from a hospital. This post is not about that car. That car is stolen, and the Brig is very firm about him giving it back. This post is about the car the Brigadier buys him to replace it, in return for his services in defending the earth from bullet-proof monsters.

Yes. Bessie is the price the Doctor asks for going to work for UNIT. In place of a salary, he gets room, board, and a sexy sexy car. Home and transport: the best approximation he can manage for the poor old TARDIS. And Bessie is an incredibly sexy car, in a quirky and old-fashioned kind of way - rather a lot like the Doctor himself. As for the Doctor, he seems defiantly determined to spend as much of his exile as possible tinkering with her out on the front drive.

Due to this tinkering, Bessie is no ordinary car. Her brakes work via the absorption of inertia. She can go so fast she leaves trails of fire in her tread marks. She’s equipped with an anti-theft device that involves gluing people to her sides by use of a powerful forcefield. And never forget that one time that she developed sentience and drove around all by herself, coming to rescue the Doctor from an angry mob of happy villagers. Or he was controlling her with a remote in his pocket, one of the two. Either way, she’s a fantastic troll.

And, despite being specifically for getting around on earth, Bessie manages to get around to an impressive degree. Because she has lived a long life, and she has seen a few things. She played the Game of Rassilon in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. She marked the passing of the Time Lords.[1] She saw the beginnings of the Fourth Doctor and she watched as the Seventh ran out to confront Morgaine. She drove in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. And she watched giant robots freeze up, and races burn — she has seen things you WOULDN’T BELIEVE AND SHE HAS LOST THINGS YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND[2]

[1] in that several of them happened to be passing at the time. Why, what did you think I meant? [2] including, but not limited to tires.

ahem Got a bit carried away there. But it is true that she managed to visit both Gallifrey and Omega’s anti-matter universe, by virtue of appearing in both the 10 and 20 year anniversary. And it looks like she’ll be back for 50 - or, at least, in the season finale. She’s also in “Battlefield”, which is functionally the classic series’ Grand Finale in many ways. She’s as iconic as the TARDIS herself during the Third Doctor era. And she’s just a good little car. She is as much a part of the UNIT family as Yates and Benton.

She’s the best little car in the entire universe.

The Rani is yet another rogue Time Lord, intended to be the female version of the Master - although not called the Mistress for obvious reasons. In this she failed utterly: the Rani is cool, competent, intelligent, successful, and wholly unimpressed with the Doctor - so, completely unlike the Master in every important way. (I kid, I kid - but seriously, the Rani is freakin impressive.)

(mod would like you to take note of her makeup in reference to previous post)

The Rani is a Mad Scientist without the Mad. She’s not actually insane. Her evil comes entirely from being amoral and unethical: she has no time for external rules and no concept of internal conscience. She sees people as “walking piles of chemicals,” mere means to an end. I particularly appreciate that she’s a biologist and a chemist. A lot of Mad Scientists tend to by physicists, bent on blowing up all the things (NOSSINK IN ZE VORLD KEN SCHTOPP ME NOW!) - but the Rani is out there turning people into trees. TREES. I find botany to be woefully underappreciated in media, so the Rani’s tree mines make me extraordinarily happy. And, from her point of view, not actually evil - she didn’t kill anybody and trees have a much longer lifespan than humans anyway, so what’s the big deal?

Apart from the (admittedly fabulous) tree mines, the Rani is surprisingly unostentatious for a villain (especially considering that she’s also a Time Lord, the people who invented the Stupid Hat.) She wears a disguise for the very reasonable purpose of drawing less attention to herself, and it’s a fairly simple (and thus effective). Unlike, say, the Master, who apparently spent an indeterminate amount of time dressed as a scarecrow on the off chance the Doctor would happen by. She has no particular ambitions of universal or even global conquest. She already runs her own planet, she’s just trying to make it work out a bit better. She covers her tracks well - so well, in fact, that the Doctor doesn’t discover what she’s up to until he is specifically invited onto the scene (the Master calls him over in “the Mark of the Rani,” in “Time and the Rani” she does so herself).

The Rani is, in fact, stunningly competent. When we meet her, she is already winning - in fact, has already won. Her scheme is flawless. And when it goes pear-shaped through no fault of her own, she is smart enough to cut her losses and try again somewhere else. And she would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids! (ie, the Doctor and the Master). On that note, her interactions with the two of them are absolutely a joy to watch, largely because she has absolutely no time for them and their shenanigans. While they’re flirting posturing with each other all over the place, she is systematically the voice of reason (not to mention sarcasm). She is an absolute sass-master, and has no time for either of them. This comes across less in “Time and the Rani,” but we are still treated to a fantastic amount of eye rolling and generally being above it all (and also shoulder pads for some reason).

The Rani also appears in “Dimensions in Time,” about which I have absolutely nothing to say, given that I have not in fact seen it, and I’m not sure it really counts. I am given to understand, however, that the Rani even hates children.

The Rani is probably one of the most requested “Bring X Back” characters, and is subject to more “So-and-so is actually X” theories than probably anyone else. In fact, there’s a whole page dedicated to theories that various other characters are in fact the Rani. I want them all to be true. Because the Rani is fantastic in every appreciable way.

(also mod may be in love with her beautiful TARDIS)

Madame Kovarian, popularly known as Eye-Patch Lady, is the primary villain of Series 6, and much of what holds its often problematic plotline together. She is the most suave and in particular capable villain we’ve seen in a long long time. And we know almost nothing about her.

Madame Kovarian has no origin story. She enters the series fully formed, at the fruition of her schemes, laden with threat and mystery. She is working for the Silence (or they are working for her) but we are never told why. She is allied with both the Clerics and the Headless Monks, but is a member of neither order. We only meet her when she has functionally already won, but we don’t know why she was fighting in the first place, besides her cryptic remark about “this endless bitter war - against you.”

That’s the thing. While the Doctor’s reputation has allowed her to easily recruit people to her cause, her campaign against him seems very personal. She clearly knows the Doctor, and what makes her so effective as a villain is just how well she knows him. She is one step ahead of him (minimum) for the entire season. Her fatal mistake is not in misjudging the Doctor, but in failing to realize that Amy is as unlike him as she is (being, well, a psychopath and all).

Madame Kovarian: Amy… Help me.

Amy: You took my baby from me… and hurt her. Now, she’s all grown up and she’s fine… but I’ll never see my baby again.

Madame Kovarian: But you’ll still save me though. Because he would. And you’d never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor.

Amy: The Doctor is very precious to me, you’re right. But you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? Not here. River Song didn’t get it all from you, sweetie.

As far as the Doctor himself is concerned, she doesn’t slip up even once (although failing to realize that the Silence would inevitably turn on her is a classic villain mistake worthy of the Master.)

Her vendetta against the Doctor is rendered more mysterious (and generally interesting) in that it seems to be for reasons entirely different from the ones stated in “A Good Man Goes to War.” That is, unlike the rest of the folks there, she doesn’t seem to think he’s gotten too big for his britches and become a Monster in and of himself, although she finds this a convenient impression to use - she’s not a misunderstood and misunderstanding goodguy opposing what she sees as a legitimate threat. Like, she gets that she’s the villain of the piece, throwing the Doctor’s “goodness” back in his face. She also confuses morals (being a Good Man) with ethics (having Rules), which means that she’s evil neither for the heck of it nor by accident, but because she thinks she’s above the strictures of ethics (and therefore morality, which she seems to think is the same thing). I’m not bringing this in as a criticism, but rather because I think confusing the two says a lot about her character and how she looks a the world: logically, clinically, with no time for external rules and no concept of internal conscience.

Because Madame Kovarian is a scientist. (An evil scientist - I by no means mean to imply that scientists generally don’t go in for morality. See, eg, Liz Shaw). She’s very intelligent … possibly too intelligent. Think about it. She’s trying to create a fixed point in time - that is some pretty heavy duty temporal engineering. Not to mention all the genetic engineering biology stuff she’s got going on with baby Melody. Everything she does is well-thought-out, long term, and requiring of an incredible degree of technical expertiese. And this is probably why all of it works, almost completely perfectly.

I should mention that, not only does Madame Kovarian not die onscreen (it’s implied very strongly, but there’s a term for walking away and leaving your enemy in a certain death situation: Bond Villain Stupidity), but the entire series of events that led to her (presumed) demise in “the Wedding of River Song” never, in fact, happened. So…she’s totally still out there somewhere. Yep.

Which is awesome because she is definitely probably the Rani. She even hates children. (splat)

The Malus is the villain from the vastly underappreciated Fifth Doctor episode “the Awakening.” (I say vastly underappreciated because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it mentioned by anyone ever and it’s pretty darned awesome, but that’s neither here nor there.) It’s sort of a big stone face in a wall with glowing green eyes and dredlocks. If any of you are from central Ohio, it kind of looks exactly like L’Lala, Spirit of Inspiration, from the “Adventure” exhibit at CoSI. But I digress.

The Malus is an alien monstery thing that feeds off of human fear and hate and such. It’s been boarded up in a church since the English Civil War, and is trying to recreate the events (and thereby the emotions) of the war in order to fully awaken (hence the title of the episode). Or you could just punch in the three animal symbols that you found next to the tiny bronze statues sorry I’m done now. And not only does it feed off of these negative emotions, it exacerbates them, making the fighting worse, the hatred fiercer, and the war games real. (No, not those War Games, the other ones).

I really like how the Malus manages to be a real threat despite being a face in a wall which doesn’t actually do anything (except belch smoke in a sinister fashion). And I don’t mean that sarcastically. It’s a very insidious monster. All of the direct threat comes from normal decent people. It’s not even mind-control, it’s just enhancing what is already there. We are the monsters - the Malus is just a catalyst.

It also interacts with time in an interesting way. The more I think about it, the more Sapphire and Steel “the Awakening” seems. It bridges the time gap via the solid reality of the church in both periods and the brutality of the human emotions involved, allowing people to slip through from one era to the next, past and present all mixed up. There are time echoes of people running all around and committing petty acts of purse-snatching. A projection of the Malus even manages to penetrate the TARDIS - which is incidentally the only time you get to see the whole thing: humanoid but not, a cross between an Aztec god and a lizard, and generally awesome looking. It’s just neat and a little bit surreal - Time almost feels like a character in this one, thick and tangible. And it really brings out the feeling of ancient evil, patient and waiting to reawaken…

My one complaint, which is more of an anecdote, is the Malus’s name. My whole life, I thought the villain of this episode was called the Malice, which would have made PERFECT SENSE, because of the whole feeding off of fear and hatred thing. It was malice incarnate. When I finally saw it spelt, I was like “wait, it’s malus not malice? that’s dumb. what do hammers have to do with anything?” I now realize that it’s malus (adj.) meaning Evil not mallus (noun) meaning Hammer, but I hope I shall be forgiven slips in Latin. I still think it should have been called the Malice, since that was really its MO (and then you wouldn’t have to speak Latin - although speaking Latin is always awesome).

(reason to check out the Doctor Who Experience right there)