Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 71

Solving Clara [WHO-50—2013]

I’ve figured out something about Clara that makes her character, and the various permutations of her, work much better for me.

I liked Clara all along, but unfortunately the narrative presented us with a Clara Problem – which was that she was awesome in Asylum of the Daleks, winning hearts and fans as Oswin, only to be killed tragically. Then they did it to us again in The Snowmen, with a fabulous Victorian governess version of the character who again, was delightful, fascinating and short-lived.

The idea was to set up a mystery, but unfortunately it also had the effect of burning me out on the character, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Clara’s third introduction in The Bells of St John was fantastic, very well written and performed, and I liked her a lot. But I didn’t find myself as instantly attached to her as I have been to almost every other companion ever, and I suspect that’s because I had learned not to trust that a Clara, however witty and adorable, would not break my heart.

It didn’t help that I, like many fans, was completely and TOTALLY ready for a non-contemporary companion, for someone who broke the mould. Even if it was still another slender, young white actress in the role, surely it was time for a companion who didn’t come from contemporary London/southern Britain?

In the old days, we had nearly as many companions joining the Doctor from the past, the future, or other planets, as we did from contemporary Earth, and now that the show was actually showing us alien planets occasionally, fans were hungry for something different with the companion. Sadly, Moffat shot himself in the foot somewhat by showing us how brilliantly Clara Oswin Oswald would work as a futuristic companion, and as a historical companion, only to give us a version that wasn’t either of those things.

Many fans loved Clara – hell, I loved her whenever she was on screen. I really enjoyed her in every episode. But part of me still felt distanced.

We weren’t given nearly as much of a chance to get to grips with Clara. All of our other ‘prime’ full time companions of New Who have had at least a 13 episode season to establish themselves and their story – Clara got two false starts, and then only eight episodes.

Then there was the mystery – as viewers, we simply didn’t know what was going on with Clara until The Name of the Doctor. We didn’t know if she was the same character that we had liked (or disliked) in Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen and so naturally enough, many of us reserved our judgement.

I find it really interesting that the companion-as-mystery trope worked less well for me with Clara than with Amy – the simple answer to that is that it was repetition and like most Doctor Who fans, I rail against any sense that the show is repeating itself. But Amy’s mystery was kept separate from her personality – the crack in her wall and its ramifications explained a LOT once it was all explained, but the mystery had not stopped us getting to know her.

Clara, however, was held back by her mystery. It certainly didn’t help that the Doctor himself was so suspicious, visibly restraining himself from trusting her, which gave an uncomfortable vibe to some scenes.

I loved the resolution, though. The idea that Clara had Jagarothed herself through time, saving the Doctor from countless versions of the Great Intelligence, was very clever and having her explode into his time stream made my little fannish heart explode with happiness. This was new, and different, and Clara was indeed revealed to be very, very special.

In retrospect, I suspect that my relationship (and the general fannish relationship) with Clara as a character will change with the new knowledge. It made me think, though, about our revised expectations about the role of the companion in New Who. It’s not enough just to cast a pretty actress, give her a gimmick and throw her at the plots, as they did in the old days (I’m not saying that the classic Who companions weren’t brilliant, because most of them were, but it was often in spite of the material the actors were given and the attitude with which they were treated – in particular, few of them were presented with much in the way of forethought or planning over their time in the TARDIS).

RTD set a new pattern, introducing us to each companion as the most important person in the show, and making the Doctor work for her friendship – he always had to impress her somewhat, to bring her aboard the TARDIS. Moffat, on the other hand, went the other way, with the companion having to prove herself to be worthy (or interesting) enough for the job. Admittedly, the Doctor did work overtime to keep Amy once he was attached to her – he put more effort into making her happy than pretty much all other companions combined, but that came later.

Clara’s story still leaves us with a lot of questions. I know that my friend Deb of the Verity! podcast is particularly upset that the versions of Clara scattered through space are treated as ‘not real’ and/or that they are sacrificing themselves over and over for him, possibly dying. We don’t have it resolved whether or not they have real lives, families etc. aside from their occasional ‘saving the Doctor’ job. Or do they pop out of existence once their job is done? I don’t know either.

But, as I said at the beginning of this post, I recently figured something out about Clara which makes sense to me, and everything clicked into place.

I think that the pieces of Clara scattered through Time and Space are not just Clara. I think there’s some Doctor in there too. Oswin doesn’t just, for instance, have the hacking skills with which the Great Intelligence upgraded Clara – she’s far superior in intelligence and ability. More to the point, she acts and sounds a lot like the Eleventh Doctor – her screaming genius speech reflects him and the way that he smartflirts with the universe. The Doctor’s fascinated by her disembodied voice, and I don’t think it’s because he fancies Daleks now. I think he is drawn to her because she sounds JUST LIKE HIM.

Likewise, the Clara we meet in Victorian London sounds a lot like the Doctor – her speeches to the children about disliking to swim alone and being born in a clock and all that. She is witty and compelling, and her arch banterific mysteriousness led many fans to note that she sounded a bit Time Lordy. Well, a bit Time Lordy mixed with Mary Poppinsy, and we all know Mary Poppins is a Time Lady, right?

She could well have been revealed as Susan or Romana, but that didn’t happen. So what other Time Lord do we know well who matches the speech patterns of Victorian Clara? How about the Doctor himself? Pretty much Clara/Miss Montague did in The Snowmen, including the choice of the word ‘pond’ (which would actually not mean anything to Clara Prime) and her chasing down a carriage to throw herself upside down into it, screamed “I am actually Matt Smith in a skirt.” Jenna Coleman was even cast because of her ability to outtalk the main actor…

The versions of Clara popping up through the universe might look and sound like Clara Prime, might be based on her physical design but I think they are actually an unholy cocktail of Clara and Doctor, combined in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways.

This explains why the Doctor was so obsessed with solving the mystery of Clara when he has in fact met many people in the universe who look exactly like other people, including previous companions Martha and Amy, and several dopplegangers of himself. There was something about her that felt – terribly familiar. His antagonism towards Clara in Series 7B is far less icky if it comes from his own self-hatred as demonstrated towards the Dream Lord in Amy’s Choice, and has less to do with the woman in the cute vintage frocks.

This also adds an extra layer explanation to why the TARDIS dislikes Clara Prime so much – she’s met a lot of Claras over the years, and they’ve all had the essence of her beloved thief about them – except this one.

Because Clara Prime, of course, is ordinary. More ordinary, perhaps, than any other companion ever. A letdown, perhaps, for some, but a rather splendid reveal for others. I’m very pleased that now we know the secret of Clara, we get another season in which to enjoy her properly, and on her own terms – and maybe now we can start appreciating the real Clara, the Clara of 7B, without the distraction of trying to figure out who she is in relation to those other Claras and Oswins.

I’m excited to see where they take the character next, with a new Doctor at her side.

2014, here we come! (though there’s a teeny matter of an anniversary special and a Christmas regeneration first – pshaw!

THIS IS THE LAST OF MY WHO-50 BLOG POSTS FOR DOCTOR WHO’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY.

Hooray! Thanks so much for reading. You can check out the whole bunch at the WHO50 tag.

ELSEWHERE ON 2013:

Episode 8 – Ring Them Bells (of St John) [Verity! Podcast]

Ice Hot [Radio Free Skaro]

Last Words on Hide: Erika, Deb, Tansy [Verity! Blog]

The Name of the Doctor? Gregory McCaramel [The Ood Cast]

Episode 16 – 7B to Rhyme with Squee! [Verity! Podcast]

Queers Dig Time Lords [Two Minute Time Lord]

Dear Santa: Casting Peter Capaldi [Two Minute Time Lord]

The Prodigal Episodes [Two Minute Time Lord]

Episode 26 – Two New 2! It’s True! [Verity! Podcast]

PREVIOUSLY:

Last Chance for Kaleidoscope Pledges!

It’s down to the last few days of the Kaleidoscope Pozible campaign, for a book of contemporary YA fantasy (and a dash of science fiction) with diverse protagonists, edited by Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press, and Julia Rios of The Outer Alliance. They’ve raised nearly $8000 but have quite a few miles still to go if the project is going to fully fund.

There simply aren’t enough protagonists in YA fiction who are anything other than the straight, white, able default, and this is a book that aims to show how many different ways this can be achieved while still displaying great, crunchy speculative fiction (as opposed to an Issues Book that’s all about the Issues). As a pledge of the type of stuff they are looking for, they have accepted stories by Sofia Samatar, Vylar Kaftan, Jim C Hines, Ken Liu and Sean Williams).

This is an exciting and genuinely important book, and I really want it to happen. Not just because I’m writing a story for it right now, though I’ll admit that’s a teeny part of it… Most exciting for the writers out there, they opened to general submissions at the $7000 mark, so you can start writing *your* stories of teen diversity, magic and other hijinks right now!

Submission guidelines are HERE!

There are two ways you can support this project – first, by pledging at whatever financial level you feel comfortable with ($15 gets you an e-copy of the book, $45 a hard copy, plus a whole bunch of fun reward levels with lots of Twelfth Planet Press books up for grabs – but honestly even $5 would be appreciated) but second, by spreading the word across social media. One tweet could make all the difference.

On a personal note, Alisa is having her first baby at some point this week (in as much as these things can be planned), and it would be pretty awesome for her to enter that new stage of her life on a surge of happiness and support from the SF community. I think it’s extraordinary that she has dedicated this last month of her pregnancy to this particular project, because she believes in it so hard. She’s going to be one hell of a working mum!

Three days to go, let’s make this book happen!

Some links:

Tehani of Fablecroft on Supporting Diversity in Young Adult Fiction

Julia Rios on The Origins of a Diverse YA SF and Fantasy Anthology

Sofia Samatar on her Kaleidoscope story.

Fabio Fernandes on Diversity is The New Normal (Only It Isn’t)

Sherwood Smith & Rachel Manija Brown on Who Gets To Escape?

Jim C Hines on writing an autistic protagonist

Julia and Alisa discuss Kaleidoscope on the Outer Alliance Podcast (along with some great interviews with writers about their contributions to the book Suffered from the Night: Queering Bram Stoker’s Dracula).

Watching New Who: Vampires of Venice/Amy’s Choice

Tansy and Tehani love this season so much we’re making David do more work – we’re changing up our usual plan and reviewing each episode, in sets of two.

The Vampires of Venice

TEHANI:

For me, this is one of the weaker episodes of the season. The writing touch is really obvious when you’ve just watched a bunch of Steven Moffat penned stories. I’m not usually one to look at the writing/directing combinations, but this season was interesting – the first five episodes were written mostly by Moffat, and directed by one of two directors. This is the first story not to have one of those three hands involved, and I think it shows. That said, director Jonny Campbell then goes on to do one of my favourite episodes ever, in “Vincent”! So, do I blame the writer? But Toby Whithouse also penned “School Reunion”! Maybe that’s part of the problem – a little too same-ish? Mostly I think it falls down for me in the dialogue and the strange juxtaposition between attempted humour that falls flat, and a very dark (at times) Doctor, which while definitely warranted in terms of the plot, rubs wrongly in the way it’s put together.

TANSY:

Heh I really like this one. It feels like more of a guilty pleasure than say, the Angels two-parter or some of the later episodes. Very high quality this season generally! But the combination of the gorgeous scenery and the banter makes it one that I will happily rewatch, over and over.

TEHANI:

Oh there’s stuff I like, but yeah, more I don’t, I think.

DAVID:

I actually thought the aliens were almost incidental to this episode. The real story is the interactions between the Doctor, Rory and Amy and they were the bits that I enjoyed the most!

Saying that, it is a lovely looking episode, and the historical backdrop was very well done. And, there are some great performances, most notably Lucian Msamati and Helen McCrory, who are both superb.

TANSY:

Croatia is very pretty. I find it amusing that they had to go there to find something that looked like Venice, because Venice itself is too damned modern these days. They managed to capture the feel of Renaissance Venice, though, and I appreciated the dig at Casanova, and the Doctor not wanting to meet him again – Casanova will ALWAYS be David Tennant, for me.

Anyone noticed by now how many monsters in this season have some kind of scary teeth? This is indeed the scary pointy teeth season. I do in fact recall fan speculation that ‘scary pointy teeth’ was the Bad Wolf of this season. Fandom cracks me up.

TEHANI:

I did like the lush costuming (although the girls’ nightgowns were a bit of a cheap cheat!) and the lighting in this was lovely! Helen McCrory as Signora Calvierri was a highlight of the episode as well.

TANSY:

Her scenes with Matt Smith were electric.

TEHANI:

There seemed to be quite a few loose threads and hand wavey bits – if the perception filter operated as the Doctor described, then how did Signora Calvierri know when it wasn’t working? And it doesn’t make sense that the filter still worked when not attached to her, or that her “children” wouldn’t recognise her when she went into the water, despite the justifying line from Francesco earlier. What happened to the fire in the sky when Rory was fighting the fish boy? And WHY did sunlight explode him?! And what happened to the tidal wave? And boy howdy, doesn’t the Doctor get over the death of the species quickly? Another point where the balance of the episode is off.

DAVID:

I haven’t been keeping count, but the Doctor has wiped out a few species since we started this series, hasn’t he? Interesting to compare that to “Genesis of the Daleks” where Four refused to wipe out the Daleks…

TANSY:

Tehani, if you keep poking holes like that, the ship’s going to sink! To me the filter was quite clearly some kind of mechanical device in this one (the static when hers glitched suggested that) but it’s a brand new kind of handwavium that we’re going to see a lot of in this era, so mostly I just roll with it.

TEHANI:

You’re very good with the handwavium!

TANSY:

It is my superpower.

I definitely agree that the Doctor gets over the death of the species too quickly – though I was more put off by the deaths of the two human characters, the father and daughter, who are the innocents caught up in it. The fact that they both die horribly in what is otherwise painted as a romp is a bit odd, especially as it continues to be a romp after they’re gone.

TEHANI:

Yes, I think this clash of tone is part of why it leaves me a bit cold. Lots of death, lots of playing for laughs…

DAVID:

Well, the father did have a traditional Doctor Who heroic death!

TEHANI:

Can’t say too much, and of course this passed me by entirely first time around, but I think this is the first mention of the Silence, Tansy?

TANSY:

Silence will fall! Or … is it Silents will fall?

I actually think that the lady from Broadchurch let that one drop back in “The Eleventh Hour” when she was being Prisoner Zero. But yes, this is the time where it becomes quite clear that it’s a THING we should be paying attention to.

TEHANI:

*snort* Oh, the way you reference actors…

There seems to be an effort in this episode to force flirtation on the Doctor. I don’t think it works, because it kind of comes out of nowhere, a bit like Amy jumping him at the end of “Flesh and Stone” is a bit weird, given how well she and River have bonded. Not sure what the writer hoped to achieve with it.

TANSY:

I don’t know about forced – it is the first time we see the Eleventh Doctor flirt, and it’s pretty clear by now that however the Doctor feels, Matt Smith enjoys the flirting. I liked seeing the chemistry in his scenes with Helen McCrory – they bounce beautifully off each other, and it feels like a coming together of equals. It reminds me a bit of great Master stories, where the fact that the Master is the villain doesn’t matter quite so much as the fact that he and the Doctor have more in common than anyone else.

TEHANI:

It’s interesting how you say “Matt Smith enjoys the flirting” because during this rewatch, I’m seeing more and more of the actor overriding the role – a little Tom Baker-ish? As in, it’s not fundamentally bad, because he’s so adorable and we love him, but it’s not necessarily how the Doctor would behave?

TANSY:

Ah but the Doctor is so informed by whomever is playing him, it’s hard to draw that line!

I do like that when the Doctor gets into flirting (and this is very much the incarnation where he experiments in that regard) he mostly does so quite inappropriately. Because, you know, he’s been busy for the last 900 years and this is a New Thing for him. So he hasn’t figured out not to do it with the monsters…

DAVID:

Funnily enough, I got almost the opposite impression. I thought that Signora Calvierri thought that her and the Doctor were equals, and that the loss of their species put them on common ground, without really understanding that the Doctor was on a whole different level. The scene on the roof in “The Eleventh Hour” was a great reminder that the Doctor is not someone to be trifled with and the Universe is littered with those who had misunderstood who he was and underestimated him. That was her mistake, and led to her downfall.

TANSY:

This is the first time we’ve seen Rory for a while, and I think the whole storyline between him and Amy is one of the reasons I like this one so much. The fact that the Doctor responds to Amy kissing him by trying to fix things with Rory is quite interesting, as is the fact that he has finally figured out one important thing about humans: the one who travels with him will lose connections to her family and loved ones back home, coming to depend on him too much. It’s quite nice to see him trying something new as a way of admitting how much he stuffed up in the past, not just with Rose but with Martha and Donna too. He doesn’t want a companion who never wants to leave him because that always ends badly – so he’s setting Amy up with an escape route.

This is also the first story that really gives Rory something to get his teeth into, and Arthur Darvill puts a lot into it. The difference between he and Amy is shown at every point, and there are hints here of the way Mickey was tested/treated as a second class companion (this is the same writer who had Mickey point out he was the Tin Dog) but the humour is more gentle, and it doesn’t tip over into cruelty. Rory also stands up for himself more, and his sense of humour and self-deprecating wit helps to make the character feel very likeable already.

TEHANI:

I went in first time around prepared not to like Rory very much (cos REASONS) but he is wonderful. Combination of getting good scripts I think and the way Darvill plays the role.

DAVID:

This is another example of how much the Doctor has grown since the start of New Who. You have no idea how much happier I am with a Doctor who makes the right moral choice in this situation. I think that there is a lot to be taken from contrasting the Eleven-Amy-Rory situation with Nine-Rose-Mickey.

With Nine, we had a Doctor so insecure and in need of validation that he very much set himself up in competition with Mickey, who really had no way of competing at all. Almost everything Nine did, whether showing Rose the wonders of the Universe or putting Mickey down at every opportunity, seemed designed to ensure that Rose fell for him.

In this story, it seems to me that the Doctor is going out of his way to try and include Rory as if to ensure that Amy doesn’t forget who she has left behind. It’s rather cute that the Doctor is obviously a bit baffled by human interactions, and it is a lot of fun watching him trying to provide what he sees as the essentials for romance! The scene at the bachelor party was hilarious.

TANSY:

We are being shown that the Doctor is just as much at sea when it comes to making friends as he is with any kind of romantic negotiation. People are confusing!

DAVID:

I do agree that he is trying to ensure that Amy has something to fall back on when the inevitable parting of ways occurs, but I also think that he is aware of the damage he has done, first by abandoning Amy for so many years (because even though no real time passed for him, it was an abandonment that has shaped who she is) and then by sweeping in and sweeping her away. This is the Doctor doing his best to repair that damage.

TANSY:

I often cite this episode as an example of the unconventional gender dynamics between Rory and Amy – that he’s the nurturing healer and she’s the bold, adventurous one. When they hear a scream, his first instinct is to run away and hers is to run towards the trouble.

TEHANI:

Oh, that is so true! Shows their characters perfectly!

TANSY:

But they both get to be brave ultimately, and we do see them working together as a team which is one of those important ways to get a believable romance across on film.

The decision to make the Doctor rather than Rory the third wheel was a clever one, and ensures that everyone complaining Rory was just Mickey Mark II could STFU. It makes the Doctor so much more likeable that he comes to appreciate Rory as a person distinct from Amy.

DAVID:

Have I mentioned how much I love Amy and Rory as companions? Rory is already one of my favourite companions of all time, and Amy is not far behind. Self deprecating was a great term to apply to Rory, Tansy, and there is something so intrinsically likeable about him. I have said in the past that my favourite dynamic is the Doctor and a female and male companion, and for some reason this one reminds me of my favourite combination ever – Four, Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan.

In fact, there is something Harry-esque about Rory. I don’t know whether it is that self deprecating wit, their easy going nature or simply the sense of innate decency they both exude, but they do seem to have a lot in common.

TANSY:

A lot of fans get tied into knots about Amy’s willingness to cheat on Rory, which is I guess understandable, but I think it’s important to note that for Rory himself it’s not kissing the Doctor that is as much of a problem (after all he has to be used to that from her kissogram days) it’s the fact that she LEFT him and what that says about their relationship. He was looking forward to marrying her and she was trying to postpone it by running away the night before – that shows a major problem in their relationship and this is the beginning of the two of them working that out. The Doctor is giving them an opportunity to deal with a few therapy issues before going back to real life, and that turns out to be a very good thing for all of them – despite what is to come.

Ahem, and yes, Rory doesn’t actually know about the part where Amy propositioned the Doctor but either way, her behaviour was a symptom of something that is actually (hooray) going to be addressed.

Amy’s Choice

TEHANI:

Now wasn’t THIS interesting to rewatch, from a more “educated” Doctor Who fan perspective! The thing I took away most from the episode was how self-critical it was – some of the Dream Lord’s dialogue could have come straight from the mouths of those critiquing the series. For example:

Dream Lord: “Friends”. Is that the right word for the people you acquire? Friends are people you stay in touch with. Your friends never see you again one they’ve grown up. The old man prefers the company of the young, does he not?

Harsh! And given it’s actually the Doctor’s own subconscious…

TANSY:

Hahaha yes, this one is totally different on rewatching. I think the Doctor’s line “there’s only one person who hates me as much as you” is pretty telling.

Toby Jones gives a fantastic performance – this is the closest thing we get to a Master for the Eleventh Doctor, and it’s very, very effective. I appreciate the layered storyline, and the final whammy that both realities are fake.

But there’s also some rather deep psychological stuff in here, such as the fantasy village which is not the life Rory wants (the idea that he would want to become a doctor is beyond insulting, actually, given that being a nurse is NOT a second best career, it’s a distinctly different profession) but the life that the Doctor THINKS Rory and ultimately Amy will want once they leave him.

Which means the ponytail is the Doctor’s fault.

TEHANI:

Well, his fashion sense IS rather questionable…

DAVID:

My first thought on that line was that it was the Master, but only for a second. I actually was more convinced that it was the Valeyard (which, of course, it kind of was if you want to get technical haha). Toby Jones was excellent in this, just the right mix of awkward and oily and dangerous.

The Dream Lord shows us that the Doctor is actually very self aware, whether he allows those thoughts to surface or not. The past few seasons have been a voyage of self discovery for him, and we’ve seen that he is actually learning, whether it is here or when he is trying to repair Amy and Rory’s relationship. Of course, these fantasies show that he doesn’t always completely *get* humans!

TANSY:

Something I found particularly interesting was Amy’s pregnancy – this is the only time ever in the entire history of Doctor Who that we’ve ever been shown even the possibility of a companion being knocked up despite the number of weddings that punctuate the RTD era – Donna’s pretendy children in the Library (MOFFAT AGAIN) is the only other case, and of course we found out eventually in The Sarah Jane Adventures that Jo Grant and Clifford Jones had a whole brood, but … it did feel odd to me.

TEHANI:

Ha, I just watched that episode with the kids!

DAVID:

But that is fairly typical of most fiction, surely? The wedding or the culmination of all the URST is seen as the finale of romantic subplot, rather than the beginning of a new chapter. You don’t always see what the “happily ever after” actually entails. That’s why I love stories that are about “what happens next”.

TEHANI:

There’s a whole genre of stories growing around the “after the happy ever” these days – as a culture we’re no longer satisfied with marriage being the end, it seems!

TANSY:

The Happy Ever After Is The End thing is absolutely true for a lot of romantic fiction and for movies, but not generally in the case of television drama – ‘family’ viewing in particularly usually means stories about families, including babies and kids. The surprise of Amy’s pregnancy (and pregnancy as a recurring motif in this era) only serves to point out how odd has been the lack of actual children (as opposed to adult women playing teenage girls who miraculously became adult the second a man showed interest in them) in the show for the first 46 years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a pregnant heroine (though I could have done without all the boat jokes) but the character was so young at this point – 21? 22? it did feel like a weird narrative assumption, that this was what lay in her immediate future (though again, the Doctor’s dream, not hers). It was fascinating to see how Amy dealt with it, though, and I liked how much she stayed in character despite imminent motherhood.

TEHANI:

Isn’t it supposedly five years later? So Amy would be 24-ish…

DAVID:

Well, for the Doctor there probably wouldn’t appear to be much difference between a 21-22yold and a 31-32yold, or even a 41-42yold! Thinking about that, it explains a few things….

TANSY:

This is the man who felt it was appropriate to abandon various 16 year old girls across various times and places as soon as they got themselves a love interest so … yes, we can’t assume he knows anything about anything!

TEHANI:

Ooh look, Rory died! That could be interesting later on…

TANSY:

Shhh there’s no way that could be foreshadowing anything.

DAVID:

So subtle.

TANSY:

Before we wind up I think perhaps worth calling attention to the title – only the second time that a companion’s name has appeared in one. A lot of people (including let’s face it, the Doctor) misread “Amy’s Choice” being about Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor, but it’s not that at all. It’s about her choosing whether or not she really wants to be married to Rory.

And she does. She doesn’t necessarily want this marriage, this bizarrely boring future that the Doctor has so cack-handedly summoned out of his subconscious, but this is the point at which she decides completely that despite wanting adventures and everything the Doctor has to offer, and despite her severe abandonment issues and lack of trust of people, she really loves Rory and doesn’t want to lose him.

Once again, this is hugely different to the Rose/Mickey dynamic, where it’s pretty clear that seeing the universe has opened Rose’s eyes to the fact that their relationship wasn’t doing much for her, and that even if the Doctor and the TARDIS were not an option, she would not go back to her previous life choices as a default.

Amy, on the other hand, is greedy. She wants it all. Her TARDIS, her boys, love and the universe. She chooses Rory, but that doesn’t mean giving everything else up because Rory is actually too awesome to pressure her into going home before she’s ready.

DAVID:

Speaking of titles, there is a hint of irony in the fact that we had an episode called “The Runaway Bride”, which wasn’t actually about a bride trying to run away from her wedding!

I never saw Amy running away from the wedding as her running away from Rory, I always took it as her running away from what she thought marriage would mean. It seemed to me that she thought it meant the end of her independence, and being trapped in a life without adventure. One of the realisations she arrives at in this story is that she can have both – adventures AND marriage, and that, as Tansy alludes to, Rory doesn’t want to trap her. He seems quite content with the fact that Amy is a free spirit, in fact it is a big part of what he loves about her, and therefore has no desire to see that taken away from her.

TEHANI:

Just one more reason to love Rory…

TANSY:

I think that’s very true, and it’s clear that she takes Rory’s acceptance for granted, too. Amy is a bit thoughtless here in her early 20s and he clearly enables that – their relationship has revolved around Amy leading the way and Rory tagging along agreeing with her, and it mostly works for them though it was bound to lead to problems sooner or later.

It wouldn’t shock me at all if (and this is a detail never revealed to us) it was Amy who proposed and set the whole wedding thing in train in the first place, and only later began to freak out as the whole thing became a bit too real.

DAVID:

I don’t think her epiphany comes solely from the events of this episode, though. In the previous story she meets another married woman who certainly hasn’t let marriage cramp her style – River Song! I don’t think you can discount the impression River made on Amy.

It would be interesting for people with a better grasp of the topic than I do to examine Amy’s storyline in light of the debate about whether modern women can have it all (whatever society’s idea of what “it all” is), and how the changing nature and desires of the companions reflects a changing society.

TANSY:

There has certainly been a lot feminist debate about Amy Pond and her character arc – I think there are elements of her story which are incredibly positive and others which are a bit more wince-inducing (and not everyone agrees which elements are which). But at this point, it’s a very powerful story about a woman who starts to take control of her life despite being whisked away in the TARDIS – and that’s not something we’ve really seen before, even in New Who. In the RTD years, life in the TARDIS was so romanticised that the prior lives of the companions were seen as complete drudgery in comparison … and most of the positive changes that they bring to their lives after the TARDIS happen off screen.

I think it’s interesting to see how different things are now in the Moffat era – that Amy and the Doctor (and now Rory) are constantly negotiating this odd relationship of theirs, pushing and pulling against each other to create a kind of “TARDIS-life balance”. Despite Amy being a child when she first met the Doctor, and the potential uncomfortable power imbalance from that, the whole thing feels to me like a more equal relationship than any we’ve seen in Doctor Who for a while.

PREVIOUS “New Who In Conversations”

“Rose”, S01E01

“Dalek”, S01E06

“Father’s Day, S01E08

“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10

“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13

Series One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani

“The Christmas Invasion,” 2005 Christmas special

“New Earth”, S02E01

“School Reunion,” S02E03

“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04

“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, S02E12/13

Series Two Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

“The Runaway Bride”, 2006 Christmas Special

“Smith and Jones”, S03E01

The Shakespeare Code & Gridlock, S0302-03

Human Nature/The Family of Blood S0308-09

Blink S0310

Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Timelords S0311-13

“Voyage of the Damned,” 2007 Christmas Special

Series 3 Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

Partners in Crime, S0401

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, S0405 S0406

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, S0408 S0409

Turn Left, S0411

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, SO412-13

Series 4 Report Cards: Tansy, Tehani, David

The Specials

The End of Time

The Eleventh Hour, S0501

The Beast Below/Victory of the Daleks, S0502-3

Vampires of Venice/Amy’s Choice, S0504-5

Cover Reveal: Ink Black Magic.

So, I have another book coming out this year. Yes, really!

Tehani at Fablecroft has been e-reprinting my Mocklore Chronicles, the comic fantasy pirate witch adventure novels that were my first publications, back in 1998 and 1999. Which means, yes, this is my 15th anniversary as a published novelist!

After Random House dropped the series, the third volume was doomed to never see the light of day though I wrote and revised it for my own closure as much as anyone else’s. I “published” it on Livejournal because Kickstarter didn’t exist yet, and I wanted it out there for the hardcore fans who were desperately wanting to find out how it all finished, but otherwise I drew a line under Mocklore and moved on.

Now Fablecroft are releasing the long-lost third book, Ink Black Magic, in digital and print formats! The book was designed to introduce the characters to new readers, and is set several years after the original Chronicles, so you don’t have to have read Splashdance Silver or Liquid Gold to get what’s going on.

Tehani has also commissioned a fabulous cover from Tasmanian artist Tania Walker, which I am completely in love with. Check it out after the cut!

I am very fond of this book, which was written during my early postgraduate years and sums up a lot of my jumbled feelings about school, university & coming of age, as well as the classic Mocklore theme of ‘messing with magic is bloody dangerous’, plus oh yes, my love and adoration for superhero comics and parallel world stories. I’m beyond delighted that it’s finally going to be a real book for real people, especially with such a gorgeous cover.

Kassa Daggersharp has been a pirate, a witch, a menace to public safety, a villain, a hero and a legend. These days, she lectures first year students on the dangers of magic. The love of her life is missing, presumed dead. All the adventures are over.

But when an evil dark city full of villains and monsters appears from the pages of a student’s sketchbook, everyone starts to lose their grip on reality. Even the flying sheep.

No one is sure who are the heroes and who are the villains, but someone has to step up to save Mocklore, one last time.

True love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Happy endings don’t come cheap.

All that magic is probably going to kill you.

You really can have too much black velvet.

The Mocklore Chronicles begin all over again with INK BLACK MAGIC…

The Power of Threes [WHO-50—2012]

Amy: Every time we flew away with the Doctor he’d just become part of our life. But he never stood still long enough to become part of ours.

Except once. The Year of the Slow Invasion. The time the Doctor came to stay.

Steven Moffat does love a threesome.

The first few might have been coincidence. After all, the TARDIS teams for The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and The Girl in the Fireplace were unlikely to be his choice.

And yet in both cases he got to write a story in which Rose and the Doctor took on a new travelling companion – the very companionable Captain Jack in Series 1 and the awkward but determined Mickey Smith in Series 2.

Blink barely featured the Doctor and Martha, but when Moffat returned to the show with a Doctor and Donna two-parter, he added a guest role to the story who was so interesting and significant that she seemed to count as a second companion: River Song.

There’s something about three in the TARDIS that really works. It allows the Doctor to be a bit more remote and alien, and also allows for some diversity among the companions.

Considering his past stories – and his history of throwing romance and domesticity into the mix – it isn’t a surprise that Moffat’s Who wasn’t just about the girl companion, but quickly became a story about three interlinked characters: Amy Pond, her boyfriend/fiance/husband Rory (AKA Mr Pond), and their Doctor.

While Daleks In Manhattan was billed as the big, tearjerker sendoff for the Ponds after three years and two and a half seasons of their intense science fictional space opera, it was The Power of Three that felt to me like the story which got to the heart of the relationship between Amy, Rory and the Eleventh Doctor, and provided the coda about how ultimately the story was always going to end.

Rory: We have two lives. Real life and Doctor life. Doesn’t feel like real life gets much of a look-in.

Amy: What do we do?

Rory: Choose?

{the TARDIS sounds nearby}

Amy: Not today though.

Rory: Nah, not today.

am still, to be honest, a little put out that they didn’t shake hands with the Doctor and part ways with him at the end of The Power of Three. It felt like that was the authentic ending for their characters, and Brian suddenly deciding otherwise on their behalf didn’t ring true to me.

Ah well.

Watching Amy and Rory grow up, from gangly teens & twenty somethings to elegant and accomplished thirty somethings (with a few bumps and dramas along the way) was that rare thing: a Doctor Who story that had never been told before.

I’ve talked already about the relationship between the Eleventh Doctor, the Ponds and domesticity in two essays: Marrying the Ponds and Divorcing the Ponds, which is probably why I struggled a bit to find a new topic to tackle for this era. I’ve already dwelled at length on their marriage, the Doctor’s role in their developing relationship and household, and said most of what I want to say about Rory, Amy, River, and the Eleventh Doctor’s inherent snoggability.

But in thinking about 2012, and what made Doctor Who special in that year, it’s not Amy and Rory jumping off a building and hurling themselves at Weeping Angels that sticks in my mind, it’s the interesting vibe about Amy and Rory and the Doctor not being able to let go of each other, despite the fact that they don’t really fit into each other’s worlds any more.

There’s something wonderfully cozy about The Power of Three, down to the gentle, mostly non-violent Slow Invasion and the introduction of Jemma Redgrave as the Brig’s no-nonsense scientist daughter, now the new leader of UNIT.

The Doctor: Tell me, since when did science run the military, Kate?

Kate: Since me. UNIT’s been adapting. Well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming. Which makes it sound like more fun than if actually was.

Does anyone else love the fact that the Brigadier’s daughter is basically a Next Generation version of Liz Shaw? The line where she talks about him saying “science leads” and encouraging her to take the power in UNIT away from soldiers, still makes me sniffle. Oh, Brig. You learned eventually.

I also like how effectively Rory and Amy work as a team with each other as well as with the Doctor, when they have to. They’re crack troops now, so experienced at this lifestyle that they barely even register surprise – and yet, in their romp through time on their anniversary, the Doctor still manages to bring them face to face with situations that are entirely new, and weird, and challenging.

Amy: I thought we were going home!

The Doctor: You can’t miss a good wedding. Under the bed! Under the bed!

Amy: It wasn’t my fault.

Rory: It was totally your fault.

Amy: Somebody was talking and I just said, Yes.

Rory: To wedding vows! You just married Henry VIII on our anniversary.

Given Moffat’s history of writing threesome TARDIS teams, I really hope we’re due for another companion to join Capaldi’s Twelve and Jenna Coleman’s Clara. Rory Pond may have redeemed himself as being a companion completely different to Mickey Smith, but it would be nice to have a bloke in the TARDIS who isn’t there as the female companion’s plus one.

Or, and this is a bit radical, we could even have a second female companion in the TARDIS! Maybe one from the future, the past, or outer space.

Though if it’s Kate Stewart, I would not complain in the least. I think she and Twelve would get along rather well, actually…

Kate: You, ah, you really are as remarkable as Dad said. {she kisses him} Thank you.

The Doctor: My! A kiss from a Lethbridge-Stewart. That’s new.

ELSEWHERE ON 2012

The First Face This Face Saw [TansyRR.com]

Asylum of the Daleks Reviewed [Two Minute Time Lord]

How the Writing Failed Amy Pond [Bad Salad]

Across the Pond [The Ood Cast]



Harry & the Giant Clam – Chicks Unravel Time [Radio Free Skaro]

Women Vs. Victorian Values in The Snowmen [Doctor Her]

Verity! Episode 1: The Snowmen [Verity! Podcast]



PREVIOUSLY:

Friday Links is a Fake Writer Girl

I appreciated very much being namechecked in Jim C Hines’ sarky “Fake Writer Girls” post.

Meanwhile, Cheryl Morgan takes umbrage at the idea that grimdark is just for boys, and comes up with a sub-genre solution for all the women writing dark, gritty fantasy: the Rise and Fall of Grimpink!

Liz Bourke tells it like it is by comparing the roles of women in dystopian movie Dredd with those of the “utopian” modern Star Trek movies. Yep. Well, that’s depressing. Bring on the dystopias!

Belinda Murrell talks eloquently about using family history in her new novel – stirring stuff!

Tor.com declares Colin Baker to be lovely.

If you’ve seen Doctor Who: The Web of Fear now and you were awed and amazed at the London Underground set (or like me wondered if it truly WAS a set), check out this excerpt from Michael Troughton’s autobiography about how it happened.

Hollywood’s not interested in stories about women.

Kaleidoscope, the diversity-in-YA anthology coming from Twelfth Planet Press, is still crowdfunding. They’re so close to halfway! Please support this book if you think it’s something you’d like to read.

If You Go Down In The Woods Today [WHO-50-2011]

Until now, I haven’t read any of the New Who fiction tie-ins. I’m not sure why. Maybe I bought into the fan snob idea that the tie-in fiction for an ongoing series can’t possibly be as interesting or involved as the Wilderness Year fiction was? Or that the new stuff was aimed ‘at kids’? Or maybe I was just a little too co-dependent with my Big Finish Audios to let anyone else in…

In any case, this is very much a year for reading books about Doctor Who (I’m not getting any other reading done!) and the recent Verity! interview with Una McCormack about writing tie-in fiction pushed me over the edge.

So I picked up the Kindle edition of The Way Through the Woods by Una McCormack, a book featuring the Eleventh Doctor and the Pond newlyweds.

From a Series 6 point of view, this one is obviously set before the Amy-and-baby revelations. It could even be potentially set before The Impossible Astronaut, as it’s noticeably lacking in possible-pregnancy angst, or any angst at all except for a bit of Rory’s personal “I was plastic for 2000 years” trauma.

This is in fact a “Doctor and the Ponds” story exactly of the kind that was implicitly promised to the viewers when Amy and Rory waved farewell from their wedding reception in 2010.

I enjoyed the plot, which relies on a classic Doctor Who story trope: “sinister and culturally familiar paranormal phenomenon is explained by science fiction doohickey and yet this revelation only brings FURTHER complications.” The story has a strong contemporary voice as well as a bit of historical colour from 1913, and there are lots of likeable, complex female characters in it. I also appreciated that many strands of the narrative were told out of order early on, so we see Rory, Amy and the Doctor in the middle of trouble and attempting to fulfil their various pieces of the quest, and a bunch of other jigsaw pieces, before it all starts slotting together and we discover how they figured out there was a mystery in the first place.

Foxton is a perfectly ordinary English village, except for the woods. Everyone knows you don’t go near the woods, because people have been known to disappear around there.

In 1913, Rory attempts to walk a young lady home, knowing that this is the evening that she disappeared into the woods and was lost forever.

In the 21st century, Amy attaches herself to a young local journalist, Jess, armed with a newspaper article telling her that Jess, too, is about to disappear.

The Doctor is under arrest, and the woods are beginning to hum.

There’s something wrong with this town, and those woods, and time itself.

A clever, fun read that zips along, I particularly liked the portrayal of the Ponds in this book. They barely appear in scenes together, and yet their relationship and their reactions to each other are constantly parts of their character. Even when Rory has lost his memories, he knows to jump when Amy tells him to… and not for the first time, she gets a glimpse at the horrible possibility of losing him forever.

I’ll definitely be looking up more of McCormack’s work (she also writes Star Trek books!) and perhaps dip my toe a bit further into the New Who fiction range. It’s so nice to be able to linger around one of my favourite eras of the show without being hit in the face by story arc dramah.



ELSEWHERE ON 2011:

What if Season 6 of the Doctor Had Been Made as a Film in 1936? [Elvisomar]

How My Six-Year-Old Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love the Ood Cast [TansyRR.com]



Karen Gillan: Obsessive Fans, Short Skirts & Living with Doctor Who [The Independent]

The Impossible Astronaut [Calapine]

Domesticating the Doctor III: Marrying the Ponds [TansyRR.com]

The Doctor’s Wife [The Angriest]

Idris: the Doctor’s Wife [Springfield Punx]

The Doctor’s Car… Uh, Wife [Doctor Her]

The TARDIS as Maternal Mastermind [Fangirl Knits Scarf]

A Good Man Goes To War [Calapine]

Let’s Kill Hitler [Calapine]

The Wedding of River Song [The Angriest]

Episode 15 – Halloweeny Type Listening [Little Finish]

PREVIOUSLY:

Things To Be Excited About (Writing and Parenting Edition)

I missed out on the fun & professional inspiration of Genrecon this weekend, which would normally have been pretty depressing, but I got to hang out with my snuggly family and watch a bunch of black and white Doctor Who which was quite a major consolation.

In any case, without a convention to kickstart the last quarter of the year into gear, I have to find my own inspiration!

Firstly, I’m super excited by the first Twelfth Planet Press crowdfunded book, with Julia Rios joining Alisa as editor. This is Kaleidoscope, a book devoted to contemporary fantasy for YA readers which reflects the diversity of the world we live in. I’m writing a story to submit to that (as well as a bunch of other books) right now, with four deadlines between now and December. Eek!

The other big thing looming on the horizon is NaNoWriMo – I didn’t get to do it last year, but am determined to give it my all with a project I’ve been dying to devote some attention to. It’s called Space Station Musketeer. Yes, really!

If you’re Nano-ing, come along and add me to your friend list. It’s a great way to get up some writing momentum, and after my rather quiet chaotic parenting-more-than-writing year I am feeling the need to lay down some serious wordcount.

It’s going to be a busy couple of months! Jem has dropped a daycare day because we’re gearing up for next year’s kindergarten (HOORAY) and there’s a whole bunch of pre-kinder sessions to factor in. I’m also trying to lure her into dropping kindergym for Wrigglers, which is proper gym classes and requires me to sit in a chair with a book nearby instead of actually taking her around all the equipment.

Still, not having Monday mornings to myself is going to hurt a bit, and it’s only just sinking in.

Plus, it’s that time of year where the days speed by and suddenly it’s Christmas. Raeli is fretting about this time thing. Ever since her Dad (THANKS HON) told her that scientists believe time might be speeding up, she lies there at night and worries about how fast everything is going. Grade three is almost over, after all.

I’m loving having an eight-year-old. Sure, they’re cute when they’re little, but I am really enjoying my earnest, giggly, thoughtful big girl. Also she does things like getting dressed for school an hour early, because of being excited the holidays are over. How awesome is that? We’re reading Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones at the moment, a chapter a night, and though there are a few bits that are scarier than I remember, it’s wonderful to share it with her.

4-year-old Jem on the other hand is a whirlwind of tantrums, kicking, and to cap it all off is now refusing to eat peas, the one vegetable that previously the ENTIRE family was happy with. But she and Raeli adore each other and play together very nicely most of the time (when not fighting… okay sometimes while fighting) and I give a lot (probably far too much) of kudos to a four year old who refuses to watch cartoons when there is black and white Doctor Who to choose from.

Yesterday, it rained a lot, but whenever the sun came out, the girls were outside in their pyjamas, riding bikes. I could hear Raeli over and over, instructing Jem on how to pedal properly, with so much patience. I don’t know where she gets that from!

Friday Links is Returned to the Archives!

Okay, so other things happened this week, but for Doctor Who fans, the last 24 hours has been a special cocktail of anticipation and torturous waiting. Finally it was revealed that the recent rumours were true, and we now have two complete (or near-complete) Series 5 Second Doctor serials back in the BBC archive that were previously believed to be lost forever.

There’s a lovely write up of the press conference here, including reactions from stars Fraser Hines and Deborah Watling.

Unlike the last archive find, when orphan episodes of The Underwater Menace and Galaxy Four were screened publicly but not made available for purchase except much later on DVD releases, The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear were made available immediately on iTunes, including here in Australia. And that is why this week’s Friday Links is so late, of course – I’ve been watching The Enemy of the World! A story I loved in novelisation form in my childhood and never ever thought I would get to see for real.

But what else has been going on across the internet this last week (or more, since my hospital stay meant I didn’t put one up last week)?

Momentum Books reports on the Stella Count, a new Australian stat-badger process of looking at the gender breakdown of how books are reviewed. Anyone shocked that books by men are disproportionately reviewed?

Kameron Hurley talks about the dangers of keeping quiet about scandals and bad behaviour in the publishing industry – that whole “everyone knows that already” philosophy which protects writers with strong community and friendship ties (and luck to be in the right private conversation at the right time) but does nothing to protect newer and less experienced writers from being hurt or suffering career damage from professional predators.

Kate Elliott looks at why the status quo does not need worldbuilding – and questions some of the conventional wisdom about what constitutes ‘good’ writing in epic fantasy.

The Guardian looks at why exactly so many readers feel betrayed by the new Bridget Jones novel – with some interesting thoughts on our expectations that a book about women must be “feminist” in order to be “good.”

Jennifer Saunders talks about writing a memoir, finally.

The Mary Sue looks at The Constructive Side of Escapism. It’s not a dirty word, people!

Juliet McKenna talks about her experience editing a fantasy anthology for the British Fantasy Society.

Ice Warrior Fashion Week

It’s been a weird week.

I gave my talk on Wednesday night with Lian Tanner – between us we chatted a lot about creativity, about keeping score as writers, and what with one thing and another we kept coming back to the ridiculously high standards to which we end up holding ourselves.

I walked outside afterwards in the rain, and breathed in cold air with my flu-damaged lungs, and something went, click.

The next day I was taken into hospital by ambulance with what turned out to be pneumonia.

So, from being completely devastated and exhausted by a week of my children being sick, and then me being sick, and then school holidays piling down around my head, I ended up with a bizarre four days in a calm, empty hospital room with my own nebuliser and access to Fox Sports. Oh, and barely being able to talk for more than a sentence or two at a time.

It’s not the rest cure I would have chosen at all, but apparently it was what I needed!

The girls went away to stay with my Mum for a few days, which had been planned anyway, but was extra necessary because just an hour or so being visited by them in hospital was exhausting! So I’ve had weird quiet time at home as well, without my noisy, messy, shrieking, art-crazy daughters filling all the space until today when they returned with a vengeance.

Books have been read. Feet have been put up. It’s… not how school holidays usually are!

My lungs are still struggling – I’m not sure I could manage to podcast yet, for instance, it’s hard work to breathe & talk at the same time – but I managed both a fervent conversation about the Pertwee Years and reading aloud a whole chapter of Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones tonight (Janet just turned up!) so I’m on the mend.

The girls finally came home this afternoon and I promptly bundled them into my armchair with me and the whole family watched all six episodes of The Ice Warriors, recently released on DVD including animated versions of the two missing episodes. Raeli has been claiming an attachment to Victoria Waterfield based on a Companions book and I had to break it to her that most of Victoria’s stories are missing from the BBC Archive. (this was a couple of weeks ago, I’m well aware that the situation MAY HAVE CHANGED if this week’s rumours etc. are true)

The Ice Warriors is brilliant! Apart from anything else, the futuristic fashions depicted in this story are psychedelically awesome. I couldn’t take my eyes off the gorgeous black and white patterns they were all sporting, even the terribly serious head administrator. It’s one of those stories that really uses the black and white to great effect, with ice caves, snowy plains, and a very sexy spaceship door. And I’d never seen images of most of the really cool stuff that caught my eye about this story.

Quite apart from the monster-in-the-ice plot, the tensions that already exist between the gorgeously dressed crew of the base are interesting, and I very much liked the ongoing theme of over-reliance on computer predictions. But mostly, I will admit, I liked the mini-dresses. SO CUTE. I can’t believe there are no pictures online of the awesome computer room full of characters wearing different but matching op-art coveralls and mini-frocks.

Jamie spent most of the story being stunned by various weapons and knocked unconscious – I think Jem reported him dead at least three times. Victoria is damselled quite thoroughly throughout – she is kidnapped by the Ice Warriors early on and spends most of the time under duress – but she also gets to be very brave and independent (running away more than once), and spends as much time worrying about Jamie as he does about her. In particular, when she is being used as a hostage against the Doctor, she begs him not to surrender vital information about the base despite the threat to her.

Speaking of the Doctor, he was rather lovely throughout. I’ve never seen this story at all before and I enjoyed him taking over and asserting himself as a scientist to a crew that desperately needed one. His face off with the ice warriors at the end was also very impressive. However, I have to say – considering how judgy the Third Doctor was about the Brig blowing up Silurians a couple of years later, it was a bit bewildering how dedicated the Second Doctor was to wiping Ice Warriors off the glacier.

I’m not usually that interested in the monsters, and Ice Warriors have never especially done it for me (though I liked the one in Cold War a lot) but the fact that this one was Bernard freaking Bresslaw hit all my sentimental buttons – I was raised on Carry On movies! And the fact that I could recognise his body language and voice beneath all the hissing made me rather fond of Varga.

The animated episodes worked well – the computer generated backgrounds looked good, and the faces were all drawn quite well and moved fine to emphasise the existing sound track. I was pleased to get back to the live action, but it certainly worked well to hang everything together.

Our daughters both paid attention all the way through – with just one break at the four episode mark for fish and chips to be fetched. Yay new generation liking black and white stuff! Both of them seemed to be taking in most of what was happening, though Jem did get a little too hung up on where exactly Zoe was in all this (The Mind Robber has obviously imprinted itself deeply).

I asked Raeli at the end how much she enjoyed Victoria as a companion and she gave me a double thumbs up. Hooray for liking obscure companions! Though I have to say, what a hipster my daughter is – she decided two weeks ago that Victoria was her favourite, and now it’s looking like she’s suddenly going to be of a lot more interest than usual to all the other Doctor Who fans in the world.

So now… well, now we wait to hear about these lost-and-found episodes/stories that the BBC have finally confirmed are really truly real, but not yet named. Thursday, BBC time, can’t come fast enough. NEW OLD WHO YES PLEASE!