Doctor Who: Utopia, Sound of Drums and Last of the Timelords

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It's been awhile since I watched these episodes, but I completely forgot that the American President, who I remember being written as a pretty blatant George W. Bush expy, sounded like some weird mixture of Wallace Shawn and Robert Stack. Is that what British people think Americans sound like? The same way Americans think all British people sound like Alfred from Batman?

Either that or New York accent crossed with Texas Accent while having a stroke. Brits can't do a decent American Accent to save their marmite sandwiches.

[Yukaphile]

"The Chase" illustrates this very well. That "Southerner" on top of the Empire State Building tourist area, HOLY SHIT... LOL, that was amusing as hell.

BTW, happy First Contact, everyone! I've made 2063 posts!

[clearspira]

It's been awhile since I watched these episodes, but I completely forgot that the American President, who I remember being written as a pretty blatant George W. Bush expy, sounded like some weird mixture of Wallace Shawn and Robert Stack. Is that what British people think Americans sound like? The same way Americans think all British people sound like Alfred from Batman?

Either that or New York accent crossed with Texas Accent while having a stroke. Brits can't do a decent American Accent to save their marmite sandwiches.

I'll take your example and raise you a Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and a Rene Zellweger in Bridget Jones. You cannot do ours to save your mustard covered hot dogs.

[Fianna]

There are plenty of British actors who do great American accents, but they're mostly actors trying to get work in American productions, and so aren't available for shows filming back in Britain.

[Deledrius]

I do wish we'd have had more time with Derek Jacobi as the Master. He's a terrific actor and I love his transition from lovable scatterbrain Professor to menacing monster immediately.

As someone who came into Doctor Who in 2005 only previously vaguely aware of some aspects of the show, this was my introduction proper to The Master (as well as both Derek Jacobi and John Simm). Derek Jacobi was everything I expected and more from the legacy of this infamous character. He was intelligent and threatening, and in his few minutes left quite an impression of gravitas. It was up against this that I was then immediately given Simm's Master. This was a very unflattering situation to put Simm into, and I still find it unconvincing and a major disappointment. Simm's Master was not a sufficient foil for Tennant's Doctor; he was a superficial funhouse mirror reflection, and that's a shame.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It's been awhile since I watched these episodes, but I completely forgot that the American President, who I remember being written as a pretty blatant George W. Bush expy, sounded like some weird mixture of Wallace Shawn and Robert Stack. Is that what British people think Americans sound like? The same way Americans think all British people sound like Alfred from Batman?

Either that or New York accent crossed with Texas Accent while having a stroke. Brits can't do a decent American Accent to save their marmite sandwiches.

I'll take your example and raise you a Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and a Rene Zellweger in Bridget Jones. You cannot do ours to save your mustard covered hot dogs.

A dozen Dick Van Dykes would not equal the failure and indignity conveyed in one single BBC Doctor Who Big Finish Audio Productions bit character.

[CrypticMirror]

This attitude I've come across was also from another woman who unironically thinks Who must ALWAYS be male, never be female, has no problems with Dax, but hates that Who regenerated into a female even on an ideological level - not that the execution is bad, just the idea itself sucks to her. It smacks of misogyny and transphobia. That really seems contradictory.

If we'd spent fifty years watching a Curzon Dax show, then I might have had a problem with a Jadzia Dax change too. With Dax though the change of gender was baked into the character right from the start, just go and watch early DS9 and count the number of times Dax is referred to as changing gender, it is a feature of the character. Now I understand the argument of Who only being male by default because of the time period it was written in, and also JNT's godawful joke in the 80s of "It isn't called 'Nurse' Who", but the simple fact is that for 50 years before Moffat and Chibnall the character was presented as male and that is key to how I enjoyed it. I came to the show, many years ago, many many many years ago come to that, as a little girl looking for a father figure (I had lost my dad to cancer at a young age) and even when the actors playing the Doctor became younger than me, I still saw the father figure I sought out as a kid in the show.

The change to Jodie (frankly, the change to a female Master was where it started) was just too big a change for me. It changed the show too much, it changed the character too much, and it might as well be a different show for all I care. And that is not a show I care enough to watch. The effort of realigning my mental image of the character from male to female, that is an effort I reserve for actual people not an effort I am prepared to make for a fictional character.

As an aside. The reasons I don't like The Last Jedi or STD are nothing to do with a female led cast. It is because they are shit. I really liked Rey in TFA, she was a joy to watch, but TLJ wastes her character, and has every other character act like an idiot throughout the entire movie (seriously, it must be the first movie I've ever seen that the characters all put in such an effort not just the effort to make the wrong decision at every turn, but to make certain they've picked the wrongest of the wrong decisions on offer). The only emotional mark that movie manages to hit was Artoo replaying the "Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi" message to Luke, and it is a crying shame that it was wasted in the movie it was in. With STD, we've more than covered the space microbes, magic fungus, poor cinematic choices, and generally charmless nerks that populate the magic spinny thing.

[Trooper924]

I do wish we'd have had more time with Derek Jacobi as the Master. He's a terrific actor and I love his transition from lovable scatterbrain Professor to menacing monster immediately.

As someone who came into Doctor Who in 2005 only previously vaguely aware of some aspects of the show, this was my introduction proper to The Master (as well as both Derek Jacobi and John Simm). Derek Jacobi was everything I expected and more from the legacy of this infamous character. He was intelligent and threatening, and in his few minutes left quite an impression of gravitas. It was up against this that I was then immediately given Simm's Master. This was a very unflattering situation to put Simm into, and I still find it unconvincing and a major disappointment. Simm's Master was not a sufficient foil for Tennant's Doctor; he was a superficial funhouse mirror reflection, and that's a shame.

Conversely, I've always felt the scene where the Master comforts his wife after murdering the reporter was a glimpse into what this Master could've been. Rather than aping the Tenth Doctor's goofier side, they should've made him imitate Ten's gentleness. He could've been outwardly kind and caring to everyone around him--someone you could believably see people wanting to vote for--but unlike Ten, it's all an act. One that he uses to mask his viciousness and to manipulate people into doing what he wants.

But we didn't get that. Instead, we got a over-caffeinated Looney Tunes character.

[Aotrs Commander]

Personally, I liked Simms!Master, though the third episode of this trilogy wasn't the best of him, I admit, on hindsight, maybe a notch over the top too far.

But the "Master Race" bit of the End of Time remains my second-favourite moment of Doctor Who ever, after the Daleks verses the Cybermen. (Okay, Rory's "do I need to repeat the question" also ranks really highly.)

...

Yes, it IS telling something that many of my favourite Doctor Who moment don't involve the Doctor.

[BrianTheGinger]

I've been waiting for Chuck to tackle these episodes since he first showed them on his schedule. While I was looking forward to seeing Stolen Earth/Journey's End being torn a new one (which I hope will still be the case), this was a nice alternative.

This three-parter had so much potential but man, did Davies miss the mark here. Generally, NuWho finales aren't the best stuff (Parting of the Ways and Big Bang notwithstanding and even they have their wonky bits) but this is particularly weak. It had all the pieces here- the return of the one Time Lord the Doctor would have dreaded seeing back the most, Martha having to essentially save the day on her own, the return of Jack and him getting closure over what happened at the end of Series One, a glimpse into the possible end of the world... and it's wasted by having a preening jackass jackass around for 2/3 of the story (Jacobi's kindly and wise-sounding old man would have a made a more effective foil to the young and arrogant 10), Jack being rather irrelevant to the story after Utopia (between this and the first two seasons of Torchwood, John Barrowman really deserved better), the Toclafane is a bizarrely mean-spirited move that really didn't amount to anything, Martha's big plan is utterly absurd and continues Davies's obsession with having the Doctor be his own personal superhero, the reset button ending while expected was still annoying, and the whole story just feels like its meandering around without much of a climax. And the attempt at trying to play the Master's death as a tragic moment for the Doctor falls flat because a) It's the fucking Master, who has done everything in his power since his debut to ruin the Doctor's life including the countless attempts at conquering worlds, the whole Tremas thing, his general cowardice during the Time War revealed during Sound of Drums and he would have just escaped the Doctor's custody eventually to cause further havoc and b) I have trouble feeling sorry for 10 at the best of times as is (least favorite Doctor and all) and while I understand why he feels the way he does, I can't help but be annoyed that he's so upset that he's the last of his race when, returning to point a, it's the Master and the universe is better of without him and from what we've seen of the Time Lords up until now, not even getting into The End of Time, the Time Lords suck.