Drums, rings, Time Lords and fics

I know, I know, ‘Doctor bloody Who’ finished last week. And I’ve done me follow-up post already. But the Wallpapers of the Week go on, and there are a few things niggling…

Many people have expounded on the crapness of the last ever episode of series three, ‘The Sound Of Drums’. Still more people (me included) have gone on about how fab it was. I’d just like to work through a few thoughts.

The Master. Ooh, now. Cue cries of: ‘he’s not the Master, he’s a very naughty boy!’. Having looked back at the whole dying scene (which still makes me cringe, in a ‘hate to see grown men cry’ and ‘Doctor + crying = heartbreak’ kinda way), I have to say, he’s a sneaky bugger, that Master. Seems to me, and ‘scuse me if you lot have already figured this out, but I’ve only just got round to putting it on e-paper, that getting shot were perhaps his aim all along. Once he knew he were beaten, like. I mean, come on, who stands there egging on Francine when she’s holding a gun? Clock his face – he means it. He’s not doing the old ‘you won’t kill me, you don’t have the guts’ routine, he actually means it. But why? Cos he’s really had enough of the drumming? He’s mad enough to think it’s a great way to go out? He’s a complete psycho after all?

And then when he’s finally put out of his misery – who did it? Lucy Saxon. Lucy. One of the ‘kids’ salvaged from the Toclafane crew of the ship from ‘Utopia’? Summat he found downt side of the sofa (if we believe ‘The Sound Of Drums’)? Did you clock her face as she did it? Not exactly with us, as Jack grabs her gun, is she? Has she cracked, is she stunned by what she’s just done, or was she still under the influence and following orders? After all, this psychic network thing works a treat when you want it to – free-floating wishes of death, anyone? Or did she just have a plan B to follow?

Which brings us to the ring. Not, people have pointed out, the one he were wearing before (which appeared to have an S for Saxon on it). This time, as it’s plucked from the funeral pyre by a hand that or may not be Lucy (unlikely, considering she should have been incarcerated), we see a Gallifreyan version. And oh, doesn’t it all make beautiful sense… How else could he escape the good Doctor’s care/plans of imprisonment, and make him believe he’s the last Time Lord left, just to torture him? If you can hide in a watch, you can hide anywhere, right?

Alright, alright, I’ll leave it now. Suffice to say, this Catherine Tate/Donna thing might be good fer a laff fer a few episodes if they write it right, and anyway, Martha’s not far away. And can you imagine the combined comedy potential of a double-act like Martha and Donna? We could be in fer a treat – or complete shite. Only time will tell…

And those lovely people at the Beeb really do come up wi stuff when you least expect em to. If yer living in Asia and have Now TV through yer cable or broadband operator, you can enjoy series one of New Who starting tomorrow night, Monday 9th July at 8pm on BBC Entertainment (channel 529 on my box). Saves me buying the Christopher Eccleston boxed set, dunt it? Bloody marvellous…

And now to a very, very small niggle. I know I’ve had over a year to tune into the psychic network that is the writing team of New Who, but sometimes I just wonder how far all this goes. Fan-fic, people. We’re talking about fan-fic. Mine, to be precise, and the catalogue of coincidences that surround its existence. Now, I believe in coincidences – coincidences happen every day. But I don’t trust coincidences, as plain simple Garak used to say. There were the TARDIS-tipping in the TV episode ‘Blink’, and I giggled cos I’d just covered it in ‘Bad Jelly Babies’. Then there was the spaceship-escaping-planet thing from ‘For Want Of Key’, which of course came up a few weeks later in ‘Utopia’. Again, I thought it quite funny. And then there was the lyrics quiz and assorted running for yer life fun of ‘Slime and Queens and Choices, Oh Martha’, finishing with the lyrics to the Muse song ‘Invincible’. Guess what song turned up at the end of the last Doctor Who Confidential?

Now I’m freaked out. Course, in a Derron Brown kinda way, if you watch the series and listen to Muse CDs, of course these coincidences are bound to come about. Sometimes it makes me wonder, though. I even had Martha comparing the TARDIS to the Titanic in me last story. How freaky is that?

So if series four comes around and the first episode after the Christmas Special is about dragons, you heard it here first. I’m nearly finished this one, give me a week and it’ll be posted at the archive.

And now to all them people who keep asking me why I don’t post much about the goings-on in Hong Kong, seeing as I live here. Well, it bores me to write about shite like that (apart from the times I need to moan) when I could be imagining far away lands and stuff. And anyway, there are so many better blogs that do it so well: Flagrant Harbour just about covers anything I want to moan about to do wi daily stuff, Simon World takes care of the important stuff, Hongkie Town is a good read for somewhere in between and more, and of course, that favourite of so many people looking for amusement, The Dormitory Boys. They do a really good ‘I Want It That Way’, by the way…

I think that’s everything. Back to slaving over a cool Mac, fan-fic-wise, I think. Or just watching Sunday afternoon TV and getting the roast in our new oven. Gawd, I love Sundays…

Peach and lube, people.

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Martha Jones ~ Freema Agyeman ~ BBC ~ John Simm ~ The Master ~ Catherine Tate ~ Hong Kong ~ fanfic ~ Christopher Eccleston