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- >I have often seen public telivision stations (the only ones who seem to have
- >enough intelligence to show Dr. Who) offering instructions to knit or otherwise
- >make a Dr. Who (Tom Baker) Scarf. These have always somehow eluded me. Does
- >anyone know where I can get them?
- >
- >
- >Andrew Schmidt
- >
- Here's a pattern that someone gave me - my mother and sister knitted it
- for a X-mas present last year. The person who gave it to me is
- 'drwho@athena.mit.edu' Hope some of you are interested in it:
- Here is the official BBC pattern: USe no.9 american needles, and start by
- chaining 60 stitches. Always slip the first stitch of each row. Make rows in
- the following order:
- 8 purple 8 mustard 12 grey
- 52 camel 18 rust 8 mustard
- 16 bronze 8 purple 20 bronze
- 10 mustard 38 bronze 10 purple
- 22 rust 10 camel 12 camel
- 8 purple 8 grey 32 grey
- 20 green 40 rust 10 rust
- 8 mustard 14 mustard 16 mustard
- 28 camel 20 green
- 14 rust 8 purple
- 8 bronze 42 camel
- 10 purple 12 bronze
- 42 green (where I am right now) 20 grey
- 8 mustard 8 rust
- 16 grey 12 purple
- 8 rust 6 camel
- 54 camel 14 mustard
- 10 purple 54 green
- 12 green 16 rust
- how much you'll need: 6oz wool of camel, 4 oz of "greenish brown" (try to get
- almost an amalgam of the two colors, 4 oz of rust, 4 oz of bronze, 3 oz each of
- purple, grey and mustard.
- afterwards: make 7 tassels of each end, each made up of 1 foot starnds of each
- of the 7 colors.
- I like the way mine turned out, I hope yours does as well!
- ******************************************************************************
- * Richard L. Carreiro GO CELTS! * He did it! He did it! *
- * rlcarr@athena.mit.edu * Flutie did it! He did it! *
- ******************************************************************************
- ** SPOILERS FROM TIME AND THE RANI ** SPOILERS FROM TIME AND THE RANI **
- A while back, I posted a request for all those funny mis-sayings that
- Sylvester McCoy spouted forth in TIME AND THE RANI. Well, thanks to
- all of you who sent in your quotes! But the most complete version
- came from these folks, who had everything I had and more.
- Their info is posted below...
- "Time and the Rani" Malapropisms
- --------------------------------
- Episode 1)
- ~~~~~~~~~~
- Fit as a trombone.
- A bad workman always blames his fools.
- Won't be a jiffy.
- Absence makes the nose grow longer.
- Episode 2)
- ~~~~~~~~~~
- More hasta less vista.
- A kangaroo never forgets.
- "Stop the Melodramatics"
- { While not a malapropism, a truly WONDERFUL pun reminiscent
- of Colin Baker's Doctor. }
- The proof of the pumpkin is in the squeezing.
- Where there's a will, there's a Tom, Dick and Harriot.
- Episode 3)
- ~~~~~~~~~~
- All good things come to a bend.
- There's none so deaf as those that clutch at straws.
- A bird in the hand keeps the Doctor away.
- Out of the frying pan into the mire.
- Episode 4)
- ~~~~~~~~~~
- A fool and his formula are soon parted. (as Brain)
- Blessed are the piemakers for they shall make light pastry. (as Brain)
- Every dogma has its day. (as Brain)
- Does that mean, the faster a fat man runs, the fatter he'll get. (as Brain)
- { An EXCELLENT application of general relativity! }
- Two wrongs don't make a left turn... RIGHT!
- "Leave the quotes to the expert, Mel."
- He who dares, Spins. (?)
- * "That means Shakespeare, Michaelangelo, Louis Pasteur, Elvis, even Mrs.
- Malaprop will never have existed."
- ~~~~~~~~
- { ...always name your sources!... }
- As you snore so shall you sleep
- Waste net, want net.
- { hehehe! I thought of USENET when I heard this one. }
- Where there's a will, there's a ... benificiary.
- All hands to the stumps.
- A miss is as good as a smile.
- Memory like a dromedary.
- Time and tide melts the Snowman.
- Permission to reprint the previous drek is granted. Just be sure to
- credit "Bill Eggleston" and myself, "Chris Cooley" for our submission.
- <<Eric's note: Nah, I'll let you credit yourselves! Thanks, guys!>>
- - ERIC - * Another proud CoCo 3 user *
- Answers to frequently asked questions:
- 1. What is the Doctor's name?
- The main character of "Doctor Who" has been referred to by several
- different labels. These include:
- Theta Sigma, used by Drax on the Planet of the Shadow (The Armageddon
- Factor). This is supposedly an old school name.
- Doctor Who, has been used in a couple episodes, most notably The War
- Machines, were WOTAN is calling for "Doctor Who". The role was credited
- as "Doctor Who" until Castrovalva, where the name changed to:
- The Doctor. This seems to be what he is called most often.
- Doctor van Wer, was used in The Highlanders.
- In Colony in Space, a name was presented, but was unreadable, on a
- Gallifreyan computer.
- Dr. Caligari was used in The Gunfighters.
- Dr. Foreman was hinted at in An Unearthly Child.
- Dr. John Smith was the alias the Doctor used while he was UNIT's unpaid
- scientific advisor.
- In The Trial of a Time Lord, one section of the matrix had the Doctor
- almost saying his name while on Revlux. He never finishes the sentence.
- 2. Please explain Romana's regeneration.
- There is not good explanation, but net discussions have yielded these
- possibilities:
- a: Romana is wasteful
- b: Romana had achieved a higher level in the Academy, and hence the
- ability to "try-on bodies"
- c: Romana, unlike the Doctor, regenerated "Without Stress". What I
- mean by this is that the Doctor could choose and "Try-on bodies" like
- Romana did *IF* there was no stress about his regeneration.
- d: Romana used a holographic technique to present different possible
- appearances for her body before regenerating into the chosen shape.
- 3. Will there ever be a woman Doctor?
- While it may be possible for a male<->female regeneration, it is
- unlikely that a woman will be cast as the Doctor in the near future.
- This whole controversy started with Tom Baker intentionally stirring
- up the hornets nest by saying when he left the part, "And I'd like
- to wish the new Doctor, whoever he or she may be..."
- 4. Which story had an appearance John Cleese?
- John Cleese appeared with Eleanor Bron as art critics in City of Death.
- 5. What is Temporal Grace?
- Temporal Grace is the quality which is alleged to prevent the use of
- weapons inside a TARDIS. It has not been working in the Doctor's
- TARDIS.
- 6. Is David Agnew really a pseudonym for Douglas Adams?
- Yes, with Graham Williams. It was also used by Graham Williams and
- Anthony Read.
- 7. Was Castrovalva the first Peter Davison story filmed?
- Castrovalva WAS the fourth Peter Davison story made. The others were
- made in advance to allow the Doctor character to settle (hard to do
- with three other characters to write for...). In order, they were:
- Four to Doomsday, The Visitation, and Kinda.
- 8. Is it OK to discuss subjects other than Doctor Who in this
- newsgroup?
- Strictly speaking, this newsgroup has been set up for discussions
- about Doctor Who, however other topics do occasionally find their
- way into this group. Blake's 7 is the most frequent "intruder",
- and it is accepted by nearly every reader. Also appearing is
- The Prisoner, and other British television shows.
- There have been efforts to make a newsgroup for The Prisoner, and
- for British television, but they never received enough support
- to justify creation.
- 9. What is the "Spoilers" list?
- The Spoilers list is a mailing list for discussions of upcoming events
- in Doctor Who. News of the new season, as well as discussions of
- episodes most people haven't seen yet can take place here. To join
- send your email address to terminus!spoilers, specify if you want
- back issues, please.
- 10. What is wrong with Ressurection of the Daleks?
- The BBC shipped to Lionheart, the US distributor of Doctor Who, and
- unfinished copy of Ressurection. In the movie version, a large
- part of the second half of the story is completely lacking in sound
- effects and background music. In the episode version, Episode Two
- is similarly lacking. They've said they plan to fix it, but it has
- been broken for several years now...
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jnr. (nicmad,ulysses,ihnp4)!terminus!nyssa
- "It was only a small explosion" Who said it, what story?
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <8844@watdragon.waterloo.edu> kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter) writes:
- >In article <940@muddcs.Claremont.EDU> ghogenso@muddcs.Claremont.EDU (Gordon Hogenson) writes:
- >>One Cyberman in Attack was actually killed with an ordinary bullet.
- >Let's be fair here. That bullet was literally at point blank range.
- Yep.
- So was the pipe that decapitated a cyberman in the same story.
- Point is, in earlier stories, cybermen were not destroyed by bullets,
- even at point blank range. It took a hail of bullets or explosives
- at best to destroy one.
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ------------------------------------------------------------
- My favourite pointless villains are not the Cybermen, but the Silurians.
- (Purists would say that they're not villains, but given that they have
- one of the prime villain characteristics--skulking around in tunnels--they
- certainly qualify.)
- The Silurians all bear a remarkable resemblance to a former Prime Minister
- of Canada, the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker (deceased), who ruled
- from 1958 to 1963. The jowls, the voice, even the green skin, make them
- dead ringers.
- I hope nobody is going to blame the Silurians on JN-T??
- ____________ Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca
- ___ \ _____ The Invisible City of Kitezh | manis@cs.ubc.cdn
- ____ \ ____ Department of Computer Science | manis%cs.ubc@relay.cs.net
- ___ /\ ___ University of British Columbia | uunet!ubc-cs!manis
- __ / \ __ Vancouver, BC, Canada | (604) 228-2394
- _ / __ \ _ "The worst thing about hell is that you *think* you're
- ____________ having a really good time."
- Neil P. Marsh UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!drwho
- 903 E. Jackson Street <* Ball State DOCTOR WHO Society/BSU Enterprise *>
- Muncie, IN 47305 (1-317-747-0023)
- "Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm
- standing?"
- -- Marvin the Paranoid Android
- THE LEGACY OF GALLIFREY
- by Martin Wiggins, Gordon Blows,
- Trevor Phillips, and Stephen Payne
- <* Part II *>
- When he passed on the Presidency to Pandad, Rassilon had made it seem
- natural that the Presidency should stay in the Prydomian chapter. Not
- surprisingly, harsh voices were raised in dissent at his "accepted wisdom".
- Morbius, the Patrex Councillor, had the loudest. It was during this period of
- dissatisfaction that the next great event in Time Lord history occured -- Civil
- War (or really terribly uncivil war as many of the dormice-like Time Lords
- thought). Morbius, a very popular man amongst the Patrexes, and even the
- Arcalians, suddenly became a cul leader. He wanted a joint High Council, with
- representatives of all three castes working for the people, and a decree to
- make all Gallifreyans Time Lords (not just the descendents of Rassilon's
- aritsocrats). But he especially desired the Presidency.
- If Pandad was considering either of the first two demands, he certainly
- didn't approve of the latter. And so he tried to exile Morbius and a few of
- his followers, in an effort to show his strength and resolve. But Morbius
- escaped, and travelled through time, amassing a huge army of evil to attack the
- Capitol. In the ensuing war, the loss of life was quite horrific -- with whole
- generations of Time Lords and ordinary Gallifreyans dying in the battle.
- Eventually Pandad drove Morbius' army to the planet Karn where, in a final
- confrontation, the two armies were destroyed, as was most of the planet's
- bystanding populace.
- Morbius was captured and faced a trial on Karn -- much to the annoyance
- of the Sisterhood of Karn, or rather the survivors of it, who would have
- preferred the whole disastrous business to have taken place on Gallifrey.
- Pandad sent Morbius' army back from whence they came, and stated that Morbius
- would be the first Time Lord to be executed. During this announcement, Pandad
- misjudged his footing and stepped back over a precipice, falling to his death.
- Pandemonium ensued, and in the midst of the confusion an Arcalian Cardinal,
- Helron, managed to operate the disintegration chamber in which Morbius had been
- encased.
- Having made reasonable peace with the Sisterhood Of Karn (the Time Lords
- agreed to protect them, if the Sisterhood supplied them with some of their
- life-giving Elixir, which allows Time Lords to regenerate properly in case
- something goes wrong with the process), Helron declared himself President and
- returned with an Arcalian council to Gallifrey. Although Morbius was regarded
- as evil, his claims had some effect on Time Lord society, and so Helron placed
- a Cardianl and a Councillor from each caste on the High Council. However, the
- President and his Chancellor would always be from the same chapter. As a
- result of these changes, Azmeal was out of a job. Not that he minded geatly as
- he set his mind to investigate the secret's of Rassilon's Matrix. Throughout
- these experiments, Azmeal always had a nagging feeling that he was only
- discovering those facts to which something, somewhere, was leading him.
- Rassilon was continuing to help the Time Lords.
- All this time, Helron and his High Council grew increasingly wary of
- Azmeal, and possibly a little afraid of him as well. After the ex-Chancellor
- regenerated for the last time, many thousands of years after Morbius' crusade,
- Helron decided to remove Azmeal from Gallifrey. Needless to say, with his work
- still uncompleted, Azmeal resented this decision and spoke out against the High
- Council, declaring them as hypocrites. In fear of the Council's response, he
- fled Gallifrey only to be hunted down by alien employees of Helron. Angry at
- this transgression of the Laws Of Time, and at the destruction of the planet he
- was on by the warriors who were searching for him, Azmeal returned, now branded
- as the first rebegade Time Lord, and massacred Helron and his High Council.
- Immediately a new High Council came into power, decreed Azmeal Public Hero
- Number One, and allowed him to escape Gallifrey to complete his work on the
- Matrix.
- It was during this time of reorganizing that the Academy of Time Lords
- was turning out some of its best students. It was also a time of strife as
- many Time Lords and Gallifreyans were remouncing their society, choosing to
- live on other planets or in the outer wastes of Gallifrey. These few realised
- that Rassilon was right and Gallifrey had fallen into decay.
- In particular, three students at the academy, two Prydonians and one
- Arcalian, consistently conducted rebellious, anti-heirarchical activities. One
- was a thoroughly unpleasant egotist who liked to be known as the Master -- a
- titled earned through his constant bullying of other students. He was a very
- good cosmic theoretician, but not skilled in practice. His contemporary from
- the Prydonian chapter was known as the Doctor who, with a friend called Drax,
- spent most of his tme carrying out silly chemical experiments. The third
- dissenter was an Arcalian girl called Rani, who was brilliant at everything,
- and chemistry in particular.
- As the three grew up, and apart, it became obvious to Cardianl Borusa
- that they had little future on Gallifrey. The Master was the first to escape,
- by gaining Professor Salyavin's permission to investigate the Academy library
- after hours, and thus discover a special book. Although the Master never found
- the book, he left Salyavin well and truly implicated in the affair. Salyavin
- was then to be imprisoned on a special Time Lord prison planet, because the
- theft of the book was a very special crime. Somewhat bitter for being
- imprisoned for not really committing a crime, Salyavin decided that to spite
- the High Council he would steal the book and take it with him. The High
- Council never knew this and so Slyavin vanished to Shada. About fifty years
- later the book was also discovered lost, but no one really cared; they had
- survived withtout it for a few thousand years, and probably wouldn't need it
- again in a hurry.
- The Doctor, meanwhile, became a Councillor on the High Council, and for
- many years sat and watched the Universe and basically ensured that no
- violations of time took lace. However, he made it abundantly clear that he
- wanted more from life than to act as an intergalactic policeman. Eventually,
- he followed the Master's trail and, stealing a Type 40 TARDIS Mark I from the
- repair shop, took along his equally nosey young granddaughter with him on his
- quest. All this time, the Doctor's travels were being watched...not by the
- Time Lords or the Master, but by Rassilon. Inside the Matrix, although their
- bodies were long dead, the minds of the Time Lords carried on. Without the
- need for physical awareness, their mental powers developed, and through the use
- of the Amplified Panatropic Computation (APC) network, stretched their powers
- back into the phusical world, not only on Gallifrey but everywhere.
- Rassilon created two forces, a force for light and good, and a force for
- dark and evil. These two entities existed on the astral plane, each needing
- the other to keep universal harmony; to prevent the Universe from sinking into
- total chaos or total docility. The power Rassilon gave these astral
- projections was a key, The Key To Time which, when assembled, could be used to
- literally stop the Universe, and if it had slipped slightly too far good, or
- too far evil, these projections could therefore control the non-physical side
- of the Universe. Rassilon and the Time Lords in the Matrix (the Matrix Lords)
- then agreed to use a physical force outside the APC Net onGallifrey, and set up
- the Celestial Intervention Agency (CIA), a flippant title, but a honest one.
- This select group of Time Lords were able to break the Laws of Time, if
- need be, to meddle in the affairs of others. The CIA were of course not
- generally credited on Gallifrey, so very few Gallifreyans knew of it's
- existence, and frequently its operators thought they were working for the
- President when in fact they were working for Rassilon, through his CIA agents
- and the APC Net. The CIA, however, needed also needed an agent outside
- Gallifrey, and Rassilon decreed it should be the Doctor, although it wasn't
- until the incident with the Great Intelligence in London on Earth that the
- Doctor suspected he was being used.
- When the CIA openly contacted him and involved him in an attempt by the
- Sontarans to discover time travel, the Doctor broke the Firt Law Of Time and
- met his future self. Although it was accidental, the Doctor desperately tried
- to escape the Time Lords. Eventually, however, he required the Time Lords'
- help when a massive transportation through time was neede for some human
- soldiers. The Time Lords caught the culprits (one of the High Council was
- actually involved with the project although he died during the final battle)
- and dealt out the same fate that had befallen the Fendahl eons earlier. The
- Doctor was put on trial and three members of the High Council sentenced him.
- The three were a Prydonian Councillor called Goth, Adelphi, an Arcalian
- Councillor and the new Prydonian Chancellor, Socra. Socra was also a member of
- the CIA but no one, not even the President, knew that. The Doctor was exiled
- to Earth and his features were once again altered. Socra also had orders not
- to lose contact with the Doctor. Thus it was when the Master arrived on Earth,
- seeking revenge against the Doctor for past deeds, Socra persuaded the
- President, Pandad IV, to send a member of the High Council to warn the Doctor.
- Now that they had warned the Doctor, the CIA made use of him as a free agent.
- The Doctor naturally resented this, but knew it was only a matter of time
- beofre the CIA, probably through Socra, convinced Pandad IV to release him.
- The release came at the end of the Omega incident. The Matrix Lords
- could forsee anything, they could even implant visions inside people's minds,
- but even they were unprepared for Omega's revenge, as the one place they
- couldn't explore was anti-matter...and that was Omega's domain. Omega,
- deserted and believed long-dead, decided the time was right to strike at his
- brother Gallifreyans and receive the recognition he deserved for giving them
- time travel. Although Omega was finally defeated by the Doctor, the affair
- provided a new awareness on Gallifrey, and once it was over, Chancellor Socra
- convinced the President that the Doctor should be freed. Pandad insisted on an
- explanation, and so The Matrix Lords allowed the existence of the CIA to become
- official. Yet Pandad IV didn't, arguing that such an official recognition
- would weaken the people's belief in the High Council; appearances had to be
- maintained and so, once again, the CIA faded into myth.
- Satisfied that things were going his way, Pandad IV became a relaxed and
- contented President, until the chemical work of an ex-student of Cardinal
- Borusa's days at the Academy got the better of him. The Rani was now a high
- ranking official at the Academy herself. She developed a way of making life
- grow from an embryo to maturity in a matter of minutes. A by-product of this
- was, however, that the animals grew somewhat larger than they should have been.
- One day a mouse she was experimenting on escaped and attacked the High Council.
- Socra died in the animal's jaws, but more importantly Pandad IV's cat was
- eaten, along with the lower half of the Preident's leg. After he had
- regenerated to save himself, an irate Pandad IV appointed Goth as his new
- Chancellor, and exiled the Rani. He never found himself another cat, and, as
- he was the last of the "normal" President's as we know it, no one has had one
- since.
- The choice of Goth as the new Chancellor was something Pandad IV
- regretted to his dying day. This momentous occasion occurred some thiry years
- later when Pandad IV informed the Chancellor that, as he was in that office, he
- couldn't possibly become President. The position was offered to Cardinal
- Borus. By this time, Goth had met the Master, and together they planned to
- depose Pandad IV and have Goth elected President. This would be a break with
- tradition that Goth would ensure by blackmailing the CIA into helping him.
- Goth's plan failed and the Master left him to die, although Borusa changed the
- facts so that far from beings Pandad IV's assassin, Goth became a hero.
- Although the Doctor had declared himself a candidate for the Presidency,
- he never took the post up. Whilst the Presidency was unfilled, the High
- Council ratified Borusa's promotion to Chancellor, which left him virtually in
- charge. Thus, when the Sontarans invaded Gallifrey, Time Lord was without a
- Presidency, a position the Doctor returned to assume. Borusa was reluctantly
- glad of the Doctor's help in defeating the aliens, and, after the renegade
- resigned, Borusa took charge of Gallifrey and made some sweeping changes:
- he reduced the High Council, tightened up on security and made the Time Lords a
- little more aware of the decadent lifestyle they were leading. It was a long,
- though worthwhile, struggle, and cost Borusa a regeneration lost through
- stress.
- The CIA also seemed to vanish, but The Matrix Lords were well aware of
- Borusa's machinations. He had been Chancellor, he had known about The Great
- Key and had even worn the Sash Of Rassilon, and now he was President --
- something strictly forbidden! Accordingly, Rassilon had laid a trap to destroy
- for good someone as evil and power-hungry as Borusa. Borusa meanwhile had
- built himself a High Council of some repute. Although a Prydonian himself, he
- had an Arcalian Chancellor -- a lady called Thalia, a Prydonian Cardinal called
- Zorac and Hedin, a Councillor of the Patrex chapter, and the required ordinary
- Gallifreyan, the Castellan. Together, this Council strove to make Gallifrey a
- decent place, and for many years succeeded -- until Omega re-emerged.
- It seemed that the CIA had been wrong all this time, and the Doctor had
- really failed to destroy Omega. Using Councillor Hedin as a link, Omega
- deceived him, playing on the old man's loyalty to "the old ways" (the reason
- Borusa had put him on the Council) to help him return for revenge. Once again,
- however, with the help of the Doctor, Omega was thwarted. Hedin died and the
- High Council was in disarray. The Matrix Lords could forsee a time when Borusa
- would lead Gallifrey into ruination and so Rassilon put into play, for only the
- fourth time since his physical death, The Game Of Rassilon.
- Borusa finally sought immortality, genuinely believing that a Time Lord
- such as he, who had twice seen Omega defeated, seen the Master defeated after
- Pandad's assassination, and played such an active part in the repulsion of the
- Sontaran attack, should become President Eternal, and rule Gallifrey forever.
- He reactivated The Death Zone and tried to see how best to get into The Dark
- Tower. The first thing he did was to send in one of the High Council, under
- the pretence that The Death Zone was being used by an external force which had
- to be investigated. First Cardinal Zorac and then Chancellor Flavia visited
- the Zone. Neither survived the lightening bolts that seemed to come from
- nowhere -- although had anyone been able to trace them, they would have traced
- them back to the Astral plane of the Matrix, where Rassilon was transmuting
- psychis energy into elemental weaponry.
- Eventually Borusa decided that to clear the way he would use the Doctor,
- in all his five incarnations. Borusa was aware there were still obsructions in
- the timefields from the early days, and so he needed scouts to remove the
- dangers. He used the earliest Doctor to destroy the remaining Daleks, but the
- massive force of Cybermen needed far more to bring about their destruction.
- Having rid himself of the Castellan, whom he used as a scapegoat to take the
- b;ame for reactivating The Death Zone, Borusa finally fell into Rassilon's trap
- and played The Game...and lost. Borusa received his immortality, as a living
- bust deep within The Tomb Of Rassilon. The Doctor was returned home, and left
- Chancellor Flavia, a Prydonian lady, as acting-President.
- The first thing Flavia did was to destroy the Gaming Room and, with a new
- High Council, set about running Gallifrey along the correct lines. The latest
- order Acting-President Flavia enacted was to report that she intended to obtain
- an intelligent cat. And somehow she felt that deep from within the Matrix, The
- Matrix Lords, and Rassilon in particular, agreed wholeheartedly. She called
- the cat Doctor...
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- In your nth article, you write :
- > Hold on to your seats, everyone...the end is almost here!
- >
- > {blah, blah, blah..}
- >
- > Era review -
- > The era relies very heavily on visual items...the most since the
- > early Pertwee's. JN-T should have left when Peter Davison did. He lost
- > creativity and good writers then, and it shows very profoundly. The stories
- > are far too uniform in style. Perhaps varying story length and style would
- > help. JN-T never stuck with a winning team, as shown by the constant
- > changes in production staff and writers. Unfortunately, the series is now
- > geared for Americans.
- =========
- Do I detect a bid of nationalistic snobbery ? If JN-T has botched the
- series, go burn him in effigee... America bashing is a cheap shot. Before
- this becomes a flame that will require a UN peace-keeping force, let
- me say, as an American, that I have enjoyed DW. It is overall, the most
- enduring, and respectable shows this side of Galifrey. JN-T is, to be
- sure, less than competent. The new format of the show, and the simple-minded
- plots for the SM Dr. will never sell in America -- no matter what the
- Ad-men say. In the U.S., every devoted fan of DW that I've heard is
- getting fed up with the intellectual pablum from Lionhart these days.
- The TB Dr. (before JN-T) had character, spirit, a love for science and
- a child-like curiosity. The stories (though sometimes pat) didn't
- insult the viewer. Any PhD could be entertained without being embarrassed.
- The fluff we get these days is sickening. The writers are ignorant of the
- history and basic story-line of the show. Since Americans are largely
- paying for it, the series is being over-priced right out of the budgets
- of most PBS affiliates who carry it. If this sounds grim, that's because
- it is. If it makes you angry, it should. It would be a national shame
- to the Britons if the show dies because of petty economics, or the
- misguided plans of the producer. Bring back TB or JP for a reunion.
- Bring in enthusiastic, talented writers. Pay closer attention to script
- than SFX. Honestly, the last thing JN-T should want is to make DW more
- like American SciFi. Even if JN-T is the worst egomanic, he should
- realize that it would be better to go down as the producer who turned
- the Who-ship around, rather than the #$%!@# who sank it ! I hope this
- finds its way to you-know-who !
- In article <12634@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
- >
- > Heisenberg still applies. Temperature, unlike position or momentum, can be
- > measured passively: simply arrange to detect any emitted radiation. So it
- > is possible to determine if a region of space is at absolute zero without
- > altering it. This means that the momentum of any particles in that region
- > must be zero -- at which point (via Heisenberg) their position must be
- > infinitely indeterminate.
- Perhaps this is a way to travel through vast distances. Simply
- make the <thing> exist at absolute zero, then the position,
- being indeterminate, could be anywhere in the universe. When
- the <thing> heats up again, it may materialize someplace else.
- Thus, in the lab, any specimen reduced to absolute zero may
- well disappear (at least from this portion of the universe).
- (The car *was* frozen in _Back to the Future_)
- mak
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The effectiveness of bullets has varied from show to show. During
- "Revenge? of the Cybermen", When Tom Bakers' Doctor meets them, two
- soldeirs from Nova Becon try invain to kill attacking cybermen with a
- machine gun. Latter the inhabitants of Voga find out that their guns
- are useless. During this episode, the Cybermen have guns built into
- their heads that shoot some sort of spark.
- When Peter Davidsons' (sp?) Doctor meets the Cybermen, they have switched to
- hand held laser guns.
- When Colin BaKer's Doctor and Peri meet the Cybermen, one of Litton's
- men kills one with a hand gun at point blank range.
- Steven Widom
- ARPANET starbrd@ucscb.ucsc.edu
- UUCP ...!ucbvax!ucscc.ucsc.edu!ucscb!starbrd
- bitnet: starbrd@ucscg.bitnet
- You can also try the following paths
- ARPANET starbrd@ucscg.ucsc.edu
- UUCP ...!ucbvax!ucscc.ucsc.edu!ucscb!starbrd
- bitnet: ucscc.bitnet!ucscb.ucsc.edu!starbrd
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <9686@cup.portal.com> Armstead_Phil_Smith@cup.portal.com writes:
- >> Unfortunately, the series is now
- >> geared for Americans.
- > =========
- >Do I detect a bid of nationalistic snobbery ? If JN-T has botched the
- >series, go burn him in effigee... America bashing is a cheap shot.
- I suspect you have missed the point, this is not so much America
- bashing as bashing American television SF. Even you did that later:
- > Honestly, the last thing JN-T should want is to make DW more
- >like American SciFi.
- I've met both Joe and Louis at conventions, and we have discussed
- Doctor Who in depth. While I may not always agree with them on
- every point, we to tend to feel that American comercial television
- and particularly American TVSF isn't worth the powder and shot to
- blow it to hell.
- Since the demise of the original Star Trek, we have been treated to
- a series of high budget SF on American television. This budget is
- used for special effects, and not for getting good scripts.
- Funny, isn't that a frequent complaint against JNT's Doctor Who?
- Old Doctor Who had laughable special effects, but the shows were still
- worth watching because they had good stories. If you don't have a
- good story, no special effects budget will save you.
- It seems you agree with me:
- >Bring in enthusiastic, talented writers. Pay closer attention to script
- >than SFX.
- > I hope this
- >finds its way to you-know-who !
- If you want it to:
- John Nathan-Turner
- Doctor Who Production Office
- BBC-Television Centre
- Wood Lane
- London W12 7RJ
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <7302@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
- >[ Follow the bouncing ! ]
- I shall try. Do the same for me?
- > Well, the comprehensive review of the John Nathan-Turner era was
- >most interesting, and prompted me to think about those episodes I've seen.
- I, too, will be putting out a critique shortly, but will respond with
- a couple points.
- >> A Charged Vacuum Emboitement [ ... ]
- > I thought it was Charged Vacuum Envoidment.
- Nope. Louis & Joe were correct.
- >>Four to Doomsday -
- > I don't remember this one at all. I guess I haven't seen it enough
- >times.
- Quite an indictment... It really was unmemorable!
- >>Earthshock -
- > Adric dies. Personally, I had no problem with him, but it seems he
- >was the center of much controversey (much the same as ST:TNG's Wesley
- >Crusher).
- When Adric died, the shout of joy in the David Russell Hall Commons
- Room was louder than when news of the sinking of the Belgrano arrived
- three months later.
- > I suspect the reason for the silent ending at episode 4 was because,
- >unless I've forgotten something, this was the first time a companion of The
- >Doctor had died.
- Yes, you've forgotten something: Katarina and Sarah Kingdom both
- died in The Dalek Masterplan.
- >>Resurrection of the Daleks -
- >> This is the first story shown in 45 minute episodes, [ ... ]
- > Why did they do this? It makes the "cliffhangers" on odd episodes
- >precisely that: Odd.
- The Winter Olympics were being shown at the time, so they merged the
- four episodes into two.
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ------------------------------------------------------
- In article <11722@terminus.UUCP> nyssa@terminus.UUCP (The Prime Minister) writes:
- >Old Doctor Who had laughable special effects, but the shows were still
- >worth watching because they had good stories. If you don't have a
- >good story, no special effects budget will save you.
- Of the "old Doctor Who" that I've seen, really only 50% of them at best had
- "good stories". I mean, even by the time Tom Baker came around, they were
- faced with having done everything. I would hardly call "Revenge of the
- Cybermen", "Terror of the Vogons 8-)", or "The Sontaran Experiment", from
- Tom Baker's "critically acclaimed" first season, good stories. At least not
- in the plot sense, and if it hadn't been for Sarah Jane, not in the dialogue/
- characterization sense either.
- I'd rather watch Colin Baker than "Revenge of the Cybermen" any day. In fact,
- to be frank, I've become really sick of Tom Baker's portrayal. He may be
- a good actor but he practically came out and said in public, "The character
- of the Doctor is unrealistic by default", and then gave up on realism. Look,
- here's a really dangerous alien pointing a gun up my nose, am I worried?
- Naah! "Will there be strawberry jam for tea?"
- Sheesh. Flame off. Miserable as JNT may have been as of late, he was still
- one of the best things that happened to the 4th Doctor.
- --
- Jay Hinkelman
- At Purdue: akf@k.cc.purdue.edu
- Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu|akf
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- But Lee, you forgot the most Earth shattering scene- a Dalek going up stairs!!
- Yup, now we know how they conquered the planet in the 23rd century. A red force
- field appears under their base and up they go.
- They also did a neat Daleks eye view just before they blasted people, with
- strange sysmbols updating beneath crosshairs ala Terminator.
- I agree with Lee's comments about the credibility of a lot of the charecters
- behaviour, it's always been an irritating aspect of Dr Who. I'm not sure if they
- are insulting our intelligence or under-estimating our age. Oh well, stick with
- it I suppose.
- Nathan Brazil IS God !!!!!!!!
- *******************************************************************************
- mb@hplb.csnet | Mark Bailey, | Disclaimer...
- mb%hplb.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa | Hewlett-Packard Labs, |
- mb%otter@hplabs.HP.COM | Bristol, UK. | ...Datclaimer
- mb!mcvax!ukc!hplb!mb |----------------------------------------------
- mb!hplabs!otter!mb | "Stick your head between them and go Blubbly,
- mb@hplb.lb.hp.co.uk | Blubbly, Blubbly." NTNOCN 1980
- *******************************************************************************
- After watching The War Games again, I have come to the conclusion that the
- Master and the War Chief were, in fact, the same person. I know this is not
- an original thought, but I used to be against it. After all, we saw him die
- at the end. However, how many times have we seen the Master "die" or left him
- in some impossible situation? If nothing else, The Planet of Fire should have
- finished him off. I even wrote a Doctor Who script for a class project based
- on the fact that the Master died there. But did he die there? Of course not!
- He's the Master and he's indestructable. Watching The War Games again with an
- open mind, I saw that the personality of the War Chief and the Master were
- extremely close. Any minor changes could easily be attributed to regeneration
- peculiarities. What do you think?
- Gary Duzan
- Time Lord
- Third Regeneration
- p.s. I don't want to know what any book (official or not) thinks. I want to
- know what you, as a fan, think of the possibility.
- GD,TL,TR
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <4238@bsu-cs.UUCP> vamp@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael G. Rothermel) writes:
- >In an episode like the Five Doctors, why doesnt' #5 remember everything as
- >happening four times before?
- >
- >Someone is going to say "but he was taken out of his timeline". Well, this
- >is true, but being taken out of one's timeline is done all the time in the
- >Who universe. Any of the companions, with the exception of Jamie & Zoe,
- >remember all of their adventures with the Doctor, even though they were
- >taken out of their timelines and then put back.
- >
- In article <8844@watdragon.waterloo.edu> kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter) writes:
- >In article <940@muddcs.Claremont.EDU> ghogenso@muddcs.Claremont.EDU (Gordon Hogenson) writes:
- >>One Cyberman in Attack was actually killed with an ordinary bullet.
- >>
- >>To quote one DWB, "If Joe Blow can kill a Cyberman with an ordinary
- >>bullet, then who needs the Doctor?" (not really an exact quote).
- >>
- >>Gordon Hogenson @ Harvey Mudd
- >
- >Let's be fair here. That bullet was literally at point blank range.
- Yeah, but when you consider the thousands of rounds fired at the
- Cybermen previous to this, by groups like U.N.I.T. and such, with
- nary a dent, I think it's a bit too much of a change. Maybe UNIT's
- problem was that they were using blanks... hey, that would explain
- a lot.... Hmmm....
- Mark Modig
- attunix!mom
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Cybermen:
- Yup. When you get REAL close to a cyberman, you can do things like stuff a gun
- into some little hole in its armor (or its chest plate), and it'll probably
- do a LOT of damage, like a bullet bounces around in a tank (or so I've heard).
- This is the problem: not many people can shoot at a near-invisible moving
- hole in armor and expect to hit it, certainly not UNIT troopers at medium rifle
- range.
- The Watcher:
- It is my understanding that the Watcher was formed from the "great forces" that
- were going on during the destruction of Logopolis and the disappearance of the
- known universe. The Doctor was affected in that one of his regenerations got
- sent backwards in time, and became The Watcher
- Michael Lewchuk
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <939@muddcs.Claremont.EDU> ghogenso@muddcs.Claremont.EDU (Gordon Hogenson) writes:
- >Other forthcoming books are The War
- >Machines, the Wheel in Space (attention you Cyberman fans), Edge of
- > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- I just read The Wheel in Space, and the last page announces the
- 1988 Doctor Who 25 Year Bonanza Competition! 1st prize is a trip
- to the DW studios and lunch with the Doctor, 2nd prize is a complete
- set of DW novels, and 25 runners-up will receive The Commemorative
- Volume: "Doctor Who - 25 Glorious Years". Unfortunately, there is
- a disclaimer printed very small at the bottom which reads "This
- competition is open to residents of the UK only..." Damn. Contests
- can be so much fun.
- Although it doesn't really matter now, since the dealine was September
- 30, the questions you had to answer on the entry form were:
- 1. What date was the first episode of Doctor Who broadcast on television?
- 2. Who played the first Doctor Who's assistant?
- 3. I read Doctor Who books because___________________________. (no
- more than 15 words)
- --
- Michael S. Czeiszperger | "Official Sponsor of the television coverage of
- Systems Analyst | Snail: 2015 Neil Avenue (614) the Olympics"
- The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH 43210 292-
- ARPA:czei@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu PAN:CZEI 0161
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <8844@watdragon.waterloo.edu> kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter) writes:
- >In article <940@muddcs.Claremont.EDU> ghogenso@muddcs.Claremont.EDU (Gordon Hogenson) writes:
- >>One Cyberman in Attack was actually killed with an ordinary bullet.
- >Let's be fair here. That bullet was literally at point blank range.
- Yep.
- So was the pipe that decapitated a cyberman in the same story.
- Point is, in earlier stories, cybermen were not destroyed by bullets,
- even at point blank range. It took a hail of bullets or explosives
- at best to destroy one.
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ------------------------------------------------------------
- My favourite pointless villains are not the Cybermen, but the Silurians.
- (Purists would say that they're not villains, but given that they have
- one of the prime villain characteristics--skulking around in tunnels--they
- certainly qualify.)
- The Silurians all bear a remarkable resemblance to a former Prime Minister
- of Canada, the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker (deceased), who ruled
- from 1958 to 1963. The jowls, the voice, even the green skin, make them
- dead ringers.
- I hope nobody is going to blame the Silurians on JN-T??
- ____________ Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca
- ___ \ _____ The Invisible City of Kitezh | manis@cs.ubc.cdn
- ____ \ ____ Department of Computer Science | manis%cs.ubc@relay.cs.net
- ___ /\ ___ University of British Columbia | uunet!ubc-cs!manis
- __ / \ __ Vancouver, BC, Canada | (604) 228-2394
- _ / __ \ _ "The worst thing about hell is that you *think* you're
- ____________ having a really good time."
- Neil P. Marsh UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!drwho
- 903 E. Jackson Street <* Ball State DOCTOR WHO Society/BSU Enterprise *>
- Muncie, IN 47305 (1-317-747-0023)
- "Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm
- standing?"
- -- Marvin the Paranoid Android
- THE LEGACY OF GALLIFREY
- by Martin Wiggins, Gordon Blows,
- Trevor Phillips, and Stephen Payne
- <* Part II *>
- When he passed on the Presidency to Pandad, Rassilon had made it seem
- natural that the Presidency should stay in the Prydomian chapter. Not
- surprisingly, harsh voices were raised in dissent at his "accepted wisdom".
- Morbius, the Patrex Councillor, had the loudest. It was during this period of
- dissatisfaction that the next great event in Time Lord history occured -- Civil
- War (or really terribly uncivil war as many of the dormice-like Time Lords
- thought). Morbius, a very popular man amongst the Patrexes, and even the
- Arcalians, suddenly became a cul leader. He wanted a joint High Council, with
- representatives of all three castes working for the people, and a decree to
- make all Gallifreyans Time Lords (not just the descendents of Rassilon's
- aritsocrats). But he especially desired the Presidency.
- If Pandad was considering either of the first two demands, he certainly
- didn't approve of the latter. And so he tried to exile Morbius and a few of
- his followers, in an effort to show his strength and resolve. But Morbius
- escaped, and travelled through time, amassing a huge army of evil to attack the
- Capitol. In the ensuing war, the loss of life was quite horrific -- with whole
- generations of Time Lords and ordinary Gallifreyans dying in the battle.
- Eventually Pandad drove Morbius' army to the planet Karn where, in a final
- confrontation, the two armies were destroyed, as was most of the planet's
- bystanding populace.
- Morbius was captured and faced a trial on Karn -- much to the annoyance
- of the Sisterhood of Karn, or rather the survivors of it, who would have
- preferred the whole disastrous business to have taken place on Gallifrey.
- Pandad sent Morbius' army back from whence they came, and stated that Morbius
- would be the first Time Lord to be executed. During this announcement, Pandad
- misjudged his footing and stepped back over a precipice, falling to his death.
- Pandemonium ensued, and in the midst of the confusion an Arcalian Cardinal,
- Helron, managed to operate the disintegration chamber in which Morbius had been
- encased.
- Having made reasonable peace with the Sisterhood Of Karn (the Time Lords
- agreed to protect them, if the Sisterhood supplied them with some of their
- life-giving Elixir, which allows Time Lords to regenerate properly in case
- something goes wrong with the process), Helron declared himself President and
- returned with an Arcalian council to Gallifrey. Although Morbius was regarded
- as evil, his claims had some effect on Time Lord society, and so Helron placed
- a Cardianl and a Councillor from each caste on the High Council. However, the
- President and his Chancellor would always be from the same chapter. As a
- result of these changes, Azmeal was out of a job. Not that he minded geatly as
- he set his mind to investigate the secret's of Rassilon's Matrix. Throughout
- these experiments, Azmeal always had a nagging feeling that he was only
- discovering those facts to which something, somewhere, was leading him.
- Rassilon was continuing to help the Time Lords.
- All this time, Helron and his High Council grew increasingly wary of
- Azmeal, and possibly a little afraid of him as well. After the ex-Chancellor
- regenerated for the last time, many thousands of years after Morbius' crusade,
- Helron decided to remove Azmeal from Gallifrey. Needless to say, with his work
- still uncompleted, Azmeal resented this decision and spoke out against the High
- Council, declaring them as hypocrites. In fear of the Council's response, he
- fled Gallifrey only to be hunted down by alien employees of Helron. Angry at
- this transgression of the Laws Of Time, and at the destruction of the planet he
- was on by the warriors who were searching for him, Azmeal returned, now branded
- as the first rebegade Time Lord, and massacred Helron and his High Council.
- Immediately a new High Council came into power, decreed Azmeal Public Hero
- Number One, and allowed him to escape Gallifrey to complete his work on the
- Matrix.
- It was during this time of reorganizing that the Academy of Time Lords
- was turning out some of its best students. It was also a time of strife as
- many Time Lords and Gallifreyans were remouncing their society, choosing to
- live on other planets or in the outer wastes of Gallifrey. These few realised
- that Rassilon was right and Gallifrey had fallen into decay.
- In particular, three students at the academy, two Prydonians and one
- Arcalian, consistently conducted rebellious, anti-heirarchical activities. One
- was a thoroughly unpleasant egotist who liked to be known as the Master -- a
- titled earned through his constant bullying of other students. He was a very
- good cosmic theoretician, but not skilled in practice. His contemporary from
- the Prydonian chapter was known as the Doctor who, with a friend called Drax,
- spent most of his tme carrying out silly chemical experiments. The third
- dissenter was an Arcalian girl called Rani, who was brilliant at everything,
- and chemistry in particular.
- As the three grew up, and apart, it became obvious to Cardianl Borusa
- that they had little future on Gallifrey. The Master was the first to escape,
- by gaining Professor Salyavin's permission to investigate the Academy library
- after hours, and thus discover a special book. Although the Master never found
- the book, he left Salyavin well and truly implicated in the affair. Salyavin
- was then to be imprisoned on a special Time Lord prison planet, because the
- theft of the book was a very special crime. Somewhat bitter for being
- imprisoned for not really committing a crime, Salyavin decided that to spite
- the High Council he would steal the book and take it with him. The High
- Council never knew this and so Slyavin vanished to Shada. About fifty years
- later the book was also discovered lost, but no one really cared; they had
- survived withtout it for a few thousand years, and probably wouldn't need it
- again in a hurry.
- The Doctor, meanwhile, became a Councillor on the High Council, and for
- many years sat and watched the Universe and basically ensured that no
- violations of time took lace. However, he made it abundantly clear that he
- wanted more from life than to act as an intergalactic policeman. Eventually,
- he followed the Master's trail and, stealing a Type 40 TARDIS Mark I from the
- repair shop, took along his equally nosey young granddaughter with him on his
- quest. All this time, the Doctor's travels were being watched...not by the
- Time Lords or the Master, but by Rassilon. Inside the Matrix, although their
- bodies were long dead, the minds of the Time Lords carried on. Without the
- need for physical awareness, their mental powers developed, and through the use
- of the Amplified Panatropic Computation (APC) network, stretched their powers
- back into the phusical world, not only on Gallifrey but everywhere.
- Rassilon created two forces, a force for light and good, and a force for
- dark and evil. These two entities existed on the astral plane, each needing
- the other to keep universal harmony; to prevent the Universe from sinking into
- total chaos or total docility. The power Rassilon gave these astral
- projections was a key, The Key To Time which, when assembled, could be used to
- literally stop the Universe, and if it had slipped slightly too far good, or
- too far evil, these projections could therefore control the non-physical side
- of the Universe. Rassilon and the Time Lords in the Matrix (the Matrix Lords)
- then agreed to use a physical force outside the APC Net onGallifrey, and set up
- the Celestial Intervention Agency (CIA), a flippant title, but a honest one.
- This select group of Time Lords were able to break the Laws of Time, if
- need be, to meddle in the affairs of others. The CIA were of course not
- generally credited on Gallifrey, so very few Gallifreyans knew of it's
- existence, and frequently its operators thought they were working for the
- President when in fact they were working for Rassilon, through his CIA agents
- and the APC Net. The CIA, however, needed also needed an agent outside
- Gallifrey, and Rassilon decreed it should be the Doctor, although it wasn't
- until the incident with the Great Intelligence in London on Earth that the
- Doctor suspected he was being used.
- When the CIA openly contacted him and involved him in an attempt by the
- Sontarans to discover time travel, the Doctor broke the Firt Law Of Time and
- met his future self. Although it was accidental, the Doctor desperately tried
- to escape the Time Lords. Eventually, however, he required the Time Lords'
- help when a massive transportation through time was neede for some human
- soldiers. The Time Lords caught the culprits (one of the High Council was
- actually involved with the project although he died during the final battle)
- and dealt out the same fate that had befallen the Fendahl eons earlier. The
- Doctor was put on trial and three members of the High Council sentenced him.
- The three were a Prydonian Councillor called Goth, Adelphi, an Arcalian
- Councillor and the new Prydonian Chancellor, Socra. Socra was also a member of
- the CIA but no one, not even the President, knew that. The Doctor was exiled
- to Earth and his features were once again altered. Socra also had orders not
- to lose contact with the Doctor. Thus it was when the Master arrived on Earth,
- seeking revenge against the Doctor for past deeds, Socra persuaded the
- President, Pandad IV, to send a member of the High Council to warn the Doctor.
- Now that they had warned the Doctor, the CIA made use of him as a free agent.
- The Doctor naturally resented this, but knew it was only a matter of time
- beofre the CIA, probably through Socra, convinced Pandad IV to release him.
- The release came at the end of the Omega incident. The Matrix Lords
- could forsee anything, they could even implant visions inside people's minds,
- but even they were unprepared for Omega's revenge, as the one place they
- couldn't explore was anti-matter...and that was Omega's domain. Omega,
- deserted and believed long-dead, decided the time was right to strike at his
- brother Gallifreyans and receive the recognition he deserved for giving them
- time travel. Although Omega was finally defeated by the Doctor, the affair
- provided a new awareness on Gallifrey, and once it was over, Chancellor Socra
- convinced the President that the Doctor should be freed. Pandad insisted on an
- explanation, and so The Matrix Lords allowed the existence of the CIA to become
- official. Yet Pandad IV didn't, arguing that such an official recognition
- would weaken the people's belief in the High Council; appearances had to be
- maintained and so, once again, the CIA faded into myth.
- Satisfied that things were going his way, Pandad IV became a relaxed and
- contented President, until the chemical work of an ex-student of Cardinal
- Borusa's days at the Academy got the better of him. The Rani was now a high
- ranking official at the Academy herself. She developed a way of making life
- grow from an embryo to maturity in a matter of minutes. A by-product of this
- was, however, that the animals grew somewhat larger than they should have been.
- One day a mouse she was experimenting on escaped and attacked the High Council.
- Socra died in the animal's jaws, but more importantly Pandad IV's cat was
- eaten, along with the lower half of the Preident's leg. After he had
- regenerated to save himself, an irate Pandad IV appointed Goth as his new
- Chancellor, and exiled the Rani. He never found himself another cat, and, as
- he was the last of the "normal" President's as we know it, no one has had one
- since.
- The choice of Goth as the new Chancellor was something Pandad IV
- regretted to his dying day. This momentous occasion occurred some thiry years
- later when Pandad IV informed the Chancellor that, as he was in that office, he
- couldn't possibly become President. The position was offered to Cardinal
- Borus. By this time, Goth had met the Master, and together they planned to
- depose Pandad IV and have Goth elected President. This would be a break with
- tradition that Goth would ensure by blackmailing the CIA into helping him.
- Goth's plan failed and the Master left him to die, although Borusa changed the
- facts so that far from beings Pandad IV's assassin, Goth became a hero.
- Although the Doctor had declared himself a candidate for the Presidency,
- he never took the post up. Whilst the Presidency was unfilled, the High
- Council ratified Borusa's promotion to Chancellor, which left him virtually in
- charge. Thus, when the Sontarans invaded Gallifrey, Time Lord was without a
- Presidency, a position the Doctor returned to assume. Borusa was reluctantly
- glad of the Doctor's help in defeating the aliens, and, after the renegade
- resigned, Borusa took charge of Gallifrey and made some sweeping changes:
- he reduced the High Council, tightened up on security and made the Time Lords a
- little more aware of the decadent lifestyle they were leading. It was a long,
- though worthwhile, struggle, and cost Borusa a regeneration lost through
- stress.
- The CIA also seemed to vanish, but The Matrix Lords were well aware of
- Borusa's machinations. He had been Chancellor, he had known about The Great
- Key and had even worn the Sash Of Rassilon, and now he was President --
- something strictly forbidden! Accordingly, Rassilon had laid a trap to destroy
- for good someone as evil and power-hungry as Borusa. Borusa meanwhile had
- built himself a High Council of some repute. Although a Prydonian himself, he
- had an Arcalian Chancellor -- a lady called Thalia, a Prydonian Cardinal called
- Zorac and Hedin, a Councillor of the Patrex chapter, and the required ordinary
- Gallifreyan, the Castellan. Together, this Council strove to make Gallifrey a
- decent place, and for many years succeeded -- until Omega re-emerged.
- It seemed that the CIA had been wrong all this time, and the Doctor had
- really failed to destroy Omega. Using Councillor Hedin as a link, Omega
- deceived him, playing on the old man's loyalty to "the old ways" (the reason
- Borusa had put him on the Council) to help him return for revenge. Once again,
- however, with the help of the Doctor, Omega was thwarted. Hedin died and the
- High Council was in disarray. The Matrix Lords could forsee a time when Borusa
- would lead Gallifrey into ruination and so Rassilon put into play, for only the
- fourth time since his physical death, The Game Of Rassilon.
- Borusa finally sought immortality, genuinely believing that a Time Lord
- such as he, who had twice seen Omega defeated, seen the Master defeated after
- Pandad's assassination, and played such an active part in the repulsion of the
- Sontaran attack, should become President Eternal, and rule Gallifrey forever.
- He reactivated The Death Zone and tried to see how best to get into The Dark
- Tower. The first thing he did was to send in one of the High Council, under
- the pretence that The Death Zone was being used by an external force which had
- to be investigated. First Cardinal Zorac and then Chancellor Flavia visited
- the Zone. Neither survived the lightening bolts that seemed to come from
- nowhere -- although had anyone been able to trace them, they would have traced
- them back to the Astral plane of the Matrix, where Rassilon was transmuting
- psychis energy into elemental weaponry.
- Eventually Borusa decided that to clear the way he would use the Doctor,
- in all his five incarnations. Borusa was aware there were still obsructions in
- the timefields from the early days, and so he needed scouts to remove the
- dangers. He used the earliest Doctor to destroy the remaining Daleks, but the
- massive force of Cybermen needed far more to bring about their destruction.
- Having rid himself of the Castellan, whom he used as a scapegoat to take the
- b;ame for reactivating The Death Zone, Borusa finally fell into Rassilon's trap
- and played The Game...and lost. Borusa received his immortality, as a living
- bust deep within The Tomb Of Rassilon. The Doctor was returned home, and left
- Chancellor Flavia, a Prydonian lady, as acting-President.
- The first thing Flavia did was to destroy the Gaming Room and, with a new
- High Council, set about running Gallifrey along the correct lines. The latest
- order Acting-President Flavia enacted was to report that she intended to obtain
- an intelligent cat. And somehow she felt that deep from within the Matrix, The
- Matrix Lords, and Rassilon in particular, agreed wholeheartedly. She called
- the cat Doctor...
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- In your nth article, you write :
- > Hold on to your seats, everyone...the end is almost here!
- >
- > {blah, blah, blah..}
- >
- > Era review -
- > The era relies very heavily on visual items...the most since the
- > early Pertwee's. JN-T should have left when Peter Davison did. He lost
- > creativity and good writers then, and it shows very profoundly. The stories
- > are far too uniform in style. Perhaps varying story length and style would
- > help. JN-T never stuck with a winning team, as shown by the constant
- > changes in production staff and writers. Unfortunately, the series is now
- > geared for Americans.
- =========
- Do I detect a bid of nationalistic snobbery ? If JN-T has botched the
- series, go burn him in effigee... America bashing is a cheap shot. Before
- this becomes a flame that will require a UN peace-keeping force, let
- me say, as an American, that I have enjoyed DW. It is overall, the most
- enduring, and respectable shows this side of Galifrey. JN-T is, to be
- sure, less than competent. The new format of the show, and the simple-minded
- plots for the SM Dr. will never sell in America -- no matter what the
- Ad-men say. In the U.S., every devoted fan of DW that I've heard is
- getting fed up with the intellectual pablum from Lionhart these days.
- The TB Dr. (before JN-T) had character, spirit, a love for science and
- a child-like curiosity. The stories (though sometimes pat) didn't
- insult the viewer. Any PhD could be entertained without being embarrassed.
- The fluff we get these days is sickening. The writers are ignorant of the
- history and basic story-line of the show. Since Americans are largely
- paying for it, the series is being over-priced right out of the budgets
- of most PBS affiliates who carry it. If this sounds grim, that's because
- it is. If it makes you angry, it should. It would be a national shame
- to the Britons if the show dies because of petty economics, or the
- misguided plans of the producer. Bring back TB or JP for a reunion.
- Bring in enthusiastic, talented writers. Pay closer attention to script
- than SFX. Honestly, the last thing JN-T should want is to make DW more
- like American SciFi. Even if JN-T is the worst egomanic, he should
- realize that it would be better to go down as the producer who turned
- the Who-ship around, rather than the #$%!@# who sank it ! I hope this
- finds its way to you-know-who !
- In article <12634@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
- >
- > Heisenberg still applies. Temperature, unlike position or momentum, can be
- > measured passively: simply arrange to detect any emitted radiation. So it
- > is possible to determine if a region of space is at absolute zero without
- > altering it. This means that the momentum of any particles in that region
- > must be zero -- at which point (via Heisenberg) their position must be
- > infinitely indeterminate.
- Perhaps this is a way to travel through vast distances. Simply
- make the <thing> exist at absolute zero, then the position,
- being indeterminate, could be anywhere in the universe. When
- the <thing> heats up again, it may materialize someplace else.
- Thus, in the lab, any specimen reduced to absolute zero may
- well disappear (at least from this portion of the universe).
- (The car *was* frozen in _Back to the Future_)
- mak
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- The effectiveness of bullets has varied from show to show. During
- "Revenge? of the Cybermen", When Tom Bakers' Doctor meets them, two
- soldeirs from Nova Becon try invain to kill attacking cybermen with a
- machine gun. Latter the inhabitants of Voga find out that their guns
- are useless. During this episode, the Cybermen have guns built into
- their heads that shoot some sort of spark.
- When Peter Davidsons' (sp?) Doctor meets the Cybermen, they have switched to
- hand held laser guns.
- When Colin BaKer's Doctor and Peri meet the Cybermen, one of Litton's
- men kills one with a hand gun at point blank range.
- Steven Widom
- ARPANET starbrd@ucscb.ucsc.edu
- UUCP ...!ucbvax!ucscc.ucsc.edu!ucscb!starbrd
- bitnet: starbrd@ucscg.bitnet
- You can also try the following paths
- ARPANET starbrd@ucscg.ucsc.edu
- UUCP ...!ucbvax!ucscc.ucsc.edu!ucscb!starbrd
- bitnet: ucscc.bitnet!ucscb.ucsc.edu!starbrd
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <9686@cup.portal.com> Armstead_Phil_Smith@cup.portal.com writes:
- >> Unfortunately, the series is now
- >> geared for Americans.
- > =========
- >Do I detect a bid of nationalistic snobbery ? If JN-T has botched the
- >series, go burn him in effigee... America bashing is a cheap shot.
- I suspect you have missed the point, this is not so much America
- bashing as bashing American television SF. Even you did that later:
- > Honestly, the last thing JN-T should want is to make DW more
- >like American SciFi.
- I've met both Joe and Louis at conventions, and we have discussed
- Doctor Who in depth. While I may not always agree with them on
- every point, we to tend to feel that American comercial television
- and particularly American TVSF isn't worth the powder and shot to
- blow it to hell.
- Since the demise of the original Star Trek, we have been treated to
- a series of high budget SF on American television. This budget is
- used for special effects, and not for getting good scripts.
- Funny, isn't that a frequent complaint against JNT's Doctor Who?
- Old Doctor Who had laughable special effects, but the shows were still
- worth watching because they had good stories. If you don't have a
- good story, no special effects budget will save you.
- It seems you agree with me:
- >Bring in enthusiastic, talented writers. Pay closer attention to script
- >than SFX.
- > I hope this
- >finds its way to you-know-who !
- If you want it to:
- John Nathan-Turner
- Doctor Who Production Office
- BBC-Television Centre
- Wood Lane
- London W12 7RJ
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <7302@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes:
- >[ Follow the bouncing ! ]
- I shall try. Do the same for me?
- > Well, the comprehensive review of the John Nathan-Turner era was
- >most interesting, and prompted me to think about those episodes I've seen.
- I, too, will be putting out a critique shortly, but will respond with
- a couple points.
- >> A Charged Vacuum Emboitement [ ... ]
- > I thought it was Charged Vacuum Envoidment.
- Nope. Louis & Joe were correct.
- >>Four to Doomsday -
- > I don't remember this one at all. I guess I haven't seen it enough
- >times.
- Quite an indictment... It really was unmemorable!
- >>Earthshock -
- > Adric dies. Personally, I had no problem with him, but it seems he
- >was the center of much controversey (much the same as ST:TNG's Wesley
- >Crusher).
- When Adric died, the shout of joy in the David Russell Hall Commons
- Room was louder than when news of the sinking of the Belgrano arrived
- three months later.
- > I suspect the reason for the silent ending at episode 4 was because,
- >unless I've forgotten something, this was the first time a companion of The
- >Doctor had died.
- Yes, you've forgotten something: Katarina and Sarah Kingdom both
- died in The Dalek Masterplan.
- >>Resurrection of the Daleks -
- >> This is the first story shown in 45 minute episodes, [ ... ]
- > Why did they do this? It makes the "cliffhangers" on odd episodes
- >precisely that: Odd.
- The Winter Olympics were being shown at the time, so they merged the
- four episodes into two.
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ------------------------------------------------------
- In article <11722@terminus.UUCP> nyssa@terminus.UUCP (The Prime Minister) writes:
- >Old Doctor Who had laughable special effects, but the shows were still
- >worth watching because they had good stories. If you don't have a
- >good story, no special effects budget will save you.
- Of the "old Doctor Who" that I've seen, really only 50% of them at best had
- "good stories". I mean, even by the time Tom Baker came around, they were
- faced with having done everything. I would hardly call "Revenge of the
- Cybermen", "Terror of the Vogons 8-)", or "The Sontaran Experiment", from
- Tom Baker's "critically acclaimed" first season, good stories. At least not
- in the plot sense, and if it hadn't been for Sarah Jane, not in the dialogue/
- characterization sense either.
- I'd rather watch Colin Baker than "Revenge of the Cybermen" any day. In fact,
- to be frank, I've become really sick of Tom Baker's portrayal. He may be
- a good actor but he practically came out and said in public, "The character
- of the Doctor is unrealistic by default", and then gave up on realism. Look,
- here's a really dangerous alien pointing a gun up my nose, am I worried?
- Naah! "Will there be strawberry jam for tea?"
- Sheesh. Flame off. Miserable as JNT may have been as of late, he was still
- one of the best things that happened to the 4th Doctor.
- --
- Jay Hinkelman
- At Purdue: akf@k.cc.purdue.edu
- Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu|akf
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- But Lee, you forgot the most Earth shattering scene- a Dalek going up stairs!!
- Yup, now we know how they conquered the planet in the 23rd century. A red force
- field appears under their base and up they go.
- They also did a neat Daleks eye view just before they blasted people, with
- strange sysmbols updating beneath crosshairs ala Terminator.
- I agree with Lee's comments about the credibility of a lot of the charecters
- behaviour, it's always been an irritating aspect of Dr Who. I'm not sure if they
- are insulting our intelligence or under-estimating our age. Oh well, stick with
- it I suppose.
- Nathan Brazil IS God !!!!!!!!
- *******************************************************************************
- mb@hplb.csnet | Mark Bailey, | Disclaimer...
- mb%hplb.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa | Hewlett-Packard Labs, |
- mb%otter@hplabs.HP.COM | Bristol, UK. | ...Datclaimer
- mb!mcvax!ukc!hplb!mb |----------------------------------------------
- mb!hplabs!otter!mb | "Stick your head between them and go Blubbly,
- mb@hplb.lb.hp.co.uk | Blubbly, Blubbly." NTNOCN 1980
- *******************************************************************************
- After watching The War Games again, I have come to the conclusion that the
- Master and the War Chief were, in fact, the same person. I know this is not
- an original thought, but I used to be against it. After all, we saw him die
- at the end. However, how many times have we seen the Master "die" or left him
- in some impossible situation? If nothing else, The Planet of Fire should have
- finished him off. I even wrote a Doctor Who script for a class project based
- on the fact that the Master died there. But did he die there? Of course not!
- He's the Master and he's indestructable. Watching The War Games again with an
- open mind, I saw that the personality of the War Chief and the Master were
- extremely close. Any minor changes could easily be attributed to regeneration
- peculiarities. What do you think?
- Gary Duzan
- Time Lord
- Third Regeneration
- p.s. I don't want to know what any book (official or not) thinks. I want to
- know what you, as a fan, think of the possibility.
- GD,TL,TR
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <4238@bsu-cs.UUCP> vamp@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael G. Rothermel) writes:
- >In an episode like the Five Doctors, why doesnt' #5 remember everything as
- >happening four times before?
- >
- >Someone is going to say "but he was taken out of his timeline". Well, this
- >is true, but being taken out of one's timeline is done all the time in the
- >Who universe. Any of the companions, with the exception of Jamie & Zoe,
- >remember all of their adventures with the Doctor, even though they were
- >taken out of their timelines and then put back.
- >
- Well, maybe we should come up with some kind of distinction between
- traveling in time (i.e., being taken out of one's TIME) and being
- taken out of one's timeLINE. After all, the phrase "taken out of
- one's timeline" only occurs on WHO in very specific and infrequent
- circumstances. For instance, in "The Five Doctors", the 4 earlier
- incarnations were removed from their timelines (or, if your prefer,
- timestreams--the same thing). But in "The War Games", Jamie and
- Zoe were returned to their own TIMES.
- In case anyone wants to start a discussion, we'll start with the follow-
- ing definition: a person's TIMELINE is the sequence of events, sometimes
- chronologically linear, that happen to that person, from birth to death.
- I say "chronologically linear" to signify the chronology that the person's
- eyes see; if I hop in a time machine and travel forward to 2012, then back
- to 1950 (before I was born), my timeline is still (new word coming 8-)
- chronolinear. Even the Brigadier had a chronolinear timeline, despite
- the sequence of events in "Mawdryn Undead". However, should a person
- split into two entities in two parallel universes, or be removed like
- the Doctors were in "The Five Doctors", his timeline is no longer
- chronolinear. In these cases there is some kind of branching from the
- timeline, and the things that happened off the chronolinear section cannot
- be recalled, since the mind functions only on chronolinear lines (?)
- remember, the Brigadier forgot what happened in the "Mawdryn" affair
- because he had a nervous breakdown shortly after his (1977) return to
- earth.
- Anyone who wants to debate this defintion, or to discuss some of its
- apparent results, please feel free to do so. Actually, a point that
- I glossed over was the following: is their a distinction between
- a person's timeSTREAM and his timeLINE?
- Ooooooh, this is gonna be fun.
- --
- Jay Hinkelman
- At Purdue: akf@k.cc.purdue.edu
- Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu|akf
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <10583@reed.UUCP> odlin@reed.UUCP (Iain Odlin) writes:
- >In article <453@husc6.harvard.edu> gallaghe@husc8.UUCP (Paul Gallagher) writes:
- >
- >God only knows when _Mark of the Rani_ happened in the Master's personal
- >time-line. It may have happened long before _Planet of Fire_.
- > -Iain Odlin
- Nope, sorry, but the Doctor and the Rani both ask him how he survived the
- Sarn incident. His response (at least to one of them), "I am indes-
- tructible", shows that he already knew of the incident.
- As for the original question, "How did he survive," it was postulated in
- the Doctor Who Role-Playing Game (for what it's worth) that the Master
- has a device that teleports him back to his secret base of operations
- whenever his regeneration process is about to occur, so he can somehow
- heal himself or whatever there, hence not losing another regeneration
- (he is out of them). This doesn't answer, though, why he looked so
- gosh-darned scared when the Doctor turned up the heat on him.
- --
- Jay Hinkelman
- At Purdue: akf@k.cc.purdue.edu
- Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu|akf
- --------------------------------------------------------
- In article <1086@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
- >In article <2660@k.cc.purdue.edu> akf@k.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Jay Hinkelman) writes:
- >>
- [here's where I attacked Tom Baker's Doctor for being too unrealisitic
- and annoyingly flippant, referring to a specific scene in his first
- season where an alien pointed a gun up his nose and he said, "Will
- there be strawberry jam for tea?"]
- >>
- >Wrongemboyo! The character in those scenes was brilliant. Here's a
- >being capable of time travel, and arguably from a race that could own
- >the universe, and showing the concomitant unflapability that comes with
- >that sort of confidence.
- I disagree. America is one of the most powerful nations on earth, and
- many Americans are quite flippant about it. But if a Russian citizen
- were to come up to one of them and point a gun up such a person's nose,
- he'd probably be frightened nonetheless. In other words, national/racial
- bravado does not necessarily produce personal bravado. Besides, the
- Doctor didn't think much of Gallifreyan society, or he wouldn't have
- left it.
- > He understands the psychology of dangerous
- >situations to the point where he is generally able to unnerve the
- >terrorist (who does his work through psychology, not force) by not being
- >predictable.
- I have a hard time thinking of a Cyberman or a Sontaran as a terrorist,
- especially because they DID do their work by force. Also, flippancy
- does not equal unpredictability. If someone in a bad mood points a gun
- up your nose, you DON'T MAKE HIM MADDER.
- > He controlled the situation and survived, and he did it
- >without pouting (JPertwee) or becoming nervous and deferential (CBaker or
- >TFarnham, er, PDavisson).
- If he controlled the situation, he did it by thinking, not by being
- flippant. I doubt seriously that people who have their lives threatened,
- even more than infrequently, become arrogant about it.
- >You're right if you point out that the first TB season was lame (too much
- >clowning, too little depth in the portrayal), but nobody else was even
- >believable in the face of Daleks.
- I've never accused Tom Baker (who was bloody awful 8-) of being a bad
- actor. He wasn't. I just think that someone made a bad decision concerning
- how the character of the Doctor would be played, and one of the persons
- involved in that decision was Tom Baker. After all, he DID suggest to
- the producers that he be allowed to have a talking head of cabbage as a
- companion. I will admit that many of my gripes with his portrayal arise
- from his first season.
- > --Blair
- > "And *nobody* else would have
- > been able to say, 'drop your
- > weapons or I'll kill him with
- > this deadly jelly baby...'"
- I'll give you that one. Patrick Troughton could have tried it--after all,
- he supposedly started the jelly baby thing--but I doubt he could have
- reached the savage's neck. 8-)
- --
- Jay Hinkelman
- At Purdue: akf@k.cc.purdue.edu
- Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu|akf
- --------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <2671@k.cc.purdue.edu> akf@k.cc.purdue.edu (Jay Hinkelman) writes:
- [on the "unbelievability" of Tom Baker's Doctor being flip in the face of
- danger]
- > > He understands the psychology of dangerous
- > >situations to the point where he is generally able to unnerve the
- > >terrorist (who does his work through psychology, not force) by not being
- > >predictable.
- >
- > I have a hard time thinking of a Cyberman or a Sontaran as a terrorist,
- > especially because they DID do their work by force.
- Look, if someone really wanted to use force to get you to cooperate, they'd
- hurt you first, then ask the questions. If they're using threats to start,
- they're using psychology, not force. TB's Doctor recognized this and acted
- accordingly.
- > Also, flippancy does not equal unpredictability. If someone in a bad mood
- > points a gun up your nose, you DON'T MAKE HIM MADDER.
- You just contradicted your self. The predictable response would be to not make
- him madder, so being flip is being unpredictable.
- Also, what would he be afraid of from the gun? That it might (*chuckle*) kill
- him? Big deal, so he comes back as Peter Davison and has a messy coat.
- --
- Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,
- Chris Jarocha-Ernst
- UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje
- ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@CANCER.RUTGERS.EDU
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <2061@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> gdtltr@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Gary D Duzan)
- writes:
- > After watching The War Games again, I have come to the conclusion that the
- > Master and the War Chief were, in fact, the same person. .... Watching The
- > War Games again with an open mind, I saw that the personality of the War
- > Chief and the Master were extremely close. Any minor changes could easily be
- > attributed to regeneration peculiarities. What do you think?
- I think any minor changes should more properly be ascribed to similar
- personalities of different people.
- Look, when the Master first appeared (under that name, if you will) in "Terror
- of the Autons", the Doctor recognized his handiwork because of tissue
- compressed bodies lying around. Where in "The War Games" are there tissue
- compressed bodies? Where does the Doctor tell the Master something like "in
- that 'War Games' fiasco of yours..." or the Master refer to the Doctor's
- meddling in same?
- There's simply no evidence linking the Master and the War Chief. True, there's
- nothing explicitly disproving it, either, but then there's nothing disproving
- that the Master was the Monk or the Valeyard, either.
- --
- Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,
- Chris Jarocha-Ernst
- UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje
- ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@CANCER.RUTGERS.EDU
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <2671@k.cc.purdue.edu> akf@k.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Jay Hinkelman) writes:
- >In article <1086@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
- >>In article <2660@k.cc.purdue.edu> akf@k.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Jay Hinkelman) writes:
- >> He understands the psychology of dangerous
- >>situations to the point where he is generally able to unnerve the
- >>terrorist (who does his work through psychology, not force) by not being
- >>predictable.
- >
- >I have a hard time thinking of a Cyberman or a Sontaran as a terrorist,
- >especially because they DID do their work by force.
- They never forced the Doctor; they always need him for something or other,
- and threaten the companions instead. It's his "Achilles Heel," and
- I suspect he uses it as a tool by now. (Reality check: the writers
- certainly use it as a tool.)
- >> He controlled the situation and survived, and he did it
- >>without pouting (JPertwee) or becoming nervous and deferential (CBaker or
- >>TFarnham, er, PDavisson).
- >
- >If he controlled the situation, he did it by thinking, not by being
- >flippant.
- You try cracking a joke in a situation like that without popping a vessel
- in your head.
- >>You're right if you point out that the first TB season was lame (too much
- >>clowning, too little depth in the portrayal), but nobody else was even
- >>believable in the face of Daleks.
- >
- >I've never accused Tom Baker (who was bloody awful 8-) of being a bad
- >actor. He wasn't. I just think that someone made a bad decision concerning
- >how the character of the Doctor would be played, and one of the persons
- >involved in that decision was Tom Baker. After all, he DID suggest to
- >the producers that he be allowed to have a talking head of cabbage as a
- >companion. I will admit that many of my gripes with his portrayal arise
- >from his first season.
- Cabbage? Adric? No, he's a turnip if ever there was one. Leela?
- No, she's pure cheesecake, with her own knife. Sarah? No, she's
- more mineral than vegetable. Romana II? ...
- --Blair
- "Where does the Dr. buy his
- jellie babies, anyway?"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- I think we may be on to something here.....
- In article <2667@k.cc.purdue.edu> akf@k.cc.purdue.edu (Jay Hinkelman) writes:
- > In article <4238@bsu-cs.UUCP> vamp@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael G. Rothermel) writes:
- > >In an episode like the Five Doctors, why doesnt' #5 remember everything as
- > >happening four times before?
- > >
- > >Someone is going to say "but he was taken out of his timeline". Well, this
- > >is true, but being taken out of one's timeline is done all the time in the
- > >Who universe. Any of the companions, with the exception of Jamie & Zoe,
- > >remember all of their adventures with the Doctor, even though they were
- > >taken out of their timelines and then put back.
- ...
- > remember, the Brigadier forgot what happened in the "Mawdryn" affair
- > because he had a nervous breakdown shortly after his (1977) return to
- > earth.
- >
- > Anyone who wants to debate this defintion, or to discuss some of its
- > apparent results, please feel free to do so. Actually, a point that
- > I glossed over was the following: is their a distinction between
- > a person's timeSTREAM and his timeLINE?
- >
- > Ooooooh, this is gonna be fun.
- I've GOT IT!!!!
- The traumatization of the Brigadeer when he met himself is an
- example of what happens when one has his time streams crossed...
- typically. I venture a theory based on this evidence...
- 1) Crossing time streams is tramatic (look at Brig.)
- 2) The Doctor Has crossed his own time stream (The Two Doctors).
- 3) The Result is NOT traumatic.
- 4) The Doctor has been pulled out of past time streams, with the
- result being 3.
- Timelords are biologically different. To prevent this trauma, there
- must be some kind of defense mechanism. This defense mechanism is what
- prevents the trauma. Part of this mechanism involves the inability to
- remember the past experience (earlier timestream vs. later (present)
- timestream).
- As for the difference of being pulled out of one's timestream and
- crossing timesreams, I tend to think it different, otherwise in The
- Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, the earlier regeneration would be
- sure of his survival and return since there is the later regeneration
- present.
- Then again, it can just be a JNT inconsistancy.....
- John Langbein
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- ARPA: langbein@topaz.rutgers.edu UUCP: !rutgers!topaz!langbein
- QUOTE: "Holy Cow!" - The Scooter Phone: 1-<201>-932-3129 (work)
- DISCLAIMER: Why? I don't know, and he's on third.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- By far the most elegant theory for the Master was that he is/was an
- insane 12th regeneration of the Doctor. Of course, this was made impossible
- a while ago, and even more recently, the STUPID, IDIOTIC, PURILE concept of
- the Scrapyard came into being.
- The Master is the Doctor theory hinged on the fact that the Master was
- not conscious of his identity, but his subconscious was aware. This is
- the only workable explanation for the fact that the Master is always trying
- to humiliate and kill the Doctor in long and involved ways, but can never
- bring himself to do it directly. He must always leave an out, and his
- subconscious always remembers what "out" to leave.
- The only other workable explanation is the true one -- bad melodrama.
- But it explains so much -- and one can even say that they "were at the
- academy together." And such a terrible and unique self-hatred psychosis
- it would have been.
- On the other hand, I think this "The Monk/War Chief is the Master" stuff
- is fairly silly. There can be multiple evil Time Lords out there. We know
- that any similarity is just coincidence. All we gain is a fairly mundane
- explanation for the Master's vendetta.
- --
- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
- ----------------------------------------------------------
- In article <Oct.11.12.38.40.1988.8027@elbereth.rutgers.edu>, cje@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt) writes:
- > There's simply no evidence linking the Master and the War Chief. True, there's
- > nothing explicitly disproving it, either, but then there's nothing disproving
- > that the Master was the Monk or the Valeyard, either.
- The fact that it was stated, quite clearly, that the Valeyard was
- the Doctor (a regeneration 'gone wrong', as it were), and the fact that the
- Master is present, and gives no indication that he and the Valeyard are the
- same person, leads me to disagree with your statement. Add to thi the
- fact that the Valeyard was working withing the sanctioned authority of the
- Timelords (something the Master does not do by choice, "The Five Doctors"
- being the exception) and I think you find a pretty strong case.
- The Monk seems to be more along the lines of the Master's style:
- working outside the sanctioned limits of Timelord activity; the focus
- on the Earth as a target; the total disregard for the laws of time.
- However, I don't recall the Monk being obsessed with power as is the
- Master. I would say that the Master's ultimate goal is to rule the galaxy
- (or universe or whatever). If I recall correctly, the Monk was just out
- to mold human history in the way he thought was best, with little
- thought to personal gain. Very different from the Master.
- I agree that there is no link between the War Chief and the Master,
- though the psychology seems to be similar (plus he has a beard ;-)). I
- think he was just another Timelord gone astray. Though the thought is
- intriguing....
- I'm off,
- Dave
- --
- Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein |"But a man's reach should exceed
- are by no means those of Informix Software |his grasp or what's a heaven for ?"
- (though they make you wonder about the |
- strange people they hire). | -Robert Browning
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <514@infmx.UUCP> davek@infmx.UUCP (David Kosenko) writes:
- >
- > The fact that it was stated, quite clearly, that the Valeyard was
- >the Doctor (a regeneration 'gone wrong', as it were), and the fact that the
- The key here is *who* stated the Valeyard was the Doctor. I believe the
- master may have been lying about the link between the Doctor and the
- Valeyard, or the writers may have been loopy. Personally, a DW show
- where the Doctor is a villian simply wouldn't be as much fun. (It could
- be pretty bizzare though. Picture this: The evil Doctor, aka Valeyard,
- travels through time helping bad guys. The first episode could be
- a story where the Valeyard travels back to the early 70's and helps
- his 'ol buddy Pol-Pot. (sp?) Hideous, isn't it.)
- --
- Michael S. Czeiszperger | "milihelen: The amount of beauty required to sail
- Systems Analyst | Snail: 2015 Neil Avenue (614) a single ship"
- The Ohio State University | Columbus, OH 43210 292-
- ARPA:czei@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu PAN:CZEI 0161
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <Oct.11.12.38.40.1988.8027@elbereth.rutgers.edu> cje@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt) writes:
- >
- >There's simply no evidence linking the Master and the War Chief. True, there's
- >nothing explicitly disproving it, either,
- OK, that part I can grok.
- >but then there's nothing disproving
- >that the Master was the Monk or the Valeyard, either.
- The monk I can't comment on (insufficient data).
- But, the Scrapyard is specifically referred to as a composite
- created from the DOCTOR'S bioprint with what amounts to
- a frontal lobotomy.
- And, since it was the Master who pointed this out, I would tend
- to beleive that the Backyard is NOT the Master.
- --
- Ed King He may act a little erratic. Regeneration
- scrambles the brain cells a bit.
- elk@cbnews -- Cho-Gi
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sez me:
- => There's simply no evidence linking the Master and the War Chief. True,
- => there's nothing explicitly disproving it, either, but then there's nothing
- => disproving that the Master was the Monk or the Valeyard, either.
- Sez David Kosenko:
- > The fact that it was stated, quite clearly, that the Valeyard was
- > the Doctor (a regeneration 'gone wrong', as it were), and the fact that the
- > Master is present, and gives no indication that he and the Valeyard are the
- > same person, leads me to disagree with your statement.
- Yes, but who stated it? The Master, who has been known to lie on occasion.
- I'm not seriously proposing either Master = Valeyard or Doctor <> Valeyard.
- I'm just pointing out the nature of a lack of evidence for someone else's
- claim.
- --
- Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,
- Chris Jarocha-Ernst
- UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje
- ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@CANCER.RUTGERS.EDU
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- This according to the latest issue of DWB, an independent Doctor Who
- magazine out of Adequate Britain, (Number 58, September 88) which has just
- reached the states. Bad bad news, guys.
- John Nathan Turner is remaining next season as producer.
- I quote: "John Nathan-Turner, ...has been confirmed by the BBC as his
- own successor and will oversee production of season 26 of DOCTOR WHO."
- I dunno 'bout anayone else, but I'm one pissed puppy.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Uncle Mikey (Michael Scott Shappe) | BITNET: UT6Y@CRNLVAX5
- 208 Dryden Road Apartment 304 | InterNet: UT6Y@vax5.ccs.cornell.edu
- Ithaca, NY 14850 | UUCP:...!rochester!cornell!vax5!ut6y
- 607/277-6461 | **************************************
- ______________________________________________________________________________
- "Don't touch THAT!"
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- DR. WHO DRINKING GAME
- 1) Sip whenever the TARDIS goes wrong.
- 2) Sip whenever an expendable character is expended.
- 3) Sip whenever whenever a companion screams "Doctor!" Chug if it turns out
- to be no big deal.
- 4) Sip whenever a companion twists an ankle.
- 5) Drink the entire length of gratuitous shots of women or of Jamie's legs.
- 6) Sip whenever a Dalek says "Ex-ter-mi-nate!" Chug if they repeat.
- 7) Sip when they exterminate.
- 8) Sip whenever a Dalek or Cyber is destroyed on screen.
- 9) Sip when the alien monster is immune to bullets.
- 10) Chug on any exploding ships.
- 11) Sip whenever Hartnell loses his temper, Troughton pulls out the recorder,
- Pertwee creates a new gadget, Tom Baker's scarf gets tangled, or someone
- makes a comment about Colin Baker's clothes.
- 12) Sip whenever Leela offers to kill someone.
- 13) Chug whenever the idealist survives at the end.
- 14) Sip whenever the Doctor gets preachy at the end.
- 15) Chug whenever someone says "Doctor Who?".
- 16) Sip whenever they slip and write "who" into the script.
- 17) Sip whenever the Master announces intentions to kill the doctor.
- 18) Sip on "Jellybabies?"
- 19) Sip whenever the Brigadier answers the phone "Lethbridge-Stewart!"
- 20) Chug whenever they reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.
- 21) Sip whenever the Brigadier gets confused about time travel.
- 22) Sip whenever anyone notices the size of the TARDIS.
- 23) Sip whenever the major villain gets overconfident.
- 24) Sip if you can see the cliffhanger between episodes in a movie format.
- 25) Chug whenever the film gets reversed to illustrate some special effect.
- 26) Sip if you spot the strings.
- 27) Sip on bad special effects.
- 28) Sip whenever K-9 gets cannibalized.
- 29) Sip whenever K-9 produces a new death ray.
- 30) Sip whenever the person who looks like it might be a new companion isn't.
- 31) Sip whenever they offer an explanation to a historical mystery.
- 32) Sip whenever you only find eight people in the huge city.
- 33) Sip whenever Harry does something stupid.
- 34) Sip whenever anyone gets possessed.
- 35) Sip whenever a compnanion touches after the Doctor says, "Don't Touch."
- 36) Chug whenever a complete stranger sacrifices themself for the Doctor.
- 37) Sip whenever the Doctor or a companion is about to be executed or
- sacrificed.
- 38) Sip whenever the sonic screwdriver is used.
- 39) Sip whenever a companion outsmarts the Doctor.
- 40) Sip whenever a crowd does a Heil routine.
- 41) Sip at every doublecross.
- 42) Sip whenever K-9 says something obvious.
- 43) Sip whenever Susan calls the Doctor "Grandfather."
- 44) Sip whenever you see something non-Terran written in English.
- 45) Sip whenever a companion screams.
- 46) Sip whenever Tom Baker gets knocked out.
- 47) Sip whenever Tom Baker's eyes bulge.
- 48) Sip whenever the Doctor says "We must be on Earth."
- 49) Sip whenever the Doctor leaves the TARDIS to find out what year it is
- or where they are so he can correct the coordinates.
- 50) Sip whenever the viewscreen opens or closes.
- >From wucfua!wucs1!uunet!tank!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!terminus!nyssa Thu Oct 20 00:02:48 CDT 1988
- Better known as, "JNT quits and comes back, take four."
- In article <17092@vax5.CCS.CORNELL.EDU> ut6y@vax5.ccs.cornell.edu (Uncle Mikey (Michael Scott Shappe)) writes:
- >John Nathan Turner is remaining next season as producer.
- >I quote: "John Nathan-Turner, ...has been confirmed by the BBC as his
- >own successor and will oversee production of season 26 of DOCTOR WHO."
- While I predicted when JNT resigned, that he would "re-sign" I still
- have some doubts. I am having one of my UK contacts check on the
- validity of the above.
- My last report, about a month ago, was that several people didn't pan
- out, and that they were looking at some people who have been with the
- show in the past.
- >I dunno 'bout anayone else, but I'm one pissed puppy.
- Understandably. JNT, while not the epitomy of evil that some people
- suggest that he is (Adric, who was bloody awful, was the epitomy of
- evil...), is certainly stale in the job. Watching Sylvester in
- Rememberance of the Daleks got me thinking that that could just as
- easily have been Peter Davison saying those lines, and that the
- Doctor's character really hasn't grown that much. Sad, really.
- --
- James C. Armstrong, Jr nyssa@terminus.UUCP
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- So far I have heard no consideration of the K'anpo/Cho-Je regeneration. To
- refresh everyone's memories, K'anpo had made Cho-Je as a "projection" of
- himself, so that when K'anpo actually regenerated, he simply assumed Cho-
- Je's body (P/Spi).
- Is there a parallel here to the Watcher? In both cases, an entity that is
- a precursor to the new regeneration exists. The Watcher exists of its own
- accord, of course, and Cho-Je does not, though this is of course because the
- Doctor does not have much control over his regenerations.
- There may also be a connection here with the regeneration of Romana. If
- K'anpo could choose his next body, then why not Romana? She, of course,
- tried on several, and it is reasonable to assume that K'anpo could have done
- the same. Thus criticism of this scene as a total break with tradition (i.e
- Ian Levine in "The Unfolding Text") is not necessarily justified.
- Perhaps an ideal regeneration for a Time Lord is a careful preparation of a
- new body, designed to maximize stability--perhaps helping to avoid the
- deterioration that sometimes comes with later regenerations.
- Incidentally, I think this discussion of "deterioration" after regeneration
- is meaningless. JN-T is the cause of the Doctor's deterioration, NOT some
- kind of cruel fate. Same goes for the Master; and as for Borusa, he was fine
- until 5D.
- Gordon Hogenson @ Harvey Mudd
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- Season 20--JN-T best? More like his worst. Season 18 was his best, for one
- reason: Tom Baker & Lalla Ward (well, maybe Chris Bidmead, too). And "State
- of Decay" is terribly underrated--it doesn't work for everyone, but when it
- does, it works terribly well.
- Gordon Hogenson @ Harvey Mudd
- --well, okay, not his worst. I did see season 23... Terror of the Vervoids
- if enough to drag that whole season into the sewer, despite the Valeyard
- as a redeeming feature. Melanie is the most revolting creature
- ever shown on Dr. Who--I know it's rude to say such a horrible thing, but
- she makes me cringe more than "Underworld" and "The War Machines" combined.
- I was actually glad by VCR messed up during Terror of the Vervoids. It rec-
- orded a STAR TREK: TNG that wasn't half bad.
- --------------------------------------------------------------
- In article <7192@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>, ins_ajpo@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Milamber) writes:
- > >reversals/climaxes/running gags, denouement/resolution. Chopping it up
- > >into episodes makes it harder to feel the characters in the latter
- > >episodes. In movie format, the cliffhangers come off as act-climaxes,
- > >something most TV fails to produce anymore (without inserting commercials,
- > >that is).
- I agree, although there are so many follow-ups within follow-ups here
- that I don't know who I agree with.
- > The arguements against the movies are manifold:
- > 1) oftentimes, material is missing (e.g., "The Three Doctors", "The Invasion
- > of Time", "The Ribos Operation",...), which is arguement enough.
- probably true, but how often, and is it necessary material, orjust a
- recap from the last episode?
- > 3) They were (except for "The Five Doctors" and "Silver Nemesis") originally
- > broadcast in episode form.
- Perhaps this is because if they showed a whole movie every week, a
- season would only last a few weeks. The first way is not always the
- best way!
- > 4) Most people can't sit still long enough to watch an entire movie (my upper
- > limit is 2 episodes...)
- I can't always set aside the same time every day to watch, I prefer
- getting it all in one sitting, besides it helps with contunity.
- > 6) If we didn't have movies, we'd all be able to see the entirety of "Planet
- > of the Daleks" and "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" [in a letter to Lionhart,
- > my friend found out that the reason they cut certain episodes from the
- > episode package is because "...if the stations which received episodes
- > were to get those ('Planet of the Daleks', ep 6, and 'Invasion', pt 1),
- > then there would be a disparity between the number of episodes received
- > by different stations receiving the same package in different formats..."]
- This seems like an argument for my side.
- > We'll defend our JN-T reviews at a later date...no more of this quibbling
- > which I've been doing...be warned... >:-)
- Quibbling about JN-T reviews or episodes vs. movies?
- I must admit that I haven't seen many shows in episode form (mostly for
- the reason that I dislike them). By the time I really get into the
- characters and plot, the episode is nearly over. It is too short a dose
- of Dr Who for one sitting.
- Bill Bretschneider (lafcol!bretschw)
- "Chemists do it periodically on the table."
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