12 Days of Christmas – Day 5
He’s back! And it’s Yule tide…
Time for another question about the rapidly diminishing days of the Rusty Masterplan as we count down to Chrimbo and the demise (that means fate) of the Tenth Doctor. And this time, we look back a little further – the old series and its influence on the New Series – to whit:
Question 5: What is your favourite ‘kiss to the past’ of the new series?
This could be as big as the Daleks or as little as Verity and Sydney in Human Nature. Could be an interesting one, this one!
December 19th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Hmmm, my favourite is hard to pick, but one that for me resonates is the re-engineering of the Cybermen and their origins (at least in the parallel world). Very much a Genesis of the Daleks rip-off, not as good plot wise, but with the effects and action to balance it out.
Still trying to decide if the Cybermen are particularly effective any more and will we ever see Cybermen from ‘this universe’ or is that just fan boy fantasy. Ooooh, I know, they could have an episode where the two universe Cybermen meet and they exchange witty repartee before fighting each other. Oh wait.
December 19th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Seeing as I’m here (Hi Foo!) I’ll cut in and nominate the Book of Impossible Things. Ooh I can hear the disappointed sighing from the Wairarapa already!
It’s a wonderful conceit, and primarily cemented the Eighth Doctor into series continuity, no Ifs or Buts or Maybes. The Cybermen data core from the Next Doctor sort of did the same thing, but this was in a handwritten journal from the Doctor’s own buried memories – of COURSE McGann is canon! We knew it, his fans carried the torch through the wilderness years and still haven’t seen his incarnation return in a new sense to the series (let’s face it, it probably won’t happen), but this confirmation was also the best affirmation you could have.
And don’t you wish you could read some of ‘John Smith’s’ stories now?
December 19th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I would have said the Book of Impossible Things as well, but now that you have I’m not sure where that leaves me.
December 19th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
“Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I’m neither; but I’m still a doctor. ”
I’ve always loved these little moments, kisses to a past that we know is there, but is just as much a mystery as it was way back in ’63. We all know the Doctor has been a Dad and more, but the acknowledgement of that in little snippets and asides makes the Time War more readily moving than an almost inconceivably large global catastrophe, and make Troughton’s Doctor’s words about the family that sleeps inside his head even more poiniant.
So – is this tomorrow’s one today?
December 20th, 2009 at 6:04 am
So, Peter – not only do you have to take the book of impossible things, but you have to go and grab the Cybermen data core, too.
Right, for that, I’m going to go for a list: The cloister bell (thanks, JNT era), Time Lord collars and the Capitol snow globe glimpsed in ‘Sound of Drums’, The exchange between Sarah and the Doctor when they first meet again in School Reunion (“Did I do something wrong?”), K-9, of course, ‘Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’ in The Lazarus experiment, UNIT (maybe my own favourite, this one – and why does SJA get the Brig and not Who itself?) and finally Time Crash – absolutely luverly!
Keep those banners coming, it’s better than an advent calendar!
December 20th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Argh! A list, Al!!!
I had that coming.
And I love yours, Dave. Nicely put. And tomorrow’s IS today’s, and now it’s up
December 20th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I rather liked the sound bytes of the Master as Prof Yana remembered who he was.