Monthly Archives: October 2013
Happy Halloween
and
50th Anniversary Ramp up
An Adventure In Space And Time
This special one-off drama travels back in time to 1963 to see how the beloved Doctor Who was first brought to the screen.
Introduction
This special one-off drama travels back in time to 1963 to see how the beloved Doctor Who was first brought to the screen.
Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles. Wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry’s glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama, time travel and monsters!
Allied with a team of brilliant people, they went on to create the longest-running science fiction series ever, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Written by Mark Gatiss
Executive produced by Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner
Directed by Terry McDonough
Starring David Bradley (William Hartnell); Jessica Raine (Verity Lambert); Sacha Dhawan (Waris Hussein); Lesley Manville (Heather Hartnell) and Brian Cox (Sydney Newman).
JP4
Interview with writer and executive producer Mark Gatiss
What can viewers expect from the drama?
Principally, it’s the story of how Doctor Who was created, so we concentrate on the very beginnings and the first few episodes. There are lots of treats for the fans but it’s also the story of William Hartnell, the first Doctor and how the part transformed his life.
Why did you want to tell this story?
I’m a life-long Doctor Who fan and the origins of this beloved show have always fascinated me. But, above all, I wanted it to strike a chord on a human level. These were brilliant, complex, talented people making something revolutionary. And, in William Hartnell, we have the very affecting story of a man redeemed by the role of a lifetime who then, sadly, had to let it go. I think we can all relate to something like that in our lives.
What was the casting process like? Did you set out to find such good lookalikes?
I’d had David Bradley in mind for some years but it wasn’t simply a question of a good likeness! David is such a fine and delicate actor, I knew he’d find something wonderful in the part. With everyone else, I stressed that we must first and foremost get the right people for the job. But it turned out the right people also bear the most amazing resemblances to the originals! Costume and make-up, of course, played a huge part in that.
Could you explain a little bit about the research process?
Doctor Who is probably unique in terms of TV shows in that its history has been exhaustively researched for years. Happily, this means that there are lots of interviews existing with people who are no longer with us. I’d wanted to tell the story for years – I sort of grew up with it. How no-one wanted the Daleks. About the first episode going out just after JFK was shot. But I wanted to get deeper than just the details of production and find the human story. I conducted new interviews with a lot of the original cast and crew. They were all hugely enthusiastic and very helpful.
Did you uncover any facts or information that you didn’t previously know as a Doctor Who fan?
A few bits and bobs but, as I say, most of it is very well documented now! It was very touching, though, to talk to people about a part of their loves that was often very happy and to discuss people long gone.
There were so many people involved in the show’s beginnings, why did you decide to focus on the four central characters of Hartnell, Newman and Lambert and Hussein?
I had to focus it down. Simple as that. This is a drama, not a documentary, and though it’s extremely painful to have to leave out some people who played a huge part, it makes dramatic sense. You simply can’t do everyone justice in 90 minutes. For instance, the story of how Terry Nation and Ray Cusick created the Daleks is almost a film all on its own! Jeff Rawle plays Mervyn Pinfield, who was the Associate Producer, and his character sort of absorbs several others including Donald Wilson and the brilliant David Whitaker – the first script editor – whose contribution was immeasurable.
Set in the 1960s the drama brings to life that era through the costumes, hair and make-up and the sets, including the first ever TARDIS console. What was it like being on set?
It was extraordinary. To see the original TARDIS recreated genuinely took my breath away and everyone who came to the set had the same reaction. It was frequently quite uncanny. We used some of the original Marconi cameras and, on the black and white monitors, seeing David, Jemma, Jamie and Claudia was like looking back through Time. Spooky and very moving.
Finally, what do you hope audiences take away from the drama?
This is my love-letter to Doctor Who! In this 50th anniversary year, I hope fans will enjoy and be thrilled by it and all the kisses to the past it’s laden with. But my greatest wish is that it appeals to people who know very little or nothing about Doctor Who and see the struggle of talented people (almost) accidentally creating a legend!
Style
As anyone who knows me, I have no sense of fashion or style. Never have. Don’t see the point.
But as I am still recovering from this past weekend I found this article, which for a mainstream sight I thought was interesting and would interested in your thoughts.
Stylist Magazine UK: We all know that bow ties are cool and that a pinstripe suit doesn’t look really great unless you’re wearing a pair of Converse trainers. But what of the women in the Doctor’s life who have also proved their sartorial worth?
In light of the 50th anniversary coming up next month, we’ve looked back at all the best fashion moments in Doctor Who.
http://www.stylist.co.uk/fashion/the-20-best-fashion-moments-in-doctor-who
Zoe Heriot’s sparkly jumpsuit
While companion number 13 sported a variety of superb outfits, opposite the second Doctor Patrick Troughton, it was this sparkly jumpsuit which we’d quite like to borrow the most. She’s so cool, a fan has even created a YouTube tribute to her (sound tracked by Lady Gaga, no less)
River’s glamourous look
In terms of Doctor Who, River is a veritable sartorial chameleon. Witness how she goes from elegant formal wear, paired with red nails and Marilyn Monroe hair, to army fatigues in The Time of the Angels.
Lily Cole
Lily Cole played the ethereal siren (who turned out to be a virtual doctor, natch), in The Curse of the Black Spot, and grabbed any unwell members of the crew the Fancy ship. And really, what could be more fashionable than having an actual supermodel star in Doctor Who?
And probably the most copied Cosplay outfit of 21st Century Doctor Who:
Amy Pond, The Kissogram.
I still wonder how business in Leadworth was to begin with, but that’s a subject for another day…
And of course the most “get the dad’s watching” outfit ever:
Leela
This character was meant to fit the mould of George Bernard Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle, so the writers came up with Leela who was a member of the warrior Sevateem tribe. While she was intelligent, she didn’t understand technology, and so her primitive appearance matched her savage ways. It’s what we like to call tribal chic.
But here’s one from Me (like “everything is better with Bacon” everything is better with Sarah Jane Smith):
Talons
Well, I spend the entire weekend on the coach. Admitted yesterday there was a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America followed by the 10th Doctor Revisted and two of his best episodes, “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” so at least while I was miserable yesterday I had decent entertainment — even though I had to watch the SAME BLOODY COMMERCIALS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR HOURS ON END- that nearly drove me mad!
So I’m going to steal from Digital Spy today.
THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG (1977) – Six episodes – written by Robert Holmes
The finale to Doctor Who’s 14th series is a wonderfully lurid, Penny Dreadful-inspired piece of drama, where the fog-strewn streets of London are littered with severed limbs and innocents meet a gruesome demise.
‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ features not one but two iconic villains.”Slathering, gangrenous vampire” Magnus Greel is in the best Who tradition of a bombastic villain hiding a hideously disfigured face behind a mask, while the knife-wielding ‘ventriloquist’s dummy’ Mr Sin (Deep Roy) is enormously creepy. One can only imagine the bad dreams that must’ve haunted young Who fans…
He’s been gifted too with one of Doctor Who’s all-time great casts, with Tom Baker at his absolute peak. There’s none of the bored distraction that would pervade some of his later performances – you’ve never seen a more committed, charming and commanding leading man than Baker in ‘Talons’.
Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter meanwhile are marvellous as Henry Gordon Jago – a blustering impressario and (very) amateur detective – and Professor Litefoot – a charming pathologist – respectively.
Given that they’re often hailed as Doctor Who’s greatest ever ‘Holmes-ian’ double-act, it’s perhaps worth noting that Jago and Litefoot spend most of the story apart, eventually meeting a third of the way through episode five of a six-part tale…
But the distinguished, gentlemanly Litefoot and louche Jago are a classic odd couple with a fantastic repartee. You can see why talk of a spinoff followed the duo for years.
The biggest flaw is the rat in the sewer. It’s a technical/budgetary problem.
In fact, thanks to vivid, dynamic direction from Who veteran David Maloney, on a purely visual level, ‘Talons’ still stands up today – not something one can say of all BBC television of the time.
The Web of Fear
The following is my review of “The Web of Fear” that I watched yesterday.
First off, I must say any criticism of the episodes seems a bit churlish because I’m very happy to see it AT ALL.
But with that said..onwards!
First up, the good stuff. 🙂
I can see now why they yet are frightening and are so well regarded. The re-designed Yeti are not “cuddly” as the previous one’s had been saddled with. They are genuinely scary.
And seeing as they are robots, they are like the Cybermen in a way, they are remorseless and they never get tired. If they want to kill you, they will likely kill you.
The best example of that is in Episode 4 (I believe) where Col. Lethbridge-Stewart leads an entire squad to head to Covent Garden tube station at ground level and comes back unsuccessful and alone!
The beginnings of the Brigadier that we all know and love are in it’s infancy here. But he’s still a likeable character. And as he always was, a good straight man for The Doctor.
But it’s Jaime that is much more gung-ho than The Colonel in several instances. And ultimately, it scuppers The Doctors plans and allows The Great Intelligence to escape.
The Great Intelligence is back after The Abomindable Snowmen episode where he was defeated. And he wants what he wants later on in the Matt Smith era to get rid of The Doctor because he sees him getting in his way.
In this time he just wants to take over the Doctor’s knowledge. In The Name of The Doctor some 45 of our years later he just wants to wipe the Doctor from existence in revenge for having defeated him before.
Which is what it wanted in this story well. Revenge.
I doubt this is a co-incidence since Stephen Moffat is a big Doctor Who fan himself.
And the only 2 Doctors to encounter The Great Intelligence wear Bow Ties!
To GI, bow ties are definitely NOT cool. 🙂
The other thing I see now that I can view the nearly complete story (since Episode 3–The first appearance of the good Colonel is still missing) is how well the set designers really did with their London Underground sets.
They were absolutely amazing.
Since I have been on the Underground, but not in the late 1960s though, I found the attention to detail very, very good. If I was kid in the 1960’s and I saw that episode taking the Underground would give me pause for a bit.
This one the best cases of Doctor Who using the everyday in London to it’s scary advantage.
Enough praise cannot be heaped on legendary British Director Douglas Camfield for using so effectively what was likely a fairly small section of “underground” sets. A tunnel, a Platform, some curves and an intersection and that was probably it.
And that shows how good a small budget at the time was very convincing.
So convincing, as the legendary story goes that London Transport sent a memo to the Producer of Doctor Who at the time – Peter Bryant- complaining that they’d somehow snuck down into the Underground and did some ‘illegal’ film-making of a sort. When in fact, they hadn’t.
The set designer knocked this out of the park.
The Director did too.
And Jack Watling, the father of Victoria’s Deborah Watling, get one more go as Professor Travers.
John Levene, the future Sargent Benton, was one of the Yeti performers.
Overall, a very enjoyable story.
BUT…
It’s too long. It’s a 6 Parter that should have been 4 parts at best.
Not a lot of anything happens in the first 3 episodes. Pat Troughton isn’t even in Episode 2. A reporter character disappears for 2 episodes and re-appears in the final episodes.
The pace of the story is VERY slow. Even by 1960’s standards, in my opinion.
Nothing substantial actually happens until Episode 4 when the plans of The Great Intelligence start to take shape and it it’s a race to the finish line.
The other negative, which one can ignore, is the lack of incident score. So when the actors are traipsing around on the wooden Underground sets they make a fair bit of noise.
Then when the Colonel goes above ground to lead his men in a merry old battle against the Yeti you get incidental music from Tomb of The Cybermen which feels oddly out of place.
But, ultimately, the world is enriched by it’s presence.
And I was very happy to see it at all. And very grateful I can show it to others.
Warts and all.
TIME LINE TRIVIA
The Great Intelligence Time Line (Personal)
Meets the Eleventh Doctor in Victoria England (“The Snowmen”)
Meets the Second Doctor in 1934 in Tibet (“The Abominable Snowmen”)
Meets the Second Doctor in late 1960’s London (“The Web of Fear”)
The meets The Eleventh Doctor again in Modern 21st Century London (“The Bells of St. John”)
And then finally in the far future (and other times) in The Name of The Doctor.
But on the Doctor’s Personal Time line
The Second Doctor Meets the GI in 1934 in Tibet (“The Abominable Snowmen”)
The Second Doctor Meets the GI in late 1960’s London (“The Web of Fear”)
The Eleventh Doctor Meets the GI in Victoria England (“The Snowmen”)
The Eleventh Doctor The meets The GI again in Modern 21st Century London (“The Bells of St. John”)
And then finally in the far future (and other times) in The Name of The Doctor.
Isn’t Time Travel fun… 🙂
The official DVD is due out in late February 2014 in the UK.
Adventure
I presume you caught the latest Doctor Who (amongst others)( reference on The Big Bang Theory
I agree with BBC America’s Anglophenia on this one:
There are times when the following clip feels like the truest depiction of the Doctor’s life in the entire history of the show, even though it’s played as if it happened to Jackson Lake.
Imagine, running away from your own people. Whether he was “bored” or not.
But every time you regenerate you lose yourself and become another man. The essence of you is still there, but you are wildly different.
The old man, who is the youngest doctor by age.
The youngest man who is the oldest.
And you’ve regenerated many times, to wild degrees. Amnesia, manic personality swings, depressions, sickness, belching energy plums,n etc.
That has to take toll on you somehow.
But as he also says “all those planets…not seen them with these eyes” he maintains that wide-eyed wonder that made him leave Gallifrey in the first place.
And that’s the essence of The Doctor. He wants to see everything there is to see.
And would we if given the chance.
Give me enough money I will travel the world and want to see everything.
But we can live vicariously in a fictional way though the Doctor.
If a TARDIS Landed in your home would you really say no?
The spirit of adventure is at the heart of the show. The Doctor wants to see it. We want to see it with him.
And the adventure continues…
The Power
As you may have seen: BBC America have announced that 3D cinema screenings of The Day of the Doctor will take place across the United States on 23 and 25 November.
Participating cinemas on 23 November are listed below. Tickets for these screenings will go on sale tomorrow (25 October) at 9am EST and may be purchased from Cinemark.com and Fandango.com.
New York: AMC Loews Village 7 (New York, NY), Regal E-Walk Stadium 13 & RPX (New York, NY)
Chicago: Century 12 Evanston/CinéArts 6 and XD (Evanston, IL), Cinemark 16 + IMAX (Woodridge, IL)
Philadelphia: University Penn 6 (Philadelphia, PA), Cinemark 16 (Somerdale, NJ)
Dallas-Ft. Worth: Cinemark West Plano + XD (Plano, TX)
San Francisco-Oak-San Jose: Century San Francisco Centre 9 (San Francisco, CA)
Washington, DC (Hagerstown): Fairfax Corner 14 + Xtreme (Fairfax, VA)
Houston: Cinemark 17 + XD (The Woodlands, TX)
Atlanta: Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville, GA)
Seattle-Tacoma: Lincoln Square Cinema 16 with IMAX (Bellevue, WA)
Minneapolis: AMC Southdale 16 (Edina, MN)
You can find a full list of participating cinemas showing the episode on 25 November at the Fathom Events website.
Here in Phoenix it will be November 25th.
I will be back from the Convention by then so I will attend one showing here.
I urge everyone to support the venues. Let’s show them the power of The Whovian! 🙂
Today is my 51st Birthday. In just less than 2 weeks will be my 31st Anniversary as a Doctor Who Fan.
On This Day: 25th October
Factual: Doctor Who Greatest Moments: Donna was broadcast in 2009 at 7:47pm, watched by 0.30 million viewers.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sarah Jane’s Alien Files: Episode 3 was broadcast in 2010 at 5:45pm
Less than a Month now to The 50th Anniversary…
Happy Birthday to me…
Consoling Thoughts
I love this scene. And it gets lots of mileage from “well, he left the brakes on again”…
But why would the TARDIS need brakes to begin with?
It’s certainly not to keep it in place when it lands (like brakes on a car would).
The TARDIS has fallen off a hillside before. Or off a cliff.
It materialized on it’s side in Ice Warriors.
And even Idris used “the noise” to convince the Doctor she was the TARDIS in human form.
So, it’s just a good one-liner.
And Doctor Who has way to many to mention here.
But they can cut the tension.
And River Song was good for that, especially as she was taught by someone unnamed (But not the Doctor) to fly the TARDIS better than him. And taking the mickey out of him for it is just fun.
His pride and joy.
The TARDIS as has been mentioned before is an amazing “magic box” of wonders. It is the hopes and dreams of all the fans.
But as we approach the 50th Anniversary one thing also has to be said about the TARDIS: Even though it has changed radically over the years and different regenerations of it’s own the central concept of the console room has remained the same for 50 years.
Like the theme, which is recognizable 50 years later, The console room is the heart of it all. The jumping off point for the adventure most of the time. Occasionally, the center or an important part of it,but always the jumping off point.
It is recognizable from William Hartnell to Matt Smith.
The Console itself while getting more elaborate is still largely a hexagonal console with the up-and-down Time Rotor in the middle. And there is a Monitor Screen somewhere to be able to look put from the Console room.
Hat Stands and other bits and bobs come and go but these elements stay.
While some shows might go for a radical change and make it “edgy” and unrecognizable, the current TARDIS Console Room is essentially just an upgraded version of the original.
There is continuity there. There is security. There is safety there.
So no matter how weird and wonderful the adventure is, the Console Room is there. It’s stable. It’s familiar.
Hence when The First Doctor and Susan walk into The Fifth Doctors TARDIS it may be strange but it’s recognizable.
When The Fifth Doctor enters the The Tenth Doctors TARDIS he immediately know most of how it works and makes a crack about the “desktop theme”.
But it’s still a hexagonal console and a Time Rotor and a Monitor screen. The rest is just dressing.
Except for the Rundles. They are still there, even now but they have mutated into blue lights around the perimeter.
And besides the police box what is the most likely thing to be built with pride by the fans, the Console!
I have two TARDIS Play sets in my house. The Tenth’s “coral” theme and the Eleventh multi-leveled “kaleidoscope” of colors (as I call it).
Admittedly, the BBC never really made play sets that an American could have gotten a hold of very easily before, there was a play set of the 80’s era Console that came out in 1987 but getting it back in the day was not happening.
There was even a “design a console” contest in the UK.
And it was still hexagonal with a time rotor, even from the mind of an 11 year old.
So as things change, some things, some very good things, don’t.
Why mess with a great idea.
And Doctor Who has many of them. They have history, and few shows have this much history.
They have continuity, even across 50 years.
And that’s worth celebrating.
The Tenth Planet
I got my copy of the regular release of The Tenth Planet yesterday (as opposed to the one in the Regenerations Box Set) and I must say it is one of the better releases by 2 Entertain in awhile.
Now, mine was Region 2. Region 1 release scheduled for US release November 19th.
For one thing, it has bonus material on BOTH discs not just one.
Disc One Content Highlights
- Commentary with actors Anneke Wills (Polly), Christopher Matthews (Radar Technician), Earl Cameron (Williams), Alan White (Schultz), Donald Van Der Maaten (Cybermen Shav and Gern), Christopher Dunham (R/T Technician) and designer Peter Kindred. Moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Frozen Out – Cast and crew look back on the making of the story. With actors Anneke Wills, Earl Cameron and Reg Whitehead, designer Peter Kindred and vision mixer Shirley Coward.
Excellent cast & crew interview segment! Very enjoyable.
- Episode 4 VHS Reconstruction – The reconstruction of the missing fourth episode using audio, stills and surviving clips, which featured on the BBC Video VHS release of the story back in 2000.
- Production subtitles – Subtitles provide the viewer with cast details, script development and other information related to the production of The Tenth Planet.
Disc Two Contents
- William Hartnell Interview – Shortly after leaving Doctor Who, star William Hartnell joined the 1966 Christmas pantomime tour of Puss in Boots. Interviewed in his dressing room for the BBC Bristol’s Points West programme, Hartnell talks frankly about Daleks, the merits of pantomime and his own thoughts on his future career in this extremely rare glimpse into the mind of the man who first brought the role of the Doctor to life…
This is the one that was just discovered earlier this year.
- Doctor Who Stories – Anneke Wills – Anneke Wills look back on her role as Polly in the series, in an interview recorded for the BBC’s Story of Doctor Who in 2003.
Even if it is 10 years old it was good look at Anneke’s time on WHO.
- The Golden Age – Historian Dominic Sandbrook examines the myth of a ‘Golden Age’ of Doctor Who.
One of the best documentaries since Revenge of the Cybermen‘s documentary on taping and trading Doctor Who in the “old days” of the 1980’s and such.
- Boys! Boys! Boys! – Peter Purves, Frazer Hines and Mark Strickson reminisce about their time as companions to the First, Second and Fifth Doctors respectively.
Good stuff, but the fact that Mark wasn’t there seems at times to have thrown off the rhythm of the piece.
- Companion Piece – A psychologist, writers and some of the Doctor’s companions over the years examine what it means to be a Time Lord’s fellow traveller . With actors William Russell, Elisabeth Sladen, Louise Jameson, Nicola Bryant and Arthur Darvill, writers Nev Fountain and Joseph Lidster, and psychologist Dr Tomas Charmorro-Premuzic.
Excellent. Never before seen piece with bits from the Late Lis Sladen. An interesting piece on the psychology of a Doctor Who companion.
- Blue Peter: Doctor Who’s Tenth Anniversary – Two weeks before the show’s tenth anniversary, the Blue Peter team take a look back at Doctor Who’s history. Ironically, the strict preservation of Blue Peter’s history means that the clip of the first regeneration has been preserved, but the final episode of The Tenth Planet that it came from was never again seen after its use here.
Nice clip. And it is true that we owe Blue Peter for having the Hartnell-Troughton regeneration preserved in the first place.
The 4th Episode which is still currently missing as of this day, is animated.
And there in lies the only true criticism I have. They animated the regeneration instead of using the existing footage. It may have been for continuity or ease but I felt a bit let down on first viewing.
Overall, one of the better DVD releases this year.
Buy it, it’s a classic, a thing of fan lore, and cracking good yarn in and of itself.
Enemies List
Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen “The Pandorica Opens” and don’t wanna know…skip down a bit.
While I love this scene for what is supposed to be, a rousing bluff and bluster it bothers me every time I see it now because now I now the Pandorica was meant for him!
So none of those aliens would want to take it from him since they want to put him IN it!
It make a great spectacle, but on repeat viewing I’m not sure it makes great sense.
But the overall episode itself is good. And does leave you with a “Ok, Stephen how are you going to fix this one?”
The Cyberman in this one is very creepy and does things no Cyberman has done before and is very threatening.
The struggle of Roman Rory to break being an Auton and killing Amy was well done. Though the explanation is intentionally thin, but you’re not supposed to look at to closely. Just accept that Rory’s back.
River Song, one of the best characters to come out of Moffat’s brain is still a delight. And Alex Kingston really does her best ever time.
Overall, a very fine episode
But the point of this blog was enemies. And this episode is where “all his enemies” get together. But they are prominently only the ones from the relaunch really.
“You can judge a man by the quality of his enemies”
TOP 5 IMHO (no particular order)
The Daleks
Bad guy. Obsessed with destroying everything not a Dalek, but also obsessed with Killing “Predator”, “The Oncoming Storm”, The Doctor.
But when they have a planet of crazy Daleks (how could you tell?) in Aslyum of The Daleks They kidnapped him and his companions. They want to use their mortal enemy. I guess that’s respect of a sort.
Cybermen. They want everyone in the universe to be them. Neil Gaiman’s most recent upgrade to the Cybermen made them nearly unstoppable. You have to blow up the planet they are on to get rid of them!! Geez, now that’s extreme.
We’ll have to see where the Cybermen go from here though. Or have they peeked?
The Weeping Angels. The greatest scary monster that never moves.
The Master. Sherlock has to have a Moriarty and The Master is it.
The Time Lords. Though they didn’t start out that way. The Time Lords evolved that way as their society devolved.
They started out as almost monastic and patrician. Grand overseers of the universe.
But they got more ornate and ritualized.
Then Robert Holmes came along.
They even had TV reporters reporting on the grandness and ceremony in The Deadly Assassin where they reports were used to manipulate opinion. And their attire was increasing ornate and ostentatious.
They became too powerful, too old, and too grand. Too corrupt.
An empire in decline.
“10 Million years of absolute power” as The Sixth Doctor railed…
Ravalox: Take the Earth and nearly destroy it moving it light years across space to hide the fact that the Matrix was hacked by Andromedans. A bit harsh…
They even brought Rassilon (who they had entombed in the Death Zone!) back to lead them in the Time War that they arguably started in Genesis of The Daleks and lost.
And they got so desperate to be rulers of everything that they drove the Master crazy just so they could have a chance at existence again. So what if the Earth was in the way…or the very existence of the universe itself….(didn’t Davros already try his one??)
And consider “Time Lord Justice”
Morbius: Led a Rebellion. They caught him and dispersed him atoms across the universe.
The War Lord: His people wiped from existence.
The Doctor: On trial multiple times. Tortured several times. Forced Regeneration-once. Terminated-once.
The Rani: Her experiment goes wrong and eat the President’s cat. She’s banished forever. So she goes out into the universe and uses the rest of the living universe as her experimental subjects. Nice job of protecting and observing there, guys.
The Castellan (Five Doctors): NO NOT THE MIND PROBE!! And the Black Scrolls of Rassilon, really?
The Time Lord Prison Planet: Shada.
Omega, anyone?
The Weeping Angels? “The vote is taken, Only two stand against, and will stand as monument to their shame, Like the Weeping Angels of old.”- Rassilon- End of Time Part 2
So maybe the Doctor’s greatest enemy is his own people in the end. And that makes him more of hero and a better man to have come from such roots.
And that was the point.
And I think this will be in The Day of the Doctor somewhere. 🙂
MY Doctor Who 