Incoherent Musings on "The Myth Makers"
Mar. 16th, 2008 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseFinally picking up my Who-In-Order epic saga where I left off (i.e. where I jumped forward and had trouble getting used to reconstructions again): I've just finished "The Myth Makers", which was a lovely reconstruction of a serial featuring the First Doctor, Vicki, and Steven, which is an excellent TARDIS team that doesn't get nearly enough attention. Yes. I didn't take any notes - I was that surprised that I got sucked in as I did - so I am working from memory and with the help of the Internet, here. Forgive any lapses.
(Maybe it helps that I'm not at all familiar with the historical period in question. That probably helps a great deal.)
I knew this was the first story after Verity Lambert left, and so was prepared for a pretty dramatic shift in tone. It was jokey, yes, but in a way that really appealed to me, with clever one-liners and all - and it did sort of echo that whole "Troilus and Cressida" Shakespearian problem play tone with the swings between lightheartedness and bleak despair, which the First Doctor's era pulls off pretty nicely, anyway. The wonderfully chilling ending in particular is a stark contrast to the humorous tone of most of the rest, as we get some pretty explicit scenes of violence and suffering, and some really clever layering of historical inevitability.
I enjoyed the secondary characters in this one - Paris stands out as either a bastion of camp or hilarity or both depending on your perspective, and his little snippy comments at the wonderfully scenery-chewing Cassandra are sheer gold. (Wyman of Flight Through Eternity called this Paris a cross "between Bertie Wooster and Black Adder, if you can imagine such a thing", which is an apt description.) Troilus is sort of bland, but he does seem to have nice chemistry with Vicki, which works.
On to our heroes: Steven has some good moments, being all brash and shouty and running around rescuing people and getting himself locked up, and there's a real sense of fondness between him and Vicki - and, of course, the usual clashes with the Doctor (I would've loved to have seen Steven's face when Odysseus wonders if they should kill him, and the Doctor - playing at being Zeus - is all: "I think it would be much safer on the whole.") - but this isn't really his story, no. It's all about Vicki, and to a lesser extent it's about the Doctor.
That suits me fine, as it happens, because Vicki has managed to become one of my favourite characters in the show's whole history. Even if the scripts aren't always kind to her (she hurt her ankle - surprise, surprise - at the end of "Galaxy Four"), she pulls it off. Of all the later companions, she actually reminds me most of Liz Shaw, which is strange because they have virtually nothing in common in terms of background. They've both got the prickly self-confidence, though, and a bit of distance, though Vicki sometimes relaxes and then she's just the proverbial ray of sunshine. Really, though, I'm not sure what it is about her character that I enjoy so much - she gets along marvellously well with everyone, and yet there's this sort of fatalism about her, a wise-beyond-her-years thing that has probably arisen because of her closeness with the Doctor (after all, it's easy to forget that when we first meet her, the Doctor's just lost Susan and Vicki's father's been murdered). The reason this story works so well as a goodbye to her character is partly because of its wild fluctuations from cheerfulness to bleakness.
The whole issue arises when Vicki winds up getting shoehorned into the role of Cressida - because Priam decides that "Vicki" is too outlandish as a name. I'd have to watch again to make sure of it, but I get the impression that it's left a bit unclear whether Vicki is entirely aware of the historical manipulations that've been happening, whether she actually knows the story of Cressida and Troilus. Whatever the case - whether she is genuinely in love with Troilus or whether she feels it's necessary she stay with him for the sake of history, or whether it's some combination of the two - she leaves the TARDIS on her own terms. And oh, right at the end on the plain, she's talking about building a new Troy, and all I can think is that the story of Troilus and Cressida can't possibly end well (though I see what they did there with the whole calling Steven Diomedes thing, which was very clever). It's very effective - and again, that's all the layering of Doctor Who for you. It's a bittersweet ending.
And hey! I forgot Katarina appears in this one - I love her stolid acceptance of the fact that she must be dead, because the TARDIS is so impossible, and I love that she picks up Steven's habit of calling the Doctor "Doc". And yes, I know what happens to her, and so I am trying very hard not to get attached to her character. I am!
But the Doctor - oh, man. He got heartbreaking lines at the end of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", and he gets them here. To be fair, he's under rather a lot of strain at the time: the last episode ends with Vicki setting off through a city at war to live out what looks to be a not-entirely-pleasant sort of fate, Katarina rambling about being dead and still thinking the Doctor's actually Zeus, and Steven terribly wounded and delusional, calling out for Vicki, as the TARDIS dematerialises. Katarina calls him 'Doc', and he just says: "I am not Doc. I am not a god." And it's brilliant, because you can see how much he misses Vicki, and there's this sense that everything's passing completely out of his control - one companion left behind and one possibly dying, and he feels responsible. It's really, really nicely done.
Well. I think I've probably spent enough time on that. Back to writing! I'm glad![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tardis_bigbang is setting the midnight deadline according to time zone. Whew.
(Maybe it helps that I'm not at all familiar with the historical period in question. That probably helps a great deal.)
I knew this was the first story after Verity Lambert left, and so was prepared for a pretty dramatic shift in tone. It was jokey, yes, but in a way that really appealed to me, with clever one-liners and all - and it did sort of echo that whole "Troilus and Cressida" Shakespearian problem play tone with the swings between lightheartedness and bleak despair, which the First Doctor's era pulls off pretty nicely, anyway. The wonderfully chilling ending in particular is a stark contrast to the humorous tone of most of the rest, as we get some pretty explicit scenes of violence and suffering, and some really clever layering of historical inevitability.
I enjoyed the secondary characters in this one - Paris stands out as either a bastion of camp or hilarity or both depending on your perspective, and his little snippy comments at the wonderfully scenery-chewing Cassandra are sheer gold. (Wyman of Flight Through Eternity called this Paris a cross "between Bertie Wooster and Black Adder, if you can imagine such a thing", which is an apt description.) Troilus is sort of bland, but he does seem to have nice chemistry with Vicki, which works.
On to our heroes: Steven has some good moments, being all brash and shouty and running around rescuing people and getting himself locked up, and there's a real sense of fondness between him and Vicki - and, of course, the usual clashes with the Doctor (I would've loved to have seen Steven's face when Odysseus wonders if they should kill him, and the Doctor - playing at being Zeus - is all: "I think it would be much safer on the whole.") - but this isn't really his story, no. It's all about Vicki, and to a lesser extent it's about the Doctor.
That suits me fine, as it happens, because Vicki has managed to become one of my favourite characters in the show's whole history. Even if the scripts aren't always kind to her (she hurt her ankle - surprise, surprise - at the end of "Galaxy Four"), she pulls it off. Of all the later companions, she actually reminds me most of Liz Shaw, which is strange because they have virtually nothing in common in terms of background. They've both got the prickly self-confidence, though, and a bit of distance, though Vicki sometimes relaxes and then she's just the proverbial ray of sunshine. Really, though, I'm not sure what it is about her character that I enjoy so much - she gets along marvellously well with everyone, and yet there's this sort of fatalism about her, a wise-beyond-her-years thing that has probably arisen because of her closeness with the Doctor (after all, it's easy to forget that when we first meet her, the Doctor's just lost Susan and Vicki's father's been murdered). The reason this story works so well as a goodbye to her character is partly because of its wild fluctuations from cheerfulness to bleakness.
The whole issue arises when Vicki winds up getting shoehorned into the role of Cressida - because Priam decides that "Vicki" is too outlandish as a name. I'd have to watch again to make sure of it, but I get the impression that it's left a bit unclear whether Vicki is entirely aware of the historical manipulations that've been happening, whether she actually knows the story of Cressida and Troilus. Whatever the case - whether she is genuinely in love with Troilus or whether she feels it's necessary she stay with him for the sake of history, or whether it's some combination of the two - she leaves the TARDIS on her own terms. And oh, right at the end on the plain, she's talking about building a new Troy, and all I can think is that the story of Troilus and Cressida can't possibly end well (though I see what they did there with the whole calling Steven Diomedes thing, which was very clever). It's very effective - and again, that's all the layering of Doctor Who for you. It's a bittersweet ending.
And hey! I forgot Katarina appears in this one - I love her stolid acceptance of the fact that she must be dead, because the TARDIS is so impossible, and I love that she picks up Steven's habit of calling the Doctor "Doc". And yes, I know what happens to her, and so I am trying very hard not to get attached to her character. I am!
But the Doctor - oh, man. He got heartbreaking lines at the end of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", and he gets them here. To be fair, he's under rather a lot of strain at the time: the last episode ends with Vicki setting off through a city at war to live out what looks to be a not-entirely-pleasant sort of fate, Katarina rambling about being dead and still thinking the Doctor's actually Zeus, and Steven terribly wounded and delusional, calling out for Vicki, as the TARDIS dematerialises. Katarina calls him 'Doc', and he just says: "I am not Doc. I am not a god." And it's brilliant, because you can see how much he misses Vicki, and there's this sense that everything's passing completely out of his control - one companion left behind and one possibly dying, and he feels responsible. It's really, really nicely done.
Well. I think I've probably spent enough time on that. Back to writing! I'm glad
tardis_bigbang is setting the midnight deadline according to time zone. Whew.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-16 09:47 pm (UTC)I know what happens to her, and so I am trying very hard not to get attached to her character. I am!
I knew too, and I tried very hard, and failed. The next serial has moments that are just heartbreaking.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-17 07:46 am (UTC)Also: Hate to be a bother (as I know you have teh busy, which is a horrible disease feared throughout the cosmos), how's the beta going? Again, if you haven't got the time, don't worry yourself!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-17 11:14 pm (UTC)