[overdue reactions] Doctor Who - Inferno and Terror of the Autons

[grimorie]

Down to the wire of my last Classic Who watch, until I find other sources. Amazon cut off my access to BritBox, even though I was paying for it. Didn't like I was using VPN to watch -- how the hells am I going to watch otherwise all the way where I am?

I sure as hell am not gonna pay for DVDs!

Anyway!

Inferno

Just finished Inferno, the last story in season 7, and alas, the last story with Liz Shaw.

I think Inferno might be my most favorite story in the season, I love the tense character stuff, the political things, and a scientist going too far for science's sake.

The Third Doctor and Liz's dynamic is so great because they're very much working together here as colleagues.

There's such fondness and camaraderie between them, the Doctor might be more senior but she can and will tell him when he's being unreasonable.

I also love Liz sassing back at both the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton.

There's really a lot to love about this story starting from the side characters here from Petra to Greg, and even their parallel universe counterparts.

(It tickled me that in Doctor Who, the 'evil' versions of our characters actually shave their evil mustaches and beards?).

Watching the Third Doctor, I also get how these stories informed and influence our various Revival Who showrunners.

There's such a strong call back in Hungry Earth straight to this episode starting with the opening scene where a bike crosses cuts across a road with a grassy field. And the fact that both episodes deal with drilling.

Except in Hungry Earth the drilling was a plot device to get to a story while the drilling to the crust of the Earth in Inferno was integral to the story.

I'm at Inferno now and wow, I can really see the influences the Third Doctor's had on Chibnall, in particular, the opening scene reminded me of the opening scene in *Hungry Earth *.

I can see Chibnall's these stories as the genesis for his love of ensembles. The thing is though, the Third Doctor's stories have the space to have so many characters. (Too much space a lot of the time since each story are seven episodes long).

I've come to love Parallel!Greg and Petra and even ship them together (more than original flavor Petra and Greg, but in both cases, Petra still retained the same level of awesome!).

Parallel!Liz was also fascinating and how, in the end, she ends up helping the Doctor. All of them do, except for Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart who has bought into his beloved Republic so much, and so used with his power that he started to unravel the moment he realized they were going to die, and his superiors would not lift a finger to save him.

Parallel!Petra standing up to the Brigade Leader, and then Parallel!Liz shooting him was amazing. But, man was it all so tragic because the Doctor can do nothing to save them!

In this story, the Doctor can't do anything to save anyone from parallel!Earth. (Reminding me so much of the Thirteenth Doctor), but also learning that sometimes Time/Events can be in flux, patterns could be changed, and they could save the world.

I didn't know that the last time we will ever see Liz is Liz laughing fondly and very warmly at the Doctor and Brig as the Doctor tries to cozy up resources from the Brig.

I wish we had more with Liz Shaw, MD, and scientist because she was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

As I often do with Classic Who, I'm so surprised to see so many women in season 7, particularly this episode. Competent and awesome women, scientists women in the background. I mean, what happened between this period and the periods where the only woman in the entire season was a Companion?

Terror of the Autons

Terror of the Autons is the season 8 premiere story introducing Agent Jo Grant and introducing the original Master (that we know). Delgado!Master. This is a bit of a rough start with Jo, she's a change from Liz and it's honestly sad why BBC decided to end Liz's story.

Watching Terror of the Autons in context changed a lot of my understanding about the story because the first time I saw Terror of the Autons I had no context about the Doctor's state of mind. And in context now, and I had to fill in a lot because the story just drops us in with Jo arriving as the Doctor's attempt to get the TARDIS going again went up in smoke (literally).

Because in context, to me, the Doctor actually seems depressed that Liz left to return to Cambridge and it seemed like there was a bit of a falling out between the Brig and the Doctor. The Doctor was angry at the Brig because of the Silurians but the Doctor's pointed comments about the military as a blunt instrument wasn't quite this harsh.

The Master arriving when he did, and the Doctor admitting that he was actually looking forward to what chaos the Master could bring seems to have brought the Doctor out of his depression.

I do love how early it is we see that Jo is a master of escapology and my headcanon is, post-Jo the Doctor started seeking out Harry Houdini to learn about escapology himself.

Notable things:

• Boy was I surprised that Missy's threats are my flirting' actually was kind of a callback to Delgado!Master's 'Bombs are my hello'.
• The Master's 'Oh shit' expression when he realized that he was also screwed when the Autons attacked and begins the trend of the Master reversing his plans because he didn't quite realize how his plans would backfire on him.

My initial in-context reaction to this episode is, it's not as good in quality as a season 7 story but it is more digestible with only four stories in the mix. Seven story episodes are really difficult to sit through IMO.