"Blinovitch had nothing on these guys!"
Wow. I was wondering where on Earth the story was going to go next, with two instalments to go following what looked awfully like a climax. But no!
The scenes of the various Doctor freeing Ten from Dalekdom are not, in the end, any more than a few pages. It's all so very well done, though- we get dialogue from the pasts of each Doctor, the Third Doctor's words being from a certain bit of Shatner-esque "singing" from the early '70s!
And so we proceed to what seems to be a coda of sorts, again with nice touches- Maxil, of all Time Lords, planning to steal a TARDIS and run away...?
But then it happens. The Doctors all head off... and Ten encounters the Black and White Guardians (now both young, female and no longer quite keen on the "bird on the forehead" look) and we get some rather exciting exposition. That stuff about Davros being a champion of time is because he's the champion of the White Guardian, just as the Doctor has been for the Black Guardian. It's all about Order vs. Chaos, not Good vs. Evil... but not so much in a Michael Moorcock sort of way but its opposite. The universe can't be balanced if it is to survive, a binary choice between Absolute Order and Absolute Chaos must be made- and it's up to the Doctor.
Cue the Ninth Doctor... several of them(!), to assist Ten in asserting that the universe must remain balanced even if that means it will one day end. Appropriately, it's Nine who is asserting that "everything has its time and everything dies."
Cue Reapers, the Death Zone, and lots of timey-wimeyness. I've no idea what the finale will have in store. This is bonkers and brilliant.
The bit where all the Doctors mind link in order to create a single Doctor, comprosing of all ten incarnations, would on paper, sound so corney, but the way it is done here is so well done; like a transformation something out of a Kaiju movie! Last time I literally finished reading this story again, I actually listened to the "This IS GAILFREY" music during the scene when the Doctors all link together in mind to create a Doctor of all bits of them when they are breaking 10 out of his Dalek mind and I was amazed when i found the song actually matched incredibly well together with the images!
ReplyDeleteThe Doctors mind linking to save 10 is amazing. Because the one single Doctor made up of all parts of them is signficant because it captures the Doctor as a whole from when he started running in 1963 to the character they were in 2007/09.
The First Doctor is not only the original, but is also the heir to the House of Lungbarrow.
The Second is the man who witnessed the destruction of the Selachian homeworld and accepted that he could do nothing,
The Third is the scientific advisor to UNIT and the conscience of the organisation.
The fourth is the man who held the Key to Time and chose not to use it.
5 was the Supreme Coordinator of the Alliance against Morbius and abandoned that role when he acknowledged that he could do nothing more with it that he wanted to do.
6 was the man who became the first Sandman and saved the Land of Fiction from the Cybermen
7 is am Time's Champion, who destroyed the Silurian Earth because he had no other choice, and vanquished the Dark Matrix that the valeyard arrogance unleashed
8 was Zagreus, and was the pilot of the first Type-102 TARDIS
9 is the Last of the Time Lords,
10 is the current Doctor