master feels after the finale

(i had a big, pan-episode writeup dealing with my dear child twelve, but the internet crashed and tumblr ate it, so, let’s just get to the nitty gritty)

this episode was, ultimately, the biggest mixed bag for me, not mixed bag as in, i feel somewhere in the middle about it, but that there were bits i desperately loved and were as good as doctor who could possibly be, and bits that really made me cringe and retcon them in my head.

so i’ll start with the good - the very, very good: the master working with themselves. hurting the doctor where he’s most vulnerable; his companions, his faith, his desperate hope that he might finally have his friend back. that first 10 minutes, where i honestly shivered and felt that this was the meatiest little segment i’ve seen in some time: the doctor, no cards left to play…both masters, murdering his friend, taunting him, then...making out with themselves? i mean, wow. that’s peak horrible. that’s kind of peak master there. but i wanted to see the conflict in that. i wanted to see the doctor’s hurt, more than just 2 lines about bill…i wanted to see how that flat-out cruelty impacted his faith, his belief in the master, i wanted to see him struggle to fight for what was “right”. his belief in the master felt far too easy after that, and i think not following through with the emotional consequences of those first 5-10 minutes...well, it took a lot of the power out of the “redemption” arc, that had been so nicely set up! simm!master’s character was, well, interesting. i do feel like he was a little under-done in terms of depth; ok, ok, i mean - roast me - i know rtd’s simm was a yelly maniac...but i feel like he had a lot more dynamic range. moffat’s simm seems to have two modes only: comic relief, and rampant, indiscriminate cruelty.

and that to me felt very inauthentic, it felt like it was sort of reducing him to a catchphrase. kinda how i felt about ten in day of the doctor but shh that’s for another post  i did love the humour, honestly, i adored how cheerful and light this master was. but he seemed to lack a lot of the fury, the pain, the insecurity he did in rtd’s run. i can’t imagine seeing moffat’s master tear up, the way we saw rtd’s. he is just too cold. 

that really leads me on to the second lil criticism i have - yes, the master is cruel. very cruel, actually. he’s done some of the worst things this franchise has seen. but there is one thing that defines his cruelty: it’s for the sole sake of getting to the doctor. yeah, he’s gleeful and certainly gets off on causing pain to others...because he knows this is a weapon the doctor is almost powerless against! his conscience, his guilt, his insistence to care for the little person, his refusal to accept collateral damage; the master can turn them all against him, can make the doctor crumple, with one well-placed strike. the master treats those things as weaknesses, faults - he doesn’t understand those qualities and wants to make the doctor see, like he sees, that they’re only holding him back. that’s why he hurts him. he loves the doctor - but he hates him - but he loves him. he wants the doctor to realise they’re not so different, after all. he wants to punish the doctor for being the things he cannot.

i do feel that in making simm utterly remorseless...or, i guess, indiscriminately remorseless is probably more my issue, and interspersing it with some of the best comedy this season has seen, it cut out a lot of that depth. there were some shockingly dark and meaty moments with simm, but man, without the hate and the pain and contempt behind them, they just felt cold. bit too cold.

but, honestly, he wasn’t the only master who suffered from Not Quite Enough Nuance. i felt that after spending the whole season fleshing out this redemption arc, and michelle’s utterly stunning performance - because she played it totally ambiguous as to what the master was actually feeling, and where she stood - i...didn’t ultimately understand her choice. i wanted to understand it, i wanted to believe it, but one speech didn’t really sell it for me! i mean. oh my god, was it an amazing speech. but i can’t believe that the reason the master, finally, chooses to fight with the doctor is “because he’s right”. of all the reasons, that one is the least believable to me. it undermines their friendship, their love. “because he’s my friend” would have been a...far more epic development, i personally think, and i feel a little snubbed by it all.

i do think that if this episode hadn’t tried to do so MUCH in one go, and had pared itself right down to master/master/doctor/cybermen + oh shit, bill, and not done the children, and the nardole/lady love plot, and the doctor’s regeneration, and the companions coming back, and heather, and the first doctor....! well, yeah. it was a lot, and i feel that the master’s story would have been more fleshed out if it was allowed to be the main plot of this finale. i think world enough and time worked better as an episode for this reason.

(not to say, oh my god, that i didn’t die during all of the regeneration/heather/one stuff. you bet i did. and i loved it. buuut i just sort of think that was a 3-parter, not a 2-parter in there.)

in terms of what they chose to do...well, i liked the concept. i think the actions are very believably master. thing is, though...we’ve established that the master would definitely rather die, than let the doctor, somehow, beat them. and the story 100% paid respect to that. but i felt that the finality of that story really sort of sat weirdly with me. ok, hear me out: ending simm’s regeneration by his other self murdering him? i can get behind that. ending the master’s ENTIRE life by his other self murdering him - no, i really can’t. to sell this entire story as really, an ending for the master’s arc in general, feels very...oh, i don’t know, it feels like cutting the character short. i think ending the master with a redemption arc does not quite do justice to the whole point of the doctor and the master. their relationship is just not as simple as good and evil, and i resent it being taken down to that.

in the end, what was that segment trying to show us? i believe it was trying to show us the entire, core conflict that will always end in tragedy for the doctor and the master: they both want to be with each other so very much, and they could never live with themselves, either one of them, if they did. and i honestly believe that the beauty and sadness and inevitability of that could have been done without making both masters kill each other.

that said. oh, i do love the bit where they laughed themselves silly. that was gorgeous. that was so them: backstab each other, and forgive in the same breath. that whole scene was so them. i’d accept all of it wholeheartedly, if it wasn’t treated as such a final resting place, a denouement for the master as a person.

i think this is representative of a larger moffat problem, which i’m going to touch on because i want to: moffat always seems to need to leave his “mark” on established events?? you know - the TARDIS noise is “leaving the brakes on”. the doctor’s real name, dealt with about 5 times in his run alone. he undoes the time war. he creates his own classic doctor instead of celebrating the existing ones. he takes ownership of the 13-regeneration-limit...even when the doctor is technically only strictly on number 12 (13?). he re-does the genesis of the daleks, just to have his own prints on it. there’s lots of other stuff too, but this kind of reeks of it to me...he has to have the final say on lots of doctor who canon, and he’s had his final say on the master. and i simply don’t agree.

the good thing about treating some things as sacrosanct (eg, the TARDIS, the Doctor’s name, etc) is that it allows all of us to form our own interpretations, and yeah. i do wish that this vision hadn’t been treated as the only answer to the master’s arc.

oh. and because i haven’t touched on it: i’m so here for the master flirting with themselves. blatantly. but you know, it sucks that we have simm/gomez, gomez/twelve, and the sexuality knob has been turned up as far as it can without breaking the rating on those...but we still can’t display m/m doctor/master. and i think that’s just really sad.

(HI FIVE FOR BILL/HEATHER THOUGH.)

p.s. i’m also so here for the eyeliner. i mean....the master putting on eyeliner. on camera. welcome to the future, goddamn.