The Regeneration Trilogy

[raven]

It's the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May! You'll wear the lilac? Were you there?

I was not, so I do not have one of the fabulous icons with lilac on them, but I will remember them.

In news apart from dead fictional revolutionaries, I am worried. I'm ill. Seriously, snifflingly, headachingly, world-lurching-around-me ill. And my Chemistry practical is tomorrow morning at nine. I've revised, a bit (not nearly enough, but that's another story), but this will not help me if my hands shake and I destroy yet another burette, and/or pipette, beaker or, god forbid, mercury thermometer. And spilling NaOH is a bad idea too, as it tends to make your hands into soap. I am Not Good at practicals, as anyone who has read my journal for the last three years will be painfully aware.

I fully appreciate that there is nothing to be done about this. No matter how horrendous I feel tomorrow, I will have to go in and just hold it together for two hours, and collapse afterwards if need be.

Sniffle, sniffle, sob.

Today has been spent doing another English past paper, sleeping and procrastinating madly. I need to get more work done, I know it. I just feel out of it. A flamewar broke out on new_who this morning and sadly hathy_col had to sort it out while I quivered. Not that I don't usually enjoy bitchslapping people ("from here to Gallifrey," as she said) but I don't have the mental energy for it at the moment.

In yet other news, I was looking over the new_who posted list of classic eps for the n00b, and noticed The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis and Castrovalva are listed together as The Regeneration Trilogy.

I only just got that. I am a dork.

I did actually watch Castrovalva, but only half of it as I had to go to work, and no real impression of it has stuck with me besides the Doctor being unexpectedly vulnerable. Colleen mentioned watching it as well, but she was in the shower. We agreed we liked the two female characters we did not know the names of.

The Keeper of Traken I missed entirely, as I was at Collectormania that weekend; however, I have now seen Logopolis. And, well, um. I watch the old episodes not because I love them in the way I do the new ones, but because I'm interested. That's all. Interest. But Logopolis is the first of the older ones I've seen that I found entirely gripping, so much so that I could see beyond the shaky sets and bad effects. It is, for lack of a better word, good - clever, but grim, dangerous, laden with menace, and the sense of foreboding that follows the Doctor around is what makes it work, I think. I do wish the Watcher was slightly more effectively attired - he looks like nothing so much as a perambulating Egyptian mummy - but the idea of him, a mysterious figure who is basically a herald of doom, is eerily perfect. Similarly, the ringing of the cloister bells - doom! (And I hope we get to see Nine's version of the cloisters, although I doubt it'll happen.)

The actual death of the Fourth Doctor was tragic. It's suicide, basically - he knows he'll die if he pulls out the cable - and though I may quibble about how exactly he's able to talk so clearly on the point of death, I'm not going to quibble about the effectiveness of the dialogue. It's tragic and dark because he has, more or less, failed, but died all the same.

And on a more flippant note, the Doctor and the Master are slashier than they have any right to be. One feels that if they had only kissed and made up when still at school together, the universe wouldn't need saving quite so often. And seriously, what was going in the telescope control room? For sworn enemies, they're surprisingly quick to more or less sit on each other when peering out from behind the control panel. Heh. Theirloveissodimensionallytranscendent and someone please tell me there's fic, though I doubt there is.

Yes. Back to Chemistry and my own impending doom. Doom, I tell you. Doom.

[At half-equivalence, the pH equals pKa for a weak acid.]

Comments

[that_mireille]

One feels that if they had only kissed and made up when still at school together, the universe wouldn't need saving quite so often.

*snerk*

Yes. Possibly.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

My housemates swears on his life that one of the books says the Doctor and the Master shagged at university. But he's very possibly winding me up.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*g* They behave so much like bitter exes, omg.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Don't suppose if you pinned him down and threatened him, he'd provide a book-and-page reference? *hopeful look*

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Err, The Infinity Doctors, apparently? The Master finds female-character-whose-name-I-can't-remember in the Doctor's bed and makes a bitchy comment implying he used to have better taste. Or something.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well, obviously there was wild and wanton shagging between the pair of them!

[that_mireille]

I'm not writing the fic. I have enough bitter exes on my fictional plate as it is. *g*

No, really. I'm not writing the fic. *is strong*

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

Castrovalva is cute. You have now seen my favourite companion, Adric :) Well, him and Ace run neck and neck anyway.
xx

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*gets down on knees and begs shamefully* Please, please please, please please please...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I saw Adric die on Sunday! The silent credits in Earthshock were a great touch.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Exposing my ignorance ... what is the thing with the lilacs?

[that_mireille]

Maybe. But I have a lot of ficathon stuff to write first. :)

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

They were fantastic. After seeing that episode for the first time I went outside in the rain and wibbled for an hour. I had *no* idea he was going to die. First companion for 20 years to die, and only the 3rd companion to get it, after Sara and Katarina (of whom wild debate rages as to if they were actually companions, but i'll consider them as such because the pretty book i have told me to)
xx

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It's from the Discworld novel Night Watch. The watchmen who were there wear lilac to commemorate the Glorious-Revolution-that-wasn't, and at the end of the book Vimes finds out Vetinari was there, too.

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

Castrovalva is so my fave regen story--and Five was adorably fuzzy-headed and cute. You just wanted to hug him and give him cups of tea and pat his little blond head and tell him it would all be fine. That's I think why Five was my fave until Nine.

(FWIW, Boston? Is so Castrovalva. My best friend and I discovered that, trying to navigate it 10 years ago to find Sommerville. Streets kept moving on us.)

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

God, I love Vimes.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Me, too. I want to buy him boots. *pets him*

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

new used boots he can feel teh cobbles through?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Of course! With carboard soles if he wants!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*happy squee* Oh, yes. After the self-sufficiency of Four (and Four is my favourite), it's such a surprise to see him all woobly 'n' stuff. I didn't see the beginning of it, though, so I didn't see his immediate reaction to, well, not being Four any more. Can you separate him out from Tristan Farnon, though? I find it hard.

But I did see them running round Castrolvalva, and I'll remember that if I'm ever in Boston. Also, Bristol is the same. And bits of Liverpool.