Doctor Who Reactions: "The Creature from the Pit" (SPOILERS)

[The Baron]

Part One:

1)Ah, yes, the David Brierley K-9. He does OK, but he's no John Leeson.

2)"Rednecks"?

3)"I suppose you could say the yoke's on him..."

4)"Listen to that hirsute moron."

5)"Sit." Romana kicks arse.

6)"By the pyramids, imagine the size of its mummy!"

7)Cliffhanger #1: The Doctor jumps down the pit!

Part Two:

8)"It's in Tibetan!" So? Can't you read any language? I sense the hand of Douglas Adams in that joke.

9)Scraps is a boy blob!

10)"...the present apologized for."

11)Cliffhanger #2: Scraps sits on the Doctor!

Part Three:

12)I don't think you're supposed to talk into that, Doctor...

13)"What sign were you born under?" "Crossed Computers." "Crossed what?"
"Computers. It's the symbol of the maternity service on Gallifrey."

14)Cliffhanger #3: Scraps gets its thing back!

Part Four:

15)"It's just the ravings of a demented space tramp." Well, yes.

16)"She's tipped the ambassador into a pit and thrown astrologers at him!"

My memory of this before watching it is that it was an OK story, but not one of my favorites. I think I still pretty much feel that way.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I have been buying new Doctor Who releases on DVD for some time now, but this is the first time I’ve been completely caught up with previous releases and actually had to wait. I bought “The Creature from the Pit” (along with “The King’s Demons” and “Planet of Fire”) on Tuesday, and so far I’ve watched the first two episodes. I generally don’t watch more than one episode per day (the first time through, anyway) in order to make them last as long as possible, especially now that I’m all caught up. I can’t say I care much for this “other” K-9. It looks to me as if they had a bit more money to throw at this episode than usual; the sets in particular look good, and the monsters and make-up aren’t bad, either.

I think Tom Baker turns in a particularly good performance this time around. Several times in the first episode alone he rattles off strings on nonsense so quickly that they almost don’t have time to register. I can see why Tom Baker is the favorite Doctor of so many. Tom Baker is a favorite Doctor of mine and I also think he’s one of the best, but his era of the show is not among my favorites.

To help differentiate between what I mean by”favorite” and “best” in this context, William Hartnell is probably my favorite Doctor, and likewise, his era of the show is my favorite as well (although it’s difficult to compare the early show with the recent one). I don’t, however, think the First Doctor is one of the “best” at what he does. He’s stubborn, pig-headed and relatively inexperienced, especially in comparison to the much more youthful-looking Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The Fourth Doctor is not only one of my favorites, he’s one of the best.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Until last night when I watched episode three, I would have bet real money that "Love & Monsters" was the first Doctor Who to reference oral sex!

Did I hear the Doctor say that Time Lords could regenerate 190 times and that he was on his 130th incarnation? I realize the Fourth Doctor wears that hat primarily so he can talk through it, but I'd almost buy that. It makes more sense than the Doctor's first incarnation lasting nearly 1000 years, the regenerating every couple of years thereafter.

I forgot to mention yesterday: sloppy continuity from the end of episode one to the beginning of episode two, like watching an old movie serial.

[The Baron]

I think the Doctor was just talking ragtime at that point. I also think he lies about his age.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I agree, but I wonder why fans have latched on to the 13 regeneration limit and virtually ignored the 190 regeneration limit? Both were just off-hand references, but I've never heard of this mentioned before. In either case, I personally believe whatever "limitations" there may have been were imposed by the Time Lords themselves.

[Luke Blanchard]

The 12 regenerations notion was first used in The Deadly Assassin to explain why the Master was dying. I wasn't aware of it until the Master returned (the show's Australian broadcaster used to skip The Deadly Assassin), but it was treated as lore thereafter.

[The Baron]

I think the 13 regeneration limit has been mentioned more often, is all.

And of course, one must always remember Terrance Dicks' statement that "Continuity was whatever the writer could remember on a given day."

And as I've said before, if the show is still going strong when the actor who plays the Thirteenth Doctor wants to quit, they're not gonna cancel the show - they'll write a way around it. As you note, all they really need is a single line saying, "With the Time Lords gone, that limitation doesn't apply anymore."

On a personal note - I like the idea that the Hartnell Doctor was the First Doctor. My rationale is that we don't know how long he lived on Gallifrey before he left it. It may be that the First Doctor is the only incarnation to have anything like the length of life that a Time Lord incarnation usually lasts.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Oh I like the idea of Hartnell being the first incarnation, too. (I did say I'd "almost" buy that!)

All they really need is a single line saying, "With the Time Lords gone, that limitation doesn't apply anymore."

RTD said as much (on one of the DVD extra features IIRC), and even expressed mild surprise that so many fans seem to put so much stock in it. OTOH, it could explain all those images of previous incarnations in... "Brain of Morbius" was it?

[The Baron]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Oh I like the idea of Hartnell being the first incarnation, too. (I did say I'd "almost" buy that!)

All they really need is a single line saying, "With the Time Lords gone, that limitation doesn't apply anymore."

RTD said as much (on one of the DVD extra features IIRC), and even expressed mild surprise that so many fans seem to put so much stock in it. OTOH, it could explain all those images of previous incarnations in... "Brain of Morbius" was it?

It could - I've even seen convoluted fan theories that postulate a sort of pre-incarnation of the Doctor, whom the faces seen in "Morbius" belonged to, and of whom the Doctor we know now is a re-incarnation. I'm not wild about the idea myself, but it allows the Hartnell Doctor to be the first incarnation of the Doctor as we know him, while still allowing those faces to represent "previous lives" of the Doctor.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

CHAP ("Completely Half-A**ed Theory"):

I've never minded that the Sixth Doctor looked like Maxil, and Romana II looked like Princess Astra. I kind of like the idea that some part of a Time Lord's (or Time Lady's) subconcious keeps a little mental Rolodex of faces it sees and might want to "use" in a future regeneration. If that's the case, I can write off all those faces in Morbius as, not actual previous lives, but just Morbius flipping through the Doctor's Rolodex.

[The Baron]

Doctor Hmmm? said:

CHAP ("Completely Half-A**ed Theory"):

I've never minded that the Sixth Doctor looked like Maxil, and Romana II looked like Princess Astra. I kind of like the idea that some part of a Time Lord's (or Time Lady's) subconcious keeps a little mental Rolodex of faces it sees and might want to "use" in a future regeneration. If that's the case, I can write off all those faces in Morbius as, not actual previous lives, but just Morbius flipping through the Doctor's Rolodex.

I like that idea.

Another idea I've seen used - which could apply to your idea - is that the faces we see are "phantom lives" (i.e. fakes) that the Doctor is throwing out to make Morbius think that he's hurting the Doctor worse than he actually is.

[The Baron]

The Baron said:

My rationale is that we don't know how long he lived on Gallifrey before he left it. It may be that the First Doctor is the only incarnation to have anything like the length of life that a Time Lord incarnation usually lasts.

One theory I've heard is that when we meet him, the First Doctor was senile by Time Lord standards, explaining why he didn't seem to know everything you might've expected, and why he didn't always remember things very well.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I'd buy that.