From The End Of Time, Pt. 2: 1 January 2010 Well, you either love 'em or you hate 'em, but they're difficult to ignore whatever you think of 'em. My first satisfying moment comes when Rassillon enters the arena and there we see the High Council arrayed in all its might in the midst of The Last Great Time War. What was so satisfying about this? The End Of Time was not necessarily everybody's favourite story in any case. The sight of Ten crashing to Earth from a space craft only to get up and act like very little had happened certainly did not help the overall illusion. Also, how did the Time Lords reappear in such majesty and splendour only to be rebuffed so quickly upon what some would say was the limpest 'big set piece' ever? Yes, yes, I get all that even if I do not have too much sympathy with those views. The Time Lords were big and in the day this appeared it was just such a relief to see them at all, frankly. Now I know some characters shouldn't be allowed to roam the Who-sphere ever again and that's OK. Take Sutekh, for example. We do not want him back precisely because he was brilliant. Any reappearance of Sutekh will tend only to diminish him in our memories of The Pyramids of Mars. The Time Lords are another case entirely. Apparently they are among the oldest races in the universe. They are arcane and devious, supposedly peaceful to the point of indolence, yet as conniving and destructive as any Dalek. It would be like taking Dumbledore out of Potter. It just doesn't work. As I say, they're difficult to ignore.
Hello, I'm Paul Hammans, terminal 'Who' obsessive, F1 fan, reader of arcane literature about ideas and generalist scribbler. To paraphrase someone much better at aphorisms than I: I strive to write something worth reading and when I cannot do that I try to do something worth writing. I have my own Dr Who oriented blog at http://www.exanima.co.uk
