Ok, since the current companion outfit bracket tournaments are winding down, I think it’s time to start another one. The Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes era is considered by many to be the golden age of Doctor Who, and is certainly a favorite of mine. It was known for being more scary and adult than the eras before it, full of suspense, great monsters, borrowing from horror films to make some truly iconic episodes of the show. The Hinchcliffe era is where the “behind the sofa” idea is probably the most exemplified. Comprising The Ark In Space (remember that Robot was still under Barry Letts) to The Talons of Weng-Chiang there are conveniently 16 serials from Tom Baker’s first three seasons in this era that I have put into a bracket tournament, seeded according to my own rankings. I will not reveal the seeds, and the match-ups will be given in a random order as to not prime the votes either way. Without further ado, here are our first two match-ups:
Second match is a bit hard for me cause Terror of the Zygons is one of the ones where the memory I have attached isn’t actually of the episode. [1] So Face of Evil gets my vote by default? On one hand, Leela (!!!), on the other hand the racism…
Eating pepperoni and black olive pizza in a hotel room. Good pizza. Not sure about the episode. ↩︎
I’m curious, what’s the racism in The Face of Evil? It’s obvious in something like The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but I’m not sure with this one. The Sevateem and the Tesh are fictional and I don’t think either is representative of any particular human culture.
Pretty much, though The Face of Evil has enough things I love about it to give it the edge anyways. The Doctor having a previous adventure there we never see, the actual face of evil being the Doctor’s face, the “Who am I?” scene, Leela getting a really strong start as a companion, the cargo cultness of everything…
I spent six hours writing a long answer to this, that was probably a waste of my time and I decided not to send it, so I’ll attempt to keep this much shorter. The Tesh and the Sevateem are of course fictional, but the Sevateem are inspired by racist and colonialist ideas of indigenous people. I could explain further, but due to the aforementioned concerns of length, I won’t. If you want me to clarify, I can, but not right now. [1][2]
It’s always been weird to me how few people I saw talking about that, but I guess I overestimated the average white persons awareness of anti-indigenous racism lol. I still like the serial, and most of Leela’s stuff, and The Face of Evil is one of the better ones about it, but I’m still Very Aware Of It at all times as an Indigenous person.
the 6 hours of typin tired me out + i had exams today ↩︎
always funny to me when i get tired and talk fancy ↩︎
I was going to say, I saw you typing a long time. It sounds like you’d know better than I, so I’ll accept your word that there are particular attitudes present in the story that I’m not picking up on. I also had time to think about it, and I guess this idea of them being without the advanced technology and being seen as “regressed” as a result as if there’s only one way of societal progress, and being “behind” in that way seen as “backwards” or less developed is similar to the sorts of attitudes Western powers had to non-Western cultures, and their justification for taking over their lands, enslaving them, etc. It’s just something I hadn’t considered before.
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