The Ultimate Foe

[scarfman]

Wrote these in the ice_and_rage reaction post for The Ultimate Foe and decided to reprint them here so maybe I don't have to retype them every time the points come up.

Two points I like to make in discussing Trial of a Time Lord and specifically The Ultimate Foe.

• The Valeyard. People who've just reviewed the serial probably don't need this point driven in, but the Valeyard is not a normal incarnation of the Doctor. He's a "distillation" of the Doctor's dark side "from between his twelfth and final incarnations". Remember the projection of Cho Je the Doctor's Teacher had running errands for him in Planet of the Spiders, before the Teacher actually regenerated into that appearance? Remember the Watcher from Logopolis, who was projected backwards in time from the middle of the Doctor's upcoming regeneration in order to keep the Doctor on track in the events leading up to it? Like those. How the Valeyard was generated, and by whom if anyone, we're not told. I initially assumed the corrupt High Council which used him to try keeping the Doctor from exposing the Ravalox coverup, but it could have been a project of the Master's own gone awry. It'd almost have to be a Time Lord(s). But to a certain degree it depends on how much you believe what the Master says about him, since he's the only source. At that point in the story, if that point alone, the Master is the Merlin/Guinan/Giles figure, rendering exposition that we the viewers are to trust at face value. But if you particularly like a fanfiction story written by someone who didn't realize the Valeyard isn't a proper incarnation (there's at least one very good one out there), you could argue that the Master lied.

  A commenter asked me why I assume that someone made the Valeyard when the Watcher seemed to be a naturally occurring phenomenon.

  I assume he was made by someone because our previous examples of the same sort of thing (a) were not the regenerater's distilled dark side only (b) projected backwards in time only a short distance before the relevant regeneration (3 c) did require special circumstances to manifest: Cho Je was manifested by a Time Lord so steeped in the ways of Time that he didn't need a TARDIS to get to Earth from Gallifrey, and the Watcher (according to the screenwriter in later interviews) was manifested by the cosmically cataclysmic events surrounding the regeneration. These projections don't occur naturally in the first place, or they don't occur without special circumstances; and the Valeyard has additional anomalies when observed next to our other two datapoints.

  That said, I could still be wrong. We just don't know.

• Peri. In this serial the Master, adjunct to his bout of merlinism, tells us that Peri didn't after all die at the end of the previous serial but one, and instead survived to marry Brian Blessed. This makes Peri the first companion to leave the show both by dying and by getting married (and in that order). But we're not really given an alternate scenario to explain how Peri survived the events depicted by the Valeyard-doctored Matrix five episodes ago, just a quick repeat shot of her with Yrcanos from earlier in that story. And there are people who prefer to grant the character the more dramatic exit. So it comes down to who you believe, the Master or the Valeyard. The Valeyard's possible motivations for falsely reporting Peri dead are more obvious than the Master's for falsely reporting Peri married, but notice that the Master contrived to have his version of the story reported to the Doctor by someone else than him. So that he'd have no cause to question it, to go back and investigate? Not something ever likely to be explored in the screensource or in licensed tie-ins, which leaves it to us in fanfiction. I like to think, if Peri did marry Yrcanos, it was as a temporary measure to ally with the most powerful person onsite till the Doctor came back for her; and that the Doctor, mistrusting contradictory data, did go back for her (after returning Mel to his future self), upon which they continued traveling together, the end of Peri's time maybe even overlapping with the beginning of Mel's. Perhaps one day I'll write it up properly as a series.

  Edit: While I'm at it, from my comments on The Mysterious Planet:

  I also am unable to let a discussion of this episode pass without noting that the Doctor is perfectly prepared to come out with his name perfectly casually in front of Peri in the tube station. Either whatever is special about telling people his name in Forest of the Dead doesn't happen until after this, or Peri Brown is just as special to him as River Song is. Maybe that's why he and Peri suddenly began getting along? (I say "suddenly" but her hair's a lot longer in this episode than it was in the previous episode.)

Comments

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

There was one official tie-ins involving a post-Mindwarp Peri that I'm aware of. The Age of Chaos, a one-shot comic by Colin Baker(!!) suggests that the Doctor made regular visits to Thoros Alpha to see how Peri was doing. The story is mostly about Peri and Yrcanos's grandchildren, so Colin saw the match as a permenent one.

(Personally, I'm with you; it's about as likely as, er, squeaky-clean Mel going off with a career criminal...)

[scarfman]

The TARDIS Wikia entry for Peri lists several tie-ins giving post-Mindwarp histories for her, including the one you cite; an NA in which the Doctor checked in on her, made up with her, and took her home; and the novelization of Mindwarp which has it that Peri and Yrcanos made their way back to Earth where he became a professional wrestler.

It also states that, while Sarah Jane's various solo adventures in source medium and tie-ins definitely make her the Doctor Who companion with the most exposure, Peri ties with Ace (as of time of writing) in both number of stories and in recorded time for most exposure as a companion. Cool.

[pedanther]

There's an NA in which Peri appears, from near the end of the run. It takes the "temporary measure to ally with the most powerful person onsite till the Doctor came back for her" option, but (in keeping with the NAs' apparent rule that companions' post-Doctor lives must be not be happy) not the "the Doctor did go back for her" option. Peri eventually gets her hands on a long-range teleporter with a setting for Earth, and uses it immediately and without serious regrets. She promptly runs into the Doctor (who's trying to prevent the teleporter's previous owner from taking over the planet) and starts laying into him for leaving her stranded. They're friends again by the end of the book, though, and the Doctor gives her a lift back to her own time.