Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Spoiler alert...









But the group of Whovian fans seemed kind of unreal because they​
were, in fact, not real. Though there's a bit at the end that shows​
that the manipulation that defeated Lux rendered the fans real,​
after all. Which was a bit of a stretch, I'll admit, but fell in​
with the sense of wonder-fulness.
  

    
The Whovian fans did seem to exist in a state of almost​
Heisenbergian uncertainty!

I'm not sure the script of `Lux made an awful lot of logical sense​
at any point, which to be honest is why I struggle with it. I like​
logical stories, not wild wacky surreal ones in which anything can​
happen at any time for any reason. It makes my teeth itch.

Doctor Who used to be firmly science based - no magic, no gods,​
nothing like that. But RTD has shifted that with the introduction of​
the gods of discord (I think that's what they are called? Please do​
feel free to connect me if I'm wrong) to give him more latitude to​
be inventive and creative on the perfectly understandable grounds​
that after nearly 70 years the show needs new, fertile ground to​
inspire brand new stories. But inevitably it means that some fans​
won't feel quite as at home in the new context as they did, and for​
me at the moment I'm one of those.

Which is not to say that I don't appreciate how well the episodes​
are done - the performances are wonderful (I'm particularly enjoying​
Belinda, she's so much more engaging than Ruby so far) and the show​
looks fantastic. Although I did think that Lux has some borrowed​
aesthetics - the robots looked like the ones from The Husbands of​
River Song (2015?) and their emoticon facial expressions were like​
the bots from "Smile". Little things like that distracted me this​
week.
  

    
Apparently the concept of the Gods of Chaos (or Pantheon of Discord)​
originated with the Trickster, which first appeared in "Whatever​
Happened to Sarah Jane" (2007).​
<https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Trickster#Early_life>
  

    
There's a lot of retrofitting going on here! I don't think there was​
any intention to link The Trickster to a wider array of​
pan-dimensional beings originally, but it's become an effective way​
of sweeping up a whole class of alien adversaries into one "all you​
can eat" buffet.

There's no question that in terms of the show, The Toymaker (hen​
known as the Celestial Toymaker, played by Michael Gough in 1966)​
came first when he popped up and was thwarted by William Hartnell's​
first incarnation.

Then there was Sutekh who was in one of the best loved Tom Baker​
stories, Pyramids of Mars, in 1975. There was no suggestion at the​
time that he was a "god", just an advanced alien entity, but Russell​
T Davies decided he worked well alongside the Toymaker and so​
promoted him to godhood to be the season 1 Big Bad. They also seem​
to have swept up the Mara (from Peter Davidson stories Kinda and​
Snakedance) as members of the pantheon. 

But the idea of unifying all this mythology didn't really kick in​
until Wild Blue Yonder (the second of the 2023 David Tennant​
specials) and the moment that the Doctor failed to cast salt along​
the threshold at the edge of the universe, allowing the banished​
gods access to our universe.

I think this is all very untidy, as is inevitably the case trying to​
make sense of 60+ years of television continuity created by dozens​
of different writers, producers and script editors down the decades.​
Other elemental beings in the Whoniverse include The Eternals (from​
Enlightenment) and the Guardians of Time (White and Black varieties)​
and I confess that I'm not remotely sure what links and comparisons​
there are between then all.

The Whoniverse is a big and complicated place sometimes.