From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: Invasion of Time SUCKS! Was Re: Continuity catalog part two
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:00:23 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Sep14.223010.26300@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin) writes:
>>>9.	"The Invasion of Time"

[vs. Deadly Assassin]

>>No, that was the APC Net that he was connected to, a sort of subset of the
>>Matrix.

>	True, but if the Matrix is such a key ingredient of Time Lord
>society, why is it such a mystery to the Doctor that Engin has to explain
>its functions to him?  

I'm pretty hazy on the exact dialogue, but it sounds to me like he's just
explaining that particular system does.  Not the concept of this vast
universal databank known as the Matrix.

>>>       The Great Key is entrustd
>>>	to the Chancellor, creating another problem when the Doctor
>>>	says in the same story that no President has ever known the
>>>	whereabouts of the Great Key (after he's been in th Matrix and
>>>	asked them all, he says he's done this), yet if it is in the
>>>	care of the Chancellor, then surely at some time a Chancellor
>>>	must have become President and he would know that the new 
>>>	Chancellor has got the Key!

>>Oh, that's a simple one.  When a President is inducted, he is linked to
>>the Matrix.  Once he's in there, the minds in the Matrix (i.e. Rassilon
>>and company) mess with his memory.  If he was Chancellor and knows where
>>the Great Key is, he suffers convenient amnesia.  Just like the Doctor did
>>at the end of "Invasion of Time".  That way the Matrix Lords protect their
>>secret.

>Still, what's to stop a Chancellor/President-elect from leaving a note
>for him/herself in the future telling him/herself that the Chancellor's
>got the key?

Devious.  But the Matrix Lords would have thought of that.  Read on.

  No matter what memory blocks the Matrix imposes, the fact
>that the Chancellor's got it, and that Chancellors can become President,
>is just too big a security hole for me.
>Even without that, I would not call "the Chancellor's got it" the most
>clever way of hiding the key in the first place....after all that time
>the Doctor is the first person to figure out such a basic puzzle?

How do we know he's really the first?  Remember what happened to him after
the use of the Key -- his memory of the whole incident vanished.  The only
person who knew that the key was the Great Key was Borusa -- and do
you think he'd tell anyone?

This kind of incident might have happened before.  A President gets his
hands on the Great Key, tries to use it for some purpose or another, and
at the appropriate time the Matrix Lords step in and wipe out all
knowledge of the event.  Using the Great Key could turn out to be another
Tomb of Rassilon - style trap, designed to track down the power-mad and
either tame or eliminate them.

Is that devious enough for you?

>>>	Also suggestions are made in The Deadly Assassin that there are
>>>	other Cities on Gallifrey than just the Capitol, yet in
>>>	The Invasion of Time we are told everyone lives in the Citadel/Capitol,

>>So the Doctor was a rebel who actually went outside the city.  That doesn't
>>seem outside of his character.

>	No, that's not out of character, but the fact that his family
>had an actual house outdoors does conflict.

Fudge factor time.  There could actually be room for individual-style
housing if the city is big enough.  If the Doctor's old house was near the
edge of the city, you could get away with it.  Yes, I'm stretching it like
taffy, but it's no bigger stretch than the ways they explain "immortal
barring accidents".

>	And what about the air car Romana says she got for her 70th
>birthday in "The Pirate Planet?"  (OK, so that's after TIOT, but still..)

Domed cities don't preclude air-cars.  Again, the Trantor analogy.

>>Why?  After all, Isaac Asimov wasn't limited by having to stay inside the
>>worldwide city on Trantor, or "The Caves of Steel".

>	That's two stories.  Who has already done three on Gallifrey,
>and the fact that we're stuck in one city every time is really restrictve,
>I feel.

Why?  Where are the restrictions coming into play?

Incidentally, Asimov set four novels on the Earth of "Caves of Steel" and
two short stories and a gigantic novel on Trantor.  Some of them were set
entirely inside the cities without exhausting them.  Others went outside
for part of the story, or even to different planets -- but then, so have
the Gallifrey stories.  "Five Doctors" had the Death Zone, and "Arc of
Infinity" had Amsterdam.  Even "Invasion of Time" gets outside.  There's
no reason why defining an an "inside" and "outside" to civilized Gallifrey
should limit the story possibilities.

>	God, this story is bad.  From the tinfoil Vardans who turn out to
>be ordinary humans in stupid-looking uniforms, to the plot holes and
>continuity errors, to the trundling in of the Sontarans for the last two
>episodes just to make the story last six instead of the usual four,

Won't say anything about the Vardans, I admit they were unimpressive.
However, I loved the sudden appearance of the Sontarans, because it added
another whole level of deviousness to the story -- the Doctor was being
manipulated just like he thought he was manipulating the Vardans who
thought they were using him.

Like I said, the story has flaws, in production and writing, but the
sheer scale of the ideas used in the story redeem it in my eyes, if not
in yours.

Xref: sparky rec.arts.drwho:5999 rec.arts.tv.uk:5381