Nekromanteia
A corporate battle fleet meets a horrifying end at the hands of the Witches of Taledrun, guardians of the Relic of Sharra. The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive on the planet shortly afterwards, lured by tales of the Nekromanteia system, and also fall victim to the unnatural powers of the witches, but also to the schemes of the survivors of the fleet.
This one is actually pretty terrifying. Peri is trussed up to be a sacrifice to Sharra. Erimem suffers not only a shooting wound but a terrible beating at the hands of the commanding officer of the surviving forces. And the Doctor is beheaded and his body eaten by the ever cackling witches.
I ain't kidding.
It's one thing for the Doctor to come face to face with death in the form of a Dalek or a Cyberman or some terrifying alien monstrosity, but for him to be overcome by something mythical and older than himself is quite different. Obviously there's a way out of this situation for him, which doesn't make 100% sense and requires the audience to believe in the separation between body and mind for it to be credible. But it's not the first time the Doctor has had out of body experiences - his visits into the Matrix on Gallifrey being prime examples of these.
The abuse of the girls calls into question a few issues about violence against women in general. Most of what Peri suffers is inflicted by the witches and doesn't have that usual man to woman violence connotation, but where Erimem is concerned her beating is getting off lightly as her punisher had meant to rape her while a female subordinate stood by. A lot of sci fi feels that it has to be more gristly and violent to be perceived as credible these days, and although the televised episodes do not reflect it to the same degree, Doctor Who has started to move into some dangerous territory where the non-canon audios and books are concerned, almost coming close to the line between acceptable and gratutitous. We know the man is a slime, does he have to attempt to sexually assault Erimem to prove it? Now there is the issue of the Doctor's beheading as well, so there's no platform to make this an exclusive violence against women debate, but as the Doctor's companions are predominantly female, the statistics to add up rather quickly. As it stands right now where my blog is concerned, there is more non-canon material to review than actual televised episodes, the gap between 1989 and 2005 being a long stretch of novels and audios wherein limits are pushed and the female companions are beaten up, tortured, shot, and in one case even killed. There will be a total of 10 more female companions in the tales to come and 3 males, so guess which team takes more lumps in the grand scheme.
I don't want to start a crusade, but I want to point out that Doctor Who doesn't exactly need this kind of thing to stay relevant and interesting. The series didn't start out with Susan getting smacked around in the schoolyard by bullies, and Nero never did get his hands on Barbara back in The Romans, so why the show has to evolve away from clever writing and to a more common base I'll never know. Eric Saward, script editor for the televised series, is on record saying that he believes that violence should be shown for what it is but not be gratutious, and I agree; there's always going to be some. But where's the limit?
NEXT EPISODE : THE AXIS OF INSANITY
This one is actually pretty terrifying. Peri is trussed up to be a sacrifice to Sharra. Erimem suffers not only a shooting wound but a terrible beating at the hands of the commanding officer of the surviving forces. And the Doctor is beheaded and his body eaten by the ever cackling witches.
I ain't kidding.
It's one thing for the Doctor to come face to face with death in the form of a Dalek or a Cyberman or some terrifying alien monstrosity, but for him to be overcome by something mythical and older than himself is quite different. Obviously there's a way out of this situation for him, which doesn't make 100% sense and requires the audience to believe in the separation between body and mind for it to be credible. But it's not the first time the Doctor has had out of body experiences - his visits into the Matrix on Gallifrey being prime examples of these.
The abuse of the girls calls into question a few issues about violence against women in general. Most of what Peri suffers is inflicted by the witches and doesn't have that usual man to woman violence connotation, but where Erimem is concerned her beating is getting off lightly as her punisher had meant to rape her while a female subordinate stood by. A lot of sci fi feels that it has to be more gristly and violent to be perceived as credible these days, and although the televised episodes do not reflect it to the same degree, Doctor Who has started to move into some dangerous territory where the non-canon audios and books are concerned, almost coming close to the line between acceptable and gratutitous. We know the man is a slime, does he have to attempt to sexually assault Erimem to prove it? Now there is the issue of the Doctor's beheading as well, so there's no platform to make this an exclusive violence against women debate, but as the Doctor's companions are predominantly female, the statistics to add up rather quickly. As it stands right now where my blog is concerned, there is more non-canon material to review than actual televised episodes, the gap between 1989 and 2005 being a long stretch of novels and audios wherein limits are pushed and the female companions are beaten up, tortured, shot, and in one case even killed. There will be a total of 10 more female companions in the tales to come and 3 males, so guess which team takes more lumps in the grand scheme.
I don't want to start a crusade, but I want to point out that Doctor Who doesn't exactly need this kind of thing to stay relevant and interesting. The series didn't start out with Susan getting smacked around in the schoolyard by bullies, and Nero never did get his hands on Barbara back in The Romans, so why the show has to evolve away from clever writing and to a more common base I'll never know. Eric Saward, script editor for the televised series, is on record saying that he believes that violence should be shown for what it is but not be gratutious, and I agree; there's always going to be some. But where's the limit?
NEXT EPISODE : THE AXIS OF INSANITY
Labels: Erimem, Peri Brown, The 5th Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 6:21 PM
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