madam, what year is this?

"The way that we did that was you take a filter out of the camera that's blocking the IR light and it made this beautiful pinkish-reddish color. We put Ryan on a stage surrounded by a bunch of chicken wire filled with infrared lights that were, like, sparkling. And then we had Greig [Fraser, Director of Photography] build an aquarium, a double glass window with a hose dripping water through it in front of a handheld camera and then he would stand around Ryan who going like this [reaching out and touching astrophage floating around] in a chicken cage, but he couldn't see anything because the lights are invisible to the naked eye."

and jonathan says “ah yes you were trying to confirm your suspicions” and elizabeth replies “no my child i was trying to cover up the murder”

juliet tilney my silliest most favorite girl

LONDON'S HOTTEST MURDER INVESTIGATING DUO IS NOW TAKING NEW CLIENTS!

first and foremost, i'm just going to say that i didn't hate the boxset, but i was a little disappointed with it. maybe i would be less disappointed if it wasn't delayed two years, but as it stands, it just felt like it was moving a bunch of pieces around. and as i said in my Eye for an Eye liveblog, i hope that means that pieces are being moved into place for WR4 to have a good conclusion.

it's been discussed before about how much TW and WR feel like opposites. TW has a lot of good character moments for Romana, Leela, and Narvin with some stellar individual episodes, but it ultimately failed in its long term story planning and especially failed in creating consistent and interesting recurring characters (rip Livia, i'm sorry for what they did to you). WR, on the other hand, has more forgettable individual stories, but has been largely consistent with its characters even if it doesn't have the Big Moments that the TW series often had, and is much much better at creating interesting and fleshed out recurring characters, but it seems to be at the expense of the its alleged main characters. (though i am hoping that if the comparisons hold up, WR4 will be better than TW4)

i really really enjoyed WR1 (and large parts of WR2) because of how well it wrote Leela who has suffered from bad, inconsistent, and often blatantly racist writing in both classic who and the audios. WR1 was such a breath of fresh air in her portrayal and i loved seeing her get the central stage for once, but i'm disappointed that out of the four episodes in this set, Leela was barely present in two of them. i'm fine with Narvin taking a backseat to become a recurring character for a bit given how much focus he had in TW, and i'm even fine with putting Romana on ice for a little bit, but it's feeling increasingly like WR is a full ensemble show. and to be fully clear, that's not necessarily a flaw, but it is a personal preference of why i don't like it as much. Gallifrey was a series very explicitly created for Leela and Romana's relationship, and the crux of it for me has always been the interplay between Leela, Romana, and Narvin. even during TW when Leela was absent for most of it, Romana and Narvin's relationship remained at the forefront until her return. those relationships are obviously still there and still play a role in the series (i did really love Romana and Leela's interactions in Hope! Leela and Narvin had some good exchanges in Resistance as well!) but two of the episodes (Propaganda and Eye for an Eye) didn't have any two of the ot3 really interact for any of it and idk, it's not for me. now i know a lot of other people are really interested in the recurring War Council characters so i'm curious to see how y'all liked this boxset but like. overall it's not really for me.

now for some more objective criticisms other than "i'm not the target audience for this" — i did take issues with bringing back Romana for one episode only for her to not do anything plot relevant or anything particularly emotionally stirring. did i like seeing her? yes! of course! that's my wife! but it did feel rather cheap and frankly i think it would have been a better use to hold off on Romana's return until it's not a cop-out and instead use that third episode to balance out some of the character work for the recurring War Council characters so that Eye for an Eye wouldn't be all about them with no Leela. relatedly, the other major criticism i have is the pacing. i mentioned in my Resistance liveblog that the tone of the episode was weird because it felt like it should be the finale even though it was only halfway through the set, and having gotten to the finale, i stand by my words even more strongly. idk maybe i'm flawed for thinking of it this way, but i think the end of a series/boxset should land on its most emotional note and while Narvin being imprisoned by Gallifrey again certainly is emotional, it doesn't really compare to Eris's death (or even Leela's Romana related angst). Eye for an Eye doesn't really give enough time for either Leela or Narvin (our main characters) to reflect on what happened or have any big emotions about it? idk it felt off to me. combined with the fact that, as i've stated, it felt very weird to have the first and the last episode in this set be Leela-lite. now obviously it's easier to critique pacing issues than it is to fix them given that the Big Emotions in Resistance are pretty plot important to then lead into the next two episodes, but... idk i just feel like it could have been done differently. i'll be more sympathetic to Eye for an Eye if WR4 really does deliver on its set-up, but again, i'm not getting my hopes up for nothing.

okay okay enough complaining because there were elements i really liked here. Resistance was by far my favorite episode, the Narvin angst hit as always, i thought Eris's death was very appropriate but still managed to take me by surprise, and it felt the most like Gallifrey to me. on the subject of feeling like Gallifrey, i do really really appreciate how much WR has embraced being a political drama. i truly do not care about Daleks and was happy to not see them at all this series, and the boxset was very very good at setting up tension between practically every character and making it so believable that even i didn't know whose side everyone would end up on. for all WR could have made everyone a fascist happy to jump when Rassilon says so, i really appreciate the character nuances all of the side characters have. while an ensemble focus isn't my personal preference for Gallifrey, i can't argue that WR does a good job at setting these characters up within a fairly limited run of episodes. and top of those characters is definitely Veklin by far. i remember first being introduced to Veklin in Doom Coalition and thinking of her as another grunt soldier who would probably never reappear and i'm so happy that not only has she reappeared, but she's managed to become such a fun nuanced character who finally FINALLY is starting to be willing to make her own choices away from Ollistra. Cresta is wonderful, i love seeing her as sort of an inverse to Eris. and the General and Rasmus are... there and are fine. and while i quibble with the lack of the ot3 (and specifically the lack of a full ot3 reunion), Leela and Narvin were written very well for the episodes they appeared in and i'm very excited to see what's next for them.