Vislor

Was too tired to draw the 'Top of the pops' background but I feel the need to pay my respects, top notch special effect.

(Bonus: Tegan and Turlough scribbles)

oh, save the date sounds like it could be possible contender for the doctor who campy hall of fame. but the questions is will it be more capital-H Homosexual than planet of fire? that would be a feat.

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I don’t ship them.

I do NOT ship them.

For several reasons.

Seriously I DON’T.

And I know it’s my inner ‘raised on Disney movies, they’re essentially a prince and princess’ completely basic bitch speaking…

But this entire photoshoot is SCORCHINGLY adorable.

The groovy stick bug:

Have this wip as proof of my labor. I’m gonna die making this part

An angry, selfish, cowardly, 90% amoral person. Doesn’t really want to do a murder but is less opposed to it than risking his own safety

One serial in which he’s still trying to kill the Doctor badly and they have very little interaction at all because the party is split up, and even less positive interaction

Enlightenment. I guess…they got tired of that arc so they decided Turlough developed as a character but they didn’t need to actually show any of that development? Goes straight from shrugging at the Doctor’s death, to trying to kill himself to get out of doing the thing he agreed to do to save his own life, to consciously taking the side of good. We don’t even know when the Doctor realized why Turlough was there

For the next 7 stories, which they could have used to slowly develop his character, he will instead be a typical bland and vaguely mean-spirited companion with no acknowledgment that he was sent to kill the Doctor and very little relationship between them other than a few barbs and typical companion loyalty

And then he leaves with typical abruptness, which after the very fulfilling Nyssa and Tegan ends feels empty to me

first, it's interesting for me to hear that he has no on-screen arc bc i feel like he actually gets more of an arc than a lot of classic companions. i'll agree it's not a perfectly fleshed-out one, but arcs simply weren't as much of a thing in classic who.

he's not shrugging at killing the doctor in mawdryn undead and terminus. does he willingly agree to the deal? yes. but he also struggles with it, too. in mawdryn there's a whole sequence where he thinks he's speaking to his headmaster about how he doesn't want to kill the doctor. when the headmaster reveals himself to be the bg, turlough protests that the doctor isn't evil (like the bg originally told him). but the bg terrifies him. still, every time turlough comes across a spaceship (mawdryn's ship, the tardis), he tries to use it to escape until the bg reappears. in terminus, turlough has a moment where he asks tegan if she could kill someone if she had to, clearly grappling with his predicament. he keeps trying to escape in the tardis and insist that simply stranding the doctor somewhere is enough, but the bg isn't having it. the black guardian also hurts him multiple times, punishing him for failing to carry out his task (stalling, at this point?), burning him with the crystal and making him black out. it's the end of terminus when he tells the bg outright that he can't kill the doctor.

throughout this, there's small moments of connection between turlough and the doctor. the doctor certainly had an idea of what was going on with turlough from the start, we see turlough get charmed by the doctor and then remember he has to kill the guy, the doctor is protective of turlough, etc. i'm sure if this arc were written today we'd get more moments of connection btwn them, and terminus wouldn't split them up completely. but, of course, that also gives him opportunity to bond with tegan. the moments where tegan cares for him, or tegan and the doctor, are the moments that are chipping away at his self-interest. (well, that's really more of a dweu point... the novelisations highlight that the way he acts is because he's been taught by life that he has to be self-interested/look out for himself bc no one else will look out for him... so i digress...)

the pivotal moment in his early on-screen arc is, imo, the scene in the vacuum shield room. he thinks he's going to die and calls out for bg (who is, ostensibly, his "guardian," as much as he's been abusing turlough) for help. no dice. desperate, he calls out for the doctor — with no reason to think the doctor would actually hear him — and miraculously, the doctor arrives. i mean, look at the expression on the guy's face. he stunned. someone is looking out for him, for once. that's the moment that ultimately changes his actions from reluctant assassin/trying to wriggle out of the deal/stalling/killing himself to being loyal to the doctor and rescuing the doctor from wrack & her first mate and later making the choice of enlightenment.

i agree that most of the following stories aren't focused on him/his arc, but we still get some moments here and there, including in warriors of the deep (stays onboard bc says he wants to learn from the doctor; saves the doctor and tegan's lives) and frontios (braves the trauma-inducing tractator tunnels while being self-deprecating and doctorish about it).

planet of fire is a clear conclusion of his arc. he rescues peri (with a derisive "earthlings!" beforehand, of course, he's turlough). his first serial was all about being willing (or not-so-willing) to kill in order to escape his exile on earth, and his final serial has him willingly calling trion, fully believing he'll be arrested again for doing so, in order to save the sarns. when he parts ways with the doctor, he says "i've learnt a lot from you." he has. he also asks peri to look out for the doctor — clearly implying that he's come to see that as his role, when he started out only looking out for himself.