#also makes me wonder if anyone does have my ooc tag muted and they are wondering where the hell I am kjgdjhkgd

[ask-the-totally-real-peppino]

(I am making a post, just to say that an intermission update is coming later today, so one step closer to finding the fiend hehe

Also, happy 666th post

[fortes-fortuna-iogurtum]

an incomplete list of Thoughts on Gallifrey: Time War 4

will probably be added to as time goes on because my brain is in a fog this morning and I’m really struggling to be coherent

this is already so long and I don’t know how to stop oh no

- Time War could’ve very easily been a 5-boxset arc, and I really wish it would’ve been. I think it would’ve cleared up a lot of the issues that I and others have with the arc, especially in terms of pacing and character and relationship development.

- alternatively, they could’ve returned to the original format of 5 chapters per season, which I personally liked a lot and think works a little better for Gallifrey.

- this is technically about Time War 2 and 3, but it’s connected to 4, so: I think some stories should’ve been shifted around a bit so that things flowed along more smoothly and the transition from Mother Tongue to Unity made more sense, and then from Unity to Homecoming. because as it stands, it feels to me like making Romana and Leela and Narvin “break up” after Leela spends all that time away from them was just done for drama and wasn’t fleshed out well enough to completely work like I’m assuming the writers wanted it to.

- I have come to the conclusion that, while David Llewellyn is a good writer whose Gallifrey stories I generally enjoy a lot, he just doesn’t understand Brax very well.

- actually I feel like Brax’s writing in Gallifrey has just been a little *off* since his last appearance in Gally4. (with the exception of Solider Obscura, which I love, even though I ALSO question the writers’ decision to essentially reverse Brax’s character development there; again, this is another thing that I think could’ve been just fine if there had been more time to deal with it, say a fifth boxset or five stories in every boxset)

- and this makes sense -- because David Llewellyn doesn’t fully grasp some really core aspects of who Brax is and his motivations, but is generally a pretty good writer and seems to get the other main characters of Gallifrey well, we’re left with a sense of good writing for Brax... but when it really comes down to it in the end, everything sorta falls apart because he doesn’t understand the deeper workings of the character and why he does the things he does.

- basically I really really wish Justin Richards could’ve written Beyond, because I think he would’ve done an amazing job with it and the ending wouldn’t have felt so bizarre

- (also I wonder if they had to cut a scene last minute because honestly that whole last sequence feels incredibly weird somehow??? not only does it feel OOC for Romana--like come on. I’m sorry, I know that he’s mistreated her and people she cares about a lot and she has a right to be done with him, but we know her. her responding that way to seeing him brutally killed in front of her after all their conversations in the earlier parts of the story feels so incredibly wrong and I cannot articulate just how much I dislike it--but there’s also an incredibly rough scene transition there and a music transition that sounds really bad, to be blunt. like they had to chop out a scene the morning before release and had no time to fix it, so they just did what they had to and hoped no one would notice)

- gotta be honest, I’m pretty salty about Beyond and probably will be talking about it for a while. maybe I should make a tag specifically for it so y’all can mute that one, because I hate being so negative about things I actually do enjoy, but I had a Lot of issues with that story and I just.... 

- yeah anyway, moving on 😅

- I did, on the whole, enjoy Homecoming, however

- again with the pacing, I think it would’ve been a lot better if they had been able to lead up to it more, especially with the emotional relationships between the Trio. Leela and Romana was ok, Romana and Narvin was ok, and Leela and Narvin was ok, but they really could’ve gone harder on the emotions I think?

- actually that’s a big thing about this boxset overall, and it’s especially evident in Homecoming-- I feel like they were holding back for some reason, and they really really didn’t have to. Especially as this is being advertised (at least in an unspoken way) as The Big Finale.

- (I mean for one they definitely could’ve had Leela and Narvin kiss at the end of that last interaction and it would’ve been fine and super fitting but ya know)

- also I do want to draw attention to the fact that this is most certainly not the absolute and final end of Gallifrey. I mean, perhaps of Gallifrey proper? But I’m going to be incredibly shocked if this it just. it. for these storylines and these characters. especially with where they left things at the end of Homecoming.

- actually, this might be the root of this problem: that the writers were simultaneously trying to write the Big Finish (no pun intended) for Gallifrey, but at the same time, they wanted to keep it very open-ended and ready to be picked up again when the time comes. So it ends up just feeling kind of... muddled, and noncommittal. Because they want this huge, heartrending, emotional finale, but at the same time it’s not a finale, and so they can’t do anything too big and heartrending and emotional and final with the characters, because the story needs to be able to continue. and so we’re stuck with an “ending” that’s probably not really an ending, and it simultaneously feels just a little underdone and like a big lead-up into nowhere.

- I mentioned to @spicydinosaurwings948 right after listening to it that the end reminded me of that thing a lot of big film/TV franchises do now, where they lay threads throughout one film and at the very end there’s an after-credits scene and some sort of announcement that ushers in the next era or spin-off of the franchise (sort of like what they did in the end of the most reason season of The Mandalorian, where they’re using Boba Fett’s involvement in that show to launch his own series). The problem is, as far as we know right now, they aren’t planning anything to follow up on this (unless they’re really great at keeping secrets and telling half-truths and are planning to shock us all in a few weeks, which wouldn’t entirely surprise me even tho I’m not counting on it happening).

- I have seen people say that they think some of the problem with the finale was that the writers were too occupied with trying to tie things into other existing storylines, like the show itself and the DW audios, which is also valid. I don’t personally think that is the root of the problem, but I definitely understand where that idea is coming from and I agree that it could’ve contributed to the issues.

- now might also be a time to mention that I can totally see some of these things from Gally:TW being brought up in the young War Doctor stories they’re doing soon? obviously not too much, but I can see characters like Eris showing up there, or maybe a reference to the Doctor not knowing where Romana is, or maybe even Armitage!Rassilon being the first Rassilon of those stories.

- annnnnd speaking of Hot Rassilon: the “ascension”. I have no idea what was going on with all that but it definitely felt like Something Big and now I’m really puzzled as to what there were doing with it?? is this going to be picked up somewhere else?? is it just another thing they introduced that needed to be fleshed-out better?? hello Big Finish and Scott Handcock and anyone else who can help me, I really need answers because?????? (I mean surely, surely it doesn’t tie into Ascension of the Cybermen???????)