I have finished Carnival of Monsters, and can at last cheerfully declare that I love all the Doctors. Phew.


Rehabilitating Six and Seven had pushed Three to the very bottom of my Doctor Top Ten, and much as I loved the Quorn/wasps/Wales fun of The Green Death, he remained a patronising arsewit with a silly car and a tendency to tut. Which I could probably have overcome if he had some fabulous sidekick to make him less annoying, but instead he had Jo, who was a bit shite, and otherwise he has Liz, who I have to try really hard to like, or Sarah, who I haven't actually seen with him (erm...) but who had rubbish hair until the Tom-era (aha! Super-convincing argument, you must agree). Not even UNIT could redeem him, since their persistent air of win kept making Three look even more like a pompous git in need of a technobabble bypass. 'Smug twat' may be as much a character staple as 'eccentric' and 'prone to picking up young women', but somehow Three was failing to add any of the daft charm to it. And he was Worzel Gummidge when I was wee and that makes me feel a bit nauseous to this day. Irrelevant and unfair, but true.

But now I am filled with glee and love for him, hurrah! Despite him being exactly the same irritating snot as before.

In part this is because Carnival of Monsters contains multiple Things About Who That I Love, including:
- a tiny little shrunken TARDIS you can put in your pocket
- a tiny little shrunken Doctor, also with pocket potential
- rubbish plastic monsters chasing them through a bit of Wales
- a comedy double act who have dressed as if planning to introduce The Sweet on Top of the Pops that evening
- a civilisation whose structure is indicated by colour (they're all grey! it means they're boring! Do you see?)
- multiple opportunities to play the 'didn't he go on to be...?' game, especially with tiny wee Ian Marter
- a time loop
- a stupid running gag about Metebilis 3
- the 1920s
- gay wrestling
- loads of bits which are like other stories (it's basically Vengeance on Varos without the embarrassment and the big evil fly, innit?)
- a Doctor who worries terribly about his endangered companion, while also worrying about the other people who are endangered at the same time *cough ahem not talking about The Idiot's Lantern at all*

But really I think it was Jo that swung it. She is smart and perky and asks sensible questions, and even though he still treats her like a slightly backward nine-year-old, she pwns through the power of being able to identify a chicken better than a 700-year-old Time Lord. She proves him wrong and he gets sulky, and then she gets stuck in a bog and he rescues her, and they are having adventurous fun and it's all a bit of a giggle. She is indeed, as has often been noted, S1 Rose. And just as I don't think I would like Nine very much without Rose there to press his buttons and kick him when appropriate, I think Three is in his element when accompanied by a daffy young thing with a Mick Ronson cut and gogo boots, stumbling half-blind through time holding his hand and making him enjoy the universe all over again without bitterness.

And did I mention the gay wrestling?


I need to watch some more Three. And construct that 'Five Things of Who' doodah. And write some Twofic. And tag torch_wood. And make a new header. And possibly some icons. Oh, fandom, you waste my time so beautifully...