the convoluted doctor who lore gets extra funny when you realize that, at two separate points in the past, two different companions to two different doctors ended up running into rasputin but both came to the conclusion that he was a pretty nice and normal guy. which, depending on how you interpret the power of the doctor, is either a nice subversion of a lot of tropes of stories used in pre-soviet russia, or side-splittingly hilarious as you start imagining the master getting roped into various adventures with different versions of the doctor that he can’t fuck with yet or else he’ll destroy the timeline, forcing him to play nice with the humans as part of his 4D Time Chess Master Disguise Plan #3852
I do think one of my favourite doctor who things is when the Big Bad does a fun little musical number while the camera periodically focuses on the Doctor's Serious Stricken Face while the Big Bad shimmies in the background
Say what you will but Chris Chibnall absolutely paved the way for this insanity era with his Rasputin!Master, and that is the highest honor anyone could've ever bestowed upon this cursed show
with just about any incarnation of the doctor, any time they go “oh, but the master and i used to be friends 🥺” it tends to come with a sense of mystery, since they have such different goals, ideologies, and personalities. then you see some early first doctor episodes and yeah that tracks.