Doctor Who: Blink, The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit and the Confidential...

[fajrdrako]

Since commodorified and iclysdale have run away to England together, and raynedaze was otherwise occupied, it was just me and auriaephiala to curl up with supper and watch Doctor Who together last night.

Seeing "Blink" a second time clarified a few plot details for me. It was, on the whole, simpler than I'd been thinking, though admittedly conceptually twisty. At some unknown time before the beginning of the episode - probably many months before - the Angels nabbed the Doctor and Martha, somehow getting the TARDIS key from one of them before touching them to send the back to 1969. The Doctor and Martha were probably nowhere near the TARDIS at the time, and just as well. I'd wondered how the Angels knew who the Doctor was, or that he had a TARDIS, but then I thought: if he knew about them, there's no reason for them not to know about him. They are hunters and predators: they were probably researching him for years.... They have all the time they want or need.

So: the Doctor and Martha, somewhat more than a year from now, took¹ the TARDIS to the near past and left it in the old house and went elsewhere. The Angels found them and stole a key from one of them and zapped them both to 1969, where they were presumably still in London. With Billy. But before the Angels got back to the house, the cops had taken the TARDIS. The Angels didn't know where it was, so they used the key as bait to get Sally Sparrow to lead them to it, at the same time giving away to the urge to snack on Kathy by sending her to 1920 Yorkshire. Then they took the TARDIS back to the house - so they wouldn't be interrupted by the cops or anyone else, presumably - but they were interrupted by Sally and Laurence, just as they'd hoped, because they wanted both the TARDIS and the key together. Because the Doctor had Sally's transcript, the information and (presumably) the key that Sally had already given him (in his chronology but not yet in hers), he was able to use it all to communicate with her via Billy's DVDs - and he was able to tell Billy what DVDs to produce because he knew in advance what DVDs Sally would buy. And then the emergency protocol of the TARDIS could do its thing.

Erk. Just imagine. If on a whim she'd changed her mind about which DVD to buy - a whole timeline slips into the abyss! But that of course couldn't happen because she'd already bought them.

Uh-huh.

auriaephiala and I were speculating on the TARDIS emergency protocols. We decided that it makes sense that the TARDIS, in an emergency, would default to leaving unknown and unexpected intruders behind - much easier than carrying prisoners or unauthorized passengers around, if someone should somehow blunder into the TARDIS without knowing what it, or intend a hijacking or invasion.

So how did Billy know he would die when the rain stopped? Precognition, like Tim Latimer?

Unlike, say, the gas-mask people in "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", this was much less scary the second time round.

I love the way David Moffat writes. The way he plots. The way he knows what to do with time travel. The other Doctor Who writers may give us fine adventures, but they just use time as a destination or a setting. Moffat really uses it as a concept to weave into story-rich plots.


Seeing "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" was fun because it was a while since I'd watched either, and I like both. A lot. Mostly because I love the romantic relationship bits between the Doctor and Rose - the delight of a young Time Lord in love. In some ways I think Rose may be at her best in this story, taking charge, being courageous, being funny, being clever - having a strong part in the action when she's with him and when she isn't. And I always love their conversation about getting a house and a mortgage. And their hug and smiles when reunited. And the line about them being "the stuff of legend" - I love it that Rose is included in that. I missed that nuance the first time round.

And for all the Rose-love I feel when I watch this episode, it also makes me thankful that I have Martha now.

So why do I like the Beast in "The Satan Pit", but not Abaddon in Torchwood's "End of Days"? Because this story made more sense, and was infinitely better written. And saying that isn't even high praise for it. I did notice that they called this Beast "Abaddon" too, which at least forms a conceptual link.... for what it's worth. Maybe in Torchwood the Beast was in a bad mood because he'd had to climb out of that Black Hole, and he still hadn't got his brains back since Rose had incinerated Toby's body.

Not that rationalizing it that way makes it make any more sense!

I wonder why the Time Lords invented Black Holes. As cosmic trash incinerators, perhaps?

On my own, I watched the Doctor Who Confidential that followed "Blink". It wasn't really about "Blink", it was about David Tennant and Steven Moffat and Russell T. Davies getting all fanboyish about Doctor Who episodes of their past. They were quite adorable, really. But since I've never seen any of the old episodes, I felt a little left out of the in-crowd there. I was quite impressed by the love and respect these men showed the old series.

And I loved the moment of Julie Gardner pretending to forget who played the Tenth Doctor.


~ ~ ~
¹ Assuming that I can call refer to the time-period of "Blink" as "now", rather than, say, the time period one year later. The whole timespan of the episode is less than a day. Talking about future events happening in a past chronology not only makes my head hurt, it screws up my use of verb tenses.

Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

I think I've been trained into tine-travel-sci-fi too much to have been too confused about the episode (Blink, I mean), but wasn't it lovely!

May I dare to recommend rude_not_ginger's take on the episode yet again? She digs into Ten and Martha back in 1969, and once again I absolutely loved it... :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was lovely, and it was even more fun the second time, when the time-frames were falling into place!

Thanks for the tip re rude_not_ginger, I'll toddle off there now...

[beccaelizabeth]

Time Lords invented black holes in order to make time travel possible - they made one to make enough power to do time travel. Omega and Rassilon made it together with the hand of Omega, a stellar manipulator. Omega ended up on the wrong side of it. Did he fall or was he pushed is one of the great mysteries of Time Lord history. Omega thought he was stranded there on purpose. And then Rassilon got to be the big man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Harmony


as to how he knew about until the rain stopped - she didn't just give the Doctor the transcript of that conversation, she gave him all the bits of paper and photos and stuff she'd kept together, so basically he knew everything we'd just seen that she'd been part of. So Billy knew because the Doctor knew because Sally knew because Billy knew.

[beccaelizabeth]

... and all that about Omega is from memory so may be a bit wrong.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My take on Abbadon (the TW edition) - he took on the appearance of whatever the person looking at him thought a giant evil demon would look like. What we see onscreen is probably Owen's version, influenced by video games and crappy DVDs.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! That is so cool.

And yes, of course Billy knew about the rain because Sally did...
I'll get used to this, I really will! The Doctor must think like this all the time. But then - it's easier for him, he's at the centre of it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Owen's version of Abaddon - that makes a sad amount of sense. No wonder Ianto looked shocked.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, no problem, I plan to be doing my own research - in the meantime, any information I get is grist for the mill and fodder for the fictional/historical background. Thank you!

(And I bless the ground that Wikipedia walks on.)

[beccaelizabeth]

Part of why the Doctor seems so completely nuts sometimes : linear sanity is time travel madness, and vice versa.

of course that doesn't explain why other Time Lords think he's weird...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Maybe because weirdness is in the eye of the beholder?

I like his madness. Or the way he can combine strangeness and charm, like a quantum particle.

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

Just imagine. If on a whim she'd changed her mind about which DVD to buy - a whole timeline slips into the abyss!

I'd imagine that's why he put the same thing on all seventeen DVDs. She'd almost certainly buy at least one of them.

this was much less scary the second time round.

A lot of the suspense, for me, was wrapped up in what the angels looked like without their faces hidden. On the second viewing, you don't have that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was an escalating quality of the scariness of the Stone Angels - from being so static and passive to being increasingly threatening and mobile. With those wide eyes and pointy teeth - eeee!

I think though that the scariest bit was when Laurence and Sally were inside the TARDIS and we could see the Angels becoming visible as the TARDIS left.

JB's Autobiography Out In '08

[raissad.livejournal.com]

Click here (http://johnbarrowman.com/news/newsindex.html) for the announcement.

Re: JB's Autobiography Out In '08

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

...Making it a very convincing assertion that John Barrowman is the busiest man in England.