Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"
Aug. 11th, 2007 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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rosiespark and I have been discussing series 1 Doctor Who episode by episode. I started off with Rose, she followed up with The End of the World, and now it's my turn again here with The Unquiet Dead. I might as well confess at the outset that "The Unquiet Dead" is my least favourite of all the episodes of Doctor Who I have seen. I can't entirely put my finger on why, though I think there are four reasons - five, maybe - all of which can be summed up as "Mark Gatiss' writing style". The fact that he himself refers to "the morbid, ebony-black grotesqueness of the nineteenth century" is not a good sign for his approach. I'll try not to dwell on the negative, because watching this again, I still enjoyed myself - it doesn't annoy me, or bore me, or make me want to watch something else instead. I still love the Doctor and Rose in it. It's more that I find the other characters dull and the story fairly weak - not really funny, not really scary.
Breaking it down into aspects:
- Charles Dickens. I was disappointed by the way Dickens was portrayed. Yes, I know it's my own fannishness coming through here. It isn't that Simon Callow isn't a good actor - I've loved him in other things. It's the concept: Dickens as being old and jaded; or Dickens as a skeptic, despite the evidence of his own eyes; Dickens as a foil to the Doctor. I'd like to see him as smarter, snappier, wittier.
On the plus side, I did love it that the Doctor is a fan, and happy to say so. (Despite Martin Chuzzelwit.) His fannishness didn't come across with the sincerity I saw in David Tennant's performance of the Doctor facing Shakespeare in The Shakespeare Code, and he seemed a little too willing to criticize Dickens.... If I were an eight year old who didn't know anything about Dickens, I wouldn't have been left thinking highly of Dickens from this.
My favourite of his lines: "What phantasmagoria is this?" - The Story. The plot doesn't entirely make sense to me, though it's intriguing. I'm not very fond of Mark Gatiss' understated writing style; his characters seem to me a little smaller than life.
But there are some aspects of the story I do like. One is the continuity between this episode and Torchwood; the Rift goes right through Sneed's house - does that mean his house was right on the site of what later became Roald Dahl Plass, with the fountain and the Millennium Centre? I like that. But the story implies that it has been only the Gelth trying to get through the Rift for many, many years - perhaps they blocked the entryway? When the Gelth say, "Open the Rift!" I thought of Bilis - and Owen. And when the Doctor said, "The Rift is getting wider," I thought; "That line was stolen from Torchwood!" Though I suppose it's really the other way round.
As far as I know, this is the only episode of Doctor Who with a psychic character, aside from the Doctor himself.
The Gelth reminded me of the Family in "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood", except that they inhabit the living, while the Gelth favour corpses. Because of the gas. The gas connections weren't entirely convincing to me; but that's okay, it wouldn't be the only Doctor Who villains who didn't entirely make sense to me. - Interesting to see Eve Myles play Gwyneth. She doesn't remind me of Gwen Cooper, which is a sign of Eve Myles' grasp of characterization. At the same time, I don't find Gwyneth very interesting. I do like her private conversation with Rose about the butcher boy's bum, but there remains something limited about her - it doesn't seem to me that Gwyneth has much personality.
I love it that she mentioned "bad wolf". - Again, I love it that the Gelth mentioned the Time War - a phrase calculated to trigger the Doctor's sense of concern and guilt. Did they know that? What, then, did they know of the Doctor? Were they using a psychic conduit trick, through Gwyneth, to know what phrase to use? Or were they in fact victims of the Time War, just not very nice ones?
- There are many clues here to reinforce my belief that the Doctor is already very much in love with Rose, even if he doesn't know what to do about it - except feel guilty. Is there any other point at which he says she's beautiful?
- I might add that I think Rose has a beautiful personality, but I thought she looked awful in that dress and bonnet. The boots were good. I loved the boots.
- The voices of the Gelth sounded like the fairies in "Small Worlds" and the petal-aliens in "Fear Her". Are there no other ways to do group-personality aliens?
- Interesting that Rose thinks the bodies of the dead should be respected, and the Doctor doesn't. Is it that he thinks the needs of the living outweigh the needs of the dead? This episode skirts on some life and death issues that are very interesting, but never quite comes to grips with the articulation of any of them. It isn't that this is beyond the scope of a kid's show, since other episodes do it well. It's more that this particular episodes hints at meanings and then backs off.
- The best thing about this episode was its discussion of time. There are some terrific quotes. For example:
Rose: Think about it, though. Christmas 1860 happens once, just once, and then it's finished. It's gone, it'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone. A hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still.
And despite my rude comments about Mark Gatiss a while back, I think that is a beautifully written passage, both for content and wording: a hundred thousand sunsets. It says a lot about Rose, and he intelligence and insight, not to mention her sense of beauty. It also conveys something about the Doctor himself; his sense of priorities, the way they dovetail with hers.
I wonder, though: "You can go back and see days that are dead and gone." I assume he can't go back to the same day over and over - no Groundhog Day here? Or can he? Captain Jack implies he has gone back to Volcano Day and the Blitz more than once - is he carefully trying to avoid himself all the time, or is the timeline more complicated than that? - Other good aspects about that scene: the Doctor says, "Give the man a medal. Earth. Naples. December 24th, 1860." But it turns out it isn't. Presumably the controls on the TARDIS aren't very accurate. Or is the TARDIS lying to him? I like the notion that the TARDIS sees and finds its own trouble spots, and might have spotted the problem with the Rift and the Gelth from afar. Or maybe the TARDIS was trying to keep them out of trouble - it was clear that the Doctor hadn't a clue what was happening in Naples on Christmas Eve, 1860, but it seems to me that around that time Garibaldi was advancing on the city with his armies of liberation. The TARDIS might have been trying to keep them out of a war zone. - Oh, I just noticed: Garibaldi and those soldiers were actually in an early draft of this story. Heh.
- And the following phrase strikes me as utterly romantic:
Rose: ...It's Christmas.
Which, in keeping with the overt tone of the show, is said lightly, but really has depths and layers: he's making a gift to her of time and space. Or, in fact, this time and this space, in all its unique specialness which she articulates so perfectly. And then the punchline, after her speech:
The Doctor: All yours.The Doctor: Not a bad life.
...And I can't help thinking, what perfect articulation of romance, or Romance with a capital R, worthy of the greatest of poets and writers, and delivered subtly and casually in a somewhat macabre horror story written so as not to bore the 8 year olds.
Rose: Better with two.
This is echoed by the heroic dialogue later on:Rose: But we'll go down fighting, yeah?
It's anyone's guess as to the levels of self-awareness there, at least on Rose's part.
The Doctor: You bet.
Rose: Together.
The Doctor: Yeah. I'm glad I met you.
Rose: Me too. - I love it that the Doctor calls Rose "Barbarella". But does he worry about what she wears in other episodes? Do fashion choices only matter in connection with the past, not the future? Personally I wish he'd dressed in some elegant fashion of 1860 because he's look terrific, but I like the way Nine dressed anyway. No complaints about that jumper from me.
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ruminations on Reinette
Date: 2007-08-30 04:33 am (UTC)Yes. That 'fitting together' is important to me, it's part of the structure of the story - probably the most important part of storytelling, to my mind. Without that, there's no shape to the story, the point is weakened. And I'm not sure at all what the point of "The Girl in the Fireplace" was. In a way, I enjoy that uncertainty, because it's fun to speculate about it. On the other hand, I don't have many ideas about it (compared to some other idea-sparking DW stories), and I don't see many fans writing about it. Not that I'm specifically looking. But there's a sense of 'near-miss' about it all. Or maybe not so 'near'.
And I don't think it would be any better if the Ten/Reinette relationship had more emotional oomph. Of course it would have made for a better show, but I'm not sure that would have clarified the picture. It would have been moving, but potentially we'd be left with two strong relationships (Ten/Rose and Ten/Reinette) and no way to choose between them, no point to their 'compare and contrast' juxtaposition.
Compare it to Torchwood's "Captain Jack Harkness", which had some similar features - a time-cross romance, the protagonist falling suddenly in love with someone in the past, but he can't stay. Someone else waiting for him at home (regardless of the vagueness of the Jack/Ianto relationship, it does exist!) But the relationship was nicely focussed, it had emotional impact, and I was never left thinking, "What was happening there?" - either in terms of feelings or plot.
Ten seems to have a pretty short attention span, flitting from one thing to another, but Nine seems to be able to split his attention without losing the signal
Interesting. I think I agree. Certainly I thought Nine did an amazing job of accepting and integrating both Rose and Jack into his life (and into the life of the TARDIS) without missing a beat. While Ten - well, from "Utopia" to "The Last of the Time Lords", Jack, Martha and Ten, even though they are working together and pretty much on the same page, are three separate individuals. Torn apart rather than bonded. I had expected and hoped that the rift between Jack and the Doctor (the 'wrongness') would lead to a resolution in "The Last of the Time Lords" in which that would be overcome. Instead it seemed... mostly forgotten, or at least dropped by the wayside.
Interesting too that Jack, who can form a deep friendship or a deep love with a stranger in almost no time at all, doesn't form much of a bond with Martha, either.... Was it just circumstances, or Davies' new directions for the plot, or was it Ten's knack of keeping people separate rather than bringing them together?
It makes me think that if Nine were the Doctor in "The Girl in the Fireplace", Reinette would have made it onto the TARDIS and even Mickey would have found his place. Or - even if not literally - there would have been a sense of community among them that never developed in the story we had.
Put another way: Nine gathers people to him. Ten drives them away.
He seems to have that capacity, which would be the alien part of him, but also very human.
I agree absolutely.
Nesbitt...I'm afraid he's one of the few people who just repulses me on sight (Nicolas Cage is another).
I like Cage. Not Nesbitt. Makes me hesitant to even give him a chance.
But I mostly want to see how they handle a Katrina story with pretty, privileged white people (three blond(ish) blue-eyed folks) at the center.
My mind is boggling. Me, I want to see Nana and Monica in Heroes. I wonder what that show's take on Katrina will be? I was shocked to see the news about the anniversary - what a mess things in New Orleans still are. It shouldn't be that way.
Re: ruminations on Reinette
Date: 2007-09-05 10:55 pm (UTC)I...haven't really got a clue either. I could be happy with the sheer technical exercise of the time travel love story if I cared about the love story. But where it fits in the arc of our characters is difficult to tell. The fact that they cut out a line about Rose knowing about the emergency return is, well, stupid because (1) they cut it out, and (2) nothing in the way Rose and MIckey acted indicated that they had a course of action that they could pursue. Yes, Ten is ADD (as opposed to Nine, who shifted swiftly from one thing to another, but could still keep a line through - and from what I've seen of older Doctors, particularly Two and Four, that's a very Doctorish trait), but for all we know, Rose and Mickey are stranded, maybe even to starve to death or be attacked by the robots. As a standalone episode, it could have been fantastic (Hugo aside, I find it tremendously flawed); but in the context of the show, it's messy. That the Doctor and Rose are all chummy and allied against Mickey in the opening of the next episode doesn't help. They were just so good at emotional continuity in S1, it was a bit of a shock.
Of course it would have made for a better show, but I'm not sure that would have clarified the picture.
Yeah. I felt a bit the same (although to a much smaller degree) about HN/FOB and the way it sat against LOTL. Was it intentionally setting us up to see the hypocrisy/lack of consistency in this Doctor. Do we need to exacerbate that by elevating him to a forgiving Christ figure? Did they even bother to think about that juxtaposition?
It's been awhile, but I think I mentioned before, in addition to CJH, I can think of two episodes of ST:TNG and one of the old Outer Limits where they were able to create a believable and moving love story in 45 minutes. GitF didn't do it.
Nine gathers people to him. Ten drives them away.
Yes. I think that's true. I was just having a conversation with someone about the radiation scene in Utopia and she was talking about the intensity of the scene and...well, I didn't find it intense. I thought JB did a very good job, but I just felt that Ten was using that radiation shield as a literal shield and not really allowing a connection to happen. I thought even with Rose, Ten was holding a distance that Nine didn't, and I did find it a little painful at times that Rose didn't seem to see it.
Another question I keep turning over. Nine was broken and damaged and pulled himself together to care about others. He healed enough to open up and let Rose in, let Jack in, and even to confront the Daleks and surrender (I'm a big believer that in some situations, surrender is the stronger thing to do). So I'm trying to figure out what the progression, or even reaction, is supposed to be. I'm still unsure what the show wants me to think about Ten, and that keeps me on edge almost more than anything.
I wonder what that show's take on Katrina will be? I was shocked to see the news about the anniversary - what a mess things in New Orleans still are. It shouldn't be that way.
I hope that Heroes does something at least sensitive with the story. I remember very clearly watching the news, particularly shots of people trying to walk out on the Interstate, and I couldn't quite wrap my head around, "Here is a major American city, a huge cultural center, in the modern day, and we're losing it!"
Re: ruminations on Reinette and Rose
Date: 2007-09-13 02:56 pm (UTC)And this is crucially important to what was actually happening in terms of the plot. For Ten to simply abandon Rose for love of another woman in another time is one thing; for him to abandon Rose to her death in a cold and distant future (for any reason) is quite another. Especially since one could well think, at that point in the story, he did the same with Jack on the Game Station - so we have not just a Time Lord who abruptly leaves his loving companions in the lurch, but one who careleslly kills them off as he does so. Ouch!
Of course we don't have that, and it's just a bit of bad editing. But it leaves us unsure what we do have. Certainly on first viewing - not knowing about the cut line - it looked to me as if the Doctor was leaving Rose to her certain death. I'd love to see "The Girl in the Fireplace" redone with slightly different casting or directing, and that line restored. Just to see what different nuances we could coax from it.
Moreover, if we knew that Rose had an option - that she could have just taken the TARDIS and left - it shows a whole different aspect of her reactions, too. She didn't just wait for the Doctor because she had no other option. She could stay and wait, or she could leave, and she chose to stay and wait for the Doctor however long it took. I find that wonderfully romantic and would want to play it up. (Well, I could do it in fic. If I wanted to write Rose/Ten.)
It also plays to the potentially negative side of Rose's relationship with the Doctor - the side that Jackie sees. The fact that she can and will throw away her life, not just her lifestyle, or her home, or her family, for the Doctor's sake. And she'll do it not just for a major issue like the survival of the human race, but for one of his personal whims - and he might abandon her anywhere, any time.
Now, I think the Doctor/Rose relationship is one of the best romances I've seen on television, ever - but I like that 'what if' edge of risk and irrationality to it. It's all the stronger because it can't be secure, and all involved know that.
And that's where the big differences between series 1 and series 2 come in. Series 1 is building the relationship. Series 2 twists it into odd shapes and stomps on it. I would also say that in series 1 there was a strong mutuality to the relationship. In series 2 we get more emphasis on the Doctor's loneliess, his isolation, his fear of domesticity, and the focus is on Rose's love for him rather than his for her.
This explains something that had perpexed me.
another screener
Date: 2007-09-18 02:58 am (UTC)Re: another screener
Date: 2007-09-18 02:34 pm (UTC)Re: ruminations on Reinette and Rose
Date: 2007-09-23 01:05 am (UTC)For Ten to simply abandon Rose for love of another woman in another time is one thing; for him to abandon Rose to her death in a cold and distant future (for any reason) is quite another. Especially since one could well think, at that point in the story, he did the same with Jack on the Game Station - so we have not just a Time Lord who abruptly leaves his loving companions in the lurch, but one who careleslly kills them off as he does so. Ouch!
Yes. It's an awkward transition, and I don't know how much of it was considered by the writers, including RTD and Moffat. The Doctor of yore did move on very quickly from companion to companion. Nine said "always moving on", but there was this little tinge there (again, possibly just Eccleston bringing depth) that he knew he was running. Ten knows, too, I think (reading the radiation room scene in Utopia as I do), but he doesn't regret it nearly as much. It's another indication that Nine/Eccleston was an anomaly, but it's a deviation I must say I like. I still have a very hard time seeing Nine abandoning Jack on the GameStation just because he seemed "wrong" or Rose on the MdP because he didn't think to warn her... It just seems out of character. And yet, to me, it doesn't seem out of character for Ten. I wouldn't even mind that as a character trait if I thought that the show recognized that he was being a jerk when he did it. I just am not confident that they do. Cutting the crucial line from GitF is problematic on several accounts, but if they were trying to draw a difference between the regenerations, that'd be it. Of course, I don't really see Nine getting looped out of his gourd on banana daquiris, either.
I'd love to see "The Girl in the Fireplace" redone with slightly different casting or directing, and that line restored. Just to see what different nuances we could coax from it.
I'd love to see it with CE and someone he could click with. I think then I'd feel the tragedy. Even DT with Sarah Parrish would have been an improvement. Just as I'd really have loved to see CE in School Reunion. I just think he does emotional in a way that feels so natural and yet transparent.
Moreover, if we knew that Rose had an option - that she could have just taken the TARDIS and left - it shows a whole different aspect of her reactions, too.
Yes. I can't believe they cut that line... It's just so crucial. How stupid was that script editing session?!
She could stay and wait, or she could leave, and she chose to stay and wait for the Doctor however long it took. I find that wonderfully romantic and would want to play it up.
Although to paraphrase Spinal Tap, sometimes there's a thin line between romantic and stupid. She could turn into Miss Haversham, and I think that's what Jackie sees, and even what I see happening in S2. That emphasis on his fear and/or wallowing in his loneliness and fear of commitment makes her love seem desperate and masochistic. S2 is weirdly disjunct, I think because the arc got interrupted. If BP was supposed to stay in CyberWorld halfway through, then I think this all works really very well. She realizes she can't trust him, she stays where she's got a father, friends, and a purpose. The problem was that after the Cyber!two-parter, all of a sudden, they're all giggly and grinny and promising forever, etc. It's not a logical progression, emotionally, as far as I can see, so there's not just a break between S1 and S2, but a break halfway through S2. And stepping back, it's a blatant manipulation to make DD seem all the more tragic.
Re: ruminations on Reinette and Rose
Date: 2007-09-25 02:32 pm (UTC)Nine said "always moving on", but there was this little tinge there (again, possibly just Eccleston bringing depth) that he knew he was running.
Perhaps running to more of a purpose...? Or perhaps this is a slowly developing theme of Davies, or not so much a developing theme as a motif, how the Doctor has to pay the price of 'moving on' and always has. I am puzzled by the line about his own wedding(s?) in "Blink".
I loved "Doomsday" and didn't see the disjunct in S2, though I do see the theme of S2 as being less of a progression and more of a random roller coaster ride. By the end of S3 it's so random that when you look closely, it doesn't make much sense. My tendency then is to stare so hard I force some sense into it - most fans are happier, I think, to either go with the flow, or drop it.
I can't imagine how they're going to make Martha fit into Torchwood!
Re: ruminations on Reinette and Rose
Date: 2007-09-23 01:06 am (UTC)Context really does matter. Although I had a friend who had a very similar reaction, even though he'd seen all of S1 (I think he had a crush on both Eccleston and Piper!) and was watching S2 with some attention, to the point where he refused to talk about the show with me until he'd seen it and could form his own opinions. He got fed up with Tennant fairly early (in fact, I think GITF was his getting-off point), but the thing that he said after T&C (keeping in mind that both New Earth and T&C are full of squeeful cuteness) was, "It doesn't make sense. The Doctor doesn't love Rose any more."
I think it makes sense for Ten to pull back and be less involved than Nine was. And I think it makes sense for them to go back to a more "classic" Doctor/Companion relationship after Rose, because it seems that was never the plan anyway (damn that CE/BP chemistry!). But they seem either undecided or uneven in the execution.
BTW, did you send me an e-mail? If so, it seems to have gotten trapped in my spam filter somewhere...
Re: ruminations on Reinette and Rose
Date: 2007-09-25 02:18 pm (UTC)Very understandable! By the end, I think I did, too.... Though it was Martha who really won my heart.
"It doesn't make sense. The Doctor doesn't love Rose any more."
Interesting observation. I think I would say... not so much that he doesn't love her any more, as that he loved her in a different way, or lost his ability to show it. He was no longer comfortable with it, or certainly not in the way Nine was. Backing off. There was also a level of protectiveness that changed.
I sent you an email; I'll try sending another...!
identity and relationships: Rose, Reinette and the Master
Date: 2007-09-13 03:08 pm (UTC)This leads me to another question. By the reasoning I've been following here, if Nine had not regenerated, he would have come back for Jack. But Ten wouldn't have, and didn't.
"The Girl in the Fireplace" also raises the corollary question of Mickey, who of course was there for love of Rose, but was it his choice to die there for the sake of her love for the Doctor? Perhaps it was, at that point, just as it was almost Rose's choice to die for the sake of the Doctor's love for Reinette. Since Mickey's feelings at that point weren't relevant to the story, we don't know quite what they were. Did he even entirely understand what was going on? Mickey let Rose wait five and a half hours for the Doctor - suppose it had been a day? A week? Would he have let Rose wait forever?
The thing is, I love "The Girl in the Fireplace" for its holes and questions as much as for anything it actually contains. I think. I just wish the Ten/Reinette relationship were stronger, because its compelling quality is the central rationale of the story. It might be because they were playing to the eight year olds. It might be because Sophia Myles just isn't good enough, or because she and Tennant were feeling self-conscious about showing public passion at that point.
Re emotional continuity: perhaps it is that, having done his core story arc in series 1, and making it at thing of perfectly crafted beauty in its tightness of composition, Russell T. Davies started playing with themes in series 2. By series 3 he was losing (or completely dropping) the emotional threads - cutting and breaking them, in fact, and retying them in pretty bows meant to shock or surprise or titillate but not to go in the standard narrative directions. I can't really fault this as a creative choice any more than I can faul Picasso for exploring cubism, but as a viewer who loves relationship themes and tight narrative, I found it unsatisfying in that way.
in addition to CJH, I can think of two episodes of ST:TNG and one of the old Outer Limits where they were able to create a believable and moving love story in 45 minutes. GitF didn't do it.
I think it did - but the love story was between Ten and Rose, not Ten and Reinette; and it was subtle, not overt; and so nonconventional that no one knew what to make of it. Whether this is good in storytelling terms I'm not sure, but I personally loved it, and obviously enough fans did to give it a Hugo, though I'm not sure how much they thought about the implications. (Not that they have to, of course.) It's a sort of misdirection of theme that I find fascinating and somewhat disquieting.
Re: identity and relationships: Rose, Reinette and the Master
Date: 2007-09-23 01:37 am (UTC)That's an interesting parallel I hadn't thought of (although in LOTTL, it's more Ten/Jack&Martha/Master). And it is, as you say, the inverse of the Rose/Nine/Jack triad, where they really are a unit that pulls together, not a set of opposing forces pushing apart.
By the reasoning I've been following here, if Nine had not regenerated, he would have come back for Jack. But Ten wouldn't have, and didn't.
I simply cannot wrap my head around Nine abandoning Jack unless he knew it was for the better (having taken in the Time Vortex, he saw all the possible futures and knew that Jack needed to stay behind). However, I really don't have trouble seeing Ten abandoning him because we see him do it in both S2 and S3, as you say, and he had "never thought" with Sarah Jane. The only way I can see it is if Nine is in the throes of regeneration and is so concentrated on saving Rose, thinking Jack was dead, that he somehow "missed" that he was revived. The character continuity doesn't work, unless you see Nine as already in the process of regeneration, and becoming Ten.
Mickey let Rose wait five and a half hours for the Doctor - suppose it had been a day? A week? Would he have let Rose wait forever?
Excellent question. I hope not. I hope that Mickey is already making his transition from Tin Dog to revolutionary (trying to forget that loathesome "button" joke in the next episode...). I suppose, more than that, I hope that Rose would have been "still human enough" (to paraphrase Jackie in AoG) not to want to sacrifice someone else to her quixotic quest.
Re: the chemistry question, I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (can't remember the title), but it was the episode where two of the actors (Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor) suddenly looked at each other and went "phwoar!" - after having worked together for a couple of years. It was an extraordinary moment. I had no idea about the backstage gossip at the time, I just remember thinking, "Whoa, where did that come from?" and rolling the tape back to watch, just because it was so compelling. I wish we could have gotten some of that.
By series 3 he was losing (or completely dropping) the emotional threads - cutting and breaking them, in fact, and retying them in pretty bows meant to shock or surprise or titillate but not to go in the standard narrative directions. I can't really fault this as a creative choice any more than I can faul Picasso for exploring cubism, but as a viewer who loves relationship themes and tight narrative, I found it unsatisfying in that way.
I agree, I think there are places for disjunct storytelling. I'm just not sure he's really trying that. I keep going back to The Second Coming, which I do think is his magnum opus so far. There are all sorts of misdirections in that - I remember the first time I saw it, I was stunned to realize we were well into the denouement when I thought we were just marking time to the climax. And the lead/POV character kept shifting - one character who seemed absolutely central in the first third just disappeared and never came back. But it worked. In the end, it did all hang together for me. Maybe he's just getting tired and/or sloppy. I'm actually thinking that a hiatus is not a bad idea.
As for GITF, I still don't know what I think it was really saying even about Ten and Rose. When I first saw it, it seemed to be another pointed object lesson that he was more flighty in this incarnation. Although honestly, I had more problems with the plotholes like jumping Arthur through the mirror because it looked cool...and then just standing there! I loved the first act, but the follow through was messy. I think it got the Hugo on concept rather than execution. Both Blink and HN/FOB will be more deserving - Blink is more "perfect", I think, though HN/FOB is more ambitious.
Re: identity and relationships: Rose, Reinette and the Master
Date: 2007-09-24 03:28 pm (UTC)Granted, though one could also say that in "Fireplace" it's Ten/Reinette/Rose/Mickey - another configuration with its own complications.
the inverse of the Rose/Nine/Jack triad
Yes. And I was going to make a comment starting "If Mickey had been there", but I found I couldn't, because Mickey wouldn't have been there - the Doctor made a point of that back in "Rose": "You're not invited". I don't think it means that Ten is more tolerant or forgiving, just that he has different priorities, different ways of judging and choosing.
I simply cannot wrap my head around Nine abandoning Jack unless he knew it was for the better (having taken in the Time Vortex, he saw all the possible futures and knew that Jack needed to stay behind).
Maybe, though as it was, it didn't turn out so well. So I begin to think that Nine, knowing Jack was alive, meant to go back for him after he'd saved Rose; once he was Ten, the "wrongness" Jack horrified him into running - or, put another way, he was overcome by his prejudices into taking another path. I can see Nine putting Rose first, daving her first, because he sees Jack as a warrior.
I hope that Mickey is already making his transition from Tin Dog to revolutionary (trying to forget that loathesome "button" joke in the next episode...)
I don't think Mickey has completed his transition - it's a slow process. It starts with his decision to follow Rose onto the TARDIS. It ends... with "Army of Ghosts". When he has learned to much. I think he first had to see how big the universe was/is/will be. In "Fireplace" he doesn't seem to have figured that out yet.
I suppose, more than that, I hope that Rose would have been "still human enough" (to paraphrase Jackie in AoG) not to want to sacrifice someone else to her quixotic quest.
I hope so, though she certainly appears unilaterally directed.
Interesting re Siddig and Visitor - two actors I like, though I'd stopped watching "DS9" long before that point. Doctor Who seems to have given us the opposite, to some extent. Implication, rather than strong explosive emotional movements. Now, this sense of reticence sometimes makes emotional moments very powerful - sometimes it works well, sometimes it just isn't adequate.
I think there are places for disjunct storytelling. I'm just not sure he's really trying that.
I'm not sure how much it is intentional, and how much it is carelessness.
I think it got the Hugo on concept rather than execution.
On first viewing, I was both amused and stunned by it. Stunned because it was different, because it took me by surprise from so many directions at once, not least the polyamory angles. I still don't know what to think about who in the episode thought and felt what about whom, and to some extent I liked that element of uncertainly or emotional evolution - a sort of mix and match that went way beyong normal TV fare. But that was when I was assuming a certain emotional continuity for Ten. I got it, I think, for series 2, but series three has left me all the more confused. I think I've got it, but it's my own quirky interpretation of events rather than what Davies actually gives us - because what he gives, he also takes away.
Both Blink and HN/FOB will be more deserving - Blink is more "perfect"
"Blink" is utterly amazing, one of the best one-hour TV shows I've ever seen. It has such structure and the characters are so well drawn.
HN/FOB is more ambitious.
Agreed. A classic of its kind, with some flaws - particularly for me, but even taking into account my emotional resistence to some of it (and my irritation and lack of sympathy for John Smith), I think it's a brilliant story. And the things I hated in "The Last of the Time Lords" are pretty much done the right way here: the Doctor thanks Martha at the end, and she stays, and I didn't feel his love for Joan lessened his love for Martha.
evolution of a Time Lord
Date: 2007-09-13 03:10 pm (UTC)I don't know what I thought. I liked it when I first saw it. If "The Last of the Time Lords" had delivered a resolution, I'd probably still like it. I found the scene intriguingly ambiguous. At the beginning of that scene there is a gap - a chasm - between two people who had loved each other. One of them has been rather obsessively looking for the other for 138 years. The other has been elusive - both in terms of avoiding the other and avoiding the issue within himself. The conversation is meant to explain, explore and (possibly) repair that chasm by bringing the two characters to an understanding. Does it do that? I still don't know. On the basis of that episode alone, I'd have said 'yes', if only because of Ten's smile after Jack calls him prejudiced.
On the basis of the situation two episodes later, I'd say 'no'. I'd say it is a sort of detente, with everything frozen at a status quo - the Doctor willing to accept Jack but not to love him as Nine had; Jack willing to respect the Doctor's changed feelings, and step back.
Thinking of it that way helps me. That almost works.
It occurs to me now that throughout series 2, I was interpreting Ten as a continuation of Nine - extrapolating from that, as if they were one person. Because Ten insisted he was not a discontinuity, and convinced Rose that he was the same person. Or perhaps... seduced Rose all over again, so she didn't care whether it was the same man, and was willing to accept the fiction.
As you can see, I'm no longer sure I buy the explanation that Nine and Ten are the same person. It's a different person with the same memories. Series 2 and 3 make a lot more sense if I assume a discontinuity, a discontinuity that is more significant than the similarities, that the Doctor who loved Rose and Jack really isn't the same person or personality who re-emerged like a Pheonix, even if he has some of the same characteristics. It's as if the same personal background created different psychological damage that has to be dealt with all over again - and I don't just mean the Time War.
Re: evolution of a Time Lord
Date: 2007-10-07 10:07 pm (UTC)I found the [radiation room] scene intriguingly ambiguous.
I can see where you're coming from on all this - I do think that I expected it to go somewhere. It felt...tentative. I expected there to be some payoff in which the Doctor recognizes and gets over his prejudice. We all have prejudices, and the first step to getting over them is "admitting you have a problem." But that part of the conversation never really happened. I did sense the Doctor holding back, and Jack giving everything, offering everything (his "fantastic!" just killed me), but the Doctor didn't really respond to it. And that's what we got pretty much until the end of the series, from both Martha and Jack. It doesn't help my feelings that the Doctor, this incarnation especially, is selfish. I don't think he "doesn't realize", which is an argument I've seen. I do think he does, but I think he's an emotional coward.
As you can see, I'm no longer sure I buy the explanation that Nine and Ten are the same person.
This is a place I really see them as different - Nine would back down from a fight if it meant mindless death; but as an individual being, he was all about making connections; Ten is all "no second chances - for everyone except the ones I care about, and I'm gonna make arbitrary decisions, so there!", but he doesn't really give of himself. Even his desire to keep the Master with him was less about being the last of a species and more about "you are not alone". And I do think he was deluding everyone with Rose, at the same time he wasn't about to commit.
I have to wonder what would have happened at the end of POTW if it had been Ten.
Or perhaps... seduced Rose all over again, so she didn't care whether it was the same man, and was willing to accept the fiction.
This is how I read it. Well, close, anyway - I felt like she wanted it to be true so badly that she was sweeping aside anything that didn't fit and trying RLY RLY hard to convince herself that he was there and cute, whee! It felt desperate.
Series 2 and 3 make a lot more sense if I assume a discontinuity, a discontinuity that is more significant than the similarities, that the Doctor who loved Rose and Jack really isn't the same person or personality who re-emerged
I have to say, I felt the difference right away. I was actually reassured by the Pudsey Cutaway, but I felt his difference in TCI in his treatment of Harriet, but even more strongly in New Earth, T&C, and of course GITF. I do wonder if people are cutting him slack because they are reading through Nine, or just because they think Ten is cute, but it has bugged me all along that I *couldn't* read Ten as a continuation of Nine. And going back to other Doctors, as different as he is in dress and speech, Nine seems more in the tradition of the eccentric teacher than Ten, who has his delusions of Godhood. But then when SonOfMine gives his "he burns at the center of the Universe" spiel, it doesn't seem to fit Ten. He seem too...small for that kind of description.
It's as if the same personal background created different psychological damage that has to be dealt with all over again - and I don't just mean the Time War.
In some ways, what I regretted most about S2 was the negation of Nine. We never got to mourn him - and we should have. I know why they didn't, but it felt awful not to get any of that; could we not have seen Rose folding away the jacket, with a loving look? There's a reason that's a fanfic cliché. We needed it. And I'm really not thrilled with the whole alt!Pete issue. I don't like Rose being given her family back, although I can see why it was done. It's a bit too pat. I wanted her to go out with purpose, but instead she was positioned again as a child.
Re: evolution of a Time Lord, reply part 1
Date: 2007-10-22 02:22 pm (UTC)I've had trouble finding lulls, but now it's Monday morning and nothing has started happening yet. If I type fast, I may be all right.
I can see where you're coming from on all this - I do think that I expected it to go somewhere. It felt...tentative.
I think it was way too ambiguous: there are several ways it could be interpreted and no indication of which we are meant to go for. I think there has always been a touch of deliberate ambiguity in the Doctor/Jack relationship, which is fine, but here it left us out on a limb. On first viewing I thought they'd reached a stage of communication where they could carry on with the friendship. Since things didn't quite develop that way - or were we supposed to believe they did? - I'm not sure whether the conversation meant anything, or whether it resolved anything. The Doctor's smile - what did it mean? Did he acknowledge and put aside his prejudice, or simply consider the question? I'm sure sure now what we were supposed to make of it. Except that at last the Doctor both spoke to Jack, and looked at him. Through a window and a security door; the conversation broadcast to their friends and acqaintances.
that part of the conversation never really happened.
No. Non-resolution. If the Doctor had said, "I was wrong; forgive me," that would have been one thing... even if he'd said it veiled terms, as he might. But he said nothing. What does he feel about Jack, at that point? I have no real idea. The impression is: nothing at all.
I did sense the Doctor holding back, and Jack giving everything, offering everything (his "fantastic!" just killed me), but the Doctor didn't really respond to it.
"Aloof" is the kind word for it. At first, he was hostile and cold. After the Radiation Room conversation - well, Jack is useful to him, but - what more? Anything?
Re: evolution of a Time Lord, reply part 2
Date: 2007-10-22 02:22 pm (UTC)That replaces one problem (that the Doctor is cold or cruel) with a worse one - that's he stupid. I'd rather believe in the cruelty.
I do think he does, but I think he's an emotional coward.
I think a few weeks ago I would have simply agreed with you. And I do. But... I see a little more than cowardice in it. He doesn't just run. He... attacks emotionally. Not just passive resistance, but real defensiveness, real... manipulation of those who love him. Maybe I see him offering and then withholding love, like a carrot on a stick. As if he's saying, "Come with me - stay with me - live with me - but don't get close." Like the repeatedly saying he was taking Martha home, but then not doing it. "One more adventure."
Even his desire to keep the Master with him was less about being the last of a species and more about "you are not alone".
I can only see the Doctor as being a little unhinged by then. He seemed to see the Master as a reflection of himself; the doppelganger, the other Gallifreyan, the alternate self. Which makes the love a kind of self-love. I'm not sure what to make of it but it's what I'm seeing when I try to decipher it. Perhaps the Master's existence assuaged the Doctor's guilt at being responsible for the deaths of all the other Gallifreyans, but does it make sense that he was willing to let the people of Earth be eradicated because of it? I suppose it makes sense, yes, but it's hardly heroic!
trying RLY RLY hard to convince herself that he was there and cute, whee! It felt desperate.
I wish I knew what was going through her head in the five and a half hours she waited for him in "The Girl in the Fireplace". That whole episode was surely a statement of non-commitment. And come to think of it, much as I believe in the Ten/Rose love, the theme over and over was her saying "I'll stay with you forever" and him saying, "Will you stay with me?" rather than saying he'd stay with her. I actually like this - commitment on his terms only - but that means I want him to be all the more kind, all caring about his friends, the Earth, Jack, whoever. What does it mean to Ten to say he's the Earth's Champion, when he let the Earth go to rack and ruin in "The Last of the Time Lords"? He fought to save Earth from the Sycorax, but wouldn't fight to save it from the Master. I don't mind the fact of this as much as the implications.
I have to wonder what would have happened at the end of POTW if it had been Ten.
First, I think he might have been more vengeful with the Daleks. Or more suicidal. Or both.
Re: evolution of a Time Lord, reply part 3
Date: 2007-10-22 02:23 pm (UTC)I was. I did. After all, I didn't know any other versions of the Doctor. He said he was the same, and like Rose, I saw no option except to believe him.
or just because they think Ten is cute
I think Ten is charming. He's so far from the type I usually like that it's hard otherwise to judge... No, wait, just find the right words. I find him cute, charming, and adorable. But not usually sexy. Not that he's never sexy, which confuses the issue.
Nine seems more in the tradition of the eccentric teacher than Ten, who has his delusions of Godhood.
I liked the godhood notion with Nine. With Ten... it's as if the god has lost his concern for the mortals under his care. Nine grumbled, and then saved everyone. Ten doesn't grumble, but he doesn't save, either.
could we not have seen Rose folding away the jacket, with a loving look?
I would have liked that, but I think they didn't want to remind us.
I'm really not thrilled with the whole alt!Pete issue. I don't like Rose being given her family back, although I can see why it was done. It's a bit too pat.
I liked it, but it didn't seem like compensation - it looked like regression for Rose from woman to child again. In the beginning, I think it's fair to say that her heart's desire was to find or know her father. As she did the heroes' journey thing through the two seasons, she found her father, came to terms with him and his loss, and carried on - and her heart's desire was the Doctor. So she lost the Doctor and got her father in the end. Bitter irony. She can't just go back, that's one of the rules of Time and experience - it only goes one way. (This is all a long-winded way of saying "I agree with you." This is why I liked the Doctor's admission to Jack in "Utopia" that the fate of Rose was a tragedy, not a triumph. At the same time - it's about a year late to acknowledge that issue, and still sidesteps the issue of Jack. Who did his own hero's journey, and has his own emotional commitment to the Doctor as well as his moral commitment to the Doctor's (former) values.
I also have considerable trouble picturing Rose in alt!Torchwood.