Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"

[fajrdrako]

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:

1. 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?"



2. 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.



3. 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".



4. 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?



5. 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?



6. 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.



7. 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?



8. 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.



9. 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?



10. 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.



11. And the following phrase strikes me as utterly romantic:

    Rose: ...It's Christmas.
    The Doctor: All yours.

    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: Not a bad life.
    Rose: Better with two.

    ...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.
    
    This is echoed by the heroic dialogue later on:

    Rose: But we'll go down fighting, yeah?
    The Doctor: You bet.
    Rose: Together.
    The Doctor: Yeah. I'm glad I met you.
    Rose: Me too.

    It's anyone's guess as to the levels of self-awareness there, at least on Rose's part.



12. 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.

Comments

Re: Doctor talk

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I found another one in my inbox...

I love your icon!

I'm quite fond of that one. I wish I knew who made it, but I saw it and thought, "Yoink! That must be mine!"

what grates is not that he does the cruel things, but that he seems to do them without compassion or concern or regret. The "no mercy" aspect, which at times he seems to revel in.

Exactly. I just had a discussion with a friend of mine who kept talking about how compassionate and overly caring Ten was, and I just boggled. There may be little moments like with Chloe, but there are so many big, genocidal and hypocritical moments that it completely overpowers me.

Maybe not so much inconsistent as unpredictable?

Perhaps, yes. Although also perhaps consistent in being arbitrary, or acting in ways that I find problematic.

The problem with Ten's psychological situation is that either Rose didn't help Nine at all - after the Time War - contrary to everything we saw;

I can't believe Nine didn't heal, at least some. We were given such strong indications. I've always had the feeling that in some way Ten was a regeneration that went "wrong" (like Six), but no one either inside or outside the show was seeing it but me.

or she helped him but after she left he reverted to something less like himself than he was before.

It could have worked - Tennant's performance has always seemed to me to be more of a pastiche of previous Doctors (mostly late Tom Baker) than a genuine original like Nine and most previous Doctors were. But certainly people are worshipping him, quite literally in the show, as the Best Evah!!! I'm just baffled.

Re: Blake's 7 - I'm amused that the title character got written out halfway through the run!

Re: Numb3rs, the subsequent seasons have not lived up to the promise of S1, which had 3 or 4 outstanding episodes, and a run of several others that were stronger than average procedural shows. I also like the idea of having intelligence be a character's "superpower" as it were.

I am certainly viewing it with suspicion because I want the Doctor to be redeemed in my eyes, and I'm not sure it can happen, and I'm not at all sure they'll even try on a superficial basis.

We're definitely in the same place there. I do think bringing Donna on is at least a possibility that they recognize he needs someone to slap him. But it's not that he needs to be hit or hurt; he needs to realize his hypocrisy and selfishness, and I don't think the showrunners see it, so the chances are indeed slim.

Given this discussion, I'll be really interested to see what you think of The Second Coming.

Re: Doctor talk

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say Ten was hypocritical. Just... arbitrary. He doesn't need to explain his reasons to us, but it would be helpful if they were more clear. Yes, he can be compassionate - but it would be nice to why he is sometimes merciful and often not. Or to know what happened between, say, "The Parting of the Ways" and "School Reunion" to change him. Regeneration, yes. But why would that remove the quality of mercy?

I think the whole point of "The Parting of the Ways" was that Nine had changed - that from the crisis point of the Time Wars (in which he destroyed the Time Lords and the Daleks) to the endpoint of that episode, he changed his priorities and reversed his original decision. And that, in fact, was the whole point of series one - the ways he changed from lonely, guilty and traumatized to loving, compassionate and capable of wisely revising his judgement. That interpretation of series one is so delightful and perfect (and so in keeping with everything we see) that I am not about to abandon it.

Maybe there is a wrongness to Ten. Remember my theory that in "The Last of the Time Lords", everything Ten says about Jack is really about himself? That fits.

What happened to Six? what was wrong about his regeneration?

Yes, I agree that intelligence as a 'superpower' was a good thing about Numb3rs. The character - Charlie, was it? - reminded me of Sherlock Holmes, except that he used math rather than just observation and extrapolation.

I think the Doctor does realize what's going on.... I just can't believe he doesn't. So it seems he's just refusing to admit to his flaws (or to his flawed thinking), or at least, refusing to admit to it out loud. This is more or less the way I interpret his love of Martha. The problem with this thinking is that people around him seem to share - or pretend to share - his projected illusions, at least in "The Last of the Time Lords", which is maybe why that is the only episode that is really problematic for me.

Re: Doctor talk

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say Ten was hypocritical. Just... arbitrary. He doesn't need to explain his reasons to us, but it would be helpful if they were more clear.

He is definitely arbitrary - although I think having him not explain his reasoning is bad, or lazy, writing. It allows him to do anything and it's "okay, he's an alien". It's not very satisfying for us to watch if his actions don't have consequences that make sense. I thought S1 was brilliant at that, but sometimes I wonder if we're missing Christopher Eccleston the script editor as much or more as Christopher Eccleston the actor. He's always been so good at keeping emotional continuity, even with exceptional writers like McGovern and Davies.

But even within the arbitrariness, I do think Ten is hypocritical. There's enough of a pattern to bother me. He lays into Harriet for launching a sneak attack, and then he punishes her with a sneak attack. He's survived the Time War and is on his tenth life, but he's Mr. No Second Chances. And the imbalance between his response to the Family of Blood and the Master - or sheerly his response to the Master bothers me. I'm wondering where he gets his sense of entitlement to forgive him - it was humanity that was decimated; the Doctor isn't human, and his assumption of authority brings us full circle to TCI and the Harriet issue. I know I should probably just relax and enjoy the show, but it bugs me! :-)

I think the whole point of "The Parting of the Ways" was that Nine had changed - that from the crisis point of the Time Wars (in which he destroyed the Time Lords and the Daleks) to the endpoint of that episode, he changed his priorities and reversed his original decision. And that, in fact, was the whole point of series one - the ways he changed from lonely, guilty and traumatized to loving, compassionate and capable of wisely revising his judgement. That interpretation of series one is so delightful and perfect (and so in keeping with everything we see) that I am not about to abandon it.

Yes, I like all of that enough to repeat it. That's how I saw it, and why the pattern I see in Ten disturbs me. It's not only a reversal, it's a tearing down of everything that Nine built. And I don't think that anything they've done arc-wise has come close to being as interesting or as satisfying as that - I wouldn't have minded if we went back to one-off adventures, if not with Rose, at least with Martha. I think that would have been a very good idea, because the continuity is just getting more and more threadbare. Sheerly the number of times Earth has been invaded or the Doctor has had to intervene in the space between 2005 and 2012 must be wearing a hole in the space-time continuum!

I'm still ticked at Julie Gardner for nixing the idea of Martha being a maid from 1913 in the first place. It would have been such a different dynamic, and the whole excuse of "historicals are boring" doesn't wash. There's a simple explanation - don't make them boring! I haven't found the historicals any more problematic than any of the other stories. In fact, the best episode they've done, IMO, was a historical - TEC/TDD.

Maybe there is a wrongness to Ten. Remember my theory that in "The Last of the Time Lords", everything Ten says about Jack is really about himself? That fits.

I agree. I wish they'd use it, actually. I've said all along I would buy this as an explanation (Ten's regeneration "going a bit wrong"). It would make so much sense. But I think they want to preserve him as the cute, cheeky Doctor - while still trying to draw on the dark, tortured Doctor, and it's just not hanging together well enough, IMO, a combination of writing, direction, and performance. (I also don't see this "turning on a dime" that people talk about, but that's another issue.)

I just read this story (http://vail-kagami.livejournal.com/9410.html) about an hour ago that I think did a better job handling the Nine/Ten regeneration and leaving Jack behind than we got in canon - granted, there's the advantage of POV, but for a little unassuming fic, I was impressed by how "right" it felt.

Re: Doctor talk

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think having him not explain his reasoning is bad, or lazy, writing.

It would be fine if it meant something - if it was making part of a big picture. As it was with Nine - quite effectively, I thought. I thought it would be resolved by the end of series 3, but it wasn't: instead it was blown way open, made worse, given a total curve. But since it's inexplicit, it can't be resolved. And it could have been resolved quite easily. Perhaps they think an infinitely ongoing series needs that kind of open-endedness? Quite the contrary, say I, unless an infinitely-ongoing series gives us some aspects of closure from time to time, we lost emotional connection with it.

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look.

"Turning on a dime" - no, I don't see that either. What I see is a Doctor who is consistently wilful, and doesn't finish what he starts, and doesn't necessarily aim for the greater good. He's also amusing and endearing and frequently adorable, but untrustworthy - making him much more of a trickster god and much less The Fool or The Magician - roles I preferred for him.

Re: Doctor talk part 2

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

What happened to Six? what was wrong about his regeneration?

I haven't seen those episodes since I was a kid. But I must say, I remember enjoying Six. That said, my preferences are very different from the "mainstream". I haven't seen much of One or Seven (although I'm working on fixing that), but my favourites are Nine and Two (whom I would also rate as the best actors out of the bunch), and late Four and Five are among my least favourites, although they are considered the "classic" Who for many. And while I really do like early Four and I love Romana, I start going off Four about the time she shows up.

I think the Doctor does realize what's going on.... The problem with this thinking is that people around him seem to share - or pretend to share - his projected illusions,

Yes, that's exactly the sticking point. And I guess I've always felt it niggling at me. I have episode reaction posts going back to early S2 where I felt like Rose was pretending on some level (that huge grin in New Earth where she says "I love travelling with you" struck me as kind of desperate), and later that she was his mirror, reflecting his image of himself back to him. With Martha, my feeling is that she's not seeing underneath the mask, but knows that there is one. Now.

The character - Charlie, was it? - reminded me of Sherlock Holmes, except that he used math rather than just observation and extrapolation.

Yes, Charlie. It's a good hook. They've let it slip over the years, and I've almost given up on the show, but it's too bad. David Krumholtz is one of the best young actors out there, and they need to give him something better to do (he's a very fine actor, but a bit of a dumbass, which often does correlate!).

Re: Doctor talk part 2

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have a local friend who has been watching Doctor Who since he was young, and though he refuses to name a favourite, he was obviously very impressed with Two.

You know, I have less trouble imagining what Ten truly thinks of Martha, than I have thinking what Martha truly thinks of Ten. He's put her through a lot, and she has only articulated the thought "I love him and he doesn't love me". But it's all much more complicated than that, and I'm wondering why she loves him. Because he kissed her so nicely in "Smith and Jones"? Maybe DNA transfers are addictive!

Now, I'm not saying I think she doesn't love him truly and deeply, quite the contrary. It's just that her interior take on the matter hasn't been explored. Instead the story focuses on the frustration.

She's smart enough to understand him rather well, and goodness knows she's seen his limitations and his warts.

How could they let Charlie's numbers slip in Numb3rs? Wasn't that the main point - that math could solve practical problems?