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: Looks vs. attraction, pt. 1c

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've seen some people argue that Ianto was just being "discreet" when he approached Jack at the end, but I can't shake the feeling that GDL, if not Ianto, looked really uncomfortable in the kiss.

Another ambiguity. I felt it raised more questions than it answered. It answered the questions, "Was Jack glad to see Ianto again?" and "Did Jack forgive Ianto for betraying him again?" and the answer to both questions was "Yes."

But... If you answer the question "Why was Ianto going for a deferential handshake instead of a warm kiss?" with the answer, "He was being discreet", it begs the real question: why was he being discreet? Why has the Jack/Ianto affair been a secret from their friends? Goodness knows sexual discretion is not Jack's strong point, generally speaking. Lisa is dead and Ianto has no commitments. Since everyone at Torchwood is (apparently) bi and Ianto knows it, why be discreet? They weren't even in public, they were among their friends.

So does it imply that Ianto has mixed feelings about the relationship, or about Jack, or his own orientation? Does he feel he's competing for Jack's love with the Doctor, or with the other Captain Jack Harkness, assuming he knows anything about them? What does he know or guess about Jack's identity or his past? Is Jack telling him nothing, and that makes Ianto mistrust him? All these questions, as well as the answers, are all guesswork, because we're given nothing.

This is not entirely bad, as it leaves the field open for fanfic, but it's also... stingy on the part of the writers and producers. Give the lead character a romantic relationship but give us nothing about his feelings, or his lover's feelings? We got infinitely more with the Jack/Jack relationship, where it was clear what each man thought and felt about the other.

Maybe they didn't want to give us anything more about Jack/Ianto for fear of weaking the emotional impact of "Captain Jack Harkness", and that's fair. It did surprise me when our Jack told the other Jack "there's no one". I don't know what we're to take from that. I have my own interpretation, but it's all guesswork - the show doesn't tell.

And, yes, the Jack/Ianto kiss was awkward - more so than the differently-ambiguous kiss in "Cyberwoman". Whether that was intentional (as Ianto-characterization) or unintended (because Gareth David-Lloyd was uncomfortable with it and not a good enough actor to pull it off anyway) is unclear.

So it will be interesting to see how Ianto and Jack interact in series 2.

Freema Agyeman gave it a shot, though they had very little time together

As it was, oddly enough, it became a sort of us/them dichtomy: Jack and Martha as humans loving the Doctor and having to rescue him (and mankind) from the Master; the Doctor and the Master together as Time Lords with agendas of their own.

I've only seen the first three episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and I absolutely loved them.

Re: Looks vs. attraction, pt. 1c

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

All these questions, as well as the answers, are all guesswork, because we're given nothing.


Very, very good point - I didn't copy them all, because, yes. I agree. It's beyond ambiguous and more a set of contradictory teases. And I can sort of see the point about CJH, but honestly - they didn't have to give us Ianto/Jack at all in S1, and it probably would have been better. Have Cyberwoman and that conflict, then have CJH and Jack's adventures on DW, and then come back and see if there's any basis. Or - and I think I would have liked this better - have Jack and Ianto screwing around pre-Cyberwoman (put it later in the series) – and then have Jack find out Ianto had had Lisa in the basement. Something. Anything that made any sort of emotional sense. This is another case, it seems, of just throwing things at the page, and then at the actors.

And, yes, the Jack/Ianto kiss was awkward - more so than the differently-ambiguous kiss in "Cyberwoman". Whether that was intentional (as Ianto-characterization) or unintended (because Gareth David-Lloyd was uncomfortable with it and not a good enough actor to pull it off anyway) is unclear.

I have to admit, my first thought was that it was an acting thing. Just gut reaction. And again, I have to comment how much I loved the Jack/Owen moment, even though it really had little more emotional context - the actors just made it work. I may not like Owen much, but I love Burn Gorman. I'd almost rather some sort of awkward affair/attraction between Owen and Jack because I think the actors would pull it off.

So it will be interesting to see how Ianto and Jack interact in series 2.

Hmm. Yeees. ::makes Mr. Burns fingers:: Although we're evidently getting Mr. Blast from the Past early in the series. Maybe Ianto will just figure out that Jack is a complete slut and won't have anything more to do with him! :-)

As it was, oddly enough, it became a sort of us/them dichtomy: Jack and Martha as humans loving the Doctor and having to rescue him (and mankind) from the Master; the Doctor and the Master together as Time Lords with agendas of their own.

That's true - although I did rather like that. It made a certain sense. I could even go with some of the plot of LOTTL if they really made clear that the Doctor was alien. I don't think they ever really do that, and I think that there's the danger of straying into alien = arbitrary, and that doesn't work either. And we come back to an acting thing for me. CE could convince me he was alien. There is something otherworldly in his eyes - and it's not just the ferocious bonestructure, although that clearly help. But neither Tennant nor Simm, nor even Jacobi for that matter, really strike me as alien, just screwed-up human, and that diminishes the impact.

I'm way behind on The Sarah Jane Adventures, but I'm looking forward to catching up. Have I mentioned my little predilection for post-School Reunion Sarah Jane/pre-Rose Nine? I don't know why that feels so right to me, but it does. I think because it would be the difference between "Sarah Jane, my old friend (whom I grew up watching on telly)" and more "Sarah Jane, my old friend, whom I left carelessly, long before I lost everyone I loved at my own hands".

Re: Looks vs. attraction, carrying on with another part (1)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

This is another case, it seems, of just throwing things at the page, and then at the actors.

It reinforces one of the major flaws of Torchwood as a whole, which is that the storylines and themes look oddly random. A bit of this and a bit of that. The only character who really got ongoing character development was Owen, and that part was terrific. Ianto needed that, and didn't get it. What we learn of him is in bits and pieces: the Lisa plot, his resentment at being left out of things, his liking for coffee and suits, his love of Jack (with a bit of a 'where did that come from?' flavour to it), and a love of word-play.

I don't love either Owen or Burn Gorman but I thought the Owen theme in Torchwood was excellent and Burn Gorman's performance excelled. I was convinced despite myself. My dislike of him as a character is nullified by my enjoyment of his storyline. They certainly made the 'forgiveness' hug a great moment of the series. It could have been a throw-away.

And really, I expected the Jack/Ianto forgiveness scene to be signficant, if only because being betrayed by one's lover is more dramatic than being betrayed by a guy you fought with and fired. But no. As it happened, the Jack/Ianto reunion was the throw-away.

Maybe Ianto will just figure out that Jack is a complete slut and won't have anything more to do with him! :-)

Hee - that would be so sensible of him! Which is one reason it's totally unlikely. No one is so sensible on this show.

I did rather like that. It made a certain sense.

Reluctantly, I agree. I didn't like it that it cut Jack and Martha out of the Doctor's emotional life, but I liked it that it gave a definition to the Time Lord perspective, as contrasted to the human.

Re: Looks vs. attraction, part 2 of another reply

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think that there's the danger of straying into alien = arbitrary, and that doesn't work either.

For my money, they've played with that one time and again, never really making it stick. In all the significant moments and plots, the Doctor acts human, and espouses human values. Then his most inexplicable moments can be dismissed as 'alien' which doesn't work, not to my mind. As I see it, the whole bedrock of the show is that the Doctor is a 'good alien' in contrast to a bevy of 'bad aliens' like Daleks and the Slitheen and the Sycorax and so on; the thing that makes the Doctor different is that he loves and protects the Earth.

Which is why Martha's proselytizing in "The Last of the Time Lords" seemed odd: at the one time when our belief in the Doctor ought to have been greatest, he was doing none of the world-saving stuff but was simply failing to stop the Master from doing whatever he wished.

Making the line between 'good alien' and 'bad alien' a little thinner than usual.

Actually, I like Jack's assessments there - though this is presumed on my part, not actually articulated. But he seems to treat aliens just like any kinds of people: good and bad individuals. Some are boring (and watery), some are dangerous (like Weevils), some are beautiful - and so on.

CE could convince me he was alien.

So he could. And did. And was totally sympathetic nonetheless. I miss him!

Tennant's Doctor doesn't strike me as alien so much as superheroic. He does amazing superhuman things and feels proud about it. He's so srewed up psychologically he would fit just just fine in the X-Men, where a few Lonely Gods have already found refuge. And a demon or two. (I can't think of any aliens who've been in the X-Men, but that's probably just a failure of my memory. Their leader had an alien lover, does that count?)

I'm way behind on The Sarah Jane Adventures, but I'm looking forward to catching up.

Me too.

Have I mentioned my little predilection for post-School Reunion Sarah Jane/pre-Rose Nine?

No. What an interesting idea.

I think because it would be the difference between "Sarah Jane, my old friend (whom I grew up watching on telly)" and more "Sarah Jane, my old friend, whom I left carelessly, long before I lost everyone I loved at my own hands".

I like your reasoning! Now that I've written one story where Jack meets Sarah Jane, I've considered others. I never thought of putting Nine and Sarah Jane together. It has a nice resonance.