Doctor Who, the just-Past season...

[seawasp]

Prior to last night, the last part of Doctor Who I'd seen was the Planet of the Dead (Bus in another dimension) special, so I caught up with it last night with Waters of Mars and End of Time.

Waters of Mars.

This one was... okay. While I don't mind Whonobabble for particular things, and there's certainly SF precedent for intelligent things that appear to be water (I seem to recall one story with a "virus" that became intelligent and looked like moving viscous water; the poor thing eventually mutated to a nonintelligent form), their ability to manufacture water (on MARS!) from nothing in ton-lots was annoying. They could have been extremely threatening without that level of stupidity.

More interesting was seeing the Doctor conflicted on acting versus not acting because of the significance of the event involved, and deciding to act after a LOT of conflict. That part was good -- and one of the nice subtleties about the scene was that though it was shot in the same heroic style, with the same dramatics, as his Poseidon Adventure speech in Voyage of the Damned, but the THEME was not the Doctor's, but the Master's, specifically YANA (You Are Not Alone), which generally presages a catastrophe.

The part that BOTHERED me was that the catastrophe was entirely avoidable. He could have saved those he wanted to save and then violated the laws of time in a way that would have preserved the expansion of the human race without ending up looking like either an idiot or a monster. All he had to do was bring them to some point in the FUTURE to where the process had already been started, and leave them in a place they could build new lives. Forward-looking types like the Mars colony people would have been fascinated by the future, and that action wouldn't have resulted in the one character -- the most interesting character in the show aside from the Doctor -- being explicitly trapped in a no-way-out scenario.

The End of Time.

First, here I found John Simm's Master less difficult to accept. He's still far from my choice for the role, but he did get to be a complete loon while also being able to to some real acting, on subtle as well as scenery-chewing levels.

Poor Lucy, though; totally screwed in every way, and even her triumphant last moments led to total disaster. Pity, that.

Wilfred's a damn good Companion, and I'm glad he got his chance, given that they weren't bringing back the Doctor-Donna (Donna Noble being the best Companion ever, IMCGO).

Timothy Dalton as Rassilon; inspired casting, and especially so since he got to chew so much scenery in his limited appearances that cardboard was flying everywhere. I'm rather disappointed he was disposed of at the end -- it would've been nice to see him as a continuing adversary.

The overall plotline and series of events... interesting. Kathleen had anticipated some of the basic elements (that the Master was basically somehow a conduit for the rebirth of the Timelords) and that basic part of the plot made sense. It was good to get yet another bit of information about the way the TIme War ended-- in Hell, essentially.

Most amusing for me were all the other media references. Dragonball is perhaps the most obvious, with the Master having gone spiky-hair SSJ blond, throwing energy blasts, flying (and diving down at people in a precise duplication of some DBZ scenes), eating like Goku (or, more accurately, Vegita), and eating up people he encounters like Cell (in this case not leaving empty suits of clothes, thought). The alien ship was clearly a riff on Piccolo's vessel, with exterior remodeling based on other Toriyama ships.

Then the World of Master sequence, which was obviously The Matrix (Agent Smith: "It's about me. Me, me, me, me, me."  Other person, now transformed into Smith: "... me too."). The aerial combat sequence, which was Star Wars, without any subtlety at all.

The best parts were at the end, I think. The Doctor trying to pull the trigger, kill one of those who was key to this plot (and thus save the world) and finally finding a third option. The Master, returning the favor AND getting a much-deserved revenge on those who had MADE him what he was, all those centuries ago. The Doctor, thinking he was saved... and then hearing the four knocks, in a literal sense, that spelled his doom. The Doctor again, holding onto this current incarnation for JUST a little longer, to say goodbye to those he had come to know and love in this form, in this personality, knowing that the next one might not even care enough to see them, making sure that Donna herself would always be taken care of, even dropping in on Captain Jack to kick him out of his current depression. And the final regeneration, giving us a quick glimpse of the next incarnation.



So, in summary, not bad, some neat stuff (some of which will undoubtedly be driving fans to frothing rants), and sad, as it's an exit of one of the best Doctors, and one that I'd hoped would continue for years. Doesn't come near the epic coolness of a couple of the other seasons, especially  The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, but it's a good, serviceable Doctor Who story. Alas, I was severely disappointed by this season in that it wasn't a season -- just a few specials. Hopefully this will not be the case with the new Doctor's first appearances. I wish that RTD didn't have what appears to be an impulse to do Bizarre Sh*t for no reason other than that he can; it makes some of his stuff less than it might otherwise be.

Comments

[tachs.livejournal.com]

Agreed wholeheartedly about The Water of Mars solution - it occurred to me early on & that's what I was expecting the Dr. to do.

Another probable nod to Star Wars was the bar/cantina that Cap'n Jack & Alonzo were in.

I think Rassilon was driven back into the time lock, not killed, so he could come back (or of course, if they can't get Tim Dalton next time, maybe he was mortally wounded & had to regenerate...)

Agreed about RTD's bizarre shit, (the "flying monks" in the Werewolf episode spring to mind).

I think The Specials last year were to mainly to accomodate David Tennant's wish to do Hamlet - this year will be a full season.
Have you seen the trailer? looks promising - & with Stephen Moffat at the helm hopefully it will be less "bizarre":-)

[seawasp]

The trailer does look interesting (though the quick flash of one of those idiotic Angel statue-things makes me fear at least one episode will be filled with suck), and it appears he's going for more Action Doctor than the prior Manipulation Doctor.

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

I agree about water of Mars. I understand what they wanted to do there, but.... The obvious to me and everyone else solution was take them to another time and leave them. Thus preserving the the event but saving the people. Ah well.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

I agree about Donna and Wilf. Hopefully good things will come of Moffat's tenure. I have some hope for at least a drop in RTD's brand of bizarre and Joss-Whedon-fanboying.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I suggested a while back that you could have a future episode where Donna is seen at a book signing, her memories having resurfaced as ideas for sf novels. (Good use for her typing skills, too.)

[seawasp]

Where're you seeing the Joss Whedon? Most of the oddities I see look more like anime fanboyism.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just me, but right when I went from watching Old to New Who the change reminded me of the special effects/filming style and style of angst of Whedon in the later season of Buffy. Certainly nothing as obvious as the DBZ.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Tennant's commitments to the RSC meant he couldn't do a full fourth season.

[seawasp]

Excuses, excuses. He didn't have those commitments when he started playing the Doctor, did he?

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Having been to Stratford and seen Tennant in Hamlet (with Patrick Stewart) last September I can absolutely understand why he wanted to do it, but I too missed having a full Tennant season five to finish off. I am looking forward to seeing Moffatt at the helm, though, as his stories have been amongst the very best right from Empty Child with the ninth Doctor. RTD's vision has been the driving force behind the success on New Who, but Moffatt is a more consistent and less self-indulgent writer who will hopefully pick up from here and fly with the franchise. A gold star to Cribbins for his excellent portrayal of Wilfred. The coffeeshop scene was gut wrenching. Both Tennant and Cribbins did an excellent job.

And I hope that the little vignette with Captain Jack and Alonzo is an indication that we will get another season of Torchwood, but please, this time, with some good writers. TW has suffered greatly from inconsistent and self-indulgent writing and never quite found its feet.

[seawasp]

I can understand wanting to do Hamlet at Stratford, but if I had an established series in which I was the star, I'd arrange to do it NEXT year. Given his current acting status, I find it hard to believe that this would have been impossible to arrange.

Yes, Cribbins and Tennant did very well in that episode. I really wish we'd gotten our Doctor-Donna back, though.

Moffatt has done some excellent episodes, but he's also done some stinkers; "Blink" is almost at the bottom of my list, probably edged out only by the Only Human/Family of Blood pair. (yes, I know, this is edging on blasphemy for some groups of Whovians, but I HATED those episodes. Judging by the previews, the damn Angel-things are coming back, which means probably at least one episode I'll rather not watch)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I'm in the camp that loved Blink and Only Human/Family of Blood (which was Paul Cornell, not Moffatt). The weeping angels concept is great. An assassin who sends the victim back in time to live themself to death. How cool is that? I'd put them on my favourites list along with Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Girl in the Fireplace and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (and I hope to see more of River Song somewhere in the Doctor's future). I also really liked Impossible Planet/Satan Pit written by Matt Jones

[seawasp]

Yes, I know Only Human was Cornell's; I was just pointing out where Blink rated on my suck-o-meter scale.

The weeping angels CONCEPT was neat (although I could not figure out how the things could have come into existence in the first place). The execution sucked because it was a total Idiot Plot; it only worked if everyone on both sides were idiots. The Angels are either (A) doomed as soon as their opposition knows what they are, or (B) Utterly Invincible, all depending on which assumptions you make about what they do. If the Angels had been so dimwitted as to allow ME all the time they alloted the heroine, they'd have been dead seven times over before the end of that episode. On the other hand, if the Angels had had the brains "God gave the common dog" (to quote Joe Friday) and the powers described, the heroes would have been done for instantaneously.

River Song is the part of Library/Forest I DON'T want. As a sort of Whovian Indiana Jones, fine; as the Mysterious Implied-to-be-Wife of The Doctor -- one who clearly had married THIS doctor, as she recognized him instantly and NOT as a prior incarnation -- the whole concept was doomed to failure unless (A) Tennant was going to do at least another couple of seasons and (B) at least one season was going to be devoted to the Magnificent Adventure And Romance in which he met and adventured with River Song. Apparently she's a Captain Ersatz for Bernice Summerfield, but not having read any of the books that does nothing for me either.

Plus, with three companions whose relationship with the Doctor have been stellar, this newbie simply couldn't compete in impact with Rose, Martha, or Donna.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I know we'll have to agree to differ on Blink. Re River Song - no I don't think she did recognise this Doctor specifically, not at first, but I think she recognised him as a different incarnation of the Doctor - implying that she'd seen more than one, maybe(?) but didn't know at first that he was an earlier incarnation than she'd ever met before. 'Look at you, you look so young,' was what she said - and she was looking into his eyes not at his face.

Sorry I don't get the Captain Ersatz/Bernice Summerfield reference at all.

[seawasp]

Well, it's been a while since I watched Silence in the Library, but I just checked the script. She acts as though she knows him from the moment he appears, and she asks him about "have we done" specific things, trying to figure out exactly where on their mutual timeline he is. Only after he multiply insists he doesn't know her does she GET it. This makes it to me INARGUABLY clear that she MUST have travelled with THIS version of the Doctor, and done so for a long time, otherwise she would've "got" it a LOT faster, and certainly wouldn't be asking about specific events in their mutual timeline since she'd certainly know what he looked like during those!

I suppose one could fancifully argue that the wife of a Time Lord sees some sort of constant appearance regardless of the regeneration, but even the Doctor seems not to be able to do this with HIMSELF, so I'd really not believe that explanation.

"Captain Ersatz" is the term used on TVtropes.org to describe a character which is a direct imitation of another character which the writer cannot actually use for some reason; for example, Marvel Comics invented a character named "Hyperion" who was a Captain Ersatz for Superman (Marvel actually has a LOT of Superman clones). Bernice Summerfield was a companion from some of the Who novels which are apparently taken as canon by the BBC.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

You have the advantage over me as I haven't read the scripts, but I have watched 'Silence in the Library' four or five times with different visitors. It may be one of those things that's open to interpretation (and I'd need to watch it again with that in mind), but my take on it was that she expected to find him there (because she'd somehow called him) so she singled him out quickly - well, let's face it, there was only the Doctor and Donna in the room. It was the slightly salacious 'Look at you' comments that made me think she knew the person, but had never seen him 'dressed' in that particular body before and that it was a bit of a novelty. Calling him 'pretty boy' certainly seemed to me as though she wasn't quite used to him looking like this. He certainly wasn't 'her' Doctor'.

As to whether she's his wife... if he came calling with a bunch of flowers the last time they were together, they certainly don't share a house, but it did seem like they were - at least - long term lovers. He now knows how the relatonship is going to end before it begins, so does that make it like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I gather Matt Smith's interpretation of the Doctor plays him as 'older' - despite Smith's youth.

Do the scripts always tie in with what ended up on camera? Are they shooting-scripts or broadcast-scripts? I've just been bought the shooting-scripts for the Ninth Doctor (Eccleston) season for Christmas, but I haven't had chance to look closely yet and make comparisons.

[seawasp]

Well, the dialogue just seems very unambiguous to me. She says he's just pretending not to know her, sits there quizzing him and trying to get him to admit he knows her, mentions several points "have we done this?" yet -- which only makes sense if he LOOKED like that at most of those points (one of them could have been a regeneration point, but unless he's later regenerated BACK into being Tennant's Doctor, only one would make sense in that context). So clearly she had her relationship with him, with THAT Doctor, for quite some time.

Insofar as "wife", the bit about knowing his true name, with him saying, "the ONLY time I would EVER tell anyone that is..." implies some truly momentous event. More momentous than a regeneration, and with the apparent warm relationship, marriage seems to make sense (it doesn't appear to be a daughter-father relationship).

The script I was reading was an actual transcript, taken from the shown episodes.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Re the water of "Water of Mars". I think there was some line about internal Nuclear Fission in the creatures that I think was supposed to be generating the water as a side effect. But that just moves the stupid science to a different level. It's stupid science all the way down.

Re the Doctors saving the crew, not only could he have gone forward in time, he could have moved laterially...in apace. Maybe even drop them off on New New New New New York.

The in universe explanation is that he got tunnel vision. He wanted the "everybody lives" outcome (for very limited values of everyone). He wanted the happiest ending not the "she's fine, but in a parrellel universe I can only access every other Tuesday." ending, not the "she had to experience a year of hell that very few remember happening, all because I didn't just immediately blow up the rube goldberg device the Master made out of the TARDIS" ending and not the "I had to erase her memories so her mind wouldn't go splat" ending.

He wanted the home run. The universe/reality/time itself would have tolerated a single. But he wasn't thinking single. The Master likes to go for home runs as well...

Re the gun and the Doctor trying to decide who to shoot: it's another case of tunnel vision which all three of his associates force on him. Note, he doesn't wind up needing the gun for anything. He's just shown once again how good his sonic screwdriver is at blowing up electronics (and fixing them later). If he had been holding his screwdriver he never would have thought about killing either of them. In fact, I think that was his intention before he was rescued.

Remember the scene where he's saying go one way and the female alien sends him the other way. Remember how he asked to be released and how the aliens instead wheeled him away. Although on one level that entire scene is just there for laughs ("not the stairs!") on another I think it served to distract the Doctor.

How many times has the Doctor let himself be restrained or captured mostly so he can learn the "big bad's" plan, and then foil it by blowing up the gizmo or reversing the polarity of the gizmo that the "big bad" has made, which is usually right next to the big bad in his/her "thrownroom"? But they distracted him with their rescue and he forgot about blowing up the equipment until almost too late.

Now he would have needed the gun to kill the Master prior to the Master setting the device to overload. But by the time Wilfred gives the Doctor the gun, it's no longer really needed.

Finally note how similar the Time Lords plans were to Davros's plans. Get a flunky to rip you out of the time lock (at a horrible cost to the flunky). Next, blow up "reality". The difference? The Time Lords had an actual exit strategy. Davros did not.

I still think the second season finale beats all the other season finales hands down.

[seawasp]

The thing is that he could even have HAD the Home Run if he EXPLAINED things to her better, rather than coming across suddenly as Mr. Freeze, when in the last several seasons he'd been getting BETTER at interacting with people. "Look, I said I'm making the laws of Time obey ME. I will not LET your history be destroyed. Understand me, please. I am doing this to have at least one true victory. You will have your family. You will SEE your family, and your people, begin their spread across the universe. And you will NOT see your Earth taken over by nasty water-things, either. This is for you -- AND for me. I am the last Time Lord, and I have seen so many die, lost so many, that THIS ONCE I will not let impartial, callous Time beat me."

As to the second season, certainly that one was good; Daleks VS Cybermen, what's not to like? And not only Daleks; SNARKY Daleks. But I think I still prefer "DETONATE THE REALITY BOMB!!!"

[lexomatic.livejournal.com]

FWIW, here are my LJ thoughts about "The End of Time (part 1)." And regarding part 2...

::: Here I found John Simm's Master less difficult to accept.

I didn't care for the "I'm criminally insane 'cause I've got a drumbeat in my head" explanation, so I'm glad they finally gave a reason for it. He's not just listening to Azathoth's band from the crawling center of ultimate chaos. (And the loony bit I'll accept as the consequence of one too many escapes from death. Delgado and Ainley weren't loony at all.)

* Oh, so it's not some random President, but Rassilon himself, risen from his bier of immortal slumber (and then he shaved). I wouldn't expect Borusa's ilk and the wishy-washy OldWho Time Lords to pursue a war on their own, but this is the guy who fought the Great Vampires and won.

* The Doctor stands between Rassilon and the Master, vacillating about which one to shoot. Sure, he's conflicted, but why didn't Rassilon (a decisive chap, surely) just use his Gauntlet of Screaming Temporal Doom?

* The Doctor's plan is to jump out of a perfectly good spaceship and plunge through a skylight?! Last time I checked ("Logopolis") this sort of thing triggered regeneration. Dramatic but stupid (which describes a lot of RTD's scriptwriting, IMHO).

* What kind of moronic design vents the nuclear waste into the operator's cubicle? Tasty plan for a radiation-vore (see: Eldrad from "The Hand of Fear") but otherwise a total contrivance.

[seawasp]

Well, Ainley's Master went madder and madder and madder; apparently by the end he WAS a raging beast.

Yes, Rassilon. And such an excellent choice to play him, too.

Rassilon may have had a number of reasons to hesitate, or just have been overconfident (or not overconfident, in a sense; if his confidence was "the Doctor hasn't the guts to pull the trigger, he was right).

The jump and fall scene is almost shot-for-shot straight from Full Metal Alchemist -- and the Doctor's doing it for the same reason Ed Elric was doing it in the movie, to interrupt the opening of a gateway direct to his homeworld. I've said the Master's portrayal had a lot of DBZ in it, but he was equally easily interpreted as a FMA Homonculus -- superpowered but bleeding energy, needs to replenish it with red stones/souls, being controlled/manipulated by someone who created his entire race, etc.