Doctor Who: The God Complex

[neadods]

I wish that had been a two-parter so I could enjoy it longer. In lieu of that, I'm rewatching it.

Okay, it wasn't perfect. Perfect would have involved two little girls in the hallway saying "Play with us." none of those random laughing/screaming flash cuts. But it was pretty darned close; the one real flaw was that the minute the Doctor started flirting with Rita as a new companion we all knew she was doomed. I always think that Who is at its best when it's doing gothic horror, and a hotel filled with custom-tailored horror is pretty gothic.

And then the little details! The Doctor's room being 11. And the lines! "We're three buses, a long walk, and 8 quid of a taxi from good." "I think of my old school motto: Resistance is exhausting." "It's amazing that you've come up with a theory that's even more ridiculous than what's happening." (Again, Rory gets to be the voice of sanity!) "All I want to do is go home and be conquered and oppressed! Is that too much to ask?" "You've forgotten that not all victories aren't about saving the universe" (I LOVE YOU RORY!) "I wasn't talking about myself." (You keep telling yourself that, Doctor. We all knew who you were talking about, even if you didn't.) "He's saving us."

Especially, "he's saving us." I *love* that the point was to shove a spoke in the wheels of Amy's adoration of the Doctor. Had she had more conversations with old!Amy it may have helped, but young!Amy is, as was made so clear, is still mostly little Amelia. (I wish they'd given her some lines. She's always fun.) Maybe I'm still bitchy touchy over RTD's era, especially the treatment of Rose and Donna. Rose who went from feisty and full of agency to worshiping the Doctor to the point of considering herself "dead" without him. Donna who had her personality literally rolled back to a pre-Doctor era, losing even what she'd taught herself after her first adventure. Even Jamie and Zoe were allowed to keep the memory of their first adventures! But Donna doesn't, doesn't keep her agency, *and* has her nearest and dearest apparently ordered to never let her do anything to regain it lest her head explode.

But it's Rose that I'm thinking most of, because in the end, the Doctor tried to provide Rose with everything she ever wanted. Her mother, safe. Her father restored. Memories of adventure. And *still* it's not enough, to the point that she's willing to endanger the universe by ripping open dimensions to get back to the Doctor, until she's left with a duplicate... which frankly is even freakier and more patronizing. Is she so shallow that she just needs a Doctor-shaped binkie? Or does the Doctor feel a need to strand a part of himself to keep her in place and stop endangering all of reality? Either way, it's a hell of a terrible exit for the girl who started out saving the Doctor's bacon by pointing him at the London Eye and swinging in on a chain to rescue him.

Once again the Doctor is providing what he could to his companion - having previously returned Amy's parents and not being able to provide her baby, he's gone for material goods - a nicer house, Rory's dream car. Rory and Amy already have had the perspective of moving in and out of the TARDIS; we've seen them back in Leadworth obviously comfortable going on with their lives back on Earth (something that was never possible for either Rose or Donna). And now, when it looks like the Doctor's going for good, Amy has the sense to look at it from *his* perspective instead of throwing herself into her own emotional reaction.

I'm sure Amy and Rory will be back on the TARDIS eventually... but as a "the Doctor's leaving" scene, I think "He's saving us" is right up there for a broken-hearted but dignified exit as Sarah Jane got.

And the Doctor's showing a better grasp of the potential for damaging his companions, physically and psychically, than he has for at least two regenerations.

Next week looks interesting.

Comments

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

I really liked that one, although someone next week really needs to call Amy "Amy Pond," because I get the whole "Amy Williams" thing in context, but...no. They are the Ponds, forever and always.

As for "I wasn't talking about myself," I took that line to be the Doctor still translating what the Minotaur was saying, in response to the Doctor's line "Then accept it, and sleep well." The Doctor thinks the Minotaur is talking about itself, and the Minotaur tells him that it wasn't.

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

The Doctor thinks the Minotaur is talking about itself, and the Minotaur tells him that it wasn't.

Oh! That makes a lot more sense than just the Doctor coming out with that line at random. Especially since he really looked like he'd rather not have had to say it.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

I thought the Doctor was making an excuse at first (which definitely seemed random!) but then I thought "oh, I think he's still translating."

[belovedwarrior.livejournal.com]

I most definitely took it as translating. That's why he seemed so reluctant and a bit embarrassed to say "I wasn't talking about me." OH, snap! He was talking about the Doctor. ;)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I also took it as him translating still - because the Minotaur wasn't dead yet.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

Yep. Still translating. He said it in the hesitant manner he used while translating the rest of it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I think he was responding directly to it in the only language he'd used to communicate with it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I saw the "Amy Williams" as a reminder to Amy who even she says is more beloved to her than the Doctor and an apology to Rory. As he did to Mickey, the Doctor twisted a name just to get a reaction; the first time he called them "the Ponds" Rory objected and got blown off.

This was his apology for that immaturity, IMO.

Even after two watchings I'm not sure the Doctor was just translating. Why translate that for the others to hear? He spoke to the Nimon in English, so I still think he was speaking directly to it and uncomfortable about what it was correcting him over.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it made sense to me in context, because the Doctor thinks of her so much as "Amelia Pond, the girl who waited," and a way to signal that he's changing the way he thinks of her is to call her "Amy Williams"; I just don't care for the knock-on implication (probably inadvertent) that Amy didn't take her husband's last name because she didn't want to grow up, as opposed to deciding that married or not, she was always going to be Amy Pond.

*shrug* All of his other communication with the creature was done face-to-face; why would he speak to it with his back turned at the very end? It only makes sense to me if he's translating that last line, but YMMV.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

On the third reviewing - I really do like that episode! - I can see how it can be interpreted as translation... but I'm not entirely swayed from my theory.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! :)

[voicelikehoney.livejournal.com]

I went back and rewatched the 'I wasn't talking about myself', having thought that was just the Doctor talking ... now I feel stupid. Well picked up on! I'm pretty sure he was definitely still translating - so the Minotaur knew who and what he was, then? Interesting. :-)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

What you said about Donna, and mostly about Rose. Rose did grow, some -- and certainly, after all she did for the Doctor, she deserved a happy ending. Perhaps not at the cost of destroying the universes -- but even that was averted. I may not approve of the fact that for once, the Doctor was clearly attracted romantically to a human, but if it had to be, at least she was a worthy one. (Donna, as I think I've said before, got shafted worse than any other character, any time, any genre.)

Plus, direct reference to Old Who (the Nimons!), and, double bonus, the whole thing was a holodeck! (Which explains why the hotel was the bastard child of Hogwarts Castle and the hotel in Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret.)

Which of the Doctor's incarnations was in Room 11? (I'd say either Eleven, Eight (or was he Nine when he ended the Time War by exiling both the Daleks and the Time Lords from the universe?), or One.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I kept thinking of the Shining hotel. Especially because of the clown for some reason.

Dunno about which regen. Possibly all of 'em.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed Ten left Handy with Rose to stop her from being any stupider about ripping apart the universes.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

So do I; considering that the Doctor genocided his own race to kill the daleks, it seems odd that he'd be all "killing loads of daleks is bad" all of a sudden. It was a really weak excuse to make Rose feel protective.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Yes!!

[themis1.livejournal.com]

I just watched the Silence in the Library 2-parter for the first time (I missed it when it was on, I wasn't that taken with 10 and missed a few eps) and wow! Moffat's writing shines. Sadly Tennant's acting suffers in comparison to the current incumbent's.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sadly Tennant's acting suffers in comparison to the current incumbent's

That's a very YMMV thing; I'm not particularly found of Matt Smith, although I know he has lots of fans.

OT comment to your top post

[fyrdrakken]

I just ran across this Etsy seller's slow-color-change fingering weight cotton yarn and thought you might appreciate it. (I'm absolutely charmed by several of these color schemes -- I just hate working with cotton.)

Re: OT comment to your top post

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Oooooo!