(no subject)
Apr. 12th, 2008 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsSpoilerphobes - All episode spoilers are under cut. This uncut part is a multi-companion comparison of a moment which they all get and which, in this case, takes place a mere 23 seconds in.
There's a moment in the latest Who that I think sums up the Doctor's opinion of getting to travel with him better than any other moment we've had yet in New Who. It is, from his point of view, an amazing gift that he's offering, and he wants that (and his cleverness in providing it) properly appreciated.
Rose's first reaction to being taken to the end of the world was disbelief and a little bit of fear. (I kept waiting for them to do a ripoff of Adams' "The things! The people!" "The things are also people.") She got over it, but her initial reactions were more curious and wary than excited. It took her second trip/third adventure to make *him* happy by getting all excited.
Adam earned both the Doctor's and Rose's disgust by fainting.
Jack had been too many places and times to care.
Mickey was amazed, but the Doctor and Rose were a little busy having their clique of two to pay attention to him.
On Martha's first proper adventure, she peppered him with questions. (Quite in character for someone who always read the manual when asked to operate new equipment, and as a tech writer, how much do I love that?) They were intelligent questions, ones that proved that she has actually read and thought about time travel, but the Doctor got a tad huffy that she was gathering data rather than being blown away.
Donna, though - even though she has had one TARDIS trip already, her first reaction to being somewhere completely new is to squee herself practically into hyperventilation and hug him. I just love his delighted, contented laugh. THIS is what it's all about, as far as he's concerned!
(Mind you, part of his delight is doubtless that he thinks he's landed where & when intended, for once.)
Donna's squee doesn't last long, not when she smacks into the problem of the times when history must not be changed. Putting the squee and squee-harshing scenes back to back was a very clever counterpoint. And later on, it gets so much better (something I will address later on.)
Rambling a bit (I'm semi-liveblogging) - anyone else freeze-frame the scroll to see what it says? Just me then? Can't read more than the top two lines.
Had to laugh myself silly at "Modern art!" (Nice nod to City of Death there.) Lost it again on "Etruscans, Christians, and all sorts" and really lost it on "I am Spartacus." "And so am I." Cheap & cheesy humor, how I love it so.
I don't love buggering history, though. "Just a mountain to them"? They hadn't noticed the previous smoke? The abnormally fertile land because of the volcanic soil? Hello, yes they did know what it was. It's just that they figured it would never get such a modern, civilized society, just like we're all completely sure that Mt. Hood will never blow in America just because we're America, or some such. And in the meantime, there's plenty of money to be made in such a strategic, vital city. (And we will not even speak about the obvious zipper up the back of Donna's "toga.")
Liveblog rambly bit - As an American, I loved the line "pass me that torch" being followed by an actual passing of what I always think of at the word "torch."
Ha! I was right about the prophecies line! Not some slam on all womanhood, but Dickus Minimus proving how minimus his dickus is. (Although the subsequent "I can prophecy better than you can" was nifty & chilling, even though it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. For a nanosecond, I was hoping for the Doctor's real name.) Pity this puts my prophecy rate at a random chance 50%, as there was, alas, no unexpected Jack. Damned pity.
Back to the meta - the scene where Donna is tied up is proof enough for me that New Who is going for the "three companions" template:
Ur Companion #1 isn't well educated, but is plucky and "real" and keeps the Doctor grounded - Polly, Jamie, Jo, Rose.
Ur Companion #2 is well educated and thinks her way out of situations that baffle the Doctor - Barbara, Zoe, Liz, Sarah Jane, Martha.
Ur Companion #3 is the fighter, who kicks ass while the Doctor is wasting time waffling around - Brigadier, Leela, Ace, and now Donna. The way Donna was threatening to bitchslap the seers into another century while tied up was pure Leela (who was my favorite companion back in the day, so I'm thrilled). If she had a Janus thorn, she'd be dangerous. If she finds a spare can of Nitro-9, she is going to be very dangerous.
When Donna and the Doctor had their in-volcano discussion about Time Lords, at first I thought "how nice, David gets a crack at the 'I can feel the planet spinning' speech." But it is much more than that, really. It's part illumination for the audience - we now know that it's not just white noise, but somehow differentiated in his mind. It's part reiteration of the Doctor's despair and burden - "I'm the only one" (he seems to have forgotten how rarely the other Time Lords bothered... and how often they used him as their agent if they did bother). But most importantly, it's a lesson to Donna (and to the new fans) of the terrible choices the Doctor must make. History is not always kind. Sometimes there is the choice of Pompeii or the world. Not the few vs the many, but the many vs the more.
Donna rises to her name here. After all she has done to try to save everyone - I particularly like how she tried to put it in terms of prophecy to try to save at least one family - when it's clear what has to be done, she accepts it, accepts her own death, and in what is likely to be her last act, comforts the Doctor. (For a moment, I thought it was going to have to be her pushing the lever. It wouldn't be the first time the Doctor chickened out at the last second.) That's noble.
They took historical liberties with the debris falling as the Doctor and Donna run too. When I toured Pompeii, one of the most chilling things I witnessed wasn't the stone bodies. It was hearing the tour guide pointing out that they found bodies at two levels. Bottom level entombed the people who had been caught in the first eruption, dead of gas or flying rock. Much further up were the other people. The ones who had escaped the eruption, and came back the day after the gasses stopped, to try to dig down to the city.
They were the ones caught in the lava flow and burned alive.
I don't tear up easy, but I did when the Doctor left the family behind. I thought "them, he'll take them out of history, take them somewhere safe" - it would be so characteristic... but it would be characteristic of the classic Doctor. The new one is never going to quite forgive the universe for not being able to save his own people.
Anyone who thinks Donna is shrill, whining, and selfish, has not paid attention to her begging for another person's life. Or giving thanks for their salvation. That scene, when Donna got her serious and formal welcome onto the TARDIS was excellent.
To shift from the sublime back to the ridiculous, Ten is never, ever going to get to be on top again after the "just us girls" line.
ETA and non episode specific - For the love of pete, fandom, not everything is automatically about Rose! Didn't you learn your lesson after working yourself into a frenzy over the lyrics of "The Stowaway" for months, only to have the "obviously about Rose" reference turn out to be about 15 seconds of background noise that the principles utterly ignored?
There's a moment in the latest Who that I think sums up the Doctor's opinion of getting to travel with him better than any other moment we've had yet in New Who. It is, from his point of view, an amazing gift that he's offering, and he wants that (and his cleverness in providing it) properly appreciated.
Rose's first reaction to being taken to the end of the world was disbelief and a little bit of fear. (I kept waiting for them to do a ripoff of Adams' "The things! The people!" "The things are also people.") She got over it, but her initial reactions were more curious and wary than excited. It took her second trip/third adventure to make *him* happy by getting all excited.
Adam earned both the Doctor's and Rose's disgust by fainting.
Jack had been too many places and times to care.
Mickey was amazed, but the Doctor and Rose were a little busy having their clique of two to pay attention to him.
On Martha's first proper adventure, she peppered him with questions. (Quite in character for someone who always read the manual when asked to operate new equipment, and as a tech writer, how much do I love that?) They were intelligent questions, ones that proved that she has actually read and thought about time travel, but the Doctor got a tad huffy that she was gathering data rather than being blown away.
Donna, though - even though she has had one TARDIS trip already, her first reaction to being somewhere completely new is to squee herself practically into hyperventilation and hug him. I just love his delighted, contented laugh. THIS is what it's all about, as far as he's concerned!
(Mind you, part of his delight is doubtless that he thinks he's landed where & when intended, for once.)
Donna's squee doesn't last long, not when she smacks into the problem of the times when history must not be changed. Putting the squee and squee-harshing scenes back to back was a very clever counterpoint. And later on, it gets so much better (something I will address later on.)
Rambling a bit (I'm semi-liveblogging) - anyone else freeze-frame the scroll to see what it says? Just me then? Can't read more than the top two lines.
Had to laugh myself silly at "Modern art!" (Nice nod to City of Death there.) Lost it again on "Etruscans, Christians, and all sorts" and really lost it on "I am Spartacus." "And so am I." Cheap & cheesy humor, how I love it so.
I don't love buggering history, though. "Just a mountain to them"? They hadn't noticed the previous smoke? The abnormally fertile land because of the volcanic soil? Hello, yes they did know what it was. It's just that they figured it would never get such a modern, civilized society, just like we're all completely sure that Mt. Hood will never blow in America just because we're America, or some such. And in the meantime, there's plenty of money to be made in such a strategic, vital city. (And we will not even speak about the obvious zipper up the back of Donna's "toga.")
Liveblog rambly bit - As an American, I loved the line "pass me that torch" being followed by an actual passing of what I always think of at the word "torch."
Ha! I was right about the prophecies line! Not some slam on all womanhood, but Dickus Minimus proving how minimus his dickus is. (Although the subsequent "I can prophecy better than you can" was nifty & chilling, even though it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. For a nanosecond, I was hoping for the Doctor's real name.) Pity this puts my prophecy rate at a random chance 50%, as there was, alas, no unexpected Jack. Damned pity.
Back to the meta - the scene where Donna is tied up is proof enough for me that New Who is going for the "three companions" template:
Ur Companion #1 isn't well educated, but is plucky and "real" and keeps the Doctor grounded - Polly, Jamie, Jo, Rose.
Ur Companion #2 is well educated and thinks her way out of situations that baffle the Doctor - Barbara, Zoe, Liz, Sarah Jane, Martha.
Ur Companion #3 is the fighter, who kicks ass while the Doctor is wasting time waffling around - Brigadier, Leela, Ace, and now Donna. The way Donna was threatening to bitchslap the seers into another century while tied up was pure Leela (who was my favorite companion back in the day, so I'm thrilled). If she had a Janus thorn, she'd be dangerous. If she finds a spare can of Nitro-9, she is going to be very dangerous.
When Donna and the Doctor had their in-volcano discussion about Time Lords, at first I thought "how nice, David gets a crack at the 'I can feel the planet spinning' speech." But it is much more than that, really. It's part illumination for the audience - we now know that it's not just white noise, but somehow differentiated in his mind. It's part reiteration of the Doctor's despair and burden - "I'm the only one" (he seems to have forgotten how rarely the other Time Lords bothered... and how often they used him as their agent if they did bother). But most importantly, it's a lesson to Donna (and to the new fans) of the terrible choices the Doctor must make. History is not always kind. Sometimes there is the choice of Pompeii or the world. Not the few vs the many, but the many vs the more.
Donna rises to her name here. After all she has done to try to save everyone - I particularly like how she tried to put it in terms of prophecy to try to save at least one family - when it's clear what has to be done, she accepts it, accepts her own death, and in what is likely to be her last act, comforts the Doctor. (For a moment, I thought it was going to have to be her pushing the lever. It wouldn't be the first time the Doctor chickened out at the last second.) That's noble.
They took historical liberties with the debris falling as the Doctor and Donna run too. When I toured Pompeii, one of the most chilling things I witnessed wasn't the stone bodies. It was hearing the tour guide pointing out that they found bodies at two levels. Bottom level entombed the people who had been caught in the first eruption, dead of gas or flying rock. Much further up were the other people. The ones who had escaped the eruption, and came back the day after the gasses stopped, to try to dig down to the city.
They were the ones caught in the lava flow and burned alive.
I don't tear up easy, but I did when the Doctor left the family behind. I thought "them, he'll take them out of history, take them somewhere safe" - it would be so characteristic... but it would be characteristic of the classic Doctor. The new one is never going to quite forgive the universe for not being able to save his own people.
Anyone who thinks Donna is shrill, whining, and selfish, has not paid attention to her begging for another person's life. Or giving thanks for their salvation. That scene, when Donna got her serious and formal welcome onto the TARDIS was excellent.
To shift from the sublime back to the ridiculous, Ten is never, ever going to get to be on top again after the "just us girls" line.
ETA and non episode specific - For the love of pete, fandom, not everything is automatically about Rose! Didn't you learn your lesson after working yourself into a frenzy over the lyrics of "The Stowaway" for months, only to have the "obviously about Rose" reference turn out to be about 15 seconds of background noise that the principles utterly ignored?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 01:45 am (UTC)Ten is never, ever going to get to be on top again after the "just us girls" line.
OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THAT. Killed me dead. Luckily, I'm having friends over to watch tomorrow so I can actually pay more attention this time.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:13 am (UTC)