The Doctor's Daughter - When Fanfic Goes Pro

[neadods]

Actually, I had a blast with the episode, but that doesn't erase that it's a standard fanfic plot from beginning to end.

I am most amused that after all the "BLEURGH! The Doctor can't have girly bits!" responses to the notion of a female incarnation, the initial responses on my flist have been "That was a TON of fun and I want to see her again!"

My response isn't much deeper - that was a ton of fun and I'm rather expecting to see Jenny again; what a HUGE plot point to leave dangling! (Oh, lordy, someone write her coming to Earth and meeting Captain Jack right this very minute!) Which is all there is to say for the plot, really: It was fanwank, it was fun.

However, there's plenty to say about the character bits. After an episode of sitting on her hands and waiting for instructions, Donna is back to unabashedly using her varied experiences for figuring out clues. Huzzah! (Not so much huzzah on the "I'm gonna travel with him forever" bit, which was the one really big clunker moment. If she hadn't said that, I wouldn't have suddenly had the sinking feeling that she really is going to die at the end of the season.)

Martha's trek across the top was not what I'd expect from someone who walked a post-apocalyptic Earth for a solid year. I was also surprised at how torn up she got from the Hoth going under considering how many people she must have seen slaughtered during the Year That Wasn't - that's going to make her hard in ways we haven't seen. Then again, I was also surprised that the Hoth didn't pop back up, considering hello? Going underwater? With gills?

I desperately need a screencap of the look on Freema's face when they were all petting her, though. That was hilarious.

Hands up everyone who expected the Doctor to stop talking after "Look up genocide and you'll see my picture." Because, yes, dear, you have. More than once these days. Jenny had you pegged solid; you are a soldier and have been so for a long time. Since before the Time War, really. Even since before UNIT. Every adventure has had its element of quasi-military strategy. I love that Jenny dragged that right out.

I also really love that the Doctor didn't go all wibbly about "a new child! A new family!" What he has been through isn't so easily replaced, and parts of it can NEVER be fixed no matter what else comes along. He's broken, fundamentally broken. To get all excited about starting over without pointing out that there are experiences - and *people!* - which cannot be replaced would have been a bit nauseating, really. To see him fighting actively against considering Jenny family both from his companions and from himself was so much more meaningful and realistic a reaction.

But he just can't help that hope from creeping in. Because that is what makes him the Doctor.

Pinging back to the shallow end of the squee, I still adore the meta that she's Peter Davison's daughter best of all.

And now I will go back to stalking shaggydogstail's LJ to see how fast s/he gets that Jenny comm up.

Comments

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

"(Oh, lordy, someone write her coming to Earth and meeting Captain Jack right this very minute!) "

Yes, Yes, AND YES!!! Who do I write the check out to?

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Martha's trek across the top was not what I'd expect from someone who walked a post-apocalyptic Earth for a solid year. I was also surprised at how torn up she got from the Hoth going under considering how many people she must have seen slaughtered during the Year That Wasn't - that's going to make her hard in ways we haven't seen.

Or, it's going to give her PTSD which gets triggered like fucking WHOA when she goes through anything approaching similar experiences - see also: real-world Iraq war veterans who are coming back home from surviving multiple tours of duty so fucked up in the head that the mere experience of, no shit, simply getting caught in rush-hour traffic jams is enough to trigger their flashbacks and panic attacks, since most of the worst shit that a lot of them endured was while driving in convoys through downtown Baghdad. In this episode, I think we saw how Martha's experiences during The Year That Never Was made her both stronger AND weaker at the same time ... which, speaking as a (technical) veteran of two foreign wars myself, I would argue is more realistic.

Then again, I was also surprised that the Hoth didn't pop back up, considering hello? Going underwater? With gills?

Going under water so thick with sludge that it was literally black and clumping up into chunks, which would be the equivalent of throwing a human into a burning building and expressing surprise when he chokes to death from the smoke.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Or, it's going to give her PTSD which gets triggered like fucking WHOA when she goes through anything approaching similar experiences

I can't quite see it that way because I think if she was PTSDing, she wouldn't be so over it when she links back up with the Doctor and Donna. Especially the way the Doctor's damage keeps bubbling to the surface, while Martha seems surprisingly chipper for someone who has been through what she's been through.

I've watched the Confidential since I originally posted, and I wish we'd been able to communicate with the Hath, on account of my having much more connection to the creature when someone was delivering its lines for Martha to work from.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I can't quite see it that way because I think if she was PTSDing, she wouldn't be so over it when she links back up with the Doctor and Donna.

Martha met the Doctor and Donna on her own turf. Big difference from taking a trip in the TARDIS (which, you'll note, she turned down).

Especially the way the Doctor's damage keeps bubbling to the surface, while Martha seems surprisingly chipper for someone who has been through what she's been through.

Not to diminish Martha's suffering, but the Doctor's damage > Martha's damage, by a factor of about a million. Even before the Time War, this was not a Well Man. You're talking about 900 years of seeing people die in front of him, and his only displayed method of coping with any of the traumas that he's endured, even in the original series, is active avoidance. Think about that; that's about a millenium of grief, and he hasn't even started on the Kübler-Ross cycle for most of it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Martha met the Doctor and Donna on her own turf. Big difference from taking a trip in the TARDIS

No, I meant after she watched the Hath die. She melted down there more than she did when her own family was in direct danger, but when she got back down into the ship with the rest of Team TARDIS, she seemed to be completely over having watched a companion die. (I expected her to say something to the Doctor about that, either then or when they were out of danger, but in their usual "we can't juggle characters" act, because it was Donna's turn to shine, Martha suddenly didn't have many lines at all.)

You're talking about 900 years of seeing people die in front of him

More than that - he's totally lying about his age. Which is somehow a little bit hilarious.

that's about a millenium of grief, and he hasn't even started on the Kübler-Ross cycle for most of it.

He had some sort of coping mechanism or he'd've been in a loony bin several incarnations ago, whether we saw it or not. Pratchett has a line that shows up in several books - personal's not the same as important. I think the Time Lords had some variant drilled into them, because while the deaths he saw were personal and painful, they weren't, cosmically speaking, important. Until New Who, he couldn't manage to commit the important killings (Genesis of the Daleks). And, as they brought up in this episode and Confidential, the one thing the Doctor is really in denial about is how much of a good little footsoldier he really is, and how he will slip into fight mode without too much internal resistance despite what he says.

But now he's rudderless, and the disconnect between what he feels and what he says (and what he also feels) is, IMO, seriously making him crazy. He hated his people/his people are gone. He hates war/he is the sole-ish survivor of a campaign he seems to have waged almost personally. Etc. Not wanting to go home is worlds different than not being able to, and I've always found it very telling that in old Who the Doctor talked about Gallifrey and the Time Lords distantly as "them, they" while only after they're gone he says "my people."

There's a lot of grief there and it comes out as rage. I'm quite sorry about the "I never would" speech, because he was totally and obviously talking himself out of pulling the trigger. We know he's vicious; just ask The Family. Better he give a more honest line like stealing Kirk's "I will not kill today."

Oooo, maybe I should top-post that.

Wait, there was a point here. Oh, yes. I do think he's started the cycle, but he's pretty stuck between guilt and denial.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Maybe Martha has picked up the Doctor's tendency toward denial? Which, by the way, makes his end speech completely in character.

He had some sort of coping mechanism or he'd've been in a loony bin several incarnations ago, whether we saw it or not.

I think we've already seen him go crazy onscreen a few times - indeed, I'd argue that Four, Six and Nine actually spent most of their incarnations being about 90 percent bugfuck insane. Nine was so far removed from anything resembling any other incarnation of the Doctor, as a direct result of his trauma, that he's the only Doctor I can imagine as Al Pacino's Tony Montana in Scarface. Six was ... well, I don't think I even need to go into how much Six's psychosis was made canon. And Four? Well, remember Xoanon, the computer god that caused the rift between the Tesh and the Sevateem, Leela's tribe? The script outright stated that a) Xoanon was completely fucking nuts, and b) it was only nuts because it had modeled itself on the Doctor's mind. Just because the Doctor didn't get locked up in the nuthouse, it doesn't mean that he wasn't crazy enough to have been.

Speaking of mental disorders and the Doctor, I've offered my thoughts on how to write characters with alienation, such as the Doctor, here.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that Four, Six and Nine actually spent most of their incarnations being about 90 percent bugfuck insane.

Not sure I agree. Xoanon was nuts because he had the Doctor's mind and his own warring, which mirrored in the war between the Tesh and the Sevateem. (And the Doctor's reaction to creating generations of war? "Ooops, my bad" without much other grasp of responsibility at all.)

Six I frankly try not to think about and am weak in all but BF's canon for him.

Nine... Nine was damaged, deeply, deeply damaged, but he wasn't insane. If he'd gone completely off the rails he would either have turned into the Master or been curled up in a corner somewhere. He was still staggering through the motions of his pre-War life, with the main difference being chronic depression and apparently a gut inability to take decisive action in the crunch.

Ten's nuttier than Nine simply because Ten keeps pretending he's fine. Worse, he's gone back to making sweeping judgements that are more about his damage than the needs of history (see: Harriet Jones). Nine at least admitted to his trauma.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

And the Doctor's reaction to creating generations of war? "Ooops, my bad" without much other grasp of responsibility at all.

I would argue that this in itself is evidence of Four's bugfuckery. He was always doing this. Remember him in "The Horror of Fang Rock"?

"Ladies and gentlemen, there's a very good chance we're all going to die! HA HA!"

And this wasn't bravery in the face of danger - he was genuinely amused by this prospect.

And Six is still canon. If Eight is now canon, then Six sure as hell is.

And Nine ... as much as I hate to say it, but without Rose (groan), Nine probably would have turned into the Master. Remember him in "Dalek?" Motherfucker was ready to commit genocide all over again.

Indeed, in both classic and current series, I'd say that the companion is the other part of the Doctor's avoidance coping mechanism.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I would argue that this in itself is evidence of Four's bugfuckery. He was always doing this.

There is that. He was the most alien of the Doctors mostly because Tom was mad as a hatter himself.

And Six is still canon. If Eight is now canon, then Six sure as hell is.

I didn't say he wasn't canon, I said I don't *know* his canon, only his extended canon. I left Who fandom during 6's reign and only saw a handful of those and Seven's episodes. Can't say nostalgia has made me any fonder of either sets of series.

without Rose (groan), Nine probably would have turned into the Master.

I agree. I'm convinced it was his damage that made him cling to her so tightly in comparison to other companions, and the loss of his own people that made him take such consideration in keeping her in contact with hers. (I don't have a problem with canon Rose, it's fanon Rose that gets up my nose.)

New Doctor has flat-out ceded the voice of his conscience to his companion. When Rose told him to put down the gun, he put it down. When Rose said nothing about how he treated Harriet, he remained convinced of his moral victory, despite rewriting history in his snit. Sarah Jane talked him out of becoming a god. And Donna is completely playing Jiminy Cricket.

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

Hands up everyone who expected the Doctor to stop talking after "Look up genocide and you'll see my picture."

*waves both hands*

[utopia83.livejournal.com]

*jumps up and down saying "Me, me!"*

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

Not so much huzzah on the "I'm gonna travel with him forever" bit, which was the one really big clunker moment. If she hadn't said that, I wouldn't have suddenly had the sinking feeling that she really is going to die at the end of the season.)

Really though. This worries me.

Hands up everyone who expected the Doctor to stop talking after "Look up genocide and you'll see my picture."

*raises hand*

I thought this episode was alright. A few of my household weren't particularly pleased by it, but meh. All in good fun. I'm gonna have to rewatch it for some picspammage squee.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna have to rewatch it for some picspammage squee.

I have *got* to get a screencap of the look on Freema's face when they were petting her! In the Confidential, someone was delivering Hath lines offscreen for her to react to - I wonder what was being said there!

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

I've got a few of them on my journal!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Huzzah! Off to read LJ.