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Aug. 9th, 2008 04:42 pmThe zen is (mostly) back. :)
Still need to pack, clean etc., because I'm definitely, really, no, seriously!, leaving tomorrow, so probably shouldn't be writing livejournal entries, but the panicky feeling from yesterday is gone. Printed out the TW fic to take along, also the S2 DVDs, and if this is what I'm going to do on my holiday, then so be it. Hopefully there'll also be book reading & Russian learning and photographing, but if I don't go on a hiking or biking tour every other day, this is okay, and no reason to feel guilty. Ahem. Note to self, etc.. Anyway. While the printer was printing away I went through my fanish documents folder and rediscovered all kinds of never-finished fanfiction that I'd forgotten about, Andromeda, Hair, a ton of meta-ish stuff, and a ca. 80% finished Jack/Stephen not-quite-slash story that actually isn't so bad at all (i.e., I read through it with surprisingly much pleasure and surprisingly little blushing). Unfortunately I'll never finish that now, because I'd have to reread I don't know how many volumes to get the voice back, and simply don't have the time or energy...
~
Finally rewatched Journey's End, and on the whole, especially considering how much, and I'm not just talking about all the companions, RTD put into these sixty minutes, balancing pretty dark stuff with enough lightness to still make it a family show, and make all this work, that's still a pretty fantastic episode. Liked the Rose ending better than the first time, and the Donna ending affected me less, but the first part with Davros and the mad Dalek, the prophecy and the Doctor's soul, and Martha ready to blow up the Earth, the Doctor.v2 killing the Daleks, that's brilliant. Completely brilliant. Still couldn't look away. But then again, I've always had a weakness for this kind of complicated moral dilemma episodes, and Davros calling the Doctor 'destroyer of worlds' brought back Andromeda's Angel Dark, Demon Bright, which was playing with the same theme. On the whole I still prefer the S3 finale, but as far as the Doctor is concerned, S4 is a lot more interesting; a more complex reworking of the themes of S1, although a lot of it is already there in the dinner conversation between Margret and the Doctor in Boom Town.
And I still don't get that whole 'a fate worse than death' thing from the show itself. Tragic, certainly, and not what Donna wanted, but I don't see it as passing judgement on her worth as a human being. I think the problem was that Donna was never able to see her own worth before the Doctor, and that's what he meant when he reminded her mother that maybe she should tell her that more often, when she said that Donna was still special because she was her daughter. She still had all the potential inside, the compassion and humanity she showed in Fires of Pompej and Planet of the Ood, the first time she stepped on another planet, and she still can be that, if she can find that within herself. Whether she'll be able to or not is a different question, and one we all live with from day to day, but that, for me, was the message, not that I might just as well kill myself now, because I'm never going to travel with the Doctor and save the universe. Maybe the perception of these things changes with age, but I'd have hated to see Donna die, and I'm glad she didn't. Which isn't saying there hasn't been a bit too much Doctor worship especially in the first two seasons, but I think that had at least partly to do with Rose being a teenager with all that idealism and those emotions, and partly with the set-up for the S2 finale, because after that things got more complicated, with both Martha and Jack walking out on the Doctor, Joan saying she could love John Smith, but not him, the Master choosing death, and then Donna...
I guess why I love the show so much even when the odd episode doesn't work for me is because sometimes it's complicated without offering a clear solution, and sometimes it dares to be really epic and tragic in all the big emotional ways, even if it rips out your heart; but how many shows can do that?
I can't wait till my niece is old enough. Never mind having to buy all the DVDs in German, she's so going to see this. *g*
Still need to pack, clean etc., because I'm definitely, really, no, seriously!, leaving tomorrow, so probably shouldn't be writing livejournal entries, but the panicky feeling from yesterday is gone. Printed out the TW fic to take along, also the S2 DVDs, and if this is what I'm going to do on my holiday, then so be it. Hopefully there'll also be book reading & Russian learning and photographing, but if I don't go on a hiking or biking tour every other day, this is okay, and no reason to feel guilty. Ahem. Note to self, etc.. Anyway. While the printer was printing away I went through my fanish documents folder and rediscovered all kinds of never-finished fanfiction that I'd forgotten about, Andromeda, Hair, a ton of meta-ish stuff, and a ca. 80% finished Jack/Stephen not-quite-slash story that actually isn't so bad at all (i.e., I read through it with surprisingly much pleasure and surprisingly little blushing). Unfortunately I'll never finish that now, because I'd have to reread I don't know how many volumes to get the voice back, and simply don't have the time or energy...
Finally rewatched Journey's End, and on the whole, especially considering how much, and I'm not just talking about all the companions, RTD put into these sixty minutes, balancing pretty dark stuff with enough lightness to still make it a family show, and make all this work, that's still a pretty fantastic episode. Liked the Rose ending better than the first time, and the Donna ending affected me less, but the first part with Davros and the mad Dalek, the prophecy and the Doctor's soul, and Martha ready to blow up the Earth, the Doctor.v2 killing the Daleks, that's brilliant. Completely brilliant. Still couldn't look away. But then again, I've always had a weakness for this kind of complicated moral dilemma episodes, and Davros calling the Doctor 'destroyer of worlds' brought back Andromeda's Angel Dark, Demon Bright, which was playing with the same theme. On the whole I still prefer the S3 finale, but as far as the Doctor is concerned, S4 is a lot more interesting; a more complex reworking of the themes of S1, although a lot of it is already there in the dinner conversation between Margret and the Doctor in Boom Town.
And I still don't get that whole 'a fate worse than death' thing from the show itself. Tragic, certainly, and not what Donna wanted, but I don't see it as passing judgement on her worth as a human being. I think the problem was that Donna was never able to see her own worth before the Doctor, and that's what he meant when he reminded her mother that maybe she should tell her that more often, when she said that Donna was still special because she was her daughter. She still had all the potential inside, the compassion and humanity she showed in Fires of Pompej and Planet of the Ood, the first time she stepped on another planet, and she still can be that, if she can find that within herself. Whether she'll be able to or not is a different question, and one we all live with from day to day, but that, for me, was the message, not that I might just as well kill myself now, because I'm never going to travel with the Doctor and save the universe. Maybe the perception of these things changes with age, but I'd have hated to see Donna die, and I'm glad she didn't. Which isn't saying there hasn't been a bit too much Doctor worship especially in the first two seasons, but I think that had at least partly to do with Rose being a teenager with all that idealism and those emotions, and partly with the set-up for the S2 finale, because after that things got more complicated, with both Martha and Jack walking out on the Doctor, Joan saying she could love John Smith, but not him, the Master choosing death, and then Donna...
I guess why I love the show so much even when the odd episode doesn't work for me is because sometimes it's complicated without offering a clear solution, and sometimes it dares to be really epic and tragic in all the big emotional ways, even if it rips out your heart; but how many shows can do that?
I can't wait till my niece is old enough. Never mind having to buy all the DVDs in German, she's so going to see this. *g*
