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Apr. 14th, 2010 08:52 pmDW rewatching, the specials:
Really liked The Next Doctor (still/again, not a lot of memories, actually); interesting story, visually gorgeous, with a melancholy, but still Christmas-y sort of happy ending. Planet of the Dead is the episode where I always have a hard time recalling that it actually had a plot, or what it was beyond, flying bus, stolen cup, will knock four times, because there really isn't much of one, is there? OTOH, I liked Lady Christina more than I remember, and the flying bus still makes me grin. Clearly I'm mentally four years old.
Waters of Mars is still brilliant, possibly even grew on me. The ambiguity of the Doctor-as-god theme IMO has always been there, as well as the reasons that might make him chose this path, ever since School Reunion, and you really could see it in this episode, the desperation, the genuine inability to witness yet more deaths, really at the end of his endurance. The basically good intentions. At the same time the potential danger and ugliness of what he became was visible almost immediately, and at the end of the story one can absolutely understand why Adelaide did it, why she had to say 'no' to the idea of someone outside of everyone's control, someone unstoppable, even if he'd saved her life. It's interesting to see the show's atheism finally applied to the Dcotor himself. Of course there already was Human Nature/The Family of the Blood, but for the first time one really understood why he usually kept himself under the kind of control he did.
The finale, OTOH, I'm so conflicted about. *sigh* There are some scenes in these episodes that are definitely among my overall favourite ones. All the conversations between the Doctor and Wilf are perfect; the Doctor's tiny break-down in the cafe, the conversation on the space ship; the Doctor dying, the Doctor and the Master. The opening scene with the Ood, who makes the Doctor look like a petulant child. The Doctor's journey, the whole long story of the Doctor's relationship with death, as well as his complicated relationship with humanity, the way it brings the Doctor's arc to an end, weaving all these themes into one story, that's brilliant. Completely and utterly. The story written around that? Not so much really. The Master's resurrection with all those potions? *cringe* Hard. Master with superpowers? *facepalm* (Actually, I wish the Master had stayed buried; much like Rose should have been left in that alternate universe.) Immortality Gate? Meh. 'Master race'? Somehow, still not really scary. Certainly not compared to the S3 finale, or the alternative future in Turn Left. Return of the Time Lords? Not as scary as it apparently was supposed to be either. Too much tell, too little show. Timothy Dalton didn't convince me. Doctor jumping from a flying spaceship through a glass dome? Seriously, sometimes my feeling with RTD's writing is, don't give the man a budget.
The end is lovely though, sue me. In all its kitschy glory. After the lonely year (probably more) the Doctor just spent, it really does make sense. And am I the only person completely unbothered by Martha/Mickey? I actually quite love the two of them, from the brief glance we got, as well as their harder future freelance alien hunter!look. As far as I'm concerned, Martha and Tom broke up when she was promoted to New York some time before Journey's End, and after they'd all come back from saving the universe, Jack, Martha and Mickey went off somewhere, got drunk, traded stories and complained about the Doctor, and then Jack had to go home, because sort-of-if-not-quite-boyfriend, and the rest is history. It's really not too much of a stretch of the imagination. And I can't say I've had all that much of an emotional investment in a relationship we never even saw happening on screen.
Really liked The Next Doctor (still/again, not a lot of memories, actually); interesting story, visually gorgeous, with a melancholy, but still Christmas-y sort of happy ending. Planet of the Dead is the episode where I always have a hard time recalling that it actually had a plot, or what it was beyond, flying bus, stolen cup, will knock four times, because there really isn't much of one, is there? OTOH, I liked Lady Christina more than I remember, and the flying bus still makes me grin. Clearly I'm mentally four years old.
Waters of Mars is still brilliant, possibly even grew on me. The ambiguity of the Doctor-as-god theme IMO has always been there, as well as the reasons that might make him chose this path, ever since School Reunion, and you really could see it in this episode, the desperation, the genuine inability to witness yet more deaths, really at the end of his endurance. The basically good intentions. At the same time the potential danger and ugliness of what he became was visible almost immediately, and at the end of the story one can absolutely understand why Adelaide did it, why she had to say 'no' to the idea of someone outside of everyone's control, someone unstoppable, even if he'd saved her life. It's interesting to see the show's atheism finally applied to the Dcotor himself. Of course there already was Human Nature/The Family of the Blood, but for the first time one really understood why he usually kept himself under the kind of control he did.
The finale, OTOH, I'm so conflicted about. *sigh* There are some scenes in these episodes that are definitely among my overall favourite ones. All the conversations between the Doctor and Wilf are perfect; the Doctor's tiny break-down in the cafe, the conversation on the space ship; the Doctor dying, the Doctor and the Master. The opening scene with the Ood, who makes the Doctor look like a petulant child. The Doctor's journey, the whole long story of the Doctor's relationship with death, as well as his complicated relationship with humanity, the way it brings the Doctor's arc to an end, weaving all these themes into one story, that's brilliant. Completely and utterly. The story written around that? Not so much really. The Master's resurrection with all those potions? *cringe* Hard. Master with superpowers? *facepalm* (Actually, I wish the Master had stayed buried; much like Rose should have been left in that alternate universe.) Immortality Gate? Meh. 'Master race'? Somehow, still not really scary. Certainly not compared to the S3 finale, or the alternative future in Turn Left. Return of the Time Lords? Not as scary as it apparently was supposed to be either. Too much tell, too little show. Timothy Dalton didn't convince me. Doctor jumping from a flying spaceship through a glass dome? Seriously, sometimes my feeling with RTD's writing is, don't give the man a budget.
The end is lovely though, sue me. In all its kitschy glory. After the lonely year (probably more) the Doctor just spent, it really does make sense. And am I the only person completely unbothered by Martha/Mickey? I actually quite love the two of them, from the brief glance we got, as well as their harder future freelance alien hunter!look. As far as I'm concerned, Martha and Tom broke up when she was promoted to New York some time before Journey's End, and after they'd all come back from saving the universe, Jack, Martha and Mickey went off somewhere, got drunk, traded stories and complained about the Doctor, and then Jack had to go home, because sort-of-if-not-quite-boyfriend, and the rest is history. It's really not too much of a stretch of the imagination. And I can't say I've had all that much of an emotional investment in a relationship we never even saw happening on screen.
