Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-10-01 11:04 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-10-01 11:04 pm
Entry tags:
Doctor Who finale
It was... not as off-the-wall and full of plot holes and handwaving as I'd expected, but also not as amazing as I expected in terms of series arc, so overall 3.8 out of 5?
I realized as I was watching that what I'd wanted to happen was this: the Doctor realizes he's gotten too big for his britches, caused too much noise, built himself a reputation he can use to drive off whole armies just by saying "remember who I am, now go away before someone gets hurt." And now the Silence are after him, and the death of the Doctor, the legend of a thousand worlds, is a fixed point in time. That part at least I think Moffat pulled off brilliantly. The things I wanted to happen but didn't happen were mostly to do with River; in my head, she also knows the Doctor's death is a fixed point and kills him more-or-less willingly, or at least with the knowledge that the alternative is much, much worse--but she also finds a means of bringing him back, possibly involving the wedding. We know the Doctor's name is a powerful secret; my hunch was that he could only give it up as part of a Time Lord marriage rite and it could somehow, in conjunction with River's BAMFery and her being a child of the TARDIS, be the key to resurrecting him, as part of some cracktastic Moffat plot.
The funny thing is that everything I was terrified of--that River had no say in killing the Doctor, that the suit did all the work and she was helpless, that she was doing time for a crime she didn't even remember and that no competent authority would hold her accountable for--came true, and yet I am not full of rage. I think it's because in the end she did have agency? She was not only able to stop the suit through sheer force of badassery, in the process she was willing to break time to keep the Doctor alive, and only agreed to go through with it once she was assured of his survival. However, it is still slightly disappointing that he did all the work, that the entire plot was resolved by the Tesselecta fifteen minutes into the episode and Moffat just saved the reveal for the very end, and that the bit with the splinter universe wasn't actually necessary and wouldn't have bloody well happened if he'd just whispered his little secret to River while she was in the astronaut suit.
So, IDK. Moffat is telling a pretty good story, it's just not the story I hoped it would be.
Things I liked a lot:
- Moffat letting his imagination out to play and giving us fragments of really awesome things. The broken-time universe! Live chess (with a Viking, with death involved in the stakes for both of them--I see what you did there)! Banging the Dalek eyestalk on the counter! Amy's office on a train! Needs moar Vastra and Jenny, though.
- The bit where River sent out a distress signal and so many people came to the Doctor's aid that it obscured the sun--a perfect counterpoint to the s5 reveal that the monster in the Pandorica was really the Doctor and everyone who'd ever hated him was in coalition to see him locked up there. And the fact that as heartwarming as it was, it still illustrated why the legendary side of the Doctor had to die: all those people, willing to tear time apart to save him.
- The little memorial to the Brig, and the way it was actually used to provide a turning point for Eleven. Don't mind me, I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face.
- Eleven's face when the Viking falls into the pit. Just--his face.
- "Time can be rewritten." "Don't you dare." Reusing lines from past episodes with a twist is always excellent.
- Amy is still the girl who remembers!
- The sign in front of where Madame Kovarian is tied up--wasn't that same sign in front of the Doctor when he was a prisoner in the Day of the Moon opening sequence?
- So the Doctor has turned his back on his god complex--does this mean he'll just be an eccentric old man puttering through spacetime with his buddies, and we might get some straight historicals or some episodes that don't involve saving the [planet/universe/entire fabric of reality/insert as appropriate] from inevitable destruction? Not that I dislike those, but the variety would be neat.
Questions, plot holes, etc:
- If you're heading black ops for a powerful and shadowy religious order with access to time travel and knowledge of fixed points, why come up with a cracky-wacky timey-wimey game of Xanatos roulette where you kidnap the Doctor's companion while she's pregnant, replace her with a flesh avatar so he doesn't notice immediately, lure him into a "would you like a jelly baby?" trap by letting him think he's won while you abscond with the kid, brainwash the kid to kill the Doctor and build a spacesuit that'll do all the work for her, let her go have her own life for a while, then come back and kidnap her on her graduation day and stuff her in the suit against her will?
- I mean, fuck all that, if you know the Doctor's death is a fixed point and you've got an astronaut suit that can move independently of its occupant, why not just send it off on its own to kill him? Or if River has to be inside, why not knock her out and let the suit do its thing?
- Oh, villains. They somehow never seem to learn that in Xanatos roulette, as in real roulette, the house has usually rigged the game against them.
- I guess what I'm saying is that when both sides of a war have access to time travel and to the historical record of how the struggle plays out, and don't always meet in the right order, cause and effect are completely screwed. Was Demon's Run part of Kovarian's plan all along, and the thing with flesh!Amy a way to lure him into rescuing her? Or did was he not supposed to figure out about flesh!Amy so soon, and Demon's Run was their reaction to him coming after them? And if humanity have been killing the Silence since 1969 because the Doctor did his clever bit with the moon landing footage, presumably Kovarian & Co. know about it when they're doing their thing in the 51st century, so why abscond with baby Melody and go back to the exact point in time when they know the Doctor scored a major victory over them?
- ...and this is how the Time War almost destroyed the universe.
- When did the scene with River telling Amy and Rory how the Doctor survived take place, in Amy and Rory's timeline? Amy says "the Doctor just died," but clearly it's not right after Day of the Moon or she wouldn't know River is her daughter. Is it right after he drops them off in God Complex? But in that case it's not fresh in their minds. Does he drop them off sometime in early 2011 and April 22nd just rolled around?
- Okay, I bring this up because in my head, River at various points in her timeline has gotten into the habit of dropping in on her parents, starting in the summer that followed AGMGTW when the Doctor ditched them. So I guess she just swings by for drinks whenever Mels isn't around that summer. And in my head, this doesn't exactly fix the fact that they didn't get to raise their own kid, but it makes the second half of the series less emotionally disjointed, because knowingly spending lots of time with her over the summer could take the edge off the distress of feeling like they never got to know their daughter.
- More importantly, at what point in Amy's timeline was she able to remember the aborted bubble universe where River and the Doctor got married? Right after it collapsed and time resumed normally, one would assume, except that would give all sorts of spoilers to the Amy who's on the beach in Impossible Astronaut. So, what, the Amy who got dropped off after God Complex started remembering it after time resumed normally on April 22nd?
- Does this mean that until April 22nd, there were two Amys and two Rorys happily chilling in domestic bliss a few streets away from each other in Leadworth? One set about to receive a set of invitations to Utah, one set who've just been given a new flat and a sweet car?
- MOFFAT!!! *fistshake*
I realized as I was watching that what I'd wanted to happen was this: the Doctor realizes he's gotten too big for his britches, caused too much noise, built himself a reputation he can use to drive off whole armies just by saying "remember who I am, now go away before someone gets hurt." And now the Silence are after him, and the death of the Doctor, the legend of a thousand worlds, is a fixed point in time. That part at least I think Moffat pulled off brilliantly. The things I wanted to happen but didn't happen were mostly to do with River; in my head, she also knows the Doctor's death is a fixed point and kills him more-or-less willingly, or at least with the knowledge that the alternative is much, much worse--but she also finds a means of bringing him back, possibly involving the wedding. We know the Doctor's name is a powerful secret; my hunch was that he could only give it up as part of a Time Lord marriage rite and it could somehow, in conjunction with River's BAMFery and her being a child of the TARDIS, be the key to resurrecting him, as part of some cracktastic Moffat plot.
The funny thing is that everything I was terrified of--that River had no say in killing the Doctor, that the suit did all the work and she was helpless, that she was doing time for a crime she didn't even remember and that no competent authority would hold her accountable for--came true, and yet I am not full of rage. I think it's because in the end she did have agency? She was not only able to stop the suit through sheer force of badassery, in the process she was willing to break time to keep the Doctor alive, and only agreed to go through with it once she was assured of his survival. However, it is still slightly disappointing that he did all the work, that the entire plot was resolved by the Tesselecta fifteen minutes into the episode and Moffat just saved the reveal for the very end, and that the bit with the splinter universe wasn't actually necessary and wouldn't have bloody well happened if he'd just whispered his little secret to River while she was in the astronaut suit.
So, IDK. Moffat is telling a pretty good story, it's just not the story I hoped it would be.
Things I liked a lot:
- Moffat letting his imagination out to play and giving us fragments of really awesome things. The broken-time universe! Live chess (with a Viking, with death involved in the stakes for both of them--I see what you did there)! Banging the Dalek eyestalk on the counter! Amy's office on a train! Needs moar Vastra and Jenny, though.
- The bit where River sent out a distress signal and so many people came to the Doctor's aid that it obscured the sun--a perfect counterpoint to the s5 reveal that the monster in the Pandorica was really the Doctor and everyone who'd ever hated him was in coalition to see him locked up there. And the fact that as heartwarming as it was, it still illustrated why the legendary side of the Doctor had to die: all those people, willing to tear time apart to save him.
- The little memorial to the Brig, and the way it was actually used to provide a turning point for Eleven. Don't mind me, I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face.
- Eleven's face when the Viking falls into the pit. Just--his face.
- "Time can be rewritten." "Don't you dare." Reusing lines from past episodes with a twist is always excellent.
- Amy is still the girl who remembers!
- The sign in front of where Madame Kovarian is tied up--wasn't that same sign in front of the Doctor when he was a prisoner in the Day of the Moon opening sequence?
- So the Doctor has turned his back on his god complex--does this mean he'll just be an eccentric old man puttering through spacetime with his buddies, and we might get some straight historicals or some episodes that don't involve saving the [planet/universe/entire fabric of reality/insert as appropriate] from inevitable destruction? Not that I dislike those, but the variety would be neat.
Questions, plot holes, etc:
- If you're heading black ops for a powerful and shadowy religious order with access to time travel and knowledge of fixed points, why come up with a cracky-wacky timey-wimey game of Xanatos roulette where you kidnap the Doctor's companion while she's pregnant, replace her with a flesh avatar so he doesn't notice immediately, lure him into a "would you like a jelly baby?" trap by letting him think he's won while you abscond with the kid, brainwash the kid to kill the Doctor and build a spacesuit that'll do all the work for her, let her go have her own life for a while, then come back and kidnap her on her graduation day and stuff her in the suit against her will?
- I mean, fuck all that, if you know the Doctor's death is a fixed point and you've got an astronaut suit that can move independently of its occupant, why not just send it off on its own to kill him? Or if River has to be inside, why not knock her out and let the suit do its thing?
- Oh, villains. They somehow never seem to learn that in Xanatos roulette, as in real roulette, the house has usually rigged the game against them.
- I guess what I'm saying is that when both sides of a war have access to time travel and to the historical record of how the struggle plays out, and don't always meet in the right order, cause and effect are completely screwed. Was Demon's Run part of Kovarian's plan all along, and the thing with flesh!Amy a way to lure him into rescuing her? Or did was he not supposed to figure out about flesh!Amy so soon, and Demon's Run was their reaction to him coming after them? And if humanity have been killing the Silence since 1969 because the Doctor did his clever bit with the moon landing footage, presumably Kovarian & Co. know about it when they're doing their thing in the 51st century, so why abscond with baby Melody and go back to the exact point in time when they know the Doctor scored a major victory over them?
- ...and this is how the Time War almost destroyed the universe.
- When did the scene with River telling Amy and Rory how the Doctor survived take place, in Amy and Rory's timeline? Amy says "the Doctor just died," but clearly it's not right after Day of the Moon or she wouldn't know River is her daughter. Is it right after he drops them off in God Complex? But in that case it's not fresh in their minds. Does he drop them off sometime in early 2011 and April 22nd just rolled around?
- Okay, I bring this up because in my head, River at various points in her timeline has gotten into the habit of dropping in on her parents, starting in the summer that followed AGMGTW when the Doctor ditched them. So I guess she just swings by for drinks whenever Mels isn't around that summer. And in my head, this doesn't exactly fix the fact that they didn't get to raise their own kid, but it makes the second half of the series less emotionally disjointed, because knowingly spending lots of time with her over the summer could take the edge off the distress of feeling like they never got to know their daughter.
- More importantly, at what point in Amy's timeline was she able to remember the aborted bubble universe where River and the Doctor got married? Right after it collapsed and time resumed normally, one would assume, except that would give all sorts of spoilers to the Amy who's on the beach in Impossible Astronaut. So, what, the Amy who got dropped off after God Complex started remembering it after time resumed normally on April 22nd?
- Does this mean that until April 22nd, there were two Amys and two Rorys happily chilling in domestic bliss a few streets away from each other in Leadworth? One set about to receive a set of invitations to Utah, one set who've just been given a new flat and a sweet car?
- MOFFAT!!! *fistshake*
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Which was a nice distraction from the Brig-related facerain.
Was also hoping for some Jenny and Vastra, was saddened that my anticipation was misplaced. I totally thought they were going to show up in Area 52.
Okay, I really like your reading of the pseudo-sunspots. I thought it was sorta silly, seeing as it never turned into anything and seemed to reinforce the god mentality, but the mirroring of AGMGTW villains and the demonstration of why the mythos needs to die are both far nicer things. No, nicer is a bad word. More satisfying, perhaps?
Overall, agreed. A great deal of fun and full of unexpected lovely bits, but not as incredible as it could have been.
(But: plz plz plz tell me that Charley Pollard crossed your mind at least once. Because the premise was practically dripping with BFA.)
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The pseudo-sunspots: I liked it at first because it would shut up all the people who've been whining that ever since Pandorica Moffat's only been showing us the bad side of the Doctor's legend-building exploits. I loved it when I realized that even the good side is still a reason he needs to die.
And yeah, this is like... Moffat remixing Neverland/Zagreus. With bonus Winston Churchill.
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Post-Google: okay, followed by the "Don't you dare" def. makes it Ten/River. Mea culpa etc. :)
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I admit I had a bit of a cry and had to pause when Eleven called to talk to the Brig and was told that he passed -- it was so beautiful, bittersweet, and heartbreaking, especially the story with the second glass of brandy in case the Doctor came to visit, which of course he never did. Oh. Oh, my heart. That was the most brilliant Nicholas Courtney shoutout I could imagine.
I knew the INSTANT that the "previously" clips focused on the Tesselecta portions of LKH that that was how the Doctor evaded his death sentence. I think the idea had been kicking around my subconscious for some time -- after all, why would we introduce the Tesselecta in LKH? Moffat could have done any number of things to get Mels/River to regenerate and cause the almost-killing-Eleven havoc that he did, but it was clear to me that the Tesselecta had to play some further role in the whole series arc, and as soon as I saw the "previously" clips I was like: "OH! OH, YES, that's PERFECT! :D" So I was watching the episode gleefully to see how it'd be pulled off.
I loved the wedding scene. It makes me wonder what, exactly, the Doctor's real name is (or at least what the Powers That Be are assuming that it is) because something tells me that that name of his will be very important to the Series 7 plot arc. But I think it was well carried off.
My problem is something that was mentioned by plenty of people on lj/elsewhere already, but never expanded upon. The sunspots and solar flares that weren't really sunspots, but were friends of the Doctor's coming to help and support him in his hour of need. So why are we left to rely on River just telling us this? Did Moff overspend the budget so we wouldn't get to see, say, Vastra and Jenny coming to kick some ass in an effort to save the Doctor? Did they think it was enough that we knew, sort of, that it was happening? I think it could have been a powerful moment even if we only get a brief second or two glimpse of these friends coming for the Doctor. That was a disappointment.
But I give this episode 4.6 out of 5, and the series as a whole a 4.1. :D
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SIMON CALLOW WAS SO RANDOM AND I LOVED IT
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Five Questions raised in the last episode (along with theoretical answers!)
http://theoncominghope.blogspot.com/2011/10/five-questions-raised-by-doctor-who.html